Chapter 31
Thirty-One
“ W e’re out, Max.”
Gunner wanted to laugh at the way the FBI Agent looked at them. Fuck, he got it. Their partnership with the FBI over the last few years had been beneficial on both sides. But that was no longer the case, and he wasn’t willing to put his family in danger just so some federal fucking agency could have one last win with his team.
“Look, I understand your concerns, but we are just weeks out from moving on the Santoro organization. What happened the other night was very out of character for them. I’ve got FBI forensics looking into the incendiary device to see if they can match it to a known builder, but so far, they have nothing.”
“And what about what happened to your team in Dallas? They’re changing their game, Max, and you’re blind if you think they’ll just go down without turning things into a bloodbath.”
“We’ve gotten word that Antonio Santoro is coming to Dallas. It’s not under the radar. The family’s legal import business is expanding too, and he’s listed on a shareholders event invite for next week.”
“It doesn’t matter. Whatever you and your team have to do, we hope it’s successful. But they came to us. They threatened Gunner and his wife. Their baby. They have some weirdo threatening Mae. We won’t be involved anymore,” Stone said.
“As much as I want to say that’s okay and just cut you loose, you guys will be in breach of your contract with the FBI if I can’t get it cleared through the higher-ups.”
“That’s fine with us,” Nash shrugged his shoulders.
“It means Sebastian will have to pay millions of dollars for dissolving the contract before your agreed upon end date.”
“Max, I don’t fucking care.” Sebastian stood and walked to the end of the table, sliding paperwork at the FBI Agent. “I’ve had my lawyers look at the contract and they’ve pointed out several clauses we believe we can invoke. The most important thing is that my friends and our families are safe.”
Max nodded. “I’ll take this information back to my office and notify everyone. Fuck.” He raked his hand through his hair and sighed. “I could have really used you guys on this upcoming raid, but I understand. I really fucking do.”
“Alright, what else do we need to discuss?”
“I have that info you asked me to look into, Reap,” Gage said. “We can talk about it here, or we can take it to your office.”
“Here’s fine.”
“I’m going to get going, unless you need me to stay?” Max stood.
“We’re good. Thanks for everything, Max. We hope to hear from you soon.”
Sebastian shook Max’s hand while the rest of the guys gave him a nod as he left.
“Alright, Gage. What did you find?” Gunner asked.
“The death certificate is pretty straightforward.” Gage slid a single piece of paper over to Gunner. “James Paul Callahan died a little over a week ago, after being in a single car accident. The coroner signed off on his death certificate that same day, but I’m sure that had to do with the influence of his parents in the community.”
“Nothing suspicious?”
“Not according to the report. They held a private ceremony for him, but the local papers all published his obituary and his parents made a big donation to the local elementary school in his honor. They certainly weren’t trying to keep it quiet.”
“Okay, I’ll let Lily know.”
“How’s she holding up?” Hawk asked.
Before Gunner could respond, his phone buzzed in his pocket.
“She must have known we were talking about her,” he answered the call. “Hey, beautiful. I was just?—”
“Gunner, I need you to come home.” The tears in Lily’s voice had him standing up, waiting to run if she needed him to.
“What’s going on? Are you crying?”
“Someone called child services. I let the woman up because she had two sheriff’s deputies with her, but she’s saying that Sage needs to go to a foster family because someone said I was neglecting her,” she cried. “Please come home. They can’t take her, Gunner.”
A growl tore from his throat as he stalked out of the conference room.
“Whoa, what’s going on?” Hawk placed his hand on Gunner’s shoulder.
“I’m coming, Lily. Don’t let them leave. I’ll be there in one minute.”
Gunner ended the call and turned for the front door, but Hawk’s hand, still squeezing down on his shoulder, stopped him.
“Reap. What the hell is going on?”
“Someone called child services on us. Lily let them into the apartment because they had deputies with them. Said they’re upstairs right now, telling her Sage has to go into foster care.”
“What the fuck? I’ll call my lawyers and see what can be done.” Sebastian moved back towards the conference room.
“Thanks, Cap.”
“You want us to come up with you?”
“No. Stay here. I’ll let you know if I need backup.”
Gunner took off running. There certainly was an advantage to living above the place where he worked, and he wasted no time running up the stairs instead of taking the elevator. If they thought for one minute that Sage was leaving with them, he was about to be arrested.
Jogging into the hallway, Gunner made a beeline for the apartment door, which was wide open.
“Lil?”
“In here.” Her voice sounded thick with emotions and he could tell the tears didn’t stop when he ended their call.
Rounding the corner to their bedroom, Gunner stopped when the blood began pounding in his ears. Lily was sitting on their bed, Sage in a wrap on her chest, as two deputies tore through all of Sage’s things.
