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I’m locked away in my own head, because there is no way the three of them are standing here.
“Rory!” The guys face me and take a step in my direction. But that’s when I hear a clicking of a gun and all three of them stop.
The coldness from the barrel that is suddenly pressed to my head reminds me that I am, in fact, not dreaming. Damien digs the gun into the side of my head, and my heart is practically ready to beat out of my chest.
If he pulls the trigger, there will be no beating of my heart.
“You need to listen to me, and listen to every word I say. I am not who you think, and I’m going to get you out of here…”
The words roll around in my head. Did he really say that? Is this all a trick?
I mean, he has a loaded gun digging into the side of my head.
The tears start to fall as I watch the guys process the scene in front of them.
“Damien.” Dekker narrows his eyes at him. I can see his jaw clenching.
“Hello, boys. Any last words to say to Rory before we put bullets in your heads?” Damien taunts them.
“No!” I scream out. “Please don’t!” I try to pull away from Damien, but his arm has a vice grip around my waist.
“Aw, we won’t do that, Aurora.” I watch as David comes around the corner from what looks to be a room of some sort in the back.
“Who the fuck are you?” Seven spits out.
“Well, I’m Aurora’s family. Her uncle, to be specific. Her dad’s long-lost twin brother. God, it’s so good to have her back in my life.” He hums and smiles.
“Fuck you! We are not fucking family, you sick fuck!”
David’s mouth drops open for a moment. “I’m hurt. After all, I’m the only family you have left.” He looks over his shoulder at my mom, bored. My eyes dart there, and my heart squeezes in my chest. I let out a whimper as I see her slumped body.
My stomach turns at the sight. I will never get to hug her again, never get to hear her voice. She’s gone. My heart squeezes, the pain in my chest almost unbearable.
“You killed the only family I had left. You can go kick fucking rocks down the fucking middle of Interstate 15.” I struggle against Damien.
“Well, I didn’t kill your mom. That was all Ledger.” David lifts his shoulders and then crosses his arms in front of him.
“You killed her?” Dekker’s voice booms out as he turns toward his father.
His dad just shrugs and laughs. “She was annoying me.”
Silence fills the room at his answer. The carelessness in which he took a life stuns the guys. They are fortunate enough to not have it burned into their mind. The image of my mother as the life leaves her eyes, it’s something I will never be able to unsee.
“You boys should have just stayed home. None of this concerned you,” Aaron sticks his hands in his pockets.
“Dad…” Xayden’s voice trembles, his eyes are still wide in disbelief. “June… She’s dead. How are you not hurting right now?”
“Because he never loved my mother,” I fill in, the words foul on my tongue. “This was an elaborate game to get back at my father for crumbling their empire of shit.”
“Dad?” Xayden looks back at his dad, who just smiles. “What the ever-loving fuck?”
“My father turned them in. They want the money I have, which I was going to give them, until they killed my mother. Now they will never get it.” I narrow my eyes at David. “If I had my hands free, you would be getting the middle finger, fucker.”
David lets out a laugh. “That’s cute. And good speech, by the way. But we will get that money. Because here’s the thing, you have two choices as I see it. Choice one is to give us the money. Duh! I mean that’s the easy choice in all this. You still won’t walk away, but it will be way simpler.
“Now choice two is where things get a little, what’s the word I’m looking for, more serious. See, I will kill these three where they stand and then have every single guy on our payroll have their wicked way with you. They will defile you, destroy you, ruin you until you are nothing but a shell of a person.
“And then and only then will you just give up and sign it over. But you will still just be a used fuck toy for them all, just without money.” David crosses his arms over his chest.