Page 53 of Connor's Claim
“Everly?” The mayor’s voice followed, coming from downstairs. “What’s going on outside?”
“Go find out, I’m not leaving my room,” she replied.
If I wasn’t mistaken, resentment played out in her voice, along with upset. Then the faint light from the balcony doors fell on her dress and revealed a tear in the material at her chest. Scratches marred her perfect skin. Her panic and furniture-moving painted one fucking terrible picture.
Red mist descended over me.
“The bastard trying to get in, he did that?” I queried, low and deadly.
Everly held her hands out and whispered, “He only grabbed me. You can’t intervene.”
Fuck that. I stared down the bedroom exit when the fucker, the dead man walking, had the nerve to thump again and rattle the handle.
“Everly, you’ll let me inside or I’ll break the fucking door down,” he replied.
“Why?” I growled to her. He had one chance for her to redeem him.
She hung her head. “He’s important to my father.”
Aye, well, that was no longer a priority for either of us. I was taking control.
I’d come with that very intention.
A day of being without her had me losing my mind, waiting on updates from the crew watching her and checking her tracker like a man possessed. It had driven me to an edge I hadn’t realised I was near.
It broke something in me.
And desperate men took desperate measures.
Repeatedly, Everly had put her father ahead of me. Worse, ahead of herself. I’d told her I was better at looking after her than she was, and now I had to prove the fact.
Though tonight she hadn’t asked for it, I stooped and grabbed my needle. Held it up for her to see, then with a smile and an inability to hear her objection, knocked her the fuck out.
Further noises came from outside in the street, raised voices, a woman sobbing. Something was going on, but all I could see was her. I laid her on her bed and stroked her hair.
“You’re so fucking perfect,” I told her unconscious form. “I’m never going to let ye go again. No matter what. Understand?”
Sirens wailed, multiple ones, coming in fast.
Reluctantly, I moved to the curtains and peered from the balcony. Everly’s room was at the back-left of the mayor’s mansion and had a view down the side of the neighbouring plot. In the driveway, three people stood in a huddle, a woman pointing to the house with her shoulders shaking.
“…blood everywhere,” carried on the light breeze.
I stilled and focused in, trying to hear more.
“We only just came home,” the woman sobbed. “…no idea how long she’s been like that.”
“Piers, come downstairs,” the mayor called.
Piers, as I now had a name to put with the butt-ugly face, gave one last shoulder barge of Everly’s door then swore, and his footsteps moved away. His voice joined the mayor’s downstairs. “What is it?”
“The bitch next door is screaming that their house-sitter has been murdered,” the mayor answered. “They walked in and found her body.”
Shite. A warning tightened my muscles. Another woman had been killed in Deadwater. Without the details, my fear could be a speculation, but the proximity to Everly’s house after she’d been in danger from the gang only days ago was a wake-up call.
I needed to get her out of here.
In that lay a problem. My plan, such as it was, had been based on me carrying Everly away, but I’d anticipated being able to use the same route out as last time. The incoming police would be all over the next house which my escape route skirted.