Now? I was desperate for those moments, desperate to have the chance to hold my child and see everyone’s faces when they met her for the first time. I was desperate to see Elijah meet her and hold her. I wanted to become his wife and the mother of his kids, even if we had five boys who were all hellions like the rest of his family.
I was grateful for the path that’d led me here, even though I missed Mum, and that’d brought him into my life. And I was so fucking grateful that we’d gone to the baby store and bought stuff for the baby. If he killed me, at least I had that, even though I wanted my daughter to survive and have the opportunity to live her life.
I wasn’t going to let him take that away from her. There was zero chance that she’d survive if he killed me, she wasn’t even near the stage of being able to do that, so I had to do everything I could to get away from him, but also to get him away from the men.
The hold he’d had over me for so many years was gone, and in its place was a mama bear who was going to fight with everything she had. It was refreshing to feel the last bit of his power snap from where it’d been holding me back.
I’d never been great at thinking on the spot, though, so I didn’t have a clue what to do to get the gun away from him.
“You look great, love,” he murmured, and I was grateful for the fact you couldn’t tell I was pregnant yet. My lack of prominent bump had been bugging me for weeks, but maybe everything did happen for a reason because I had no clue how he’d react if he could see it.
Deciding to act blasé, I shot him a grin. “You as well, Orson. How’ve you been keeping?”
Both Jackson and Marcus stopped arguing and stared at me like I’d lost it. While they’d been arguing, both men had been taking small steps to close the distance between him and my nightmare.
Now they were roughly four feet behind him, but still not close enough if he decided to shoot or attack me. I didn’t understand why they’d decided to play it out that way. Sure, the arguing would’ve covered up the noise of their feet on the gravel path, but he’d also have been able to tell they were getting nearer to him.
That’s when I saw a head poke out from behind a tree at the back of the driveway, one that belonged to Marcus’s best friend, Remy. Putting his finger up to his mouth, he pulled back again and disappeared.
That’s what they were providing a distraction for whatever he was doing.
Looking back at Orson, I asked, “How did you know where to find me?”* * *Taking a step closer to me, he looked proud of himself. “Well, a young girl contacted me when I saw you’d moved, and she told me where to find you. I sold Mum’s jewelry to that place near Bromley Station and got one of my new mates to help me get a passport. When I got to that awful place you were living at, though, the girl told me you’d disappeared, so she put out some feelers to find out where you were. She was such a whiny girl, but she was good at getting information.” Shonelle, he had to be talking about her. “Anyway, she found a photo on someone’s social media of the bloke you’ve been hanging around with,”—he leaned in closer to me—“an American, really?”
“Fuck you,” Marcus snorted. “You forget what country you’re standing in?”
“She messaged the person who’d posted it and found out the name of some people to contact, who said he had a house here.”
Not quite following the last part, I asked, “Who were the people you contacted?”
“Uh, the Catchers? Baxters? Maybe the Thatchers?”
Jesse made a choking noise beside me. “The Hatchers?”
“Yes,” Orson clicked the fingers of the hand not holding the gun. “That’s the ones, the Hatchers.”
“Who are they?” I asked Jesse, not taking my eyes off Orson.
“Cooper’s parents.” The words were said grimly, the weight of the implication suffocating.
It was possible that they didn’t know what was going on with Elijah and the problems I had, but it was also possible that they had. The fact they’d given out the location of the house to a random stranger, though, showed a lack of shits for Elijah’s safety regardless. It was spiteful, and it made my stomach burn.
“Anyway,” Orson sang, and a familiar snick sound followed it as he clicked the safety on his gun. “We’ve got to go. I really don’t want to hurt anyone, but I’ll have to if you don’t come with me.”