Chapter Nineteen
~ Hooper ~
It was always the same: you thought you’d remember the first or the last, but the only alarm that ever stuck in your brain was the one that went off in the middle of the morning, on a day so nothing you could swear you’d already lived it a hundred times before.
I had the transmission pan off the flatbed, socket set balanced on my sternum, the phone face-down on the workbench so the world couldn’t find me, and still, when the safe-room alert howled through the barn, it took less than half a second for my brain to catch up to what my body already knew.
The sound was a relic from my old job, the kind that made grown men piss themselves if they were soft, or get laser-calm if they were not.
I felt it in my teeth, in the base of my skull, and I was moving before the ring cycle completed, knees scraping concrete, socket wrench going clattering across the slab like a dropped rifle bolt.
The world telescoped. Out of the barn, sprinting the fifty yards to the equipment shed with the wind knifing under my jacket and turning the air sharp as glass.
Ahead, the main house sat low and quiet in the early sun, but across the side yard, Rawley was already moving, jacket unzipped, radio in one hand and something else—looked like a service pistol—in the other.
Burke rounded the front of the farmhouse, his hat already gone, hair wild in the wind, legs chewing up distance like the ground owed him money. From the south field, Macon’s truck kicked up a rooster tail of powdered snow and dirt, swinging wide to block the access road.
I hit the porch at the exact same time as Rawley, both of us scanning the yard, hands up and empty, not because we weren’t armed, but because the show was always for the second set of eyes—the ones watching from somewhere they shouldn’t be.
The screen door was wide, one hinge blown and creaking, and inside, the first thing I saw was the kitchen chair toppled on its side, a full mug of coffee spreading black across the linoleum, the heat still throwing steam into the cold morning air.
Whatever had happened was fresh—seconds, not minutes.
Rawley said nothing. He checked left, I went right, moving fast and low down the hallway with the muscle memory of too many house-clears in two dozen less friendly countries.
The doors were all open, which meant either the threat didn’t care about stealth or they wanted us to see something.
First bedroom: empty, bed still made, sunlight running stripes over the faded quilt.
Second room: the nursery. Crib empty, but the baby monitor still pulsing green, the slow, even thump of a heartbeat echoing in the quiet. My own heart jacked up to match it.
Ahead, the safe room—just a door, but three inches of reinforced steel frame behind it, old rancher paranoia built into the house decades before any of us had ever even seen it.
Rawley reached it first. He punched the code in without looking, each key a hard, deliberate strike. The lock disengaged with a hydraulic snick, and the door swung inward, slow and heavy.
Inside, Jojo was on the narrow cot, knees up, face buried in both hands. Ethan was a comma-shaped bundle at his thigh, dead quiet except for the wet snuffle of an inhaled scream, and Emilio was balled up against his chest, both fists knotted in the front of Jojo’s t-shirt, eyes wide but unblinking.
Jojo looked up. His face was soaked, but his voice was calm when he said it: “They took him.”
It took a beat to parse.
“Who?” I said, even though I already knew.
Jojo squeezed his eyes shut and pointed at the door, knuckles white against Emilio’s back. “Liam. He put us in here and locked it. Said to stay down no matter what. Said he’d come back—” the last word broke, “—but he’s not back.”
I didn’t ask how long. I didn’t need to. I was already moving down the hall to the gun safe, not because I thought it would change the outcome, but because it was the next thing on the checklist, and I had run this play so many times in other lives I could do it with both hands broken.
The safe was open, two long guns inside, and I took the carbine because it was fastest, checked the chamber, mag seated, safety on. I stuck a Glock in my waistband for backup, even though my hands always shot high and left with the polymer frame.
I left the door open.
By the time I hit the porch again, Burke and Macon had closed the gap. Rawley’s jaw was set, eyes scanning the road, and Burke was on the radio with the sheriff’s office, voice pitched low and fast.
There are days when you have to admit you’re not the best person for the job.
That your hands, however steady, shake too much when the person on the other end of the barrel is one you’d kill or die for, not because of anything as dumb as love, but because if the math changed by a single decimal your entire universe would collapse.
Which is why, when Rawley threw me the keys to his truck, I tossed them right back. “Drive,” I said. “I’ll shoot if I have to.”
