Chapter Thirty
Amerella lay on the floor under the pile of curtains. Damn, that shit was heavy. She could barely move, but for the moment, that was fine. If she did move, she’d probably throw up until her vertigo settled down.
What was she thinking, getting up so quickly like that? She’d donated blood in the past and they always say to sit up slowly—that was with a few pints taken out. She was bled dry then had all the blood shoved back into her by the demon. That was something she did not want to repeat.
Voices came from the other room. She remembered Detective Freeman was there. She knew her uncle would kill him if the man came alone. Something was off with her uncle. He’d looked strange before he left room. Did he lose his mind when his only son died? The whole family seemed off their rockers.
Enough lying around. She had to get out of here. Warn Freeman, if she could get to him in time. Then escape, find Frank, and kick his ass for not saving her. Damn pussycat. Where the hell was he?
She tried lifting to her hands and knees, but her limbs weren’t strong enough yet to overcome the curtain’s weight. Good fucking god—who had ever gotten stuck under curtains before? This was damn embarrassing and pathetic. Then gunshot reverberations came from the other room. Okay, maybe being stuck was all right for now.
One of the doors to the room crashed open, followed by other doors, and then more guns went off. People were in her room shooting. Anything aimed her way would hit the windows, causing them to—she felt the dull impact of hundreds of shards as they sliced through the air on the way to her body. She prayed the curtains’ thickness repelled razor-sharp glass as well as it did light.
From where she hid, it sounded like an army of men were standing next to her. Each yelling and shooting. Then one of them roared like a lion. The floor vibrated with impact, as if people were stomping. Torrents of bullets were loosed. A stampede of feet clomped. Growls and howls and roars scared the shit out of her. What was going on out there? She tucked closer to the wall.
Men’s screams were cut off in wet, tearing rips of material and flesh. Gunshots became more sporadic. She felt the curtains tug and shift around her. Had the men found her? She was about to scream, when something soft and fluffy rubbed against her arm. What the hell? She pushed her hand out to lift a bit of the curtain in front of her face, and a little critter scooted closer to her. A bunny? A little bunny had found her under the ton of material.
She latched on to it and squeezed it to her chest as the battle raged. Poor bunny was just as scared as she was. No wonder it was trying to find a place to hide.
The noise quieted. No shots rang through the air. Even though she was human, she smelled the bloodbath. Her stomach rolled. But she didn’t want to puke on the bunny, so she quelled the bloody image in her head.
Sirens sounded in the distance. One of the neighbors must’ve called 911. She would’ve, too, if World War III was being fought in her neighbor’s house.
Then the floor shook again with the stamping of a hundred animals. They came toward her, then suddenly stopped. Wait a minute. Were people jumping through the broken windows, back into the night? But she thought she heard animals. Oh, god. She’d gone crazy, just like her uncle.
She clutched the bunny closer, if there really was a bunny. She surmised she could be imagining the creature to comfort her in this darkest hour of her life.
“Amie, I smell you. Where are you?” The curtain was again tugged.
“Frank? You’re here?” She pushed her body up, making a hump in the mound. “I’m over here.” The weight started to lift and she scooped the bunny to her so it wouldn’t accidentally be tossed with the fabric. She was feeling better about the bunny being real, though she wasn’t going to think about how it got in the room and to her. That leaned toward the crazy side of things.
The curtains were lifted off her and she took a deep breath. She hadn’t realized how hot and oxygen-deprived her little pocket of air had become. Frank scooped her up and pushed her face against his shoulder. “Keep your eyes closed, sweetheart. You don’t need to see anything in here.”
“Oh my god, Frank,” she murmured. “Did you read my letter? You know about―”
Glass crunched under his feet for a few steps, then all was silent.
“Yes, I know about our son. We’ll talk about it later. When you’re safe.”
She realized Frank didn’t have a shirt on. With one of her hands, she skimmed her fingers over his chest and up to his neck. “Frank, why don’t you have a shirt on? Can I look now?”
He set her on a divan in the foyer of the mansion. “You can open your eyes, sweetheart.”
She saw he was completely naked. “Not that I’m complaining,” she said with a grin, “but now, of all times, to get naked and busy?”
