Page 45 of Burn Bag (Owens Protective Services #31)

DAPHNE

I held my breath as he raced up the stairs and slammed the door behind him. I sank against the counter, blowing out a harsh breath as my forehead thunked against the hard top.

“That was so close,” Harper laughed.

“No kidding. Did you see his face when I started talking about the squirrel? I thought for sure we were sunk.”

“I have to give it to you, I don’t think I’ve ever met a single person who could bullshit as good as you.”

“Well, I’ve had years of practice,” I chuckled. “Now, where’s Simon? Did you see him?”

She shook her head. “Not after he escaped the downstairs bathroom.”

“Well, we’d better find him fast before Bradley gets out of the bathroom.”

She waved me off, heading into the living room. “Don’t worry about that. After that story, he’ll be gone at least forty-five minutes.”

I scurried around the house, calling for Simon and looking everywhere I could possibly think, but he was nowhere to be seen. After a good ten minutes passed, I started to get worried that Simon had escaped or? —

“What the fuck!”

My head snapped up in horror at the sound of the terrified male scream coming from upstairs. Panic ripped through me as my gaze met Harper’s equally horrified one.

I didn’t waste a second rushing upstairs as the screams continued, but when I got to the bedroom door, I couldn’t get in. It sounded like Bradley was being murdered in there, and I had no way of getting to him.

I slammed my shoulder into the door, banging on it with my fist, but to no avail. “What do we do?” I shouted.

“I have no idea!” Harper screamed, banging on the door with her palm.

“Call someone! We need help now!”

I continued to bang on the door, but nothing helped. “Oh God. My husband is in there with a boa constrictor!”

“Let’s hope he doesn’t kill it,” Harper said as she quickly called someone.

I plugged one ear to drown out the screaming as Harper yelled at someone on the phone, telling them to get their asses to my house.

Terror unlike anything I’d felt before shook me to the very core. If he died, it was all my fault. “They’re not poisonous,” I reminded myself. “He’s probably just scared.” I spun to face Harper. “We were in the car with the snake the whole time and nothing happened!”

“Somehow, I doubt he’ll see things our way if he lives through this!” Harper said, renewing her efforts to break down the door.

Luckily, as we were shouting and losing our shit, boots pounded on the stairs as two hulking men raced to get to us. I stepped aside, pointing at the door.

“Break it down!”

Edu planted his boot right next to the handle and the door burst open, splintering at the frame. I rushed inside as screams rattled through the house from the inside of my bathroom.

“What the fuck is in there?” Edu shouted, rushing to the door. He tried the handle, then repeated the process of booting in the door .

FNG rushed through behind Edu, both of them stopping as soon as they entered.

“What the actual fuck?” Edu snapped.

I jumped behind them, trying to see around their gigantic height and massive muscles, but I couldn’t see a damn thing. “What? What is it? Someone help him!”

FNG and Edu charged forward, and that’s when I saw it. My husband was in the tub with the giant snake wrapped around him. His eyes were wide and terrified, but he didn’t move a muscle.

“Get this thing off me,” Bradley hissed.

They were about to start pulling at the middle, so I rushed forward, “Stop! You have to start at the tail!”

Bradley glared at me, clearly aware that I was the culprit, even if I hadn’t admitted it yet. “You,” he hissed.

“We can argue about this later,” I demanded, carefully grabbing the snake by the tail. I started unravelling it, realizing that the snake wasn’t actually coiled that tightly around my husband. “Aww. He likes you!”

“What?” Bradley snapped.

“Well, he’s not actually trying to squeeze you to death. See, boas kill their prey by wrapping their bodies around their victim so tightly that the constriction cuts off the blood supply to the heart, brain, etc. But he didn’t do that. He’s seeking warmth and protection. He likes you!”

But as I finished unwrapping Simon from around my dear husband, I realized that Bradley was not smiling, and he didn’t seem at all overjoyed by my news. The snake wrapped itself around my shoulders, letting out little hisses as it moved.

