Chapter 34
Chapter Thirty-Four
KRUGER
I knew as soon as that fuck face mentioned bailing Josh out that Theo was in danger.
I don’t bother to call Havoc. I can’t risk that he asks me to stand down and wait for backup. I have Toot, and right now, that will have to be enough.
My bike has barely come to a stop when I’m off it and running to the door of the trailer.
I don’t bother knocking. Instead, I raise my booted foot and kick the fucker in.
It takes me a second to process the dead body on the sofa, a relieved breath rushing out when I realize it’s not Theo.
I scan the room and see Diane out cold on the floor.
I don’t give a fuck about her. I turn further, freezing when my eyes land on my woman lying next to a puddle of vomit and covered in blood.
I don’t remember anything after that. Not dropping down beside her or carefully lifting her head until it’s resting on my knees. I disconnect completely until Toot slaps me across the face.
“Kruger, snap the fuck out of it!” he roars.
I shake my head, ready to kill the motherfucker when I hear Delphi’s voice.
“Kruger. I’m okay. I promise. Please come back to me.”
My eyes drop to her surprisingly alert ones.
“I swear to you I’m okay.”
Toot drops down on his haunches next to us. “Let me take a look at you, sweetheart.”
“It’s just a graze, Toot. Hurts like a motherfucker, but a piece of cake compared to a grenade.”
We both glare at her.
“Seriously? How can it still be too soon? I just got shot—”
Whatever expression she sees on my face has her words faltering. “Okay, mentioning getting shot is not helping,” she mutters.
“Darling, I’m going to call this in. We don’t want the cops turning up and fingering us. Any reason we shouldn’t call them?”
She shakes her head. “No, I already called them. But if you call them too, at least they’ll be expecting you. I don’t want them turning up and thinking you’re the bad guys. I didn’t go through all this just to lose either of you now.”
Toot moves away, pulling his cell phone out to call the police, giving me and Delphi a little space.
“Where’s Theo?”
“He should be at the clubhouse by now.”
“Jesus, Delphi. One of these days, you guys are going to give me a heart attack. What the fuck happened?”
She glances over to Toot, who is on the phone, and lowers her voice. “I’ll explain everything later. I just need you to trust me here, okay?”
I narrow my eyes at her. Something isn’t adding up. “What did you do?” I whisper.
“Later, I promise.”
“Dispatch said they’d already got a call and cops are minutes out,” Toot states, dropping back down again. “I’m going to look at this arm of yours now, and you’re going to be a good girl and let me.”
“You bossy with all women, Toot? Or am I just the lucky one?” Delphi mumbles.
Her skin is cold to the touch. I worry she’s going into shock. I slip off my cut before yanking my sweatshirt over my head and wrapping it around her.
“Don’t answer that, Toot, or I’ll cut out your tongue.”
“So touchy,” he grumbles, pulling the bloody towel away.
I slip my cut back on as I hear the sirens approaching.
“Well, the good news is you’ll live,” Toot tells her. I reach over and punch the cavalier motherfucker, having reached my limit.
He rubs his jaw and sighs before focusing back on Delphi. “Bad news is, it’s not a graze. You have a bullet wedged in the fatty part of your arm.”
“Did you just say I have fat arms? Kruger, Toot’s being mean to me,” she complains, her eyes slipping shut.
Before he can say anything, cops burst through the door, guns raised, pointing at us.
“Hands in the air where we can see them.”
Both me and Toot raise our hands.
“I’m the one who just called 911. I’m Toot. This is Kruger, and this woman on the ground is Delphi. She’s been shot in the arm, and judging from the vomit and her current state, it looks like she’s had a seizure.”
“And you’re an expert?” one of the cops snaps.
Toot doesn’t rise to the bait. “No, but Delphi has epilepsy. This isn’t our first rodeo.”
“This guy’s dead,” someone calls out, but I don’t need to turn to see who they’re talking about.
“This one’s got a pulse. Get the paramedics in here.”
“You two, get down on the ground and put your hands behind your backs.”
I curse under my breath. “Sir, my woman’s head is on my lap. I need my hands to at least ease it to the ground.”
“Fine, but any unnecessary actions and you’ll be in a world of pain.”
“Are you threatening him?” Toot hisses. “His woman is bleeding and was unconscious when he got here five minutes ago.”
I let Toot keep their attention as I gently lower Delphi to the ground. Her eyes flutter open as she looks up at me.
“Hey, the police are here. I’m just letting you down so the police can handcuff me,” I tell her so she doesn’t worry. She winks at me before she starts freaking out, yanking herself up, throwing herself in my arms, making it impossible to comply with the cops’ instructions.
