“Rachel,” Jay said slowly. “Take Colin’s phone and call the police. Tell them to come to the private driveway off of Route 12. The gate should be open.”
My hands were shaking so badly as I picked up the phone that I could barely dial 911. The operator answered but I barely heard what they said. All I could do was repeat Jay’s message.
“Officers have been dispatched,” the voice said. “And will be arriving soon.”
“T-thank you,” I stammered as I hung up. “They—they’re coming…”
“Good,” Jay smiled. Compared to the mess I was in, Jay didn’t look the slightest bit worried. His arm didn’t waver as he held the gun on Colin and we stood there together in the darkness until we heard the sirens.
Chapter Thirteen
Jay
I knew better than to interfere, so I kept my distance and stood by the truck while Rachel went inside to talk to her parents and tell them all about me.
I spent the time looking over her house, which was absolutely insane and reminded me of something out of one of those movies or TV shows or movies about English royalty.
American Royalty, I thought with a smile as my eyes moved over the driveway that was made of countless off-white stone pavers. A fountain stood at the center of the roundabout that led up to a wide flight of marble steps and a set of double doors that you could drive a truck through.
I gave up trying to figure out how many bedrooms the place had. I counted twenty-eight windows on the front façade but I couldn’t tell which was which. At least four were bathrooms, two on either side of the house, and two belonged to what looked like a library or smoking room.
I saw an office and something that might have been a game room. Compared to my little cabin in the woods, this place was a palace. Hell, compared to 99 percent of the homes in the world, this place was a palace.
But then again, the cabin wasn’t the home I intended to bring Rachel back to.
A dull pain flared in my shoulder and I shifted in my seat. The bullet had just grazed me, thankfully. The doctor said that an inch to the right and it would have been pretty serious.
My attacker, Colin, was Dane’s stepson who I’d only heard about but had never met. Rumor around the docks was that he’d moved to Florida and was happily married to some girl and spent his days lounging on the beach being a bum.
But it turned out he was connected to the smugglers and was part of their operation running dope up the coast. While he wasn’t directly involved with what went down, when I went to the cops and had the whole ring thrown in jail, his distribution dried up and he came looking for the one responsible. Me.
To be honest, Rachel was more upset about me getting hurt than I was. The son of a bitch couldn’t aim to save his life, and the only reason I was even hit in the first place was because one of his wild shots caught me off a ricochet.
It wasn’t really more than a scratch, but to Rachel it was a sign of how I’d almost been killed and it had taken her all night to calm down, and when her parents had showed up at the hospital, that had only made things worse.
“Who the hell is this man?” her father had roared.
“Rachel? What is going on?” her mom had cried.
Caleb, who was supposed to love her as he was her husband-to-be, had pretty much just stood in the background looking annoyed that all of this was getting in the way of things he’d rather be doing.
He didn’t like me of, course, but I could tell that it was more about the fact that I was stepping into what he considered his territory rather than me stealing a girl from him that he actually cared about.
I wondered what the conversation inside sounded like. Her parents weren’t going to be happy, that much was for sure.
I was just some broke fisherman, right? How was I going to take care of their daughter? What was I going to bring to their family dynasty?
Boy, are they in for a surprise…
I sat up as the front doors opened, but instead of Rach
el emerging, her mother stepped out. She frowned at me like I was the school’s worst student coming to take her daughter to prom.
“Can I talk to you?” she called out.
Oh, boy, I thought. Here we go.
I got out of the truck and walked up to her. I looked for Rachel but she must have still been inside talking to Caleb or her father.