My husband got out of the tub with the help of Edu, but he didn’t say a word. In fact, the only thing he did was shoot me what could only be considered a death look as his face reddened to a shade that I would call magenta.

“Get. That. Thing. Out. Of. Here,” he hissed.

“But—”

“Daphne, I have never hit a woman, and I really don’t intend to start today. But I’m about to fucking kill something. I would really appreciate it if you were not in the path of my anger.”

A wise woman would have kept her mouth shut.

I was not a wise woman. “You can’t kill him. Simon is a good snake! And his owners didn’t have room for him anymore, so they were going to donate him to this horrible lab for testing! Can you believe that?”

“I don’t care,” he bit out. “I don’t care if they were going to slice him up and eat him for dinner,” he said, taking a step toward me.

“I don’t care if they wanted to make leather boots out of him.

I don’t care if they were going to toss him in a fucking meat grinder!

That snake does not belong in my fucking house! ”

I flinched back at the anger in his voice.

Tears welled in my eyes, though I tried desperately not to cry.

I hated when I cried, and I hated that he was seeing it.

My lips trembled, and no matter how much I told myself to be strong, I was about to lose it.

I turned on my heel with Simon still wrapped around me and fled the scene.

I could hear Harper chasing me, calling out to me to slow down, but I couldn’t. This poor snake was about to be used as a lab rat, and no one but Harper and I cared. I was trying to do a good thing. I was only trying to save a life.

I dashed out the front door and ran toward the wooded area behind the houses, desperate to get away.

Once I was far enough from the house, I slowed down and sat with a thump in the grass, crying my eyes out.

Harper caught up to me soon after, breathing heavily as she sat down beside me in the grass.

“Well, that could have gone better.”

I wiped my eyes and let out a humorless laugh. “I think I really screwed up this time.”

“Well, you didn’t ruin his truck again.”

“No, I just let a snake into the house, lost it, and it somehow wrapped itself around my husband. That doesn’t seem too much better.”

“Probably not, but there are worse things you could have done.” She cocked her head in thought. “I can’t think of any right now, but I’ll let you know when I do.”

“Thanks,” I muttered. “What was I thinking?”

“You were thinking that you were saving a life. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

I sighed heavily, picking at the grass as the snake slowly uncoiled from around my body and slithered through the grass. “This isn’t his natural habitat. I don’t know if he can even survive out here. He’s supposed to be in Africa.”

“We’ll figure out something. We can take him to a zoo.”

I nodded, but my thoughts were only on Bradley and how he would probably want to divorce me after this. “God, I’m such a mess.”

“You are,” she chuckled. “But a very good-hearted mess. We didn’t exactly think of a plan after stealing him.”

“Aren’t you glad you met me?” I asked, a rueful smile playing at my lips.

“Are you kidding? I’ve never had so much fun. We have to keep these men on their toes.”

I buried my head in my hands and laughed. “Oh God. He was on the toilet. I can only imagine what he thought when he saw it.”

“Well, thankfully, he was on the toilet, so if he shit himself, it went in the right place.”

I started laughing, and the image was just too funny to stop. Maybe that made me a bad person, but I needed it now or I would start thinking about how my life was about to implode.

“Come on. Let’s head back. I’m sure by now he’s cooled off a little.”

I grabbed the snake, but I wasn’t quite as hopeful as she was.

I sat in a chair at the counter, the snake coiled around my shoulders and slithering toward Harper while Edu and Bradley stood in front of us, treating us like we were in school at the principal’s office.

Bradley started pacing, but only made it a few steps before he stopped and turned to me, his mouth open, ready to yell, but nothing came out. Instead, he went back to pacing.

“Would it help if I apologized?”

Harper nudged me as Bradley scowled.

I took that as a no.

“I was on the toilet,” he said almost to himself.

“After listening to you two rant for a good fifteen minutes, telling me some bullshit story about a squirrel, I finally escaped to some peace and quiet. Peace and quiet that I assumed would last a good half hour, but no,” he chuckled, turning to pace in the other direction.

