Page 94 of Deserving Ryleigh
Ry wasn’t sure how he thought he’d blowherup, andnot himself in the process, but it didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to get a chance to press the buttons on the detonators. She had no doubt of that.
As soon as she had the thought, Wolf made his move.
He lunged at her father and wrapped a muscular arm around his neck.
It was almost comical the way his eyes widened, how fast he dropped the detonators to grab Wolf’s arm, trying to dislodge it from around his neck so he could breathe.
Ry winced as the plastic devices bounced on the hardwood floor of the lodge. She held her breath, half expecting to hear the horrifying sound of bombs exploding out in the forest. But nothing happened, allowing her to breathe once again.
Tiny leaped forward and grabbed the detonators as Wolf held her dad, but Harold Lodge apparently wasn’t going down without a fight. As Ry watched from her safe spot behind the reception desk, Harold pulled out a knife from somewhere.
“Wolf! Knife!” she yelled—but it was too late. Her dad managed to plunge the blade into Wolf’s thigh. In the next instant, the floor beneath them was slippery from what she assumed was blood coming from the wound in his leg.
Still, Wolf didn’t let go of her dad. Instead, his hold around his neck tightened, her father’s face turning almost purple.
Tiny quickly placed the detonators on a table and joined the fray.
NowRy was scared. Her heart was in her throat as she watched her dad battle for his life. He wasn’t an accomplished fighter, not like the two former SEALs he wasgrappling with, but he was desperate…and he still had a solid grip on the knife.
The fight was surprisingly quiet, the only sound grunts as her father fought to get free. The men slipped in the blood on the floor, struggling for balance. Ry saw a flash of the knife, then all three men went down,hard.
She ran out from behind the reception desk, ready to…what? Help? There wasn’t anything she could do other than get in the way. But the urge to dosomethingwas overwhelming.
Then Tiny straightened to his knees. Wolf did the same.
Her father remained flat on the floor. Unmoving.
Tiny stood, holding a hand out for Wolf, who took it and got to his feet as well.
Looking back down at her father, Ry saw the knife he’d used to stab Wolf, sticking out of his neck. Blood rapidly pooling around his unmoving body.
She should’ve been shocked. Horrified. Instead, she felt numb.
“Sit,” Tiny ordered Wolf, reaching for his arm.
But Wolf shook his head. “I’m good. Didn’t get an artery. Hurts like a bitch, but I’ve had worse. We need to figure out how to disarm the bunker bombs.”
Ry blinked. How could she have forgotten? Just because her father was dead didn’t mean they were in the clear. It was possible that, as he’d threatened, he had bombs planted all over The Refuge, and if they didn’t figure out how to disarm them, he could still win. Which was unacceptable.
Turning, Ry raced back to her laptop behind the reception desk.
“Ryleigh?” Tiny asked.
“Bring the detonators over here,” she ordered, her voice shaking. “He said they were connected. That if one went off, they’d all explode,” she muttered. “So we need to figure out which was placed first. Maybe if we can disarm that one, the others will all go offline too.”
“Breathe, Ryleigh,” Tiny ordered.
She jerked, not realizing he’d come up next to her. He placed one hand on her hip, and his touch grounded her. Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to relax. The bombs hadn’t gone off yet, she still had a chance to save everyone.
The thought of her friends dying because of her father was abhorrent…the kids, Brick’s mom. The dogs. All of them could be gone in a flash if she didn’t concentrate and do what she did best.
Her father wasn’t wrong. Shehadbroken the law. Had stolen money. But she’d worked her ass off in the last decade to repent, to give back. She wasn’t sure a court of law would care that she hadn’t wanted to take that money, that she’d been trying to earn the love of a man who wasn’t capable of caring about anyone other than himself, but she’d be damned if she let dozens of innocents pay for her sins.
She pulled up the surveillance cameras once again. It was an impossible task. To scroll through hours of video to try to find the men her father had hired to set the explosives. She wasn’t even sure which camera to watch. Which of the bunkers was the first, let alone which day they’d been rigged to blow.
“Which one do you think it is, Ryleigh?” Tiny asked calmly from her side.
Ry’s breaths came out in pants now. She couldn’t do this. “I don’t know,” she said, sounding pathetic and defeated even to her own ears. “I don’t know!” she repeated as she looked up at Tiny.