“No, don’t leave me. They tried to kill me, Kruger.
They tried to kill our boy,” she yells before dissolving into sobs.
Everyone freezes as they take in the scene.
Toot’s lips twitch, and I have to fight the urge to do the same.
Delphi might be a lot of things, but overly dramatic isn’t one of them.
“Calm down, Miss. Nobody is going anywhere. I’m just trying to secure the scene. Do any of you have weapons on you?”
“I have a gun at my back and I have a license to carry, which is in my wallet,” I reply.
“Same here. Want me to slide them over?” Toot asks politely.
I don’t hear the response as I pull Delphi’s face from mine. “I need to hand the police my gun and wallet. I need you to hold it together for a little while. I’m not going anywhere, I promise.”
She lets out a shaky breath and nods. I gently ease my gun out before placing it on the ground and sliding it toward the cop. I grab my wallet next and toss that over too.
“Ma’am, are you armed?” another cop says. I’m about to grab her bag, which I notice is looped over her shoulder, when she shakes her head.
“I have a license to carry, and I usually do, but I didn’t think I’d need it here, so I left it at home. The judge said it was safe. CPS said it was safe. I didn’t expect to walk into…this.”
“Ma’am, I’m going to let the paramedics take a look at you real quick while I talk to Mr. Kruger and Mr. Toot.”
She grips my cut and whimpers.
“I’ll stay right where you can see me, but your arm needs looking at, and I’m worried you might have hit your head when you started seizing. Let them check you over for me.”
She reluctantly lets me go, and two paramedics move in as I get to my feet and walk over to Toot.
“I’m Officer Fresco. This is Officer Dean. Can you explain what happened here?”
I look at the cop who spoke and shrug. “I’m still trying to figure that out myself.” I fill him in on my meeting with Jack. “And that was when I found out he had paid the bond money for Josh.”
“Josh?”
“The guy on the sofa, I’m assuming. Though it’s hard to tell with half his face missing.
His name is Josh Milton. The woman in the kitchen is Diane Milton.
Josh isn’t supposed to be here. He viciously attacked Diane’s fifteen-year-old son.
Me and Delphi were his foster parents up until two weeks ago, when Diane got out of rehab and a judge decided it was safe for him to come home.
” My voice hardens at the last part, making the cop look up from the note he’s taking.
“And CPS signed off on that?”
“CPS suggested Theo stay with us, where he was safe and happy, but the judge said he needed his mother,” I reply sarcastically. The cop curses under his breath, and his quiet outrage helps settle me.
“After Jack made the comment about Josh making bail, I had a bad feeling he’d come here for Theo. I had zero proof, though, so I started heading over to check it out. I had no idea when I got here, I’d find my woman on the floor bleeding from a gunshot wound.”
“Where is Theo now?”
“Delphi said he was at the clubhouse before she passed out. He’d know it was safe there. I came here not knowing that, though, so the door is on me. I didn’t even bother knocking. I just kicked the door in.”
I rub a hand over my face, glancing back at Delphi, who is talking quietly to the paramedics.
“I saw Josh first, knew he was dead. Then I saw Diane and Delphi. I won’t lie, I didn’t give Diane a second thought. All I saw was Delphi lying in a puddle of vomit and blood, and I panicked. I went straight to her, and she slowly came around.”
“I checked Diane, saw she had a pulse, and called you guys. I didn’t touch her other than that.
Know that makes me sound like a dick, but it took me seconds to see the gun next to her and two victims with gunshot wounds.
I wasn’t willing to put my prints on her or get her blood on me.
My cut already makes a whole bunch of you guys prejudiced toward us,” Toot adds, keeping the hostility out of his voice.
But there is no denying the truth, and the guy taking the notes doesn’t refute that, though the cop next to him bristles with indignation.
“So you’d let her die to save your own ass?”
Toot blinks and looks at him coldly. “If she was awake and holding a gun to the door when you got here, would you have walked in if Delphi was bleeding out? Or waited until someone could come and talk her down, knowing Delphi likely wouldn’t make it?”
“That’s not the same—”
“No, it’s not, but then your badge offers you protection.
My cut offers me none. I’ve served my country, and I’ve never been charged with a crime, yet that doesn’t seem to matter.
Funny, because I never see the boys in blue doing toy runs for kids’ charities or raising money for the hospital oncology ward.
Your legal system threw a fifteen-year-old boy back into a hell he had barely even recovered from. But yeah, I’m the problem.”
“Toot,” I warn before they arrest him for being combative.