Kenton (10 page)

“Your sister has it. Figures. Now, Whitaker tells me she had as much to do with

killing my daughter as you did. That it was all your idea, but she went along with it. He

said it was because Anderson told you no, that you could not kill your own father and

then take over the family business. Is that true?” Bart had no idea what part he was

supposed to answer, so he just nodded. “Good to know. You kept it all in the family,

didn’t you? She sounds as conniving as good old Dad and you, doesn’t she?”

The gun was shoved in his hand and he lifted it and pointed at his grandfather.

Pulling the trigger did nothing more than click at him, and both men laughed. Again

with the cruelty, and he wanted to get up from the bed and kill both men. Before he

could do much more than just lay the gun on his lap, another one was put at his head

just as his grandfather stood up. He was at the door when he turned back and nodded.

Bart watched in horror as he left him.

He felt the touch of the gun to his head again. Looking up at Steward, he thought

the man said he was sorry about this, but he was on the wrong side, the side where he

had no ear. Bart wanted to beg him not to do it, but he wasn’t sure how.

Bart actually felt the pain of the bullet enter his head...then nothing.

~~~

Emma was just trying to figure out how to get out of the stupid bed and to the chair

when the door was opened and there stood two of the men she’d met last night. Grady

and Lewis were looking around the room as if they expected something to jump out

and get them. Then Grady came to the bed and leaned over her.

“There has been an incident at the hospital and we have to move you to be sure

you’re safe.” His voice was calm, but she could hear the underlying fear there.

Whatever had happened, it wasn’t going to be a good thing. “Your brother is dead.”

“Who killed him?” He looked at her oddly, and she had to remember these men

didn’t know her brother these days. “He’s not a nice person. I know you’re aware of

that, but over the last years, he’s made some pretty powerful enemies. I’m one of them,

but as you can tell, I’m not able to go there and do the killing myself.”

Grady grinned. “Note to self, don’t piss you off. And he is supposed to have done it

himself.” She started to ask him what that meant when he continued. “There are men in

suits at my brother’s office and they’re asking him if he treated you. Now, normally that

wouldn’t be an issue for him in lying to them. But you see, these men aren’t human

either and know that he’s lying.”

“Not human. As in…more dragons?” She was still having a hard time wrapping

her mind around the fact that she was currently staying with a dragon, but Grady just

shook his head. “I see. And what are they? Werewolves? Ghosts?”

“Vampires.” She glanced over at Lewis when he answered her question. Well, he’d

not really, but he was grinning at her. Emma thought she liked and was afraid of Lewis

the most of all the men. He had a quiet quality about him that made her think of

henchmen in movies. “Some have the ability to tell when a person is lying or not.

Kenton isn’t sure if these guys have it or not, but he doesn’t want to take any chances.”

“I see. Actually, no I don’t. But be that as it may, why are you both in here when I

know you didn’t come here to tell me about vampires and men in suits?” She looked at

both of them when they didn’t answer her. “Tell me, or so help me, when I’m better I’m

going to hurt you both.”

“Someone sent them to find you, and they’re not the police. And, as your brother is

no longer alive, we can only assume that they want to make sure that you’re not either.”

She asked Grady why they’d care. “Because you’re a Gentry.”

“You know, that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.” Lewis nodded and stood by

the door. “Okay, besides my brother being dead and mind-reading vampires at Doctor

McCade’s office, what does any of this have to do with me?”

“We don’t know.” Again, she wanted to hit one of them but waited as Lewis

seemed to be thinking things over. “Okay. I guess we need to tell it all to you, but for

now, we have to get you out of here.”

“All right.” She started to pull the sheet off when she was suddenly in Grady’s

arms. “If you could just lend me a car for a few hours I can leave it somewhere and you

can claim you don’t know what happened to it. I don’t need any money, I guess. I’ve

never had any before and got by.”

Her mind was going a million miles a minute. They were shoving her out the door

was all she could think about. Not that she blamed them. If men in suits were coming,

then the entire family would be in danger. And as much as she didn’t want to be hurt,

she didn’t want these people to be hurt or killed either. She was essentially alone in the

world right now. But when he bypassed the car and moved up to the big house, she

asked him what he was doing.

“For the moment, I’m taking you home, to our mom’s home. And if you argue with

me, Kenton said I was to remind you that he’s a dragon and can eat you alive if you

do.” Grady laughed. “Not really, but those men are going to come here. He knows it

now and he can’t come to be with you.”

“Why would he even want to? And why do you?” He looked at her oddly, but she

was still trying to figure out what the fuck they were doing. When she was sitting on

the couch, Mrs. McCade came in with a large box and smiled at her.

“They’re expecting you to be banged up and out of shape.” Emma nodded. “This is

what Kenton suggested we do to hide you in plain sight. I think it’s a wonderful idea

and I cannot wait to see you dressed like this, but we have to hurry.”

The box was opened and a huge body like thing was pulled out. When Mrs.

McCade turned it toward her, Emma could see that it was a very pregnant belly thing

attached to huge boobs. It took her mind a few seconds to catch up to the rest of them.

“You’re going to make me look like I’m a hippo?” Mrs. McCade told her no, just

large with child. “I see. And this will tell the men who can read my mind what? That

I’m a Gentry that likes looking like she’s about to pop?”

“Oh no, dear. Nothing like that. They can’t read your mind, not when they get

here.” Emma asked her why not. “Because this house, like all the boys’ houses, is

special. We must hurry. I’ll explain it while we work. By the way, you’re Kenton’s

