CHAPTER FORTY

MIRA

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Everything hurts.

Waking up the morning after taking Daniel and Christian at the same time doesn’t come close to the raw agony crippling every inch of my body as I stand naked in front of the bathroom mirror.

I look like shit.

I look like I went several rounds with Mohammed Ali and lost. My entire face is swollen, discolored and throbs like I had reconstructive surgery. My jaw will barely open. My eye with the stitches is swollen nearly shut. My nose has doubled in size and pangs when I touch it.

That’s not including the fact that I can’t move my shoulder. Dr. Hammell told me not to do anything strenuous so of course, first chance I got, I fucked my boys.

No regret there.

I needed it. I needed to feel them and have their smells cover the ones that refused to leave me. I needed to know they weren’t some fever dream where I might wake up to find Dirk still on top of me in that tomb with those poor girls.

But my attempts only intensified the burning pulse at my shoulder. It renewed the dull thrum at my ribcage where the fist sized bruise has begun to yellow out at the edges.

At least that means it’s healing, I think faintly, moving away to gather up my toiletries.

I never want to come back to Jefferson. I don’t even want to hear the name. This place is evil to its core and I wish nothing good for it or the people like Lucy and her brothers.

Daniel told me about Jameson, the Viking from the hardware store. Told me they found me because of him. He’s apparently the Jay who called. The asshole who hung up on me. I guess, maybe I’m supposed to be grateful he had a change of heart and did the right thing, but how had he not known? How could you live and grow up with three — three! — serial murderers and rapists, and deranged assholes and not know something was off?

He probably did but ignored it. He probably didn’t want to know.

I don’t care.

Whatever his excuses are, his family is the reason Daniel and Christian lost their home and I nearly got killed. I have no sympathies.

Daniel is sitting on the edge of the bed when I emerge from the shower, dressed and feeling mildly alive. I feel his dark eyes roam over me, taking in my faded jeans, light, fluffy sweater in pale purple. It’s not really cold enough for it, but I hate the tight jawed expression the boys get when they see the bruises up my arms. Like they’re somehow personally responsible for what happened.

“Hey baby,” he murmurs, sending the butterflies in my belly crazy.

“Hi Daddy,” I tease back, going to him and letting him capture my waist and draw me into the V between his knees.

He kisses me. Softly. Like I might break. Like he thinks he might hurt me. And he pulls away when I try to press.

I bite back my frustration, because I know why he’s being careful. I understand he’s giving me time and room to heal. I know — somewhere deep, deep at the back of my brain — I’m too hurt and tender to handle the things I want him to do, but ... goddamn it! I want it.

“How are you today?”

Better.

I didn’t have any nightmares last night. I expected at least one. Maybe I was too tired, but I think it’s because they gave me no room to have one. Both men had anchored themselves to me, arms and legs twisted so tight, I could scarcely breathe nevermind move.

I want that every night for the rest of my life.

Aside from the aches, I felt moderately like myself.

“Honestly, I’m okay. Sore, but nothing that won’t heal.”

His thumb dips into the hollow of my cheek and I feel myself grin.

“Why do you guys both do that?” I ask, because it seems to mean something. Every time I do it in return, both stiffen like I’ve struck them.

He does it again. “This?”

I nod and mirror the gesture on him. Sure enough, his features tighten and the muscle under my thumb flexes.

“Dad was a bastard,” he murmurs quietly. “His biggest fear was raising a couple of ... well, nothing worth repeating. He was worse to Mom. Everything we did to displease him, she would suffer for it. But she still loved us with all her heart. I know Christian’s angry with her for what happened, leaving us to face Dad alone, but she took a lot before she couldn’t anymore. One of the things that drove Dad insane was her coddling us. Would not tolerate pansy sons with feelings. He went after Chris a lot, especially after Mom passed. Chris was always the soft one. More like Mom where I was more like—”

I cover his mouth, anger and heartbreak right in my chest. “Don’t you dare say like him. You are nothing like him.”

Daniel wraps his fingers around my wrist and gently brings my palm in for a kiss before lowering it.

“In the way he wanted his sons,” he finishes lightly. “I was in all the right sports, ran in all the right crowds. I was living his teen life over for him. Chris couldn’t. I know he tried but it was never enough. He got the shit kicked out of him a lot when we were kids. Dad tried really hard to break the weakness out of him.”

“Chris is not weak!”

