Hard as Stone (Passion in Paradise: The Men of the McKinnnon Sisters) (61 page)

Pressing a hand
over her mouth, Harmony felt laughter bubbling up her throat.  “You are the
only woman in the world that would see it that way, Honor!”

“What happened to
me was a tragedy,” Honor whispered, wincing as her forehead throbbed.  “I’m
still not over it.  I don’t know if I ever will be.  Five men took something
from me that night that I’ll never get back.  But none of it…
none of it
was ever your fault.”

“He scarred you,”
Harmony whispered, lifting a hand to touch the bandage on Honor’s cheek. 
“Again.”

“I have lots of
scars on my body, Harmony,” Honor replied evenly.  “Those don’t bother me.  I
look at them and think one thing about myself:
I survived
.  They’re
permanent reminders that I
lived
.  The physical scars are easy to live
with; it’s the ones on my mind…well, those are more troubling.”

“I know you’ve
always refused to talk to anybody about it, but maybe it’s time, Honor,”
Harmony suggested carefully.

“I don’t want to
think about that right now,” Honor dismissed her quickly, turning to reach for
a few brown paper towels from the dispenser on the wall, wetting them quickly. 
“I think we all have enough on our plate at the moment.” 

Opening her mouth
to argue, Harmony frowned as her phone rang in her jacket pocket.  “Who the
hell can that be?” she asked, fishing out the cell from the inside pocket. 
“Everybody we know is in the waiting room or back of the hospital.”  Peering
down at the screen, a shiver ran down her spine as the display flashed: Unknown
Caller. 

Swiping her thumb
across the screen, her stomach cramped as she lifted the phone to her ear.

“Hello?”

Harmony felt her
legs turn to jelly as she heard the deep, almost maniacal laughter that greeted
her as she pressed the phone to her ear.  God, she knew that evil sound as well
as she knew her own name.  She’d prayed for years to never hear it again, but
evidently the Lord wasn’t taking requests from her anymore.

Tanner Suarez’s
laughter suddenly ended, and his cold voice came through the line.  “Mi amigos
need to improve their aim, puta.  My sources tell me that my men only managed
to wing one of your bitch sisters this afternoon.  I’d sooo been hoping to put
one in the ground and teach you a lesson about what happens when you fuck with
me, Harmony.”  He paused, breathing hard.  “You and your fucking family are
making things extremely difficult for me.”

“Tanner, you have
to stop this,” Harmony begged, her voice trembling with anger and frustration
as Honor stiffened and paled beside her.  “You hurt an innocent person today. 
My sister has nothing to do with you and me!  Leave my family alone.”

“Oh, we both know
that Patience is
no
innocent.  That whore has probably serviced more
customers than McDonald’s.  And nobody is off limits until I get what I want,
bitch.  And if you remember, I always take what I want.  You should remember
that, but if you’ve forgotten, ask your baby sister about it.  I had a lot of
fun taking what I wanted from her,” he added with a dark laugh.  “She was so
much tastier than you.”

Harmony’s stomach
rolled at his lewd, sick remark.  “You’re a sick fuck!  She was just a baby,
you monster!  She was a
child
!  Do you have any idea what kind of scum
that makes you?  You’ll pay for what you did to all of us, Tanner, but there’s
a special place in hell waiting for you for what you did to Honor and I pray
I’m there to watch you die.  Find some hole on the other side of the world to
crawl in before it’s too late.  Otherwise, Zeke and Jake are eventually going
to find you and they
will
kill you for what you’ve done to us.”

“Hang up, Harmony,”
Honor whispered frantically, pulling at Harmony’s free arm.  “Hang up now!”

“You aren’t really
in a position to threaten me, cunt.  Your band of redneck fucks don’t have shit
on my crew.  I’ve already taken down one of your precious sisters.  Consider
Patience a warning shot.  Now, tell me, who do you think I should go for next? 
Because I’m going to, Harmony.  I’m going to keep coming until I get what I
want.  I’ll take every single one in that precious family of yours away from
you one by fucking one,” he threatened with a vicious bite in his tone.