wife.”

As the body thing was put on her, things started to fall into place. The men were

coming here to kill her. Why? She had no idea, but she’d learned being related to Bart

that it mattered little what the main reason was for killing so long as they got a thrill

about it. She asked Mrs. McCade why there wasn’t any way for them to read her mind.

That one she just couldn’t understand.

“Long ago, my husband captured a faerie. She wasn’t really keen on my husband

for that and many other reasons…he wasn’t the nicest person in the world. But that’s

another story, and she did like me. Anyway, she saw the way that he treated me and

the boys and put a ward around this house. No magic other than our own will work

here. Verbal magic will work, but I’m not sure how as yet. My husband…he’s dead

now, but he wasn’t able to control us with his own type of magic, and I believe that it

saved us a lot of pain and suffering at his hands.”

Emma looked at Mrs. McCade then. And that was when she noticed the long scar

on her forehead. It was thin and someone had done a good job sewing it, but she’d bet

anything that he’d done that to her. Emma put her hand on hers and looked her in the

eye.

“You killed him.” Mrs. McCade...Aisha…nodded after a moment and Emma

nodded too. “I wanted to kill Bart so many times in my life. He was cruel too, and hit

me when he could. Then as I got older, the suffering came in other ways. More sadistic,

you might say. It’s why I have nothing. He would pay people to come to my house, beat

me, and take my things. Food, clothing, anything and everything, including furniture

that wasn’t too heavy. It’s hard to get to that point, the point where it’s you or them,

and you know it.”

“He’d only ever hit me at first. He’d scream and yell at the boys when they did the

slightest thing wrong, but he’d never hit them. Then one night, he came after Lewis

with an ax. He’d been…Lewis is so quiet and he thinks things through before he says

anything, and his father hated that about him. Also the fact that he never seemed to get

mad. But that night he did. He’d hit back at his father, and that had made him angrier

than I’d ever seen him.” Aisha looked at her son now. Lewis was her baby, and Emma

knew that. “He was going to cut his head off. Had him down on the floor to do it, his

booted foot at his chest. As he drew back, I shot him. Dead. I’ve never regretted it once

that I did it, either.”

“Good for you. If I had stood up to my brother, he might have done things

differently with me.” Aisha said he more than likely would have killed her. “Yeah,

probably. But then, who cares?”

“I do.” She looked over at Lewis when he spoke. “I care that you’re here. That you

and my brother are going to be together.”

Before she could correct him on that, Grady came into the room and said that they

were here. Coming up the drive now. Emma slipped on the suit and sat down, the huge

shirt she’d put on smelling like Kenton.

Taking it to her nose, she drew deeply on the scent. There was something very

delicious about the man’s cologne. As she put the shirt to rights, she looked at Grady

when he laughed. Asking him what was so funny only got more laughter from him,

and she wanted to punch his nose. All the violence that she had felt before seemed to

have dissipated with the death of her brother.

Two men came to the door and were not invited in. Emma stood near the table that

was in the entrance hallway and leaned heavily onto it. Aisha spoke to them through

the open door that seemed to be wider than was necessary for the two men. She wasn’t

surprised when one of the two asked several times to be invited in.

“No.” Emma had enough of their being bossy and moved to the door, limping as

little as she could. “What is it you want here? To come in? No, that’s not going to

happen. We don’t want you here anymore than we’d want any of your kind.”

The bigger man snapped his teeth at her, and Emma growled low in her throat. She

had no idea why she did it, but he stepped back from her and the door. Putting her

hand on her fake belly, she stood in the doorway, giving Aisha just a little nudge to get

her to step back.

“We want to know if the woman by the name of Emma Anderson Gentry is here. If

she is, which I do believe that she is, we want her to come out of the house so that we

may speak to her.” Emma cocked a brow at the man. “You will do as I say and answer

me.”

“Fuck you.” Emma heard Lewis laugh and wondered about that, but the man in

front of her was pissing her off. “Emma Gentry died the day of the explosion. Yeah, we

know all about how she was there and how everyone thinks she got out. Tell me, have

you been there? Have you had a look around? I’m pretty sure that nothing survived

there but the cockroaches. Unless, of course, that’s what you are. The cockroaches that

crawl around on your belly terrorizing innocent people.”

“Now see here, you can’t talk to us that—”

She took a step toward him and felt something run over her skin. Before she could

look at her arm to see what they’d done to her, they were both gone. Emma turned to

the others in the room.

“You scared them.” Emma shook her head at Lewis’s statement. “Oh yeah you did.

Scared the shit right out of them. And if I don’t miss my bet, I’d say you showed them

what you’re made of as well.”

“And what was that?” She’d meant the movement along her skin, but he took a

slow step toward her and lifted her arm up. “Lewis?”

“You have his dragon.”

Then the dream came to her. She looked over at Aisha and remembered her being

shot in the chest, the way her body fell to the ground. The scar, the one on her forehead,

seemed to shine now, showing Emma that this was indeed the woman that had been

shot. The dragon spoke to her just as she was sitting her ass on the floor.

You saved her, just as I thought you would. The compulsion of the vampires, they could

have brought her out of the house and then had her killed. The bullet to her head would have

ended everything for them all.
Emma asked him about her brother and reminded him that

Bart had been there too in her dream.
He was here. His reckoning had been brought to you,

and you now know that he will no longer bother you or this family again.

If only it were that easy, her mind said just as she felt herself being swallowed up

by the darkness. If only everything was that easy.