Take Me with You (Take Me #2)(61)
Author: K.A. Linde

The next thing I knew, I was waking up to the sound of someone banging on the door downstairs. Ari was still safely tucked in my arms. I kissed her shoulder before checking the time.

Three p.m.

Christ, we’d fucking passed out from a sex coma for three hours. How the fuck had the time slipped by so fast?

I groggily stumbled out of bed and threw on a pair of basketball shorts and a T-shirt. Running a hand through my messy hair, which I seriously needed to get cut now that I was back in town, I walked down the stairs and to the front door.

The banging started up again. I yawned, barely able to keep my eyes open after waking up from my nap. Sleeping in my bed here was so much better than on a horrible tour bus or a hotel room.

“Coming!” I called as I approached the door.

I unbolted the lock and swung the door inward. My body went still just as my heart rate skyrocketed. My palms were clammy, my throat closed up, and my stomach flipped. There wasn’t enough oxygen in the house…in the world.

Despite years of training myself for this moment, I still felt horribly sick and terrified as I stood there, staring at the man who had ruined my life.

My dad.

A murderer.

My mother’s murderer.

The man who had told me that once he was out of jail, he was coming to get me.

To kill me.

Now, here he was.

“Hello, Grant.”

I reacted immediately.

I’d told myself over and over again that when this time came, I would be ready. I wouldn’t be a frightened ten-year-old kid anymore. I would be calm and collected and do what needed to be done.

I bolted for the side table next to the garage door and yanked open the first drawer. Before he even reacted, I had my 9mm loaded.

I swung around and leveled the gun at his chest. “Hey, Dad.”

“Grant?” I whispered softly as I woke up.

I stretched out my body and yawned. Man, how long had I been out? I checked the time and groaned. We’d lost the whole afternoon, not that I was complaining. Sex with Grant had been awesome. My body was already sore from our escapades…or sexcapades, as Cheyenne liked to call them.

I heard voices downstairs and figured he must have gone to talk to Vin or work on his music.

Reaching over the side of the bed, I found my clothes, slipped into my yoga pants and an oversized T-shirt, and then padded out of the room.

“Grant!” I called again, jogging down the stairs.

I froze when I caught sight of what was going on at the bottom of the stairs. Grant and his father were in the middle of a standoff. The door was wide open, and Grant was holding his gun out in front of him, pointing it straight at his father.

Time stood still. I swayed in place. This couldn’t be happening.

“Ari, go back into the room,” Grant said, strangely calm.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I asked.

Fear prickled through every nerve ending in my body. Grant was holding a gun. If he fired that weapon, then I knew, deep down inside, that I would never find him again. He would bury the Grant I knew and loved so far inside of himself that I was afraid even I couldn’t save him.

“Taking care of business.”

“Grant, put the gun down!”

“You should listen to her, son,” Mike said.

“I won’t make the mistake of waiting for you to kill me, too.”

He was so deadly calm and serious that it almost completely unnerved me. How could he be so confident while pointing that gun at his father’s chest? How could Grant have let it come to this?

“Grant,” I murmured, taking a few more steps toward him. “You are better than this. Just think…if you pull that trigger, you’ll become everything you have worked so hard not to be. And you’ll have to live with that for the rest of your life.”

“I’ll do what I have to do.”

“You don’t have to. You barely survived the last time something traumatic happened to you. Do you think you could survive killing your own father? No matter what he has done to you, no matter how much you suffered, shooting him doesn’t bring her back.”

“I know that,” he cried. His hands were shaking softly, but he hadn’t torn his eyes away from his dad the whole time I’d spoken to him.

“Do you? Then, give me the gun,” I whispered.

Tears were stinging my eyes as I stepped forward toward him. My throat was stuck as if it were stuffed with cotton balls. Here it was, all my fears coming to fruition. I’d thought that I was enough to push back his demons. But with his father standing at his door, all the good that had happened in his life disappeared. Grant was locked inside his head, trapped with the fears of his childhood.

“I’ll give you the gun when he leaves and agrees to never come back,” Grant said flatly.

“Is that what you want?” his dad asked.

“I’m not sure what else a gun pointed at your chest could mean.”

Mike took a step forward, and Grant fired a shot that whizzed past his father’s right ear and out the front door.

“Grant!” I screamed. “What the fuck? Oh my God!”

“Next time, I won’t give you a warning shot.”

“Are you out of your mind?” Ari cried. “You can’t fire that fucking gun at another human being! You could have killed him.”

“He entered my home without my permission, and I feared for my life. It’s self-defense.”

I shook my head in shock. He had fired a shot. He had shot at his own father. My mind was whirring around at five million miles a minute. I couldn’t process this. I was shutting down when I needed to be alive and alert for this. I couldn’t let him go through with this.

“Grant, please!” I pleaded. “He’ll leave. He’s going to leave now and not come back. Just please…don’t shoot any more.” Adrenaline was kicking in, but my body was compensating for my fear with unshed tears and a racing heartbeat. I turned to Grant’s father. “Tell him you’ll leave.”

“I just came to talk,” Mike said.

Grant shook his head. “I have no interest in talking.”

Mike lifted his foot to walk toward Grant. I saw Grant getting trigger-happy, and I realized I couldn’t let this happen, no matter what.

Without another thought, I threw myself in between them. Grant’s arm jerked, and the bullet that had been meant for his father rushed out of the gun. I screamed, and then everything happened in slow motion. My heart skipped a beat in that split second when my eyes met Grant’s. And then, I was shoved out of the way. I landed roughly on my hip, and my hands barely caught my fall. I heard a loud thunk and saw the bullet buried into the wall.