“I can’t give you
what you want!” she yelled shrilly, her fingers tightening on the phone.  “Leave
us alone!”  Tanner laughed cruelly again and Harmony sagged against the cement
block bathroom wall.  “I can’t give you what you want, Tanner,” she repeated,
more calmly this time.  “It’s not mine to offer.  Not anymore.”

“My employer
doesn’t take no for an answer, Harmony, and neither do I.”  Tanner went silent
for a long moment before continuing softly, his accented voice deadly as he
remarked, “Our daughter looks adorable in that yellow and pink jumper, sleeping
so peacefully in your bastardo’s arms.  Both such easy marks.  Oh, and your
sister…she touches her belly like she protects something valuable.  Or, perhaps
I should add something a little more rewarding than morphine to your sister’s
IV?  Would you like that?  So many possibilities, but I prefer the bullets
myself.  It would be such a shame if a bullet spattered any of their tiny
brains against the wall, would it not?  These little hick hospitals have such
shit security, don’t they?”

Harmony’s knees
buckled and she slid down the wall.  Tanner was close enough to see her baby. 
“Tanner, no!  Please, don’t hurt them!” she pleaded as bile rose in her
throat. 

“Do I have your
attention now, bitch?” he snapped harshly.  “Am I driving home the point that
there’s not
anything
I won’t do.  I have no love for that snot-faced
brat.  If I have to take her from you to bring you to heel…”

“You don’t,”
Harmony interrupted frantically.  “Tanner, please, God, don’t hurt my baby!” 
Turning terrified eyes toward Honor, she mouthed, ‘He’s here.  In the hospital!’

“Ask him what he
wants us to do,” Honor replied calmly, taking Harmony’s cold hand in hers and
squeezing.

“Tanner, tell me
what you want me to do,” Harmony demanded, nearing hysteria as she clutched
Honor’s hand like a lifeline.   

“I see I found the
key to your cooperation,” he noted, amused by her desperation.  “You and my
ripe little peach – yeah, I know she’s there with you.  You’re both going to go
to the back corner of the East parking lot.  You have ten minutes and if you
alert any of those goons of yours, I put a bullet in Heaven’s pretty little
head.  Don’t worry, mujer, I’ll have a welcome wagon waiting for both of you. 
My employer is anxious to meet you both,” he returned with a sinister chuckle. 
“You’re in for
such
a treat.  Diego makes me look like a good Catholic choirboy.”

“Tanner, no!  I’ll
come.  I’ll do whatever you want, but there’s no need to put Honor through
this.  Leave her out of this, please!” she bargained anxiously, meeting her
younger sister’s serene blue eyes.

“I’m going,” Honor
said, keeping her voice low.  Ignoring Harmony’s shaking head, she reached for
the phone, pulling it easily from Harmony’s numb fingers.  Pressing the cell
against her ear, she took a deep breath.  “We’re coming, Tanner.  Just keep
your bullets in your gun.  If anything happens to
any
of my family, I
swear to you, you’ll never get that land,” she promised before disconnecting
the call.

“No!  No, Honor.”
Harmony shook her head quickly from side to side, her hair slapping against her
shoulders.  “You are
not
walking out of here with me.  You are
not
going to offer yourself up to Tanner like some kind of sacrifice.  Forget it!”
she yelled, unsteadily getting back on her feet. 

“You’d rather him kill
one of our family?  Heaven?  Faith?  Jake?” Honor questioned softly, her clear
gaze steady on Harmony’s pale face.  “That’s not something I can live with.”

“No.  There’s gotta
be another way,” Harmony said frantically, running a hand through her hair as
her stomach twisted into a knot and her mind searched for a way out of this
mess.  “There’s got to be something else we can do.”  For a bare moment, she
considered running back to the waiting room and screaming the truth at the top
of her lungs.  But then her mind played pictures of Tanner’s bullet finding
Jake...or worse, her daughter.  Not an option. Not at all.

“There’s not,”
Honor said simply.  “Look, hopefully the family will realize quickly that we’re
gone.  They’ll piece it together.  But I’m going with you.  I could hear what
he was saying, Harmony.  I heard the threats.  I could never let you face him
alone, even if he hadn’t demanded I come with you.”