“No, he’s not. But, back to this,” he strokes my cheek, “Mom wasn’t allowed to say I love you. This,” his thumb whispers over my cheek again, swiping the tear I tried really hard to contain, “was how she’d say it.”

I couldn’t breathe around the knot of glad wedged in my throat.

I don’t know how many times I can say I hate Jefferson before it loses meaning, but I wish nothing but misery and pain, and a complete structural collapse for this town. I want every corrupt person living and breathing within the parameters to watch their life fall apart with no one to help them.

Maybe that’s asking a lot. Maybe that’s asking too much. But they deserve my curse more than anyone and it’s the one time I pray with every piece of my soul my curse actually takes lives.

In fact, they can take it. Jefferson is now solely responsible for my curse. It no longer belongs to me. I leave it on their doorstep the second we leave this shithole.

“Let’s go home,” I choke out. “Please. I can’t be in this house a second longer.”

Daniel kisses my nose lightly. “We are never coming back, Mira. I promise you.”

He stands and takes my hand. I let him lead me out of his parent’s bedroom and down the stairs.

Christian pushing upright from his leaning position against the front door and stuffs his phone into his back pocket.

His hands close into my sides before I take the last step.

“How are you?”

Pissed.

Frothing with a barely contained rage I can almost taste in my throat.

“Is there anything here you guys want?” I ask, struggling to control my tone.

“No,” both say automatically.

With a nod, move past them straight into the kitchen. I yank open the broom closet and jerk out an old, wooden bat and a slightly bent golf club.

Both men stare from me to the items when I march back to them.

“I don’t think he needs his pathetic shrine anymore,” I say, glancing back over my shoulder at the wall of Ryan MacAllister, piece of shit dad, husband and all-around human.

The two glance at each other, then at the items I held out to them.

Neither say a word.

Daniel takes the bat.

Christian accepts the club.

I move aside as they stalk to their dad’s whole life.

“Are you sure about this?” Daniel asks for the twentieth time since rolling into Jefferson for the last time and pulling up outside the Sheriff’s office.

“Yes,” I repeat.

“One of us should come with you,” Christian presses from the backseat.

“No,” I say again. “I’ll be quick.”

They still follow me into the genetic block of space cluttered by five desks and a whole wall of cabinets. Only two desks are occupied. A man in his thirties, the other mid sixties if not older. Both glance up from their paperwork when we stop at the narrow barrier separating us from them.

A wizened woman with a beehive of hair the steel gray of shiny floss and tiny eyes squinting through square glasses blinks up as we approach.

“Daniel and Christian MacAllister. As handsome as ever. Look just like your daddy, bless his soul. We were all heartbroken we didn’t get a service here for him. Such a wonderful man. Tragic how alone he suffered his last few years having lost everything and everyone he cared about. Never remarried, though there were plenty of single ladies eager and willing. He just loved your mama—”

I hadn’t understood Daniel’s thought process when he had his father’s body brought closer only to pay for the cremation

Having heard the kind of man he was, Daniel did too much already.

Unconsciously, I reach my hand and take Christian’s. His fingers are warm and strong lacing through mine.

Since hearing how he was treated as a child, all I want is to protect him, drown him in love and make sure he never doubts how much he means to me. It’s become an almost personal mission.

“We’re here to see the sheriff,” I interject a bit rudely, but we don’t have time to listen to lies.

She purses thin, overpainted lips, oozing the crimson paint into the fine lines and smearing her dentures.

“And who exactly are you, hunny?”

The frigid condescension in this woman’s shrill voice could reset the polar ice caps. Her hunny alone made me want to reach over and smack her. Ninety years old or not, but we’re mere minutes from leaving this hellhole and I don’t want to get arrested for assaulting a senior citizen.

“I’m the one fucking them,” I tell her bluntly. “And we’re here to see Sheriff Brewer. He’s expecting us.”

Daniel’s muffled choking noise would have been comical if Christian hadn’t burst out laughing. Deep, belly rumbling cackles that nearly has my poker face slipping.

The two officers listening in the back seem equally amused, exchanging glances and smothering their grins by ducking their heads.

The woman — Margaret, according to the name plaque nearly covered in glittery stickers of unicorns — is not. She’s horrified. One thin, bony hand clutches at her literal pearls like my audacity could never.

“I beg your pardon, young lady?” she squeals with the high frequency of a dog whistle.

“Don’t.” Daniel warns low under his breath for my ears only. To the delicate daisy, he says, “Just here to see the sheriff please, Margaret.”