“Someone better produce a search warrant right now,” Gunner growled.
“No need for a warrant, sir. Mrs. Brooks agreed to let us look.”
“While she may have agreed to that, I am sure she did not agree to you tearing apart our home. I want your names and your badge numbers. You can bet I’ll be speaking to Sheriff Porter myself about the actions you’ve taken here today.”
“Gunner…”
“No, Lily. This is so fucked up on so many levels. I want to see your identification right now. Same goes for you.” Gunner pointed to the woman in the room’s corner, apparently texting furiously on her phone.
“Mr. Brooks,” she said in a soothing voice. “These deputies are here to ensure a smooth handover of the child to me. We will place her with a foster family until we can substantiate the claims made against Mrs. Brooks.”
“And what would those claims be?”
“That’s not for you to worry about right now. My only concern is getting the baby into a safe environment. Once that is done, then we will process formal charges of neglect and abuse against your wife and she will have a chance to defend against that in court. But for now, I really must insist that you hand the baby over to me and prepare her things to go with her to the foster family.”
“I thought you said you were going to investigate the claims made against us.”
“Not against the both of you. Against Mrs. Brooks.”
Gunner growled.
“I’ll leave. Sage can stay with Gunner and I won’t see her.”
“No, that’s not how this works, Mrs. Brooks. We need to remove the child from this household.”
“Lily, come over here with Sage.” Gunner could tell he was about to lose control. He wanted to run out of the building with them, but there was the small, reasoning part of his brain that knew it would be the wrong move in that situation.
He looked down at his girls as they snuggled into his side. Pressing a kiss into Lily’s hair, he shattered as her hand wrapped tightly into the material of his shirt.
“I don’t want to let her go. This isn’t right.”
“It’s okay, Lil. Sebastian is sending over a lawyer. He’ll get this all straightened out.”
“I really must insist that we take the child right now.” The child service agent reached for Sage, but Gunner stepped in front of Lily, pushing her and the baby behind him.
“Wait just one second. Why would we not be allowed to consult our lawyer? You are attempting to take our infant child out of our home in the middle of the day, based on allegations we may not know or refute, and you won’t let our lawyer make sure that your paperwork is in order? Our daughter is solely breastfed and needs to be here with her mother. She’s also recently been sick and is still recovering from that.” Gunner placed his hand on Lily’s arm. “Take Sprout to the kitchen and call Hank Porter. Explain what his deputies are trying to do and ask him to come to the apartment.” He handed her his phone.
Gunner watched over his shoulder as Lily and Sage made it to the kitchen. Good. Now it was just him standing in the doorway, boxing in these two deputies and the social worker. Something in his gut told him this wasn’t right. The deputies looked around nervously, pinning the social worker with their gazes, as if waiting for her to give them an order. When her head slightly nodded, Gunner reached into his belt and pulled his weapon.
“Lily! Run!!” Gunner yelled and prayed she would follow his orders. When he heard her feet hit the floor and fade out into the hallway, his heartbeat steadied. It was clear, with two guns now pointed at him, and the deputies shouting for him to lower his weapon, exactly what was going to happen. But he’d given Lily time to escape, and the guys would take care of her.
“I’m not lowering my weapon until the sheriff gets here. So you might as well stop shouting.”
“Lower your fucking weapon right now or we will shoot you,” the younger looking deputy said. There was no hesitancy in his voice. No slight shaking of his hand as he was getting ready to pull the trigger. It wasn’t the first time that man had been in a tight space with a gun pointed at him. The clear thought flickered through his mind of who these people really were just as he watched the guy squeeze the trigger on his gun.
Gunner fired at the man closest to him, before the force of a bullet slamming into his side threw him back against the wall. By the time he’d regained his footing, the three intruders were running across their living room and out of his line of sight.
Fuck! He needed to get his feet back under him and follow them, but every time he tried to stand, the room swam. He looked down at his side and saw blood pouring from the wound. Sliding down the wall, Gunner pressed his hand over the injury and prayed someone had been close enough to hear the gunshots go off.
“Lily?” Her body nearly slammed into Hawk as soon as she was down the stairs. “Whoa, slow down, beautiful. What’s going on?”
“They’re trying to take Sage. Gunner made me call Hank, but I couldn’t get through to him and then I was in the kitchen and I just heard him yell my name and he told me to run, so I held on to Sage and came down here as fast as I could.”
“Okay, try to take some deep breaths.”
Lily’s heart was beating out of her chest as Hawk guided her into Montgomery Defense. “The only people who can access this room are the guys and myself. Not even Mae can come in here, although I’m happy to go get her to sit with you if you want?”
Lily didn’t reply. She just gently shook her head back and forth, still struggling to get her breathing under control .
“Okay, you and Sage just stay right here for the time being and I’ll go see what’s going on upstairs.”
