Chapter 32 Devon #2
He folded out of the car in one fluid movement. “Jason’s still at the warehouse.” He nodded toward the phone on the dashboard. “Someone needs to keep him there.”
“What the fuck are you talking about? He’s armed and unstable, and not with her. There’s no need to approach him. You give entire fucking sermons on not taking unnecessary risks.”
“He killed two good men. Shot one of mine.” He straightened his button-down and smoothed down the front of his pants like he was walking into an office not going rogue. “Go get the girl.”
I stared at him.
“Leo!” I called. “You’ve got a wife. Kids. Do not ask me to be the one who has to call them.”
He held my gaze. The side of his mouth twitched. “If you do, just make sure you remind Sarah that I fired you, yeah? Can’t afford an extra paycheck if I’m gone.”
And with that, Leo James shut the door and jogged around the corner toward the warehouse.
I blinked for a minute, wondering if I had time to tackle his crazy ass before going to get Zoey.
The answer was no.
This time Zoey was the primary.
Leo could handle himself.
I threw the car into drive and floored it.
The coordinates led me to an old auto garage at the end of a dead service road.
Dark. Quiet. Dead space between dead buildings.
I killed the engine and stealthily climbed out. Weapon already drawn.
The front was locked.
The side deadbolted.
I kept moving around the building, staying low and alert.
I stopped at the corner, peering around to the back.
One bay door.
Open.
Barely.
Just enough to breathe.
My pulse spiked as I moved closer. Hiding with my back against the brick wall, I reached out and tapped it, hoping to draw out anyone he might have had guarding her. Not so much as a leaf moved.
Dropping to the ground, I peered under the door.
Tires.
Dark paint.
Blue.
Gotcha, you motherfucker.
I grabbed the door and yanked it open in one hard motion. Metal screamed as it rolled up. I ducked under, weapon up.
Clear left.
Clear right.
I walked around the car, peering inside.
So utterly empty, just like my chest.
Then, suddenly, the world tipped back on its axis.
A moan.
Small.
Muffled.
Broken.
Alive.
“Zoey,” I called. “It’s Devon. Lofton sent me to help you.”
“I’m in here,” she cried from the trunk. Relief damn near took out my knees.
The doors of that piece-of-shit were locked.
I reared my elbow back, shattered the driver’s side window, and then reached in and caught the release.
Careful to keep my gun low so I didn’t scare her, I moved to the back of the car and slowly lifted the trunk.
She flew straight into my arms. I caught her against my chest, loud wails escaping her throat.
Emotion filled my own throat as I whispered, “I got you, baby. It’s okay now. I promise.”
“Marty was supposed to come get me,” she sobbed into my neck. “He said I just had to tap three-two-two-one. He said it was magic, he would come get me.”
My throat closed.
I pressed my lips to her head, holding on tighter.
“He did,” I said. Rough. Barely controlled. “He just sent me instead.”
She continues to cry even as she said, “That’s okay too. I guess.”
A chuckle rolled up my throat, finally knocking back the emotion. “Come on, let’s get you back to your mom.”
For one fragile second, everything felt… right. Like maybe we’d outrun it. Like maybe we’d won.
A gunshot cracked through the night.
Sharp.
In the distance.
In the direction of the warehouse.
I froze.
Everything inside me went still.
Lofton
“She never took it off,” Brooke said, for what must have been the third time. “Not once. Not since the day he died. She slept in it for the first two weeks. She told me it was magic. He must have told her that.”
Jude leaned over the table, studying the alert on my phone. “I mean, it’s definitely possible. Something small enough that a kid wouldn’t even feel it. That’d be some serious foresight.”
I looked at Brooke. “He knew. He paid Jason to leave us alone, but then he made sure she was safe if he came back.”
“So she could always be found,” Brooke finished.
We looked at each other, and for a moment, the surrounding chaos seemed to fade as reality sank in. Marty had known. He had seen the storm coming long before any of us had even realized there were clouds in the sky.
Marty didn’t like to worry me. He used to tell me I had a tendency to spiral when I got scared.
His words from those last moments on the bathroom floor came back to me.
“You’re not drowning, kiddo. And even if you were, it’s impossible for you to sink.”
And he’d been right, because Marty had always been my life jacket.
And now, even after he was gone, he still was.
“Any word from Apollo?” I asked.
Lark shook his head while continuing to stare at his phone. He pressed a button, put it to his ear, only to bring it right back down.
Apollo was never quiet. The man thrived on chaos and problem-solving as much as Devon. Apollo just did his from behind a computer, narrated by keystrokes and punctuated by facts.
Silence from Apollo might have been the scariest part of all. Lark and Jude had shared far too many knowing glances each time their calls went unanswered for me to feel otherwise.
The police radio on the officer nearest the door crackled. The words came through broken and tangled in police codes.
I didn’t understand all of them.
But I understood enough.
Shots fired.
Chatsworth warehouse.
Man down.
I stopped breathing even as the room kept moving.
Brooke’s head came up, her fear matching mine.
Jude and Lark were already across the room, moving toward the officers clustered near the entrance. They spoke over each other, demanding information.
But I sat completely still in my chair.
Devon had walked into that.
Devon and Leo had walked toward that warehouse, and now there were shots fired and a man down, and I didn’t know if it was Devon or Leo or Jason.
My brain told me it was Jason.
But my heart wasn’t as confident.
I loved Devon, wholly and completely.
But I also trusted him.
So as the room swirled around us, I closed my eyes and thought of those moments in the barn.
The quiet ones before the world woke up.
The ones where Devon was always waiting for me.
The ones where we just got to exist together, two people falling madly in love that never even should have crossed paths.
