he's even talking to me. It sounds more like he’s trying to convince himself.
Ten minutes turns into twenty and then thirty as I watch the men get more agitated. Someone checks the garage and checks for Colton’s Veneno, making sure he’s even on the property. I watch as they go back and forth in front of the coat closet that mom hides in and every time they do, my breath catches. I can not lose her. She’s the only blood family I have left. Without her …
Shit.
The same brother who had shot Maryne walks past Harrison at least ten times, smirking at her lifeless body, and every time he does, my body stiffens with the need to grab one of the many knives in that kitchen and slice it across the fuckers throat. I’ll be more than happy to be the one smirking then.
Harrison flinches and holds Maryne tighter and I watch as every time the brother steps out of the room, Harrison drags her body further and further away.
Colton stiffens beneath me and I follow his line of sight to the next monitor to find two of the brothers searching through the bedrooms. One goes through the bedroom I had used when I first arrived here while the other recklessly searches through mom’s old room, trashing it as he goes.
They quickly realize that there’s nothing in there and move onto Colton’s bedroom.
Within mere moments, they figure out whose room they’re in and they spend a little more time tearing it apart. They go through his private things, checking over papers, and scanning through any documents they can find. But they won’t find whatever it is they’re looking for. Colton’s not stupid and Charles certainly didn’t teach him to be careless with anything important. It would all be hidden away and seeing as though they haven’t found Charles’ office, I’d dare say that everything is safe.
They spend ten minutes tearing his room to shreds and I find myself glancing at the time in the bottom right corner of the monitor. It’s well past ten at night and we’ve now been in here for forty-five minutes. Where the fuck are the police?
This should be over. They should have shown up here ten minutes after the brothers first stormed the mansion, the DeCarlo’s should have been carted out of here in either handcuffs or body bags, and they sure as hell should have had this dealt with before Maryne was shot and killed.
The two brothers move from Colton’s room, continuing to make their way down the hallway and closer to the panic room. They trash everything as they go, tearing priceless artworks off the walls and shooting holes through the family members’ faces as they come across their portraits.
Colton’s eyes darken with every step they take. I've never seen him like this before. His eyes didn’t even look this haunted when we stood in his father’s office, staring at his dead body. It’s only moments before he snaps. There’s only so much patience one man can have.
The brothers move into the room that Colton had only dragged me into a short forty-five minutes ago, the room that hides the secret door.
Colton goes stiff and the silence in the room becomes eerie.
We watch them make their way around the room, tearing shit off walls and destroying everything that the Carrington’s have built over the years. Colton curls my head into his chest so I don’t see the screen and holds me as still as a statue. “Shhhhh,” he whispers so softly that I barely hear him.
My eyes close and I focus solely on my breathing.
“It’s going to be okay,” he soothes. “It’ll be over soon.”
It feels like a lifetime before Colton’s body relaxes just a fraction, wordlessly letting me know that they’ve moved on.
They continue to harass the staff, taunting and terrorizing them until finally, they walk out the doors, leaving nothing but disaster behind.
We wait until they’ve gotten in their cars and are flying through the broken iron gates before Colton lifts us off the cold ground. He places his hands on my shoulders and looks into my eyes. “Are you alright?”
I shake my head. “Nothing about this is alright.”
His lips press into a tight line and I finally see the devastation behind his eyes. “I know,” he tells me, taking my hand and pulling me toward the door. “But we have to find a way to make it alright, otherwise we’ll never find the strength to move on.”