Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 82186 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82186 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
“No,” Sam answered. “Call her, will you? I only have my work phone on me.”
Sam usually carried two phones at all times: one that the kids and I could get him on, and one for his role as the top marshal in Chicago, but since everyone who needed him was with him, and anyone else could call me on mine, he’d left his personal phone at home.
My phone chimed as I pulled it from the back pocket of my shorts, with a text from Hannah telling me to come to the upstairs bathroom.
“She’s in the bathroom,” I yelled down to Sam, who turned back to the game in time to see Kola hit the ball off the net hard and, with authority, right into his own face.
“Oh! Are you hurt?” Sam called over to his son, and everyone laughed.
“Don’t you have anything better to do?” Kola had murder on his mind as he eyed his father.
“Do you need ice?”
I left to find my daughter at the same time as Sam began to cackle, only slightly concerned by her message.
Up a steep staircase that brought me to a long hall, I started down it only to realize, quickly, that there were many rooms and many closed doors. Since someone might have been sleeping, I called Hannah instead of yelling.
“Pa?”
“Honey, I’m here. Which room are you in?”
“It’s the one with the boxwood wreath on it,” she answered and then hung up, which was odd, because any other time she would have talked to me until I reached her. And she sounded muffled. Instantly, I was scared. I passed the third door with a wreath with a lavender gingham ribbon, and a woman popped out.
“Hello,” I greeted her, not stopping, rushing by, needing to reach Hannah.
“Are you her father?”
Stopping, only then did I notice that her eyes were red and puffy, as though she’d been crying. The real news, though, was that her right cheek was swollen, her bottom lip was split, her right eye was most certainly going to be black in a few days, and she was holding her left wrist.
“Am I whose father?” I asked, wondering if my daughter had inflicted the damage. If she had, there was a good reason, I was certain of that, but Hannah would only do enough to get someone off her; she didn’t use her training to hurt anyone, no matter how angry she was.
“That fuckin’ little bitch who did that to Tim!” she shrieked at me.
I glared, and she took a step back. “I can promise you that no daughter of mine is a bitch,” I snapped.
“You stupid whore,” a man roared, appearing at the end of the hall. “Who did you get to kick the shit outta Tim? The fuck did you do?”
The woman gasped and ran.
“Pa,” I heard Hannah rasp from the other side of the bathroom door as a man came barreling down the hall.
“Don’t you dare open the door,” I ordered my daughter, not about to let him touch her. “Stop where you are,” I yelled at him.
“Fuck you,” he growled as he reached me.
“Pa!” Hannah screamed.
Smashing my sneakered foot down onto his, when he bellowed in outrage and bent over, I caught him in the side of the face with my elbow. It wasn’t enough, of course it wasn’t. He was much bigger than me and recovered fast from my paltry attack.
Grabbing me by the throat, he was about to slam me back into the wall, even with all the flailing and kicking I was doing, but I was instead released as his face smashed into the plaster, hard. I fell sideways but regained my balance in time to turn and see his face hit the hard surface a second time, then a third, in quick succession. Blood gushed from his nose as he recoiled, had his legs swept out from under him, hit the opposite wall, and crumpled to the floor, landing in a sprawled heap. The entire sequence took seconds, and I was faced with my husband, who wasn’t even breathing hard.
“Thank you,” I whispered as he took me in his arms and hugged me tight.
“Daddy?” Hannah asked, sounding nasally but not sad, not weepy, more mad, as the door opened a crack.
Sam turned to her, and we both saw that she was holding her nose in a wad of toilet paper.
His snarl was loud, angry, as he rounded on the man bleeding on the floor.
“No, man, not me!”
“Not him,” Hannah barked, coming out and facing us.
It was then I noticed that the hand she was using to stem the blood from her nose had bloody knuckles.
“Now,” Sam demanded, tipping her head back, taking over holding the wad. “Tell me now who hurt you?”
“Tib,” she answered.
“She means Tim,” I apprised my husband.
The look I got was not great. Sam was going to murder him.