Chapter 32
ANGEL
Our final prenatal visit went well; our baby’s tiny heartbeat was strong and healthy.
To celebrate, we hit a baby store and went a little wild loading a shopping cart with plush teddy bears, wooden rattles, and soft blankets.
Later, I took Roxy for a gelato in Nashville before we headed home to the farm.
The afternoon sun washed over the rolling green pastures along the highway, turning the hills into gold as I drove with one hand on the wheel.
My other hand held Roxy’s fingers, lifting them to my lips to plant soft kisses on her knuckles, my beard tickling her palm.
She let out a laugh, then drew in a breath as her stomach rippled.
‘Woah, somebody is kicking hard today,’ she murmured, looking down at her bump. ‘Feels like a full-on soccer match in there.’
‘Nah, he’s a musician doing riffs up inside you,’ I rasped with a grin.
‘Well, your kid only calms down when you pull out that acoustic guitar,’ Roxy said, squeezing my fingers back. ‘So you might need to play when we get home.’
I guided my Defender into the driveway, killed the ignition, and rounded the hood to open Roxy’s door.
She swung her legs out, her face radiant in the late afternoon sun as she rested both hands over her pregnant belly.
‘You’re glowing, babe,’ I said, catching her waist to ease her off the leather seat.
‘It’s sweat, Angel, you know what effort it takes to lug this baby around,’ she teased, leaning her forehead against my chest. ‘I’m working hard here.’
‘Hell, woman, I adore you for it.’
I cupped her jaw, tilting her head back to claim her mouth in a long, melding kiss that left us both breathless.
‘I’m head over heels for you, Roxy,’ I growled. ‘Never forget that.’
‘I won’t,’ she breathed with a smile.
I guided her up the stone steps toward the porch, keeping my arm on her waist to support her balance.
As I unlocked the front door and pushed it open, a sudden flash of movement down the hallway triggered my spidey senses.
I shoved Roxy sideways onto the lawn just as a deafening blast shattered the quiet afternoon.
Buckshot shredded the timber doorjamb, spraying wood splinters and shattering the foyer window into a thousand sparkling shards.
‘The hell? Stay down, babe!’ I growled to my wife. ‘Call the cops, we’ve an intruder.’
Roxy dropped to her knees in the flowerbed, her face pale as her fingers scrabbled through her bag for her phone.
I kicked in the door and slipped inside, hugging the wall through the front hall until my vision locked onto the trespasser standing by the dining room.
Evangeline.
She stood swaying beside a console, her hair matted, skin blotchy, and eyes wild and dilated.
She was high as fuck, tweaking and twitching all over.
Her clothes were filthy and stained, her fingernails caked with dirt, as her trembling hands clutched a sawed-off shotgun.
Behind her, the back kitchen door was a mess of shattered glass and wood.
That was her ingress. Fuck.
She must have broken out of her rehab facility, got high, and tracked us down with murder on her mind.
Out on the porch, Roxy’s voice echoed through the broken front window as she shouted our address to the emergency dispatcher.
I raised a hand to stay Evangeline as she fixed her savage eyes on me.
‘Eva, put the gun down; this could get ugly.’
‘It needs to get ugly!’
Her hiss carried pure malice and madness.
‘This house, that baby, Angel, was all meant to be mine!’
She fumbled with a shotgun shell, rambling about how Roxy was stealing her dream life and how I was betraying her.
‘You kissed her outside!’ she shrieked, her knuckles white around the grip. ‘How dare you! YOU WERE MINE!’
She swung the muzzle in my direction.
‘You’re out of your mind, Evie,’ I snarled, lunging over the granite kitchen island to bridge the gap between us.
I reached her just as she slammed the action home, my hand slapping the barrel upward as another round punched into the plaster ceiling.
Wrenching the hot metal out of her grasp, I tossed the weapon far into the living room, out of reach.
Evangeline shrieked, snatching a gleaming chef knife from the wooden block on the countertop.
She stabbed in frenzied abandon as I moved around the space, dodging her frantic swipes until she backed me up against a marble counter.
Her high made her wild and unpredictable, and as I reached for her wrist, her blade sliced clean through my sleeve.
She lunged forward again, plunging the steel knife into the muscle of my left shoulder.
Pain flared through my arm, but I ignored the burn, gripping her wrists while she clawed at my throat.
Evangeline spat in my face, her teeth bared like a cornered animal as she tried to drive the blade deeper into my neck.
‘Enough,’ I growled, stepping into her space and planting a short, power-driven right hook straight at her jawline.
Her eyes rolled back, her knees giving out as she crumpled unconscious on the hardwood floor.
I caught the sound of sirens as police cruisers screeched into the driveway.
While the cops secured the perimeter, I caught officers outside telling Roxy it wasn’t safe to go in yet, even as she called my name.
