Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
TRICK
In the five minutes it took for Hayes and me to reach Alpha Omega’s offices, Chris Fanning’s face was swollen to nearly double its normal size.
He was bleeding from his nose, mouth, and a gnarly gash that went straight through his eyebrow. Lincoln hadn’t been exaggerating when he said his rules were looser, and he and his men didn’t waste a goddamn second beating the living shit out of Chris in an attempt to get answers.
“You get anything from him?” Hayes asked Linc as I stared through the window into the holding room where two of Linc’s guys were working Chris over.
“Not yet, but in their defense, you didn’t really give us a lot of time.”
Without hesitation, I grabbed the knob and threw the door open, stepping inside with Hayes on my heels.
Xander Caine glanced in our direction with a sinister grin on his face. “Guess this means the fun’s over.”
Chris’s head turned our way, and his one good eye went wide the moment it landed on me. “No fuckin’ way! I’m not talkin’ to you, asshole! And I’m pressin’ charges on all of you!”
Before anyone could move, I had Chris out of his chair and pinned against the wall.
“That guy you’ve been workin’ with has Blythe and Tristan, motherfucker,” I hissed, holding my face only an inch from his.
“But I’m guessin’ you already know that.
” I pulled the phone I’d gotten from Lincoln out of my back pocket and swiped the screen.
It opened right to the picture that had been texted to him more than an hour earlier—a picture of Blythe and Tristan with their hands and feet tied, and their mouths gagged.
I read the caption out loud. “My money for their lives.” I shoved the phone in his face, forcing him to look at the picture, to see the damage he’d done.
He cringed and tried to turn his head, but I grabbed the front of his shirt and twisted the collar tight, keeping his head in place.
“You better start talking right. Fucking. Now. Tell me where to find my kids.”
“Fuck you! They’re not your goddamn kids! They’re m—” He gurgled as I pressed my forearm into his throat, cutting off his air way and threatening to crush his windpipe.
“Wrong, asshole. Those are my kids.” I smashed the phone against his face.
“I’m the one who’s been runnin’ all over this goddamn county trying to find them, and you’re the piece of shit trying to skip town to save his own ass, leavin’ his own flesh and blood to this!
” I pulled my hand back and slammed the phone into his face again.
“That makes them mine,” I continued over the sound of his nose breaking.
“And they’ll be mine from now until always.
You have nothing, you hear me? Nothing. No wife. No kids. No family. They’re mine.”
He started to gurgle, clawing at my arm in an attempt to loosen my grip, but I didn’t budge.
“You don’t tell me where that picture was taken, I’m not taking you to jail.
I’m leaving you right fucking here. And you think what you’ve experienced so far is bad?
” I pointed to Xander. “That guy right there’s a former Army Ranger.
” I swung my arm to the other guy in the room, Hunter McCann.
“And he’s a former Navy Seal. There are six more men outside this room, all of them ex-special forces, all of them more than capable of being very creative, and all of them just itchin’ for me to give them the okay. ”
That one good eye went wide again, and there was no missing the fear in it as he thrashed and choked beneath my hold.
“Y-you can’t do that!”
I bared my teeth and hissed, “Watch me. There isn’t a goddamn soul in this building who’ll step in to save you, and every one of them will have my back. You have five seconds to start talking. You don’t, I’m stepping out of this room and letting them have you.”
The moment I released him and took a step back, he sank to the floor, sucking in huge, gargled breaths.
“One,” I counted. “Where’s he holding them?”
“Hold on!” he panted. “I just need—”
“Two.”
“I was gonna get the money!” he shrieked. “I’d never leave my kids like that!”
“My kids,” I corrected. “And that’s three.”
“Man, fuck! If he finds out I ratted, he’ll kill me!”
“You don’t start talkin’, I’ll kill you,” Xander snarled in a voice that would’ve made most men piss themselves. And Christian Fanning was no exception. “And I can hide a body so it’ll never be found.”
Chris began to sputter, his un-swollen eye bouncing from Xander to me. “You-you’re a cop! You can’t let him say shit—”
“Four.”
“All right!” His hands came up in surrender. “All right! Fuck, I’ll tell you where they are.”
Hayes and I rounded the back of the house with three uniformed officers and three of Linc’s men behind us. Leo and Micah were covering the front with just as much firepower at their backs.
