Chapter 129 Chapter One hundred and twenty eight
ARA
I turned, panic ripping through me as I bolted for the porch. I didn’t make it five steps. Thayne caught me with brutal ease, his arms locking around me and lifting me clean off the floor.
“ARA, stop,” he said urgently. “You’re going to hurt yourself. Two of my men are already inside the house.”
His words were meant to steady me, but I was far past steady.
The only family I had left…. My little sisters were still in that house. And somewhere inside it, a bomb sat patiently, ticking toward the end of everything.
My nails dug into Thayne’s shoulders as I struggled uselessly. “Let me go. They’re in there. My sisters are in there.”
Emily wasn’t taken away, not after she announced there was a bomb inside the house. She was forced to her knees instead, her arms wrenched behind her back, wrists bound tight.
Stuart yanked her head up until her throat was exposed to the sky, her face twisted in a grin that didn’t belong to someone about to die.
Stuart stepped in front of her, bending to her level. “How many hours do we have before it explodes?” he asked in her face.
Emily laughed. Not a nervous sound. A sharp, delighted laugh, the loud, hysterical kind villains wore like crowns. She spat straight into Stuart’s face, watching it slide down his cheek.
“Minutes,” she sang. “Not hours. Hahahaha!”
Her laughter grew louder, uglier, her shoulders shaking as if this were all some grand joke meant only for her.
Her hands were tied. She wasn’t going anywhere.
Stuart grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked hard, forcing her gaze upward until her eyes watered and her neck strained.
“You fucking bitch,” he snarled. “I will snap your fingers one by one, then your stupid neck, if you don’t answer me properly.” He leaned closer.
“Now tell me, how many minutes?”
Emily chuckled, breathless, almost amused, as though she weren’t kneeling on borrowed time.
“Why don’t we wait and find out,” she said lightly, eyes glittering with madness, “pretty boy?”
“Ara! The door is locked! Help us!” My sisters cried out.
“There are two men inside! Help us!” Mollie yelled, banging on the door.
They didn't understand what was going on or why there were two men inside the house with them.
I ground my teeth, rage flooding my veins, pulsing, breathing inside me.
Thayne thought I was trying to breathe well, and the moment he released me from his iron grip, I acted.
Maybe it was the pain and exhaustion of the past few days, or the fact that I'd known no rest ever since the day Neil fled out the window of our tiny apartment the day Thayne came calling.
I lunged for her, causing her to fall backwards in an attempt to dodge me. I fell on her, then began to rain punches on her.
No one stopped me. I felt and heard her jaw crack, but it didn't make me stop. Then I grabbed her by the neck and squeezed.
“Where is the deactivation button? You better say something before I rip your eyes out of their sockets!” I snarled like a wild wolf.
When she refused to speak, I tightened my grip until her face turned red, then slightly blue.
That was when she began to signal with her fingers that she would talk.
“You better start talking or we'll leave her to strangle you to death. Makes things a lot easier for me.” Stuart said, finally lifting me off Emily and handing me to Thayne like I was a newborn baby girl and not a thick, pregnant woman.
My sisters were still banging the door, but I could hear Thayne's men trying to pacify them.
Emily spat blood from her now disfigured mouth, her swollen eyes darting around disbelievingly. I bet she never saw my fists coming.
She coughed out saliva, then started talking.
“You have fifty minutes left.” She said simply.
I moved without thinking, but Thayne wasn't letting me go anywhere. I wanted to disfigure her completely until there was nothing left of her.
“Where is the deactivation button?” Stuart asked, eyeing her.
She looked at him. “I don't know.”
Now Thayne finally spoke. He gently passed me to Stuart who held me like I was his five year old sister.
“Do you think this is a Hollywood movie where you get to act like some hardcover villain? I'll only ask once, where is the damn deactivator?” Thayne asked her without touching her, his eyes fiercely drilling holes into her face.
“Time is ticking away. Make her talk!” I screamed, wriggling against Stuart's hold on my shoulders.
“The deactivator is a password. Jimmy says you're the only one who knows it. And there is no key for that door, I made sure of that just in case.” Emily finally said, her nearly swollen shut eyes shooting daggers my way.
“What?” Thayne asked, moving away from her.
“You only have three chances. After the third trial, the bomb detonates.” Emily said, a slow smile tugging at the corners of her lips.
She knew what she was doing. You may wonder, why couldn't Thayne's men just break down the door so we could get in and get my sisters out.
The lock worked with the bomb. Emily made sure to put crazy measures in place. So unless we wanted to get them out alive, we had to brainstorm something smart that wouldn't cause the bomb to explode before we figured how to deactivate it.
“Let's go,” Thayne ordered his men. Stuart nudged me forward, and we climbed the front porch immediately.
Stuart knocked once on the door and asked the two men inside to stand by. My sisters could only see me through the windows.
“ARA, do you know what the password might be?” Thayne asked me softly.
“What about a name?” Stuart pressed from behind me. “Yours. Thayne’s. One of the girls’.”
Emily laughed weakly from where she was. “You’re wasting time.”
“Shut her up,” Thayne said calmly, never taking his eyes off me.
One of the men did.
I shook my head. “Jimmy wouldn’t use my name. That gives me importance. He hates that.” I closed my eyes, forcing focus.
My hand went instinctively to my stomach. Thayne stilled.
“Try your father’s name,” I said suddenly. “Not Slade. His first name.”
Thayne’s jaw flexed. “That’s one chance gone if you’re wrong.”
“I know,” I whispered. “But Jimmy worships him. Even hates him like a god.” I didn't know why I said that, but it was obvious.
Thayne nodded to the man by the keypad inside. The first attempt was entered, but nothing happened. There was no alarm or countdown acceleration. Just pure, stuff, silence.
“One down,” Stuart muttered.
My heart slammed harder. “Okay, okay. Second chance…” I sucked in a breath. “Jimmy believes pain is love. Control is devotion.” My eyes flew open. “Nadia. He'll never think we'll pick her name because how she deceived us.”
Thayne stiffened. “Ara—”
“Her name,” I insisted. There was a shortpause, and I yelled, “We don't have time!”
Then Thayne nodded once. The second attempt went in. The lights inside the house flickered, and my sisters screamed.
I screamed with them too.
Then—
Nothing. The lights stabilized. The timer didn’t jump.
Thayne exhaled slowly. “That almost did something.”
“One chance,” Stuart said quietly.
My legs nearly buckled. “One chance,” I echoed, my voice shaking now. “Jimmy always leaves a way to prove loyalty. A final humiliation.”
Emily began to lau
gh again, wet and broken. “You won’t guess it.”
I turned my head slowly and looked at her.
“Yes,” I said softly. “I will.”
Because suddenly, I knew. My blood ran cold.
“He doesn’t want you to win,” I said to Thayne, tears burning my eyes. “He wants me to choose.”
Thayne’s face hardened. “Ara—”
“The password,” I whispered, “is my name.”
Silence fell around us, only the sound of my sisters' cries.
Even Emily stopped laughing.
Thayne searched my face. “You’re sure?”
“He’s been trying to own me and the babies for a long while,” I said hoarsely. “This is him forcing me to save them… by choosing myself.”
The final attempt was entered. The house went dead quiet.
Then—
A sharp click before the timer vanished.
The door unlocked, and my sisters were pulled out screaming and crying, alive.