Chapter Fourteen
Keegan
I ’m almost to the shop when Dillon’s name lights up the display in my truck, a shrill ring blaring through the speakers. I mutter a curse and stab the button on the steering wheel to answer the call.
“What now?” I mutter, uneasy in a way I’ve never been before. I want to be back at home with my wife and our daughter instead of on my way to work like this is a normal fucking day. It isn’t normal. It’s quite possibly the first day of the rest of Landry’s life. One where she doesn’t have to look over her shoulder or live in fear. One where she never again has to worry about those motherfuckers coming near her or our daughter.
Work is meaningless compared to that.
“Where are you?” Dillon asks.
His sharp tone has my hackles rising and the blood freezing in my veins. “Almost to Bleaker Street. Why?”
“Turn around now,” he growls. “I just got off the phone with my contact in Dallas. They think someone there gave up Landry’s location, and they’ve lost track of half the MC. The motherfuckers rode out in five different directions late last night and then split into even smaller groups. Garrick is MIA. The prick gave them the slip somewhere on the north side of town a few hours ago…” He trails off into a string of curses.
I slam on the brakes in the middle of the road, more afraid than I’ve ever been in my life. “Jesus Christ. She’s home alone with the baby right now, Dillon. Giant hadn’t made it there yet when I left.”
“Get there,” Dillon growls. “I’m already on my way.”
I flip a U-turn in the middle of the roadway, earning honks from the short line of traffic behind me. But they don’t matter right now. The only thing that matters is getting to Landry and Lily.
“Call Giant,” I order Dillon. “He may already be there.”
Fuck, please let him be there already. Please.
I’m choking on fear as I gun the engine, racing back toward the house with my heart in my throat. I pray to God that we’re overreacting. That they don’t know where she is.
I’ll get there, and she and the baby will be just fine. Giant will be at the kitchen table, eating breakfast and talking Landry’s goddamn ear off. It’ll be business as us–
My phone vibrates across the console with an alert, halting that thought in its tracks. I hear Dillon’s phone beeping in my ear at the same time, and my goddamn heart stops.
“Her panic button,” I whisper, gripping the steering wheel so tight my knuckles are white. A wave of pure fucking terror washes through me, turning the world white around me. “That’s her panic button.”
“Get there, Keegan,” Dillon growls half a second before I hear his sirens blaring.
I push the gas, pressing for more speed.
The phone vibrates again, Giant’s name flashing on the screen this time.
“It’s Giant,” I mutter to Dillon before stabbing the button to answer his call. “Please tell me that you’re there.”
“I’m on my way, brother,” he says, his voice grim.
Christ, he isn’t there. She’s all alone.
I battle back a howl of fury, choking on it.
“Dallas lost track of Garrick Albright late last night. Dillon just found out.”
“Jesus fucking Christ. I’ll be there in less than five.”
“I’ll be there in three,” I say.
“If you get a shot, take it,” Giant instructs me. “Don’t hesitate because he won’t.”
I blow through the light on Broadway, and Dillon rounds the corner in his SUV, damn near on two wheels.
“Dillon is right behind me.”
“Good. Be there soon.” Giant disconnects.
“Giant is on the way,” I mutter as soon as the call swaps back to Dillon.
“Good. I’m behind you.”
“I see.” I inhale a shaking breath. “If he’s there…”
“We handle it,” Dillon says firmly. “He isn’t taking her or your baby, Keegan. We aren’t letting that happen.”
We can’t let it happen. I won’t fucking survive if it does. They’re my purpose. I felt like I started living when I found her in Colorado. And then she disappeared before I even had a chance to make her mine. I spent a year in hell, trying to figure out how the fuck I could miss someone so badly after a single day. How I could need someone in my life so much after a single day. I never came up with an answer. I just came up with her.
It’s her. It’s just what she does to me. It’s what she means to me. It’s how she makes me feel. Now that she’s back, my goddamn world makes sense. I feel like I can breathe.
“Fuck,” I groan, slamming on the brakes outside the house, my heart in my throat. The front door is standing wide open, and there’s a fucking body in the doorway. “Dillon…”
“I see him,” Dillon says, his voice sharp as he skids to a stop behind me.
I grab my handgun from the glove compartment and jump out, leaving the truck running.
