In Love by Christmas: A Paranormal Romance by Sandy Nathan Read Free Book Online

the living room, carrying a scrap of flesh and rags wrapped in a big coat. “Let’s go, Doug. I got her.”
    A couple of guys with bats and guns stumbled out of the hall after Leroy. Their pants were unzipped and hanging off their hips. They struggled to zip them as they ran.
    The front door flew open. Hannah Hehrman and her operatives burst in, legs spread, and weapons drawn. “Lie face down on the floor. This is a raid.”
    Leroy stopped when he got to Hannah and opened the coat, letting Hannah see what they did to Cass. Leroy displayed all of her, from her jaundiced skull of a face to the reeking shreds at the back of her gown.

    “Shut up, you stinking bitch,” Hannah shouted at the madam. “Do you know who was in your closet?” Hannah had the madam shoved against the wall with a baseball bat jammed across her throat. The woman gagged as Hannah screamed, “ She was my baby!
    Hannah switched to a whisper, “No one hurts my baby. You will find that out. You and your people are going to tell me everything about yourselves. You are going to open your hearts and minds to me. If you do that, maybe you’ll live. Do you understand?”
    The madam spit in Hannah’s face. Hannah laughed. “You think that scares me. Do you think I will not hurt you?” She jabbed the bat into the woman’s throat, hard. The madam choked.
    Her soldiers had assembled the bouncers and whores in the living room and secured them on chairs, taping their mouths. They arranged them in a circle so they could watch Hannah. Their eyes rolled, signaling their terror. The music was turned up high enough to muffle any noises the hostages might make, but not enough to bother the neighbors.
    “You think you are as tough as me. Eh?” Hannah never wiped her face. “You should fear me, fatso. Because …” Hannah pulled the baseball bat away from the madam’s throat and held it away for a long moment. The heavy woman remained frozen, and then lunged at Hannah.
    Hannah pulled the bat back like a major league player and swung it the same way. It hit her target square across the face at the level of the nose. A thud filled the room. The woman dropped, dead, the center of her face caved in.
    “You should be afraid of me.” Hannah raised the bloody bat. She circled the room. “I really like using bats. The noise when you connect is so satisfying.”
    She casually walked up to one of the bouncers, tied in a chair. With that same lightning swing, Hannah drove the bat into his crotch, where his legs met his torso. He couldn’t scream due to the duct tape over his mouth, but he tried. Several pops from deep in his body accompanied the swing. A wet stain began to spread from the point of impact.
    “This type of blow breaks the pubic bone. I also cracked both of his hipbones, and of course, severed his urethra. I can’t crush his genitals in this position. That requires a special type of chair.”
    She paced, “That girl you held captive means a great deal do me. When I saw what you did to her, it made me angry. It made me want to show you what pain is. And take my revenge.”
    Hannah went ape-shit, as only she could. She never made a sound, but she tore what was left of the bouncer to pieces. When she could do no more with a bat, one of her soldiers handed her a huge knife. The others put the subjects on tarps before she went to work on them. Hannah ran a very neat operation; no mess.
    “You see, I have done this before,” she turned to the terrorized hostages. “I love what I do, especially when it is for revenge. I deserve to take my revenge, don’t you think? What you did to that girl was hideous. All of you were involved. No one helped her.
    “I have not killed those of you who know something. For instance, you,” she pointed to an innocuous bouncer, the smallest of the bunch, “are the accountant. You operate the computer systems and control the records. We will talk. Mostly, you will talk.
    “That fat bitch was nothing. But you are,” she