“No, that didn’t happen.” He stopped and narrowed his eyes at me. “You know, it’s bad enough that I had to deal with you sneaking cats in, but then, you added more!”

He took off again. Man, we were going to have to replace those floorboards sooner rather than later. And this was a new house.

“But then, to find out that my solitude—my time for me! Time where I can just sit there and relax with no one around was interrupted by a snake wrapping itself around my fucking leg?—”

He stopped again and snapped his head in my direction. “Do you have any fucking idea what it’s like to be on the shitter and find out there’s a snake twisting its body around yours?”

I shook my head slowly.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen.” He kept marching while I tried to contemplate if This wasn’t supposed to happen meant a snake wasn’t supposed to be in the house, or if he was suggesting something entirely different.

“A man needs some time to himself. That’s just the way it is.

You have run of the house all day long. I don’t ask you to work.

I don’t yell at you for spending money. I don’t even care if you eat Whoppers all day long.

You don’t know how to cook. You can’t drive for shit.

And we both know that your love of animals has gone just a step too far.

“But this…” He chuckled humorlessly, shaking his head.

“Peace and quiet. Is that really too much to ask? To sit down and watch the game without you hauling in twenty bags of crap from the store. To finish th e fucking game without having to hear about a squirrel? To go to the bathroom without a fucking snake wrapping itself around my leg!”

He glared at me again. “To fucking sit in my own house without wondering what the hell you’re going to do next? Is that really too much? I mean?—”

He huffed several times and I almost asked him if he needed an inhaler, but then he started ranting again.

“I did not sign up for marriage just to lose basic rights of my own fucking home!” He spun, his nostrils flaring angrily as he pinned me with those big brown eyes. “Well? Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

I leaned back as spit flew from his mouth during his tirade. Wiping it gently, I poked my finger into his chest to back up a step.

Then it was my turn.

“While I understand your anger that I brought a snake home, let me clear up a few things while we’re being so open and honest with one another.

First, and probably most importantly, I did not force you to marry me.

I walked down the aisle. You knew I wasn’t the woman you had planned on marrying.

You threw caution to the wind and married me anyway.

“Maybe it was out of some desperation not to lose face. Maybe you’re insecure because you have a big dick, look good, and yet no woman will marry you. And after the way you just yelled at me, I’m beginning to see why that would happen.

“I—”

“I’m still talking!” I snapped. “Now, as for your very colorful description of sitting around and watching your game that I interrupted with my rambling, yes, it was designed that way so I could get the snake in the house. But now that I know just how desperate you were to get away from me and my terrible interruptions, I feel it only right to relieve you of any efforts to have to do that in the future.”

“Daphne—” he tried to interrupt, but I cut him off again.

“I’m still talking!” I took a deep breath and continued.

“As for sitting around and doing nothing, I have been taking cooking lessons. Not that you would know. You haven’t bothered to ask once what I’ve been up to.

I don’t like Whoppers, which may seem odd, but I’ve never liked them.

And while I do spend money, it’s been my own.

I haven’t touched a dime of yours. I have enough money of my own to never need to work again.

Which you would also know if you had ever bothered to ask a simple fucking question.

“Since I’m now well aware of how little you actually want me around, seeing as how you would rather sit in peace and quiet instead of having me around, you can have just that.

You can have all the quiet you want because there is no way in hell I want to stick around a house where I’m constantly reminded it’s not mine. ”

I stormed past him, but then remembered something very important. “And I’m taking the cats with me!”

I marched upstairs and put a bag together quickly, then went straight for the door, calling out, “Harper!” on the way.

“Oh, right!” she said, hurrying after me. “Aren’t we taking the cats?”

“I’ll need you to come back for them. It would totally ruin my exit.”

“Got it,” she nodded, hopping into the front seat of the car.

I slammed the door behind me, then raised my middle finger out the window as we drove off. I had never felt better or shittier in my life. But at least I got the last word in.