Execution Style (21 page)

I’d been sitting in the corner for so long that my legs were numb, and I was fairly sure that they’d turned the air conditioner off, too.

I was sweating. My mom was sweating. The man on the floor, Sam’s, entire back was drenched. I could see this mainly because his shirt was gray, and the sweat was staining his shirt a much darker gray.

It also didn’t help that the popcorn machine was still on.

I would’ve unplugged it, but the stupid thing had a light on it. The moment I did, the light would go out, and alert the woman to my presence.

I’d tried to go to sleep, but Sam kept trying to relay information to me when I dozed off, and started to get pissy.

Therefore I’d stayed awake, and sweated my balls off the entire time.

“I have to pee, too.”

I was fairly sure the 911 dispatcher thought I was crazy.

The desk phone near my mother rang, and my eyes widened when the woman’s head whipped around.

She’d just been standing there, pacing frantically in a tight circle with piles of money at her feet.

She hadn’t said a word, and that was what was the most disturbing.

“Answer it,” the woman said breathlessly.

The shit head, I mean Elbert, answered the phone with shaking hands.

“H-hello?” He squeaked. “Uh-huh.”

His eyes turned to the woman. “The man on the phone would like to speak with you.”

The woman screamed.

It was an enraged scream. One that was so full of hatred, madness, and pain that I winced.

What I also did, was widen my eyes shortly after as I finally realized who the hell it was behind all the black.

Sarah Higgins. My arch nemesis, and the woman that’d been tormenting me since my junior year in high school.

“Oh, fuck. It’s Sarah Higgins,” I whispered.

Somehow I’d moved from my spot, too, because Sam started shaking his head at me when I peaked around the cart to get a better look at her.

I blinked.

She’d lost quite a bit of weight in the time since the altercation at the diner weeks ago; now she resembled more of a department store mannequin. The ones that were only metal. Not meant to look like an actual human being.

Beee-dooop.

I froze as the sound of my phone going dead stopped everyone in their tracks.

Even Sarah.

She whipped around, turning her crazy gaze on me, pinning me to the spot.

“You,” she hissed, marching forward.

I came up to my knees first, tucking my phone into the back pocket of my jeans, before standing fully.

“Yep, me,” I agreed. “I’d say it’s nice to see you, but that’d be a lie.”

The big man on the floor went up to his knees the moment Sarah passed him, and I knew what he was going to do the moment I saw him come to his hands and feet.

I just had to keep her talking.

“What are you doing with that fake gun?” I snapped, pointing at the gun in her hand.

She lifted the gun, and aimed it directly at my face. “Care to find out how real it is?”

I blinked.

No matter what Sam said about it being fake, I didn’t have actual
proof
. He could be mistaken. He could be guessing. He could be freakin’ bonkers, too.

I chose to have trust in him, though. Especially since he was moving quickly towards the back of Sarah.

His feet were exceptionally silent as he moved, almost like a hunting cat stalking his prey.

“You’re right,” Sarah said, tossing the gun away and ripping open her shirt
. “But this baby is as real as can be. Thanks to your bat-shit crazy
almost mother in law, that is. You can thank her for this fiasco. I can’t believe she made me do it. Jesus Christ.”

Sara yanked off the scarf that’d been covering her face, and then tossed down the bag, freeing her arms.

When she had the jacket down to her elbows, that’s when Sam struck, looping his massive bicep around Sarah’s throat and choking her out in a classic hold that every woman secretly wished never happened to her.

And as I’d always assumed would happen if that were to happen to someone that was much smaller than the assailant, Sarah clawed at Sam’s arm frantically to no avail.

Slowly, her struggles ceased until they were nothing more than feeble, random movements.

Finally, her eyes closed, and she went limp.

“Fucking hell,” Sam growled, allowing Sarah’s body to slip slowly to the floor under his guidance.

That was when I got my first good look at Sarah’s chest.

“Is that what I think it is?” I asked worriedly.

