***
Mina
“Get away from me!” I screeched. “Don’t touch me!”
I repeated it, over and over again, as I prayed that what was about to happen wasn’t going to happen.
I’d been given to this man, Josh, for good behavior on his part. That’d been the exact freakin’ words Tunnel’s father had used as he handed me over, bound and gagged. Fortunately, I was still dressed.
Josh was standing over me, rubbing his cock against my hair, and smearing it with fluids that I was hoping weren’t what I thought they were.
He was telling me, in explicit detail, what he was about to do to me.
And I had no other recourse but to huddle in the corner and pray that what was happening wasn’t really happening.
But then I heard a roar.
A loud, soul-wrenching, furious roar.
One that was so deep and full of emotion that I looked up just in time to see Josh yanked back by his hair.
By. His. Hair.
He went flying, and landed on his back, with my angry, savage husband standing over him.
Tunnel’s chest was heaving…and bleeding.
I came up to my knees, but stayed where I was, while I watched what was happening in front of me play out.
Tunnel took Josh by the throat and lifted him up as if he weren’t a two-hundred-pound man, and started to shake him. Josh was inches up off the floor before he’d even realized that he was in the air with my husband’s angry face only inches from his.
“You should’ve listened to me the first time,” Tunnel said in such an even tone that had I heard him over the phone, I wouldn’t have realized he was mad. “But you didn’t, and now I’m going to take my time killing you.”
Josh’s lips turned up into a grin despite his lack of oxygen.
“Had your sister, too.”
And that, people, is not what you say to a man who is already on the edge.
“She was pretty. Your parents said I could, so I did.”
Have you ever seen steam coming out of the top of a boiling tea kettle? Or maybe a tornado that comes up out of nowhere, impacting everything in its path and shredding it?
That would be too nice of a description for what Tunnel did to Josh.
I had to look away at one point, the sound of the sickening thuds of Tunnel’s fists hitting Josh’s flesh turning my stomach.
Tunnel held him in place with one hand on his collar and used the other to pummel his face.
“You know,” Tunnel dropped Josh, who fell immediately to his knees. “I was going to beat the shit out of you. But that would be too easy. With your confession added on top of what I caught you doing to my wife…oh yeah, you’re going down. You’re doing time, and I’m going to pay a man named Joe to do those exact same things to you every day for the rest of your life.”
Ghost started fishing in Josh’s pockets and came up with a phone.
“It was good, too.”
Tunnel handed the phone calmly to me, and I handed it to Audrey.
I didn’t want her to hear anymore.
I’d, of course, understood Josh’s words.
Hopefully Audrey hadn’t put two and two together, yet.
But with one look at her face as I passed over the phone, I quickly realized that our smart girl brilliant, and had already put two and two together.
Sure, she’d been the one to experience the rape, but she’d had no clue that her parents had played a part in that.
At least, not until tonight, that was.
But she calmly took the phone, and dialed, all the while keeping her hate-filled eyes on the man that was currently getting the shit beat out of him. Again.
I vaguely heard Audrey talking to someone in low, even tones, but I never took my eyes away from what my husband was doing to Josh.
Which was what cost me.
I wasn’t paying attention until my head was wrenched back, and I cried out in pain.
My gaze lit on a woman, Tunnel’s mom, and my mouth opened to scream.
Before a single sound could even leave my lips, she had shoved her gun in my mouth.
“Stop.”
I froze, my eyes closing, as I realized that I should’ve paid more attention.
I’d known, of course, that this wasn’t over.
I’d also known that I’d seen her come out of that hidden doorway once today when she followed Josh in not even fifteen minutes ago.
What I hadn’t realized was that seeing my husband beat the ever-loving shit out of someone would’ve held my attention so completely that I would miss a freakin’ door opening behind me.
A cry of rage had me turning—as far as the gun in my mouth would allow—to see Audrey racing forward, a long pipe that Josh had been taunting me with earlier, in her hand.
Tunnel looked up, moved out of the way just barely in time, and watched as his sister brought down that same pipe straight down on Josh’s goods.
His cock, which was still hanging out of his pants, took the brunt of the hit, and I had to close my eyes at the severity of the wound.