“Landry!” I shout, racing toward the house with Dillon on my heels. Praying.
The motherfucker on the porch is covered in blood, bleeding out.
“That’s the uncle. Daniel Corbett,” Dillon says, not even stopping to check on him. He just steps over him, his gun drawn.
“Landry!” I shout again.
My goddamn heart stops when I see the kitchen door standing open too.
Landry doesn’t answer.
“Check the house. I’ll check out back,” Dillon says.
I ignore him, already running toward the kitchen door. She isn’t in the house. If she were, she would have answered me by now. I know she would.
“Goddammit, Keegan,” Dillon mutters, hurrying after me.
I step out onto the back porch, scanning for any sign of her. A flash of white catches my attention near the tree line, too tall and wide to be her. I don’t know who the fuck he is, but he isn’t Landry. And he has a gun.
He turns toward me and Dillon.
Dillon and I fire at the same time.
I’m not sure which of us hits him, but one of us does. He drops like a ton of bricks, the weapon falling from his hands.
“Landry!” I scream into the deafening silence that follows as Dillon rushes across the yard, on high alert, his gun still pointed at the man on the ground.
I scour the tree line, trying like hell to keep it together. She has to be out there somewhere. She has to–
I choke on her name when she stumbles into view with Lily clutched in her arms. Terror fires through me when I see the blood smeared all over her. Christ. She’s hurt. They hurt her.
“Landry!” I leap off the porch, racing toward her.
She stumbles toward me, her shoulders shaking with the force of her cries. It takes me a goddamn lifetime to reach her. To drag her into my arms.
“Where are you hurt, baby?” I ask, running my hands all over her, frantic. “Which one of them hurt you?”
“N-n-not my b-blood,” she cries. “I s-stabbed h-him.”
Jesus fucking Christ.
I drag her back into my arms, cradling her and Lily as she cracks apart, sobbing brokenly.
But she isn’t broken. She’s here, safe in my arms. And so is Lily.
“Everything is okay,” I croon to Landry and Lily, holding them close on the bed of my pickup as Dillon, Easton, and half the goddamn police force crawl across the property, checking to ensure there’s no one else out there waiting to make a play for my wife and baby.
Alessandro Banger and Emmett Madden, two local firefighters, are helping load her uncle into the back of an ambulance a few yards away. That prick is, unfortunately, still breathing.
Garrick isn’t, however. I’m still not sure if I shot him or if Dillon did, but whichever of us shot him ended his miserable life. The bullet went right through his throat.
I hope he felt every single goddamn second of his death.
Landry hasn’t let go of Lily once since I carried her to the truck fifteen minutes ago. I doubt she’ll be letting go of her again anytime soon. I know exactly how she feels. It’ll be a long fucking time before I let either of them out of my sight again.
I just keep reminding myself that they’re right here in my arms, safe. Eventually, it has to calm me down, right? So far, it isn’t working. I desperately want to slide her off my lap, slip over to the ambulance, and finish her prick of an uncle off.
It’s what he deserves for the pain he’s caused her. He started all this shit when he sold her to save his own miserable life. Every single minute of pain and fear and torment she’s endured rests at his feet as much as at the feet of the MC.
“I don’t regret it,” she whispers, her voice raspy as we watch them load him into the ambulance.
I glance down at her.
“S-stabbing him,” she says. “I don’t regret it.” Her gaze flickers to my face. “Maybe I should, but I don’t.”
I brush my lips across her temple, breathing her in. “You don’t owe him sympathy, sweetness. You did what you had to do to protect yourself and Lily. Even if he dies, that’s not on you. It’s on him. He started this. If it ends with his life, that’s just karma, baby.”
“Yeah.” She rests her head against my shoulder. “We all have to pay sometime.”
I tip her head back, meeting her gaze. “Not you. You’re too goddamn sweet to pay for a single thing. You haven’t done anything wrong. Don’t ever forget that.”
“Thank you.”
My brows furrow as I glance down at her. “For what?”
“For seeing me the way you do,” she whispers. “For loving me the way you do.”
“Jesus.” I brush my lips against hers, my heart pulsing. “Loving you is the easiest thing I’ve ever done, Landry baby.”
I mean that shit, all the way down to my soul. Loving her is simple, effortless. Like breathing.