Sam nodded, his black hair falling into his eyes before he swept it out again. “Sure the fuck is.”

“It actually says BOMB on her chest. What’s in those bottles?” I asked.

He grunted, not replying.

My phone chose that moment to call out its death rattle once again, startling me.

“Alright, people. Let’s get out of here. Go slow. Don’t scare the boys outside,” Sam said authoritatively. “Go out with your hands above your head.”

Sam stood, leaving the unconscious Sarah on the floor. “Let’s get out of here before she wakes.”

My mother ran to me, throwing her arms around my neck. “Oh, baby.”

“Now, ladies,” Sam ordered again.

I disentangled my arms from around my mom. “Now, mom. She has a bomb strapped to her chest.”

“What?” My mom screeched, but still chose to follow me out, despite the fact that she wanted to look back
at Sarah.

“Did you kill her?” My mother asked him
. “I swear to God. I babysat that
girl when she was a small child. What the hell is going on in this town?”

“Apparently, this town’s inbred and needs to branch the fuck out,” Sam muttered under his breath as he opened the doors and was the first one out.

It wasn’t in a selfish way, either. It was because if anybody was going to get shot by a jumpy cop, it’d be him.

Which showed me the measure of him in those few short actions he’d taken in the two hours we’d been in there.

In fact, the entire thing was less than climatic.

I felt like there was something still going to happen, yet the only thing that did was when Miller started running up the steps of the bank and picked me up into his arms.

Then, without preamble, he turned around and hauled ass down the steps, with me cradled in his overprotective arms.

“Where are we going?” I asked frantically.

“To the courthouse,” he said through clenched teeth.

“But what are we gonna do there? I need to talk to my mom!” I said worriedly, turning around to see my mother hurrying after us.

“Your mother’s following us there. She’s stopping to get your father,” he snapped.

“But…but…” I stuttered. “What on earth?”

He shoved me into the back of the nearest cop car, pushing his hand onto my head to help guide me in.

“Hey!” I yelled indignantly, slapping at his hands.

That didn’t stop him, though.

It only made him shoot a glare at me before he threw the door closed and started rounding the back of the car.

“Foster! Car!”
He yelled loudly.

Foster came running.

They both got in, and Miller started hightailing it to the courthouse.

I sat in the back, fuming.

What in the world was his problem?

When he spun a little too quickly around the corner, I placed my hand over my abdomen in reflex, which caught his eye.

His mouth tightened, but he slowed down to a more manageable pace.

“Where are we going, bro?” Foster asked after a few minutes of silence.

“Courthouse,” Miller said shortly.

“Oh, okay,” Foster said congenially.

It was as if he knew exactly what was going on with just those two words.

‘’Do you know what I was doing when I got that call that there was a bank and hostage situation?” Miller asked,
as he pulled up in front of the courthouse.

He got out and stopped by my door, hunching down so he could look in at me.

I shook my head slowly. “No. What?”

It came out breathless, mostly because the look in his eyes had me struggling to breathe. The expression in them was positively tortured.

“
Planning our future. But what I didn’t realize, while I was doing that, was that you were being taken from me. Before I ever even officially made you mine.” He rasped. “Which leads me to now…I need you to do this.
For my sanity.

“It’s going to be hard, and we’re going to have times where we hate each other. Where you hate my job. Where I don’t come home until five hours past my shift’s end
. Where I don’t come home at all until you’re so worried about me you can’t see straight. Then I’ll walk through that door, and it’ll just be because I got peed on and needed a fucking minute to unwind with the boys. I’m not promising you a perfect life. What I am promising you, is a
life where I love you until you until I die. A life where you know I’ll always have your back. A life where the reason I breathe easier is because you’re lying next to me.”

He got down on his knee, pulling a simple black ring box from a pocket in his vest.

“Mercy Me, will you marry me?” He asked solemnly.

I gasped, trying to recover from the debilitating tears that I knew were going to take me down fast and hard. “Of course, you stupid, fool man. I’ll marry you. Just don’t ever
go all caveman on me again.”