One minute passed.
Devon showering in the wash rack.
Two minutes passed.
Devon throwing that lead rope over his shoulder.
Three minutes passed.
Devon smiling at me as he collected feed buckets.
Four minutes passed.
My phone lit up with an incoming call.
Devon’s number.
A video call.
My hands were shaking so badly I nearly dropped it, but I managed to answer.
Devon’s face immediately filled the screen. Beautifully, entirely, impossibly safe.
And sitting on his hip, backpack still strapped to both shoulders, face streaked with dried tears, but completely, miraculously alive… Zoey.
“Hey, Tofton.”
Devon
Jude’s car hadn’t fully stopped in front of the warehouse when the back doors flew open.
Brooke was already out of the car, so I set Zoey on her feet, and she took off running to her mother.
Brooke dropped to her knees and caught her, and the sound that came out of both of them when they collided was the kind that came straight from the soul.
Brooke sank down to the pavement, frantically searching her daughter for any possible injury.
She wouldn’t find any, at least not physically, because I’d already checked her myself.
Lofton moved toward them. She didn’t reach or interfere. She just stood there with her arms at her sides and let that reunion happen between the two people who needed it most.
If I hadn’t already been in love with her, that would have been the moment I fell. It was one of the most graceful things I had ever watched anyone do in the middle of such emotional upheaval.
When Brooke finally tipped her head back to catch her eye, Lofton shot her a wink, stroked over the top of Zoey’s hair, and then turned and walked straight into me.
No preamble. No words. She just walked into my chest, face first.
I wrapped both arms around her, and her whole body sagged as if she were no longer able to support her own weight.
“Are you okay?” she asked, my chest.
“Better now.”
She nodded, tears soaking through my shirt. “Leo?”
I glanced across the parking lot. Leo was standing in the distance near the police tape, talking to two detectives with his hands in his pockets. Cool, casual, utterly unfazed.
“He’s fine,” I said.
She finally tipped her head up. Those blue eyes that owned me on every level, finding mine. “What happened?”
“Jason’s gone. Leo’s going to have one hell of a time explaining the trajectory of that bullet. I’m not convinced Jason even saw him coming.”
She went still.
I shook my head before she could say anything. “Not worth your concern, babe.”
“Devon—”
“He killed Marty,” I said quietly. Not hard. Just true. “He killed Derrick. He put holes in Alex and kidnapped a little girl, and he laughed about taking her life on speakerphone.” I held her gaze. “Prison wasn’t the answer. Leo knew that and now we can all sleep easier.”
She stared at me for a long moment as it settled over her. First the relief, then the guilt, and then the complicated moral weight of it all. She was a good woman. She was going to be processing that for a while, but I was going to be right there beside her every step of the way.
But in that moment. She was in my arms. She was safe. She was mine.
And I intended to spend the rest of my life making sure none of that ever changed.
“It’s over?” She whispered. “It’s finally over?”
“Yeah, babe.” I gave her a pointed squeeze. “It’s over. It’s just you and me forever now.”
She curled into me, nuzzling impossibly closer.
Then something hit us at approximately knee height going full speed.
Zoey had wrapped herself around our legs, as if she could squeeze her way into the embrace.
“Hey baby,” Lofton breathed. She stepped out of my hold, immediately dropping to her knees to pull the little girl in for a long hug.
My eyes caught Brooke as she arrived only a few steps behind her. Her eyes were red and her head was still bandaged. She looked like she’d been through a war. And that wasn’t too far off from the truth.
Much like Lofton, she said absolutely nothing as she crashed into my chest, put her arms around me and held on tight.
Chuckling, I hugged her back.
“I still think you’re an asshole,” she said.
“I know,” I chuckled.
She sniffled and tipped her head back. “But you kept your word.”
“I always do.”
Tears filled her eyes. “Thank you.”
I shook my head. “Not necessary. I’m sorry I couldn’t help sooner.”
Lofton stood up, carrying Zoey, and Brooke shifted to my side to allow them space to join us. For a second, we all just… came together. Arms brushing. Hands finding hands. A quiet, unspoken acknowledgment of everything we’d just survived.
But it was over.
Finally fucking over.
Only then did I allow myself to fully relax. “Wow, you weren’t kidding about being a package deal.”
“And then you had to go and ruin it,” Brooke said, stepping away. She took Zoey from Lofton, and called over her shoulder. “We’ll be in the car.”
Lofton laughed softly, once again pressing herself into my chest. “This should probably buy you a few weeks in her good graces.”
“A few weeks? That’s it?”
She laughed again. “She’s protective. What can I say? I have a type.”
“You love me more than her, right?” I teased.
She smiled. “Most of the time.”
I smiled right back. “I’ll take it.”
For a moment, neither of us moved.
Everything we’d been through seemed to settle between us—every close call, every fight, every moment we tried to deny.
And somehow, we were still here.
Still standing.
I lifted my hand to her face, brushing away the last of her tears, my thumb lingering there like I couldn’t quite let go.
“Hey,” I murmured.
Her eyes softened. “Hey.”
And then I kissed her.
Not rushed.
Not desperate.
Just… certain.
Like something we’d fought for and finally earned.
Her hands slid up my chest, curling into my shirt as she leaned into me, and I swore I felt every second of the future we hadn’t lived yet seep into my bones.
“I love you,” she whispered.
My chest tightened, but this time it didn’t hurt.
“I love you too.”
She smiled. “Forever, Devon.”
I huffed a quiet laugh and lowered my hands to settle just over her ass, swaying her gently from side to side. “There you go. Proposing again.”
She laughed into my chest. “You could be so lucky.”
She definitely wasn’t wrong there.