“Please,” she whispered out of breath. The lengthy driveway seemed longer than any other time she’d run up and down it before. Her legs grew weak with fatigue. Her lungs strained to take another breath.
Just as she thought she would make it to the gates—only feet away—she heard heavy breathing behind her as Loch yelled angrily at someone to hurry up and open the gate. She saw Frank, too, shouting, getting red in the face. As she was about to lunge for Loch’s out-stretched hands through the bars, she was tackled from behind, hitting the ground so hard that air was knocked out of her, and her head hit the gravel with enough force that her ears rang.
Lochlan’s rage-filled threats could not be mistaken as she was hauled to her feet. “Let her the fuck go, you son of a bitch!”
Morgan laughed at him.
“I’ll fucking kill you if you hurt one hair on her head.” The menace in Loch’s voice should have frightened her.
“Like this?” Morgan taunted as he grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked so hard her feet left the ground, and she cried out from the pain.
“Stop it,” Sage whined. The hospital gown she was still wearing loosened, and she was terrified it was going to fall off.
“Listen now,” Frank tried to reason, “we have a warrant. We are coming in. I suggest you let the girl go and make it easier on yourself.”
“You have no right to come to my home and make threats. Bringing trash with you. She is my child, and I can do with her as I please.” Her father stood his ground just feet from the fence.
“In fact, you can’t.” Frank seemed to smirk as she was dragged further away. “You see, this is America, and she has every right as me. I’ve heard her repeatedly ask that man to stop. What he’s doing now is assault. I’ll arrest him for that.” Frank’s finger swung from pointing at Morgan to pointing at Gideon. “You, I’ll arrest for unlawful confinement and kidnapping.”
“Don’t forget the child abuse.” Lennox, Loch’s oldest brother, had shown up with Levi, and they were holding onto Lochlan as the chains began to crumble beneath the saw now being used.
“Get your fucking hands off her!” Loch screamed as she was pulled away again.
Jossilyn’s sobbing could be heard from her position between their brothers, and Sage made brief eye contact with Tru. He was enraged like she’d never seen. With everyone’s emotions running so high, Sage became overwhelmed and soon found it increasingly hard to breathe. “Can’t breathe,” she muttered, hyperventilating, trying to get every ounce of air into her lungs that she could.
“Shut up, whore,” Morgan hissed in her ear as he continued his trek.
Reaching deep down inside her heart, Sage knew she had to muster the strength to fight back. She had to be strong for Lochlan because he was falling apart while plotting murder and mayhem.
Digging her feet into the ground, Sage pulled away from Morgan’s bod
y with all her strength, knocking them off-kilter and crashing to the ground again. Pain assailed her already battered body.
“Sage!” Loch’s scream could be heard from the fence.
“Loch, wait a fucking minute!”
“Don’t do it, Loch!”
“Son of a bitch!”
“Dios mio, Loch.”
All these protests could be heard as the creaking of the gates gave way to an opening. Sage couldn’t move from the weight of Morgan on her back and the ground at her front. “Get off me.” Her grunts went ignored.
“I said…” She heard Loch’s voice as the weight from her back was lifted. “Get the fuck off of her.” The sound of knuckles cracking and flesh splitting hit her ears as she rolled to her side. Lochlan was on top of Morgan pounding his fist into the other man’s face.
Heavy feet ran past where she was lying on the ground to pull Lochlan off of Morgan, preventing him from giving the vile man precisely what he deserved.
“Loch, you gotta cool it. Sage needs you now,” Lennox told him firmly.
“Here I thought you were against violence,” Levi joked.
Lochlan’s breathing was heavy, harsh, drowning out all other noise around them as dozens of people filed onto the compound. A place Sage had once felt safe. A place she now feared more than anything else in the world.
“Go to your girl.” Asher, she thought his name was, encouraged Loch as the paramedics approached her.
Fear once again grabbed a hold tightly and wouldn’t let go as the two men reached for her. “No!” she screamed, unable to stop herself.