But it didn’t matter. The image was seared onto my brain, and I started to lose the fight with my stomach.
All this fear, uncertainty and anger started to swirl together in my already churning stomach, and I lost my battle.
I threw up.
Puke went everywhere, but it landed mostly on the woman still holding me.
Her instinctive reaction was to pull away, which was her fatal mistake.
She should’ve just taken the puke shower like the badass she claimed to be.
Instead, she backed away, still pointing the gun in my general vicinity, and glared at me.
There was puke all over her. On her hands and on her shirt, all over the gun and her arm. It was even in her hair.
I had a ripple of sick satisfaction at seeing her covered in my vomit before I saw a missile made of flesh and bone shoot past me and tackle the woman to the floor.
The gun went off, but Tunnel was up and maneuvering his body so that the majority of his weight pinned his step-mother to the floor.
With one well-placed punch, he knocked her right the hell out and then picked up the gun.
He did exactly what she should’ve done, which was to hold it like he wasn’t scared of a little puke. Because if she had, she wouldn’t be passed out cold on the floor, lying in the vomit.
“You okay?”
I nodded.
“She…fuck!”
I knew. He hadn’t been aware that I was in danger, and I’d just come so close to the end that it was scary for both of us.
I turned at the sound of another thwack, and quickly turned away.
“Might want to take that away from her,” I suggested. “And tie your step-mother up.”
He nodded.
“The phone call get placed?”
I nodded. At least I thought it got placed.
“Good,” he grunted. “Take her shirt off and tie her up with it. Hands behind her back, legs too. Then tie those two together.”
I did as I was asked, but ran out of room using her shirt, so I had to improvise with her belt.
Once I had her trussed up well enough, I shoved her over to lay in front of the door.
She hit with a small thump, and I turned just as I found Tunnel’s hand in mine.
I had vomit and other stuff on me, and I wanted nothing more than to go take a shower in the peace of my own home. To see my child and hug her. To make sure that Fender was all right, even though I wasn’t sure that he would ever be okay again, especially since he’d taken a bullet to his freakin’ neck.
It was highly likely that the man hadn’t survived that, and I wanted to just cry out my sorrow over the loss.
A groan sounded from the woman in the corner, and I looked over my shoulder to see her eyes open.
“Let’s get you cleaned up.”
I wanted that more than anything in this world, but Candace was awake. Which I told him moments later.
“I know,” he grunted. “Fuckin’ bitch.”
I held my urge to bellow in laughter.
“You’ll never get out of here alive. I have men all over.”
Tunnel didn’t bother to turn to Candace, who’d obviously woken up.
“You’re lying,” Tunnel said as he tugged me toward the small bathroom area that was set up in the corner of the stone cell we were in. “The house is already at half-capacity to make it look like you were truly ‘moving.’”
I loved it when my man called her bluff. He was a fucking superstar.
I loved it even more when she had nothing to say to that.
“Here.”
With the utmost care, he pushed me toward the sink, and started to wash my hair. He urged me to bend over the porcelain bowl, without words, guided my mass of hair under the faucet, and turned it onto high.
He didn’t wait for it to heat up to a more bearable temperature.
I was sure he could sense my unease, because he wasted no time washing it with the pump Dial soap that was on the ledge next to the sink.
“Here,” Audrey said, holding out a towel.
I wasn’t sure where she’d gotten it from, but I didn’t care.
I was just glad she’d have something for me to dry my mass of hair off with, otherwise it’d be dripping down into my face and down my back when Tunnel was done.
“That’s good, Tun,” I whispered when he started to work the soap through my hair for a third time.
He didn’t stop.
In fact, he did it a full seven times, and I let him.
“We should go,” Audrey said once Tunnel finally let my hair go. “I can hear voices.”
Tunnel grunted.
It was only when the door opened that I realized why he was so lax.
It wasn’t anybody bad that was on the other side of the door. It was The Dixie Wardens. Both the Mooresville chapter and the Benton chapter.
I could’ve fucking cried the moment that Silas’ familiar face popped into view.
I sagged, and Tunnel scooped me up around the waist and pulled me in tight to his body.
Which I immediately started to protest.
“No,” I pushed away. “You’re hurt. I’m not allowing you to hold me until you get this seen to.”