Margaret’s watery, gray eyes never waver off my face. “That is no way for a lady to speak. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

“You should hear how I speak when they make me beg—”

Christian hoops his arms around my waist and drags me into his chest. His lips tickle my ear.

“Easy, brat. She’s a hundred years old.”

“She started it,” I mutter, but relent as Daniel takes my place and tries to smooth down Margaret’s feathers.

“You make me so fucking hard when you get so feisty,” Christian groans into my ear, successfully making me forget all about the troll at the desk. “I can’t wait to get you home and in my bed. My dick so deep in your tight cunt the neighbors hear you scream my name.”

His delicious promise trickles down my spine like sweet, warm honey. It makes my core clench with anticipation.

Fuck talking to Lucy. I’m ready for him to put his words into action.

The whole Sheriff’s office is saved from watching me climb this man like a tree when Brewer ambles over. His gaze takes us in with resignation and mild annoyance.

“I thought you folk would already be on your way back to wherever you came from.”

“You said I could talk to Lucy,” I retort.

The Sheriff’s broad shoulder lifts and drops. His gaze lands on Margaret who is still pouting in her chair.

“She’s already gone.” He rubs a meaty paw over his withered face. “Word got out about the girls. Mayfield sent a transfer bus early this morning and picked her up before the whole media circus heads our way.”

I can only stare at him, his words refusing to register.

She’s gone? After all that, she gets whisked away to safety?

“She’ll get a trial, baby,” Daniel murmurs. “She’ll get sentenced and do time.”

It’s not enough. A few years, a slap on the wrist. She’ll get out. She’ll hurt more people.

It dawns on me in that very second as the roar of blood pounds between my ears that I don’t want her to do time. I want her dead. I want her buried with the worms. She does not deserve to live in comfort.

It also dawns on me why I wanted to see her. I thought initially it was to rub it in her face, to show her she hadn’t won. I thought I wanted to see her face knowing her brothers were dead and she was going to be someone’s bitch.

I was wrong.

None of that shit matters to me.

I think I wanted to kill her. The how is unclear, but I’m not horrified by the thought, so it has to be true.

But they took that from me.

This whole town is going to get away with everything they did because it’s going to get covered up. They’ll paint Lucy as a saint who was forced by her brothers to do horrible things. Her lawyer will get her off and she’ll be free to start her life somewhere else.

Or come after my boys.

Without the tethers of Jefferson containing the evil, she’ll be free to try and take them. She’s already tried once to kill me.

I can’t allow that.

If I can’t kill her, I will dedicate my life to making sure she never sees the light of day.

“How did you not know?” I blurt at the sheriff. “You watched them grow up. You saw the kind of people they were. How did you not know what they were doing?”

“They were good folk. Part of the community. There was never—”

“They jumped Christian and Daniel. They nearly died. You knew they were not good people. You just didn’t want to do your job.”

A deep, burgundy tinge colors Brewer’s face. It puffs up his cheeks, making his mustache twitch.

“You will watch what you say next, Miss. I understand and sympathize for what you went through, but this is still my office and my town, and—”

“You’re right,” I cut him off, a wave of calm washing over me as a thought takes root at the back of my mind. “This was all out of your control, obviously.” Without taking my eyes off the bemused man, I reach over and slide my arm through Daniel’s. “Thank you for your time, Sheriff.”

Neither Christian, nor Daniel stop me when I guide them from the Sheriff’s Office. None of us speak until we’re seated in the truck, strapped in and ready to leave.

“Mi?” Daniel murmurs.

I don’t answer. I reach for the bag I’d left on the floor of the truck and drag it into my lap.

He doesn’t press. Maybe he’s as anxious as I am to put this shithole in the rearview mirror, but he’s pulling away from the parking spot.

The couple feeding the birds are back on their bench and I study their serene features, their absolute lack of soul while they toss fistfuls of seed across the grass.

Fuck you guys, I want to yell out my window as we drive past them.

I don’t.

I return my attention to my bag and the phone buried at the very bottom.

“Sweetheart?” Christian scoots to the edge of the backseat and leans forward in between the two front seats.

With one hand, I hold the button down on the side of the device, turning it on for the first time in ages. With the other, I touch his face.

“I think I know what I want to do,” I say, dipping my face and touching my lips to his cheek. “I’m going to make sure Lucy dies behind bars and Jefferson never forgets what evil they let live amongst them.”