Wrongfully Claimed

Chapter Twenty-Three

                          Ryder

After the call, Ryder disappeared from the living room and spent the remainder of the evening locked up in his bedroom. He kept replaying what the man on the phone said to him and had to restrain himself from getting in his van and leaving sooner.

Every minute of being kept apart from Aurora was becoming more and more unbearable for him to endure.

If she hadn't run off like she did and come back with him to the house like he told her to do, then none of this would have happened and he wouldn't have to resort to killing a few men just to save her ass and get her out of the huge mess she'd created by running away.

He knew damn well once Aurora went out of his protection, she would be thrown into a pit of wolves out there and didn't stand a chance.

He figured they probably had been plotting this since they first saw her at the house and were just waiting until the time was right to make their move.

A few names, and faces prowled through his mind, but it was unclear to him who it could have been at this point because so many people wanted him dead in this town, so it would have been impossible to pinpoint who these people were based on an assumption.

Spending the rest of the night, meticulously planning what he was going to do, Ryder must dozed off for when he awoke and glazed down at his watch it was already 6:25 a.m.

It prompted him to rise to his feet quicker and speed things along, knowing it was down to the wire and he didn't have much more time.

Rising from his bed, dazed and disoriented, Ryder wiped away the rheum from his tired eyes that burned as if needles had been sewn into his eyelids, from spending all night, excessively worrying about Aurora.

He was so dead on his feet and weighed down, he could barely function properly but he forced himself out of bed and started to get ready.

After he got into the shower, he was relieved to find nobody was around when he sauntered down the corridor to clean himself up before he left to go fetch Aurora.

The last thing he needed right now was having to contend with his bitchy ex-wife, Marilyn first thing in the morning after what happened last night.

After grabbing his shotgun, he was just about to slip out of the house in the hopes of no one seeing him, but as he hurried to the door to his surprise his son Sebastian came running in after him and stopped him.

"Daddy?" he heard his timid little voice say from behind him that was once filled with resentment and anger had now become softer and more subdued. "Where you goin' with your gun?"

Ryder tried his best to hide the fact that he was wielding his rifle behind his back in secret, but his son was a lot like him and didn't miss a thing.

"I'm going to get back Aurora back," Ryder told him, not even bothered Marilyn had just stepped into the room and was hearing all of this. "They have taken her and I need to go get her."

"Who has taken her?" his son asked him, fully aware of Sebastian's mother standing there, eavesdropping. She didn't say anything, but just watched them with her hands haughtily placed on her hips as she listened in on their conversation, scantily dressed in a black lacy underwear and a cream tank top, flaunting herself as usual.

" Listen kiddo, you gotta go upstairs with your mama now," Ryder advised him, grateful he and his boy were at least speaking on amicable terms now." If anyone comes to the door -- do not under any circumstances answer the door. Do you hear me?"

"Why what's going on?" Sebastian inquired, but his pugnacious ex-wife stepped in and interrupted him before Sebastian even had time to finish his sentence. He wished she could just go away and leave them alone in peace, but the bitch was a fucking viper.