Chapter 23
Twenty-Three
Cried, but did it anyway.
—Text from Dru to Apollo
APOLLO
Once again, I was being woken up in the middle of the night by banging on my door.
This time, I wasn’t alone in my bed.
And again like last time, Dru didn’t move a single inch.
Blissfully unaware of her surroundings, I walked out of my room and once again stopped at the bottom of the stairs where the alarm panel and my security cameras were displayed.
“Who is it?”
The pounding and doorbell ringing continued.
I looked over my shoulder to see Jasper standing there, a gun in his hand, and in the same state of undress as me.
“Looks like Dru’s sister and aunt.” I groaned. “This is getting absolutely ridiculous.”
“What’s getting ridiculous is the fact that I was having the best damn dream of my life, where I was cuddled up to my man in my new place, and my sister has to ruin it!”
I watched with a quirk to my lips as a sleep-tousled Dru marched toward the door and reached for the handle.
I caught her by the hips and guided her back to the stairs where Jasper stood and said, “Stay. Let me handle this.”
She grumbled a few expletives that I’d tease her for later, but ultimately stayed where she was as I disarmed the alarm.
I just got the door open when a woman started to push through.
I caught her by the belly and pushed her back outside.
Which was about the time I saw Eugene standing there, looking pissed as hell.
“Control this.” I pushed Daniella back.
Eugene let her fall on her ass.
I left her there, too, uncaring if she was on the ground.
I glared at Dru’s aunt and said, “I need you to leave. We can meet in the morning and discuss this at a decent time, but it’s not going to be now.”
Jennifer opened her mouth to shoot back at me but she never got the chance to say anything past the first word.
“I…”
Eugene reacted before I could blink.
He pulled a gun from his pants and raised it.
I had the door shut and locked before he could do anything, but the sound of two gunshots filled the air.
Seconds after that, a third.
I closed my eyes as I leaned against the side of the door, knowing without seeing what I’d find on my doorstep.
“What was that?”
It was Dru.
Fuck.
There was a loud murmur of Jasper’s voice, then he said, “I called 9-1-1.”
I walked to my panel beside the stairs and looked outside, knowing what I would see, but deciding that I needed to see it just in case.
I was right.
There were three dead people on my porch.
Dru’s aunt. Dru’s sister. And Eugene.
Fuck.
I reached for Dru, who was standing there, still as a could be, staring at the carnage on my front porch.
This time I explained exactly what happened as I stared into Dru’s horror-filled eyes.
I never expected to meet Dru’s parents like this, but there I was, standing in front of Dru’s parents’ house, as Dru’s parents drove up the driveway.
It’d been a solid three hours since the incident on my front porch, and this was the first time that Dru had been able to get ahold of them since it’d happened. Roman, Dru’s dad, had left work early to go pick up Julie, Dru’s mom.
And they’d promised that they would get here as fast as they could.
We didn’t leave the house until it was time for Dru to go.
She’d been ready to leave to go see her brother, but I’d done my illegal acts and gotten a special request put on Romeo’s file that gave him permission to be seen today despite it not being a visitation day.
Unfortunately, we had a lot of shit to figure out.
Like two more funerals.
Though, luckily, that wouldn’t be something that I would be directly involved with.
I felt worse for Dru, though.
She would have to do this with her own sister and aunt.
And she hadn’t cried once since the entire show had gone down.
Dru had stared blankly at the wall for the last couple of hours, unless it was to pull out her phone and dial her parents.
Eventually they answered, and Dru had given a very condensed version of what happened and asked them to meet us at their home.
It’d gotten them here, but Dru had checked out.
Leaving me to greet them when they got out of the car.
“Who are you?”
I didn’t beat around the bush, mostly because there was no point in telling her I was just a friend of Dru’s when I wasn’t.
I was way more than a friend.
Would continue to be way more to her if things kept going like they were.
I held out my hand to Roman and said, “I’m Finnian Reins, Dru’s boyfriend.”
“Boyfriend?” Julie asked. “You’re dating someone?”
“Yes.” Dru finally spoke for the first time in a while. “Mom, Dad. We need to talk.”