I’d allowed him to do my hair, but only because I knew that he needed to do it. Now that he’d done that, I wasn’t going to let him do another thing until he was seen by a doctor, or at the very least, a paramedic.
“You!” I pointed at Cleo. “And you!” I pointed at Sean since he was closest. “Y’all come look at him and make sure he’s not about to die on me.”
Sebastian, who was standing in the hallway, but had his eyes pointed down the opposite direction of where we were standing, started to laugh.
“Sebastian, you need to come and look at Audrey.”
“What about you?”
That came from Torren.
“I’m okay,” I promised. “I was…”
“She’s pregnant and needs to be checked out,” Tunnel grunted. “Don’t accept arguments.”
Tunnel grinned at me.
“Good news,” he said, holding out his arm. “Your paramedic awaits.”
I rolled my eyes, but nonetheless followed him out the door.
“What’s going on?” I asked. “How did y’all get here so fast? And how did you know where we were?”
Torren looked down at me.
“You.”
“Me?” I asked, startled. “How did I help?”
“You had your cell phone,” he answered.
“But they took it away.”
“They finally made a mistake,” Silas answered.
Big Papa was standing next to him, discussing something that he’d paused in his conversation before answering me.
“How’d they do that?”
“Took your cell phone, but didn’t turn it off,” he answered. “Though, that was due to one of our undercover operatives taking the phone into custody. Either way, you would’ve been found.”
My mouth twitched.
“That is fucking awesome,” I looked away, studying the long white hallway. “Where are we?”
“The new ‘place’ that they purchased as a front,” Silas answered. “Would’ve been our next place to try if we didn’t find you at their old place. I’m not sure what the hell is going on with them, and why they made such simple mistakes, but I can’t complain about it if it got y’all back to us safe.”
I gasped when I saw Lynn limping toward us.
“Oh, my God!” I screeched. “Are you okay?”
Lynn caught my hand before I could touch him and placed a simple small kiss on my hand. “Been better, girl.”
“Piece of shit!” I heard hissed from behind me. “I gave up everything for you. Watched my husband dote on this little piece of shit kid that wasn’t even mine. You looked just like her. Then he had to go and do it again with that sister of yours! How is a woman supposed to deal with her husband’s infidelity when she does everything for him?”
I paused and turned, finding Candace Morrison standing behind us, spewing venom.
She’d sawed through her ropes, most likely by using the jagged piece of metal that was on the ground near her feet.
Lynn stiffened in anger at my side as he heard Candace’s words.
“I’m not your kid?” Tunnel asked sarcastically.
He’d known, of course.
I could tell that his body was strung tightly, though. I could see the anger pouring through him, holding him stiff as he regarded the woman in front of him.
“No,” she snarled. “But I treated you as mine.”
Tunnel started to laugh.
“If that’s what you want to call it,” he replied darkly. “I seem to remember a time in my life where you treated me like garbage. Refused to feed me. I had to go dumpster diving just to feed my sister and me.”
She sneered.
“You didn’t deserve better. You were trash, only seems fitting that you ate it, too,” she snarled. “Only became useful to me when you joined the police department. Tried to make it come across as you being all noble, but I knew why you were really there. You wanted to shut us down.”
“No,” he countered. “What I wanted to do was live my life with my wife and child. What I didn’t want to do was deal with you and Dad’s shit. I wanted the exact opposite of what you gave me. But you couldn’t stand that I didn’t take your offer.”
Offer? What offer?
She laughed bitterly. “Should’ve taken me up on it. Would’ve saved you a world of hurt.”
Tunnel started to chuckle, and it was so sinister, so freakin’ scary, that I shivered.
I’d never seen him be so cold, but this man standing in front of the woman he’d always thought was his mother…well, he wasn’t the man I knew.
This man was harder, more intimidating. This man was the man I’d known as Ghost before I’d known that Ghost was my Tunnel.
Tunnel was hiding behind a blank mask, one that was clearly in place for his protection—the one he always slipped behind when he was dealing with his parents.
“What kind of ‘mother’ asks her grown son to sell his child to her?” he snapped.
And that, my friends, is when mama bear came out to play.