“How the hell can
you be so calm?” Harmony shrieked, her voice echoing in the small, tiled room. 
“My knees are trembling.  My hands are sweating and I think I’m gonna be sick. 
But, you?  You look like somebody just gave you a weather report you didn’t
particularly like.  How the hell is that even possible?”

Taking Harmony by
the arms, Honor shook her with more force than Harmony thought her little
sister capable.  Speaking quickly as she looked Harmony in the eye, she
whispered, “I’m scared out of my mind.  I’m terrified.  But you need to
listen
to me.  I don’t remember everything from what happened six years ago, but I
remember this:  Tanner Suarez and those men thrived on my fear… my panic.  They
got off on it!  The more that I screamed… the more I begged, the more they
enjoyed what they were doing to me.  We are
not
giving them that
satisfaction this time.  This time, we do this on
our
terms.”

“Honor,” Harmony
whimpered brokenly, tears clouding her vision as guilt swamped her.  “I’m so
sorry.  If it wasn’t for Heaven, I wouldn’t even consider asking this of you. 
You’ve been through eno-…”

“Stop it.  Don’t be
sorry.”  Honor shook her head.  “This is my choice and there’s nothing they can
do to me that I haven’t already survived once.  And if this time I have to
endure it to keep somebody I love safe, it’s worth it.  Jake and Zeke and the
others will find us, Harmony.  You know that man of yours.  He’s going to lose
his mind and come find us, guns blazing.  Zeke’s the same way.   We’ll be okay. 
We just have to bide our time and stay alive long enough for them to get
there.   Now, we just need to pull it together and figure out a way in the next
two minutes to leave them a clue,” she muttered, looking around the bathroom.

Inhaling deeply,
Harmony forced herself to think.  She could text Jake, but she knew he’d react
and tip whoever was watching them off, and she couldn’t put her daughter or
anyone else in that kind of danger. “I’ve got it!” she said suddenly, jamming
her hand into the pocket of her faded jeans and fishing for the tube she knew
was in there.  Pulling her Kissable Pink lipstick free, she waved it underneath
Honor’s nose.  “We leave a note.”

“Perfect!  Use the
mirror as a notepad,” Honor ordered, gesturing toward the bank of mirrors above
the sinks. 

Keeping the message
short and sweet, Harmony wrote:

Tanner has us. 
No choice.  Taken from East Parking Lot.  Help!!

Nodding at the
bright pink words, Honor quickly grabbed the makeshift marker and added:

P.S. -
Don’t
waste valuable time being angry! 

Staring at Honor’s
portion of the message, Harmony couldn’t help snorting at it.  “Really?  You’re
telling them not to be
angry
?  Peanut, they’re gonna be freaking homicidal
when they find out what we’re doing, and I’m not so sure that once they’re done
with Tanner and Diego that they won’t strangle you and me with their bare
hands.  Especially Zeke.  Jake, I might be able to get around because of
Heaven…but Ezekiel?  Are you absolutely
positive
you wanna do this?”

Grabbing Harmony’s
hand, Honor tugged her sister toward the door.  “We’ve used four of our
minutes.  We need to hurry.”

Recognizing the
stubborn set of Honor’s jaw, Harmony sighed.  She was wasting her breath when
her little sister got that look on her face.  She might as well have been
talking to a brick wall.  “Fine,” she muttered, following her sister into the
hallway and walking toward the stairwell as she muted her ringtone on her phone
and shoved it into her bra, hoping like hell that whoever was waiting for them
didn’t strip search her. 

They ran down the flight
of stairs that led to the ground floor.  Breathing deeply as they reached the
glass doors leading into the parking lot, Harmony stopped Honor with a hand on
her wrist.  “Whatever happens, I love you.  If something goes wrong and I tell
you to do it, when you get a chance, you run, Honor.  You don’t worry about me,
and you don’t second guess yourself.  Just run.”

“I’m not gonna
leave you there!” Honor returned fiercely, looking at her oldest sister like
she thought the woman had gone crazy.

“Either you promise
me, or I make a huge scene right here,” Harmony threatened, needing her
sister’s word that if she could get her out of wherever they were going, then
she’d go.  She already felt like hell for risking her sister’s safety again.

“Fine,” Honor
relented even though her eyes flashed with anger.  “But, you should know that
nobody finds a bully attractive! Especially little sisters.”