“What did she do now?” Julie groaned.
So they knew that their daughter had the proclivity to cause trouble.
At least there was that.
They didn’t quite know the extent of the trouble that she’d found herself in this time, though.
“I…” Dru trailed off.
When she couldn’t pick it back up again, I went ahead and explained what I knew.
“What do you know about your other daughter’s ex-fiancé?”
“Eugene?” Roman asked. “He’s some lobbyist and is gone a lot. Why?”
I rubbed at my neck, feeling the tension continue to build.
These last few weeks hadn’t been kind to me.
And my leg gave a throb, reminding me that I’d been impaled in that time, too.
“We found out that Eugene was living with your daughter here. Then when he went to DC, he was living with your sister, Jennifer,” I said.
“Dru found out, told Daniella, and then left them to it to fight it out. Last week, Daniella came to Dru’s place, but I wouldn’t let her in because Dru was exhausted.
She followed us home somehow, or got my information, I don’t know.
Then she showed up at my door this morning with Jennifer and Eugene. ”
“Oh, shit.” Julie pinched the bridge of her nose, the bangles on her wrist falling practically to her elbow, causing them to clink together as she did. “What happened next?”
I started to open my mouth to say exactly what happened, but Dru beat me to it.
“Eugene pulled out a gun and killed Jennifer and Daniella on Finnian’s front porch,” Dru explained robotically. “Then he killed himself.”
There was a stunned moment of silence before both Julie and Roman cried out.
“What?”
“He did what?” Roman cried.
“They’re both dead,” Dru confirmed, still in a wearisome voice. “I’ve been calling you for hours.”
Julie swallowed hard as tears started to trail down her cheeks. “I thought you were calling to complain about something else Daniella did.”
That made me angry.
“Well, she certainly did something,” she grumbled darkly. “She started to date a psychopath, then that psychopath killed her.”
The exasperation and anger in Dru’s voice didn’t surprise me.
All that Dru had shared about her sister hadn’t been good.
It was hours later when they finally released the house back to me.
It was pretty cut and dry, seeing as I had the whole thing on video.
The hardest part of the entire day was dealing with Dru’s parents.
Romeo had taken it okay, despite the fact that he was stuck in a prison with no way to comfort his family.
Dru’s parents, however, had lost their absolute shit, crying about their “baby” being dead and “how were they supposed to go on without her.”
They had conveniently forgotten that Dru was still here, very much alive, and hadn’t caused them a lick of trouble.
Needless to say, we’d left them after hearing fifteen minutes of non-stop crying about their lives being over.
We’d gone to see Romeo right after, and by the time we were done with Romeo, they’d called to tell us we were allowed to use the front door again.
I’d had cleaners come, and the entire front walk was scrubbed down almost completely. The only hint of something having happened there was the permanent reminder in our brains.
“There’s a man on your front porch,” Dru murmured as we pulled into my driveway.
I groaned. “That’s Mr. Worth, the resident HOA president. I’m sure he’s going to fine me for what happened earlier.”
“I don’t think that a double murder and suicide is in your HOA bylaws,” Dru joked.
I winked at her, happy that she was in a better mood than when we left.
“I don’t think so either,” I admitted.
“While you deal with him,” she murmured, “I really want to get a good look at all these Christmas lights that are up. I’m going to go for a little walk. You can catch up when you’re done with that.”
She referenced Mr. Worth with a sweep of her hand, and I grumbled, “I’ll catch up.”
She left, sending Mr. Worth a surreptitious look as she moved down the length of the driveway.
He said something to her, but she only smiled and kept walking.
I waited until Mr. Worth joined me at the entrance front walk before I said, “What can I help you with?”
He crossed his arms over his chest and said, “I’m sorry to hear what happened with those three people this morning.”
That surprised me. I for sure thought he was about to rip me a new asshole.
“I am, too,” I replied honestly.
He smiled. “I would like to thank you, too.”
My brows literally hit my hairline. “What?”
“You broke the norm.” He gestured toward the decorations in my yard.
The huge Yeti had blown over at some point, but the rest of it was lookin’ pretty good.