He slipped the ring on my finger, and stood, pulling me close with two hands on either side of my face, making sure I didn’t hit my head on the car’s roof.

“Is that a condition of you marrying me?” He asked

I shook my head. “No. Because I know you’d never uphold that end of the deal.”

“You’re right,” he growled against my throat. “I won’t.”

Then we were moving once again, heading straight through the courthouse, not stopping at the metal detectors because of Foster’s badge that he flashed once we opened the front doors.

“Okay, but you’re going to have to give me a real ceremony in a couple of weeks. One where your parents are there. And your brothers. My father needs to walk me down the aisle. I also have a big extended family with the fire department. They should be
there, too.”

We arrived at an open door that led into what looked like an office when I heard an amused voice at my back.

“Got that covered, baby girl. They’re all outside right now. In fact, I think the whole fucking city is out there,” my father said, running into the room with his hair a mess, and his tie he’d worn to work that day skewed, and my mother’s hand in a death grip.

He wasted no time gathering her
into his arms. “God, I thought you
both were lost to me.”

The words, whispered with so much emotion, had the power to nearly send me to my knees.

Turning my gaze to Miller, knowing I had the same thing with him
that my parents had, I offered him my hand. “Let’s do it
.”

Drink responsibly…as in don’t fuckin’ spill it.

-Note to self

Mercy

“What do you want to go do?” He asked softly as we walked outside into the beautiful afternoon hand in hand.

I smiled. “I have something you’ll want to see. And I swear to God if they did it without me, I’m going to kill them.”

We stopped short, though, when a man on a bike stood and smiled at us.

“Sam!” I said happily.

He cocked his head. “How’d you know who I was?”

I gestured to Miller. “You’ve got a fan club. Plus your mommy-in-law talks about you a lot.”

Sam smiled. “Good to know.”

He offered his hand first to Miller, then to me.

“Got married?” He asked, eyeing the ring that would now be a permanent fixture on my hand.

“Yep. Someone couldn’t even wait for his parents to arrive,
” I said, looking up at my man.
My husband
. “But we’re having a reception this weekend. You should come.”

Sam’s lips twitched. “Sure thing, honey. I just wanted to thank you.”

Miller’s arm encircled my neck as he kissed the top of my head.

He had a slight tremor to his movements, still, and I could tell he was still pretty shaken up from the day’s activities.

“Yeah,” he nodded, eyes connecting with Miller. “She saved our lives.”

Miller nodded, something passing between them. “I hear you had a lot to do with that, too.”

Sam shrugged. “I wasn’t the one on the phone, though. I had a gun on me and everything, and there
wasn’t a single thing I could do without knowing she didn’t have a fail switch on her. Your girl kept calm, relayed it all to the police and, in the end,
was the one to distract her so I could take her down. She’s the real hero.”

I blushed at the praise. “I don’t know about all that, but thanks.”

“On that note, I’ve got to get home to my wife and kids. They’re still pretty shaken up. I just wanted to introduce myself, and say that if you ever needed anything, I’m here.”

With that, he handed me a card, and turned to his motorcycle.

He swung his muscular leg over the powerful machine, started it up, and roared off.

“You’re drooling. Your husband’s right next to you, and you’re drooling over another man,” Miller said cheekily.

I pinched him and looked down at the card.

Freebirds- 100988 Freedom Dr. - Kilgore, TX

“I think you need to get a motorcycle,” I said teasingly.

He looked at me weird. “I have a motorcycle. I just keep it at Trance’s place because I have to have my cruiser
on me at all times.”

My mouth dropped open as he held the door to his truck open. “After all this time, you’ve had a motorcycle, and haven’t once offered to take me for a ride?”

He smiled, and then leaned into me, working his hips in between my splayed thighs.

“Honey, I’ll take you for a ride anytime you want me to. All you have to do is say the word,” he said against my lips.

I grinned, and then took advantage of his open mouth by sweeping my tongue inside.