Sweet Pain (Amatucci Family #3) - Sadie Jacks Page 0,9
happened down here…I shivered. I hoped Ethan hadn’t actually bought this place. I didn’t want the job of getting rid of it. Getting rid of any of his estate, really.
Ryker was waiting for me at the top of the stairs. He reached out. I put my hand in his and let him help me up the last few steps. He pulled me into his side as we walked down the next hallway to our freedom.
“You’re quiet,” he said softly.
I nodded. “Just thinking about hiring someone to get rid of all the crap that Ethan left me. I don’t want to deal with it. Can I hire someone that does that kind of thing?”
“We’ll find someone, cupcake. You won’t have to worry about it at all.” He pressed a kiss into my hair.
A dull roar that sounded as if an entire flock of Canadian geese was grazing at the door sounded the closer we got to the entrance to the bunker. I chuckled as I imagined all of them taking to the air in an almost solid screen of black, gray, and white feathers.
I looked down at my shoes. Glad I wasn’t wearing nice ones. I could only imagine the goose poop was going to be inches thick up there.
Once again, we queued up at the base of the stairs. A couple of the officers went first as they helped lift the bodies of the fallen traffickers out to the coroner office’s people. Papa was the first of our family to breach topside. Momma followed him.
A few more officers were sprinkled in amongst our numbers. I stayed at the back with Ryker and Nik. While I wanted to feel the sunshine on my face and breathe non recycled air, I had this sinking sensation that absolutely everything in my life was about to change.
Considering my life up to this point, I shouldn’t have been surprised by the feeling. But as long as I had Ryker by my side and Ethan was finally gone forever, I figured I could handle just about anything else fate may throw my way.
Chapter 4 – Willow
I was wrong. On so many counts, but so very, very wrong on at least one important fact. The Canadian geese I’d heard weren’t even animals. Unless I counted those of the two legged variety.
“MS. CHASE! MS. CHASE. OVER HERE!” a woman yelled, a microphone in her hand. A man at her back with a huge camera settled on his shoulder.
I think I would have been okay had it only been the one reporter. But I just wasn’t that lucky. No. There were at least two dozen of them.
I huddled into Ryker’s shoulder as he bulldozed his way through the crowd. The police made a small tunnel for us to escape through. But even then the reporters shoved their cameras and microphones in my face.
I took an elbow to the temple as one of the rowdy newscasters tried to topple an officer. Ryker’s roar of outrage brought everything and everyone to a grinding silent halt. His face was red as he turned on the offending person.
He reached out with one hand, caught the man around the neck, and shook him like a rag doll. “Don’t ever touch her again. Do you hear me?” He threw the man to the ground like a used cigarette butt.
I barely hip checked Ryker out of the way from grinding his toe into the idiot’s chest and crushing his non-existent heart. “Come on, hero. Take me home.” I grabbed Ryker’s hand. Wrapped both of mine around it. “I want to go.”
I looked up into his face. Waited for a moment for the fury to ease from his hard green eyes. When I saw my Ryker looking back at me, I wrapped my arm around his waist and forced him to keep walking. “Home, Ryker. We’re going home.”
He nodded. He wrapped his arm behind my back. I was almost swallowed against his side, but I didn’t mind in the least. I felt the minute trembling of his muscles. The willpower he was exerting to keep from ripping these nosy assholes apart, limb from limb.
Finally, after what felt like an obstacle course that stretched for miles, we arrived at the cars we’d left the night before. Ryker helped me into the front seat of his Range Rover before he darted around the front and got behind the wheel. Nik, Nico, and Jessa crowded in the back seat.
“Let’s get the hell out of here, bossman,” Nik said. Something I