“And now everyone has a lot of Christmas cheer.” He cleared his throat.
“My wife would’ve been upset with me about how I was policing this subdivision.
She loved Christmas and would’ve adored your yard. ”
I smiled. “Sounds like you had a good one.”
“I did.” He hugged himself. “I miss her something crazy.” He looked down the street where we could see Dru bouncing in the street as she checked out everyone’s Christmas lights. “Don’t let her go.”
I had no plan to. “I won’t.”
He headed back to his golf cart. “Let me know if you…”
Dru screamed and my head whipped around.
Heart in my throat, I started to run, my gaze scanning the street.
The golf cart zoomed past me, easily doing twice as fast as I was, and slammed straight into a white sedan that had pulled over with someone in black trying to yank Dru inside.
The golf cart hit the passenger side door where the person was standing, and a sickening crunch followed.
Mr. Worth went forward with the momentum and slammed into the person who was reaching out trying to get a hold of Dru.
Dru’s hand slipped from the person’s grasp, and she fell backward on her butt, her hand a bloody mess from the person’s fingernails dragging along her delicate skin.
I finally caught up just in time to see Mr. Worth rip the person’s mask off their face and reveal…
“Aurora?” I growled. “What the fuck?”
“Owww!” she cried out. “Finnian, help me!”
I ignored her and pulled out my phone to call the police, then dropped down to my haunches to gather Dru into my arms.
She came to me, trembling and gasping, threw her arms around my neck, and held on for dear life.
“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”
“My ex-wife just tried to kidnap my fiancée,” I said. “You need to get here before I…”
“Hi, this is Dru. I’m Finnian Reins’ fiancée. His ex-wife just tried to kidnap me, and she was hit by a golf cart and will probably need an ambulance. Both legs at minimum are broken.”
The screaming continued, and all I could think about was “good. Maybe she’ll die.”
She didn’t die.
She did, however, have to go into surgery.
Mr. Worth was officially my favorite person.
After we both gave our statements, I took Dru home to clean up her wounds.
And after she was well and truly clean, I sat her in a seat next to my desk in my office and got to work figuring out why Aurora tried to kidnap Dru.
“What’d you find?” she asked as she ate a bowl of ice cream next to me.
“I haven’t gotten in yet.” I tossed her a look. “I literally just signed into my computer.”
She batted her eyes. “Okay.”
It took me fifteen minutes to get into her messages, and what I found had me shaking my head. “All she wanted was Tavi’s life insurance.”
“What?”
“She was talking with a friend, and she thought that if she had you, I’d be more willing to give her the money.” I sighed. “I’m getting really fuckin’ tired of dealing with this family bullshit. First your sister. Now my ex-wife.”
She gestured at the computer with her spoon. “Just anonymously forward it to the cops. Then let’s go take a shower and go to bed.”
“It’s only eight,” I said. “And I’m not tired.”
She wiggled her brows at me. “No one said we had to go to sleep, Finnian. I think we both need to forget the day, and the only way to do that is to get lost in each other.”
“Now that, I can do.”
Three weeks later
My ex-wife was now in prison with two broken legs with a pending trial date for the following month.
That trial would never come.
As I typed away, I hid her in the system, knowing that people would forget about her after her case wasn’t sitting directly in front of them. Hopefully, everyone would forget she ever existed.
The murder/suicide, however, wouldn’t be forgotten.
It wasn’t often that a lobbyist lost his shit and murdered two women on the front porch of an ex-state representative.
Luckily, I knew how to make things disappear on the net.
I also had a team of people who were wiping the stories out just as fast as they popped up.
As for my future wife, she wasn’t too broken up about everything.
She was doing well, and the only worries she had now was when I would pop the question.
After hiding the last trace of Aurora, I closed down my computer, then switched to my monitors and watched my wife work.
Only when she was really lookin’ like she was dragging did I have Chevy drop her ring on her desk with a muffin that said, “Will you marry me?”
It took her ten minutes to find it.
And when she did, she opened the box, slipped the ring onto her finger, grabbed the muffin, then looked up at the camera in the corner of the nurses’ station and said, “Yes!”