Two muffled bangs sounded from above them and Lily cradled Sage closer to her as the baby startled awake and began screaming. “Hawk? Were those gunshots?”
“Stay here. Don’t move from this room until Gunner or I come to get you.”
Before she could argue, Hawk was running out the door. Lily had only a second to decide. Right before the door snapped closed, she pulled on the handle and walked frantically towards Mae.
“Hey, are you okay?”
“Can you please watch Sage for me? I won’t be gone long. I just need to make sure Gunner is okay.”
“Hawk and Stone just ran upstairs. I think it’s best if you stay here. We’re safe in the office.”
“I shouldn’t have let them in. If he’s hurt, it’s all my fault. I need to go and I need you to keep Sage safe.” Lily pulled her baby from the carrier over her chest and handed her over to Mae.
Her heart pounded as she raced up the stairs, noting the sound of sirens in the distance growing closer.
“Gunner?!” her frantic voice called out as she walked into the apartment and saw him sitting on the ground. Blood was the first thing she registered as she ran towards him. “Oh my god, oh my god. Are you okay? What happened? Did someone call an ambulance?”
“Lily Kate,” his voice strained as he said her name. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine, Gunner. Don’t give me that load of shit. They shot you. And you’re bleeding all over the place!” She frantically looked from Gunner to Stone. “Can you help him? What do you need?”
A tear tickled the skin on her cheek and she swiped it away quickly. Gunner needed her to be strong. He didn’t need to deal with her being in shambles. She could fall apart later. After she knew he was going to be okay.
“We got the wound packed as best we could, Lil. Now we just wait for the paramedics.”
“Where’s Hawk?” she asked, looking around the apartment.
“He took off after the guys who shot Gunner. The window to your fire escape was open.”
“Where’s Sage?” Gunner grumbled, his head listing to the right slightly. Lily panicked, her eyes flying to Stone’s, seeing if something more was happening. It’s okay, he mouthed, but she didn’t believe him. Gunner was pale and his skin had a fine sheen of sweat across it. She’d never seen him in such a state before, and it caused every emotion in her body to fly into overdrive.
“She’s with Mae. I need to grab her diaper bag so we can go to the hospital with you. Oh my god, Gunner, who were those people?”
“Definitely not anyone who works for Clarence County.”
“They almost took Sage.” Lily felt her body shake violently. “This is all my fault.”
“Doc,” the warning in Gunner’s voice startled her.
“Yep. I got it, Reap. Lily, I want you to sit down next to Gunner and take some deep breaths for me, okay?”
“I’m fine,” she whispered.
“You’re hyperventilating. Slow breaths, Lily,” Stone instructed.
She wanted to nod or give some sort of response. She really did. But her body wasn’t listening. Her limbs were shaking uncontrollably, and she feared trying to move right then would end with her lying with her face flat on the ground.
“Hold this to your side. I need to help Lily. ”
The groan that escaped from Gunner as he pressed his own hand down on the bullet wound brought Lily back.
“I-I’m okay now. Sorry.”
“Nope. Shock will sneak up on you sometimes. So you just sit down next to your husband and hold his hand. Everyone is going to be just fine.”
“And you’ve never seen these people before?”
Hank Porter arrived at the hospital just after Lily left Gunner’s side. She’d cried tears of relief and gratitude when the doctor told her the bullet had passed straight through his muscles and soft tissue. The CT scan they’d hauled him off to almost immediately after they arrived showed his organs and major blood vessels were untouched. Gunner was stitched up and grumpy as all hell about having to spend the night there for observations, but he was going to be just fine.
“No,” Lily sighed. “They showed me their identification, and it looked real. I would never think someone would pose as child services trying to take Sage away.”
“Why would someone do that?”
“I don’t know if it’s connected, but Sage’s paternal grandparents are trying to get custody of her.”
The sheriff raised his eyebrow.
“Gunner’s parents? I thought his mother had passed.”
“Gunner is Sage’s father in every way…except biologically.”
Hank nodded. “Let me have their names and I’ll start looking into things.”
“Let’s coordinate on that, Hank, if at all possible,” Max said.
Lily looked at the guys sitting in the waiting room, and they all nodded in agreement .
“You think this is bigger than a civil issue?”
“It could be connected to the case I’ve been working on with Gunner and the guys. If you’re done talking to Lily, why don’t I follow you down to your office and we can go over some of the details I’d rather not discuss someplace so public?”
Hank turned back towards her. “Is there anything else you need me to know?”
She shook her head back and forth and watched as the two men left the waiting area.
“Are you doing okay?” Stone asked as he gently touched her arm.
“I let them into our home and they almost took my daughter, and then almost killed my husband. I’m not sure I’m ever going to be okay again.”