He laughed. “I’ll explain later. We never really went into all the aspects of shifting.” He looked at the critter in her arms. “I see Alice found you.”
Amie glanced around the area, looking for her white-headed friend. The front door was open, but no one was there. Then it clicked. Alice was a rabbit. The thought freaked her out less than it should’ve, but shit, she’d been dead, come back to life, met a demon, nearly died under a heavy-ass curtain, and now she held a creature that was a good friend.
Alice jumped from her hold and headed out the front door. After a couple panting breaths, Amie laughed at herself. And she laughed. Frank lifted her, then sat with her in his lap. Her laughter turned to tears and he stroked her head while she de-stressed from her ordeal.
She let out a deep breath. “It’s over now, right? I’m safe.”
“A bunch of men are dead, but I don’t know specifically about your uncle. We should get out of here in case he’s still alive somewhere.” He helped her to stand and they moved forward.
“Wait,” Amie said. “Detective Freeman was here. Did you see him? Is he okay?”
Frank frowned. “I don’t know where he is, either. Last I saw him, he was in the study. Your uncle shot him. I’m sorry, Amie.”
She shook her head. She’d worry about it later. She wanted out of the house.
Two gunshots blasted through the foyer, almost deafening her. She covered her ears, but Frank’s falling body dragged her to the ground. “Frank?” She wiggled to sit up and saw her uncle, bloody and limping slightly, aiming Joey’s gun at them.
He looked insane. “Yes, Amerella. I am sorry. Sorry that I didn’t kill you when I killed your pathetic parents. You’ve been more of a thorn in my side than anyone except Freeman. But I’ve finally taken care of the bastard.”
“Wait,” Amerella said, “you killed my parents in a car wreck? Why? They were no threat to you. And Mom was your sister. What kind of person could kill his own good-hearted sister?”
“After she married that Capone, she became all high and mighty, always wanting to do the right thing. She acted as if his family hadn’t been worse than ours. The Capones, for fuck’s sake.”
“That didn’t mean you had to kill them,” Amerella shouted. “You could’ve sent them back to Chicago.”
He laughed. “And let your mother tell them all our secrets? Where all our hidden cache is? What our corporations are? No. I didn’t trust her or that husband of hers. They were planning to take over the family. Your mother was second in line after me to rule the family, until Tony came of age. I couldn’t have her running things. So I offed them before they offed me. Fair is fair.”
Amerella wanted to pull her hair out. Anger roared through her. This man had ruined so many lives. He didn’t deserve to live.
She glanced down at Frank beside her. He hadn’t moved and she wondered why. The two bullet wounds in his back were streaming blood. She gasped and ripped her shirt off, using it to press down on the wounds. Why weren’t they healing? Didn’t he say shifters healed? The memory flashed in her head. They healed mostly when they shifted. Frank needed to shift or he’d bleed to death.
Her uncle limped toward her, gun lifted. “Now I will kill you and put you with the other bodies, and no one will know the difference. I will have your trust fund and be set for the rest of my life.”
That caught her off guard. Her trust fund? Where the hell had that come from? “The rules say if I’m dead on my twenty-sixth birthday, you get nothing. Guess my dad didn’t trust you, either.”
He chuckled. “Wise man. But you forget the law, dear niece. What you have goes to your son . . . and his guardian. I so dearly loved you, taking you into my house when my sister tragically died. The courts will grant me custody of the child and all that is his. Just like they did you.”
If she weren’t trying to keep Frank from bleeding to death, she’d punch the fucker standing in front of her in his saggy, old balls.
“You will never get your hands on my son. He is protected now.” Well, by a grandmother shifter if his father died here in her arms.
“Child, don’t be dense. Your Mojave friends are outed. Phone records are the easiest things to track. You should’ve had a burner phone for them instead of your normal mobile. You would’ve made such a bad goodfella, niece.”
“Fuck you, Uncle. So would you,” Amerella retorted.
He chuckled and put Joey’s gun against her forehead. She closed her eyes. She’d be joining Joey shortly. This time dying would be quick, with no waiting around for the brain to die.
The gunshot rang in her ears again and she cringed, waiting to fall over lifelessly.