We’d come in quiet, no lights or sirens, and there were cops and cars lining the streets on all sides, blocking any means of escape.
I lifted my fist as soon as we reached the back door of the ramshackle shotgun shack. “Ready to breach,” I heard Leo whisper through my earpiece. “On my count.”
I lifted a finger to signal the count as Leo’s voice echoed through my ears.
On three, I reared back and kicked the door open.
Everything that came after happened in the blink of an eye.
We swarmed inside from both points of entry, catching the fucker off guard.
The room erupted into organized chaos with shouts of “Police!” and “Get your hands up!” coming from all directions.
It only took a handful of seconds for the guy to register what was going on, and the second he did, he began to lift the gun in his hand toward Hayes.
“Gun!”
“We got a gun!”
“Drop it!”
“Put the gun on the ground!”
Time seemed to slow in that moment. The shouting voices became muffled, and all I saw was him, the man from the sketch. Before he had a chance to take aim, I pulled the trigger, shooting him point-blank in the head.
He hit the ground with a lifeless thump a moment later, and the sound of Blythe’s scream from the other room cut through the haze. I quickly shoved my gun back into its holster and rushed through the house.
I found them tied up on a bed in one of the bedrooms. The moment they saw me, they both began thrashing and screaming, struggling against their bindings as they tried desperately to get to me.
“Shh. Shh, it’s okay,” I soothed, working to undo the ropes around their hands and feet. “It’s okay. I’m here. I got you. I’m here.”
I couldn’t focus on anyone or anything but them. I squeezed them as tightly as I could, and the moment they were free, Blythe and Tristan’s arms wrapped around my middle, burrowing so close it was as if they were trying to absorb into me.
My throat swelled up, and I had to squeeze my eyes against the tears threatening to fall as I held onto them with all my might.
“I got you,” I continued whispering. “I got you. I’m here. I’m right here.”
It seemed like an eternity passed, but it was probably just a handful of seconds when Blythe pulled her face from where it was hidden in my chest. She looked up at me with eyes so much like her mother’s that they stole my breath.
“I-I knew you’d c-come,” she hiccupped through her tears.
“I knew it. I just knew it. You said you’d never let anything hurt us, so I knew you’d come. ”
For the past hour and a half, I’d barely been able to breathe, and it wasn’t until that very moment that I took my first full breath. “Sorry it took me so long, baby girl.”
She dropped her head against me once more. “Did you get him?”
I placed a kiss against the top of her head. “I got him, sweetheart. He’ll never be able to hurt you again.”
I held them for a while longer before Tristan spoke. “Uh, Trick?”
“Yeah, bud?”
“I, um... I kinda have to go to the bathroom. Like really bad.”
There was no stopping the laugh that burst from my chest. Even in the direst of circumstances, the kid just couldn’t help but to be funny.
“All right, kiddo. Let’s get you guys outta here, huh? Your mom’s gonna want to see you.”
Nona
I couldn’t remember a time in my life when I’d ever been so exhausted, but sleep was out of the question. Every time I closed my eyes, the image of my kids shouting for me as they came rushing into the bullpen at the station slammed to the front of my mind.
I wasn’t sure I’d ever run so fast in my whole life, and when I reached them, I went down on my knees, pulling them into my arms and promising to never, ever let them go.
With them safe and sound, just like Trick had promised, I quickly lost hold of that strong I’d promised him and began to sob uncontrollably.
I cried so hard and so long, I feared I’d never be able to stop. But just like always, Trick was there to make everything better.
After what felt like a lifetime, we were finally able to leave the station, and Trick loaded us all up and took us back home.
When we pulled onto our street, it was lined with so many cars, I worried he wouldn’t be able to get his truck through.
The moment we pulled into my driveway, my front door burst open, and what seemed like half the town came rushing out to greet us: Eden and Lincoln.
Tempie and Hayes. Gypsy, Rory, Sally and Ralph.
All the guys from Alpha Omega were there as well, even Roxanne, Blair, and Ms. McClintock.
At the outpouring of love from my town, I immediately crumpled into a blubbering mess once more, and Trick had to carry me from the truck.
It didn’t take me nearly as long to get a hold of myself that time around, and once I had my bearings, I was able to at least pretend to be a somewhat decent hostess and greet everyone who came to show their support.