Seconds later, four cops spilled through the front door with weapons drawn.
I raised my hands and dropped to the ground as the swarmed around me, staring from Evangeline to my blood-stained arm.
‘That’s my ex and she attacked my wife and I,’ I rasped as guns bristled in my face.
It took Roxy stumbling in and explaining what happened for them to lower their weapons.
They summoned the medics to bring a stretcher, binding Evangeline’s wrists with handcuffs before loading her onto the gurney.
Two paramedics bolted inside, setting their gear bags down on the kitchen floor beside me.
‘Hold still, sir,’ the lead medic urged, pressing thick gauze against the stab wound.
‘No, check my wife first,’ I ordered, my voice leaving zero room for argument as I pointed toward the porch. ‘Make sure the baby is OK.’
As they rolled Evangeline out, Roxy rushed to me.
My wife scarcely gave a glance to Evangeline as the medics whisked her sister away, her wrists bound and her head lolling.
Roxy only had eyes for me as she sank beside me, stroking my cheek as the paramedics evaluated her.
‘Heartbeat is strong, mum is stable,’ the second paramedic announced after checking her pulse.
Roxy let out a shaky breath, burying her face into my neck as I pulled her tight to my good side.
She shuddered, pulling me close, her fingers stroking my hair as we both clung to each other.
ROXY
A few minutes later, two detectives in black, somber suits stepped through the broken doorway, notebooks in hand, to piece together the violent scene.
‘I’m Detective McDaniel,’ the tall African American man said, stepping past the shattered glass with a sharp, observant gaze. ‘This is my partner, Detective Lindqvist.’
McDaniel was mid-thirties, lean, with a shaved head and a street-smart demeanor that took no prisoners or nonsense from anyone.
Beside him, Lindqvist was in her early forties, built like an athlete, her cropped amber hair framing a face with quiet, empathetic warmth.
‘We need a quick rundown of what happened here, ma’am,’ McDaniel said, practical and direct as his eyes swept over the buckshot holes in our wall.
‘Take your time,’ Lindqvist added, offering me a gentle nod. ‘We know you’ve been through hell.’
I answered their questions in flat, hollow tones, recounting every second from the shotgun blast to the final swing.
Angel said little.
I added that Roxy must have found out about us living here from a common friend, Chloe.
‘What’ll happen to my sister?’ I asked, rubbing my pregnant belly.
‘We can’t say for sure until the prosecutor gets involved,’ McDaniel replied, clicking his pen shut and shutting his notebook. ‘She’ll likely go away for a long time for attempted murder.’
‘She won’t be coming anywhere near you two again, I can promise you that,’ Lindqvist added.
The officers wrapped up, offered a brief nod of sympathy, and left us in our ruined kitchen.
I hauled myself up off the ground, my knees weak as I tried to coax Angel to stand up.
‘Come on, honey, let’s get you off the floor,’ I urged, trying to pull his good arm.
He remained still, pinned to the floorboards as if frozen in time.
I padded into the bar, poured a double shot of amber whiskey into a tumbler, and brought it back to him.
He ignored the glass, sitting motionless with his gaze fixed on the ruined back door.
‘Angel, please drink this,’ I pleaded, but he just shuddered, his jaw locked in shock.
Panic fluttered in my ribs as I realized he wasn’t responding.
I grabbed my phone from my pocket and dialed Jude’s number.
‘Roxy, what’s up?’ Jude answered on the second ring, his tone easy.
‘Jude, it’s Evangeline,’ I muttered. ‘She escaped from her facility. She came to the farmhouse with a shotgun and broke in through the back door and shot at us.’
‘The hell?’ Jude growled. ‘Roxy, are you OK? Tell me you’re safe.’
‘She tried to kill us, Jude,’ I sobbed, pressing my hand over my mouth to steady my breathing. ‘Angel tackled her. She stabbed his shoulder before he knocked her out. The cops took her away, but now Angel won’t speak.’
Jude cursed, the harsh exhalation rattling over the line
‘Are you all safe? Is the baby OK?’
‘The medics checked; we’re all fine,’ I told him, trembling. ‘But Angel is sitting on the floor, staring into nothing. He won’t move or talk to me.’
‘Sounds like he’s in shock. Listen to me, Roxy,’ Jude growled, his tone commanding. ‘Stay put. I’m sending Dr. Hill, my therapist, to your place right now to handle Angel.’
‘Thank you, Jude,’ I whispered.
‘I’m also calling a crew to fix your doors. I’ll also get there as soon as I can.’
After hanging up, I eased myself, swollen belly and all, down onto the hard floorboards beside my husband.
I clasped his unbandaged hand, squeezing while resting my head against his uninjured arm.
Choosing silence, his fingers twitched in mine, holding on as we sat together on the floor until a firm knock sounded at the door.