He gave me a look, the one that meant he wasn’t sure if this was wisdom or just fear, but he climbed behind the wheel without argument.
Burke and Macon loaded into the other two trucks, the radio link hot and clipped to the shoulder strap so we could talk even with the engines redlined and the world gone full whiteout.
Rawley’s truck led, Macon’s behind, and Burke—who’d always been a little too in love with the possibility of a chase—took the ditch at the south edge, chewing up the scrub and snow until he was running parallel to the county road.
The black SUVs were easy to spot. They’d pulled a quarter-mile lead, but their headlights cut flat and high through the morning fog, and the kind of asshole who’d plan an abduction in broad daylight was also the kind who thought they could outrun the entire state of Wyoming in a luxury vehicle with city tires.
Rawley floored it. The truck roared, the rear end skated once on a patch of black ice, but he caught it, face gone blank and professional, the only sign he was even aware of his own heart rate the tiny twitch at the side of his jaw.
We gained ten yards a second, and when we hit the first cattle guard, both front tires left the ground. I braced my elbow against the dash, carbine barrel up, safety on but thumb ready.
I scanned the SUV’s rear window, looking for movement—anything to suggest Liam was still upright, still breathing, still ours.
I said, “Left lane, they’ll try to block us at the next turn.”
Rawley grunted, “Copy.”
He punched it, engine screaming, and we pulled even with the lead SUV just as it made the sweep onto the gravel turnout at the fence line.
The driver, some faceless Beta with a disposable income and a lot of misplaced confidence, tried to edge us out, but Rawley nudged the wheel and let the side panel take the hit, forcing the SUV off its line and into a snowdrift that would take an hour to dig out of.
Burke’s voice crackled on the radio. “Second unit’s boxed, coming up on your six.”
I rolled the window down, cold air slicing my cheeks raw. The front passenger in the SUV dropped his window, leveled something black and short and probably not legal in three states. I drew down, left-handed, just to show I could, and waited for him to flinch.
He did.
The gun disappeared. The window rolled up. Coward.
I scanned the rear seat. Tinted, but not enough. Liam was there, head down, hands visible. He looked like he was breathing. I tried to catch his eye, but the angle was wrong, the world a strobe of snow and dirty sun and reflected glass.
Burke cut his wheel hard and fishtailed across the access, pinning the second SUV against the cattle gate.
Macon’s truck braked in behind, boxing it in like a stockade.
In two seconds, the air was full of engine noise, spinning wheels, and the kind of shouting you only hear from men who are about to learn a very expensive lesson about escalation.
Rawley cut the engine, drew his sidearm, and said, “Your call.”
I got out, gun high and ready, moving fast down the center of the road. The wind was up, battering at my jacket, the cold making my nose run and my teeth ache, but all I felt was the wild, bright edge of adrenaline.
The men in the first SUV got out, hands up, mouths already moving with the script of “let’s talk about this,” but I ignored them. I wanted the second SUV, the one with Liam.
Burke was already at the driver’s window, shotgun up. Macon stood back, arms crossed, just watching. The driver’s door popped open and a man in a cheap wool coat slid out, hands open, palms facing me.
He said, “Look, we can negotiate—”
I cut him off. “Back seat. Now.”
He hesitated, the moment stretched, and I aimed for the space between his feet and shot the gravel. The sound was biblical, even through the ringing in my own ears.
He went pale, hands up higher.
The rear door opened, and for the first time in my entire life, I saw Liam look scared. He was fighting it—jaw set, shoulders back, but the whites of his eyes showed and his hands were shaking, zip-tied together in front of him.
I said, “Come here.”
He moved, slow at first, then faster, and when he got to me, I grabbed the ties and yanked them apart, plastic digging into my palm.
“Are you hurt?” I said, voice lower than I meant.
He shook his head.
Behind us, Burke and Macon had the other two men kneeling in the snow. Rawley had his phone out, calling the sheriff, voice dead calm.
Then, like a wave, the sound of another engine up the road—a new SUV, bigger, newer, and in no particular hurry. It slid to a stop at the head of the convoy, and from the passenger door emerged Eleanor.
She was dressed for a deposition, not a manhunt: navy coat, tan slacks, hair perfect. She walked toward us like she’d been waiting for this her entire life.
The men on the ground saw her and wilted. She barely looked at them.
She looked at me, at Liam, and then at the gun in my hand.
Her eyes were murder.
“Mr. Hooper,” she said, voice clear and loud in the wind. “Step away from my fiancé.”
I said, “Go home, Eleanor. You lost.”
She smiled, slow and mean. “I never lose.” She looked at Liam. “Come here.”
He shook his head. “No.”
Her face went still, the way faces do when a circuit blows behind the eyes. Then she said, “You think this is a victory? A farce of a marriage, a baby, a hole in the ground?” She took a step forward. “He belongs to me, not to you, not to any of you—”
She made a move, and from the folds of her coat came a gun.
It was small, ugly, and pointed at Liam’s chest.
The world went very, very quiet.
I let go of the carbine and put both hands up, voice low. “Eleanor. You don’t want to do this.”
She laughed, sharp as a snapped femur. “You don’t know what I want.”
She flicked her eyes to me, then to Rawley, then back to Liam. “You have one chance,” she said. “Come with me or I’ll make sure neither of you gets anything you want. Ever.”
Liam looked at me, at the men on the ground, at the gun in her hand, then at me again. His lips parted, like he was about to say something, and I saw the apology in his eyes before he made a move.
He stepped forward. “I’ll go,” he said, loud enough for the wind to carry it.
She smiled, and the safety went off with a click.
I said, “Don’t. He’s not—”
But she was already moving, grabbing his arm, jamming the gun into the side of his neck, using him as a shield between herself and the rest of us.
I saw the blood, slow at first, then faster.
Liam flinched, but didn’t cry out. He looked at me over her shoulder, eyes wide and clear.
I moved forward, but she backed up, gun still pressed to his neck.
“You think you can take him from me?” she screamed. “You think you’re better than me?”
I kept my hands up, kept my body between her and the rest. “You don’t want to do this,” I said, trying to buy time, not even knowing what for.
Burke was circling left, Macon right, but neither one could get a shot without risking Liam.
Rawley was on the radio, barking something at the sheriff, but all I could hear was the wind and the ragged, fast breathing coming from Liam.
Then, out of nowhere, from the ditch at the side of the road, a figure in a parka and ski mask stood up. He was holding a flare gun, the kind you use for mountain rescues, and he fired it straight into the air.
The sky lit red.
Eleanor’s attention flickered, just for a second, and in that second, I lunged. I caught her wrist, twisted, and the gun went flying. It landed in the snow and disappeared.
She screamed, kicked at my shins, but I held on, and Liam twisted free, backing away, hands to his throat.
Burke tackled her from the side, slammed her into the hood of the SUV, and she went down, teeth bared, eyes wild.
I went to Liam, hands on his face, looking for the blood, for the wound, for anything that meant I’d lost him.
He was shaking, but he smiled at me, weak but alive.
I said, “You okay?”
He nodded, then collapsed against me, arms around my waist, face buried in my chest. I held him there, hands in his hair, breath coming ragged and loud.
Burke and Macon had Eleanor on the ground, zip-tied and screaming. Rawley was waving the sheriff’s SUV down the road.
I held Liam and didn’t let go.
The man with the flare gun walked up the road, mask pulled down. It was Jackson Reyes, grinning like a lunatic, hands up in mock surrender.
“What? You had a party and didn’t invite me?” Jackson pressed a hand to his chest in a dramatic gesture. “I’m hurt.”
Macon looked at him, deadpan. “You’re deranged.”
“That’s why you should invite me to the party.” Jackson wagged his eyebrows, grinning. “I make it fun.”
The sheriff pulled up, lights flashing, siren cutting through the cold like a razor. He got out, saw the scene, and just shook his head.
I stood there, holding Liam, watching the world spin down to normal speed. He was alive. Emilio was safe. The future—ours—stretched out, white and flat and possible.
I said, “You’re not allowed to do that again.”
He laughed, voice shaky. “Next time, you get to be the bait.”
I grinned, held him tighter.
The rest of it didn’t matter.
Not the guns, not the blood, not the memory of a life spent waiting for the bad thing to happen.
I had what I’d come for.
And nothing was going to take it away.