Chapter 39
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Lina
The Lawton Police Department was absolute chaos as I pushed through the front doors and stopped dead in my tracks, taking in the scene before me.
It looked like a war zone. Papers were scattered across the floor, chairs were overturned, and at least a dozen officers and federal agents were either running around frantically or standing frozen in shock, watching the spectacle unfold.
“I SAID GET YOUR FUCKING HANDS OFF ME!”
Kansas’ voice boomed across the processing area, loud enough to rattle the windows and echo off the cinderblock walls. The fluorescent lights above seemed to flicker in response to the sheer volume.
He was standing at the fingerprinting station near the back wall, his hands clenched into fists, his muscular arms tensed and shaking, his face twisted with rage as two ATF agents in their standard-issue windbreakers tried, and failed, to force his hand onto the ink pad.
His neck veins were bulging, his jaw was set, and his eyes blazed with defiance.
Kansas wasn’t a small man, and right now he looked like a cornered animal ready to fight his way out.
“Sir, if you don’t comply with our instructions—”
“COMPLY?” Kansas roared, his face flushing red with rage as he yanked his arm back so hard the agent stumbled backward and nearly lost his footing. “You just assaulted my pregnant wife, and now you have the audacity to stand there and tell me I need to comply?”
Another agent moved in from the side, reaching for Kansas’ shoulder in an attempt to de-escalate the situation.
Kansas spun around with lightning speed, his eyes wild and filled with a fury that seemed barely contained, and the agent immediately backed off, hands raised defensively in front of his chest.
“Don’t fucking touch me,” Kansas said, his voice dropping to a deadly calm that was somehow more terrifying than the shouting had been. The quiet intensity of his words sent a chill through everyone within earshot. “Don’t you dare fucking touch me.”
I scanned the room, my heart pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat.
To my left, Widow was backed into a corner by five agents—all of them armed, all of them tense, their shoulders rigid with barely contained aggression.
The air was thick with the kind of tension that preceded violence, that electric charge that made your skin prickle and your instincts scream at you to run.
Widow stood perfectly still, his arms crossed over his chest, his posture deceptively casual despite the circumstances.
His expression was murderous, cold fury radiating from every line of his face.
He wasn’t saying a word. Didn’t have to.
The look in his eyes said everything: Try me.
I fucking dare you. It was the look of a man who’d been pushed too far, too many times, and had nothing left to lose.
One of the agents shifted his weight nervously, his hand drifting toward his holster in what might’ve been an unconscious gesture.
Widow’s gaze tracked the movement like a predator zeroing in on prey.
His jaw tightened as the muscles in his neck stood out in sharp relief.
“I wouldn’t,” Widow warned, his voice low and dangerous, barely above a whisper but somehow cutting through the silence like a blade.
“Unless you want to find out what happens when you pull that gun.”
The threat hung in the air, palpable and real.
The agent froze mid-motion, his hand hovering inches from his weapon.
None of them moved after that. They just stood there, locked in a standoff that seemed to stretch on forever, waiting for someone to blink first. Waiting for someone to make the mistake that would send everything spiraling into chaos.
Near the back of the room, past rows of cluttered desks and filing cabinets, I spotted Angel sitting at a desk with his feet propped up on the surface, one wrist handcuffed to the arm of the chair. He was eating a sandwich—some kind of deli-meat situation wrapped in white paper.
A sandwich. Calmly. Casually. Like he was at a fucking picnic in the park on a sunny afternoon, not sitting in a police station with his freedom hanging in the balance.
An officer stood directly in front of him, his posture rigid and confrontational, red-faced and furious, practically vibrating with barely contained rage. “You need to take this seriously—”
Angel took another deliberately slow bite, his jaw working methodically as he chewed, his expression utterly bored and unimpressed by the whole situation.
He looked like he’d rather be anywhere else, doing literally anything else.
“I am taking it seriously,” he said around a mouthful of bread and whatever meat was tucked inside.
“Seriously hungry. You got any chips? Maybe some of those jalapeno ones?”
The officer’s face turned an even deeper shade of red, almost purple now, his hands clenching into fists at his sides. A vein pulsed visibly at his temple. “This is not a joke!”
Angel swallowed his bite, took his time wiping his mouth with the back of his free hand, then grinned up at the officer with that infuriating smirk I knew so well. “Could’ve fooled me.”
I turned, scanning the rest of the room. Neville was backing slowly away from three women—all of them pointing their fingers at him, all of them talking at once. Their voices were rising in pitch and volume, creating a chaotic symphony of accusations and outrage.
“—and you got arrested!”
“—don’t you dare lie to me!”
“—You mind if I Insta this?”
Neville held up his hands defensively, his eyes wide, his expression panicked. His face had gone pale, and beads of sweat were forming on his forehead. “I swear, I didn’t do anything wrong!” he protested, his voice cracking slightly. “This is all just a huge misunderstanding!”
An officer stepped between them, trying to restore order, but the women weren’t having it. They leaned around the officer, still jabbing their fingers in Neville’s direction.
They just kept shouting, their voices overlapping into incomprehensible noise. I couldn’t make out the specifics through all the chaos, but it was clear that Neville had managed to upset all three of them simultaneously, which was honestly impressive in its own terrible way.
Across the room, I saw Ashe, Fifty, Bongo, and Lips—all of them standing in a line like some kind of defiant wall, arms crossed tight against their chests, glaring at the half-dozen officers surrounding them. The tension in the air was thick enough to cut with a knife. Nobody was backing down.
“We need you to cooperate with us here—” one of the officers started, his tone attempting to sound reasonable but failing to hide his frustration.
“No,” Lips said flatly, cutting him off mid-sentence. His expression didn’t change. He didn’t even blink.
“Sir, if you refuse to answer our questions—” another officer tried, stepping forward with his hand raised in what was probably meant to be a calming gesture.
“I said no.” Lips’ voice was ice cold now, each word deliberate and final.
The officer’s jaw tightened visibly as his patience was clearly wearing thin. A vein pulsed at his temple. “You’re making this harder than it needs to be.”
Fifty leaned forward slightly, his massive frame casting a shadow over the nearest officer. His voice dropped to a low rumble that somehow carried across the entire room. “Good.”
And standing off to the side, watching the entire shit show with an expression of pure disbelief, was Chief O’Rourke.
He had his arms crossed tight against his chest, his jaw clenched, his head shaking slowly back and forth, like he couldn’t quite believe what he was witnessing.
Like he’d seen a lot in his twenty-three years on the force, but this?
This was something else entirely. His eyes swept across the chaos—the overturned furniture, the broken glass, the screaming witnesses, the whole goddamn circus—and I could practically see him calculating how much paperwork this was going to generate.
Our eyes met across the room. He didn’t say anything.
Didn’t have to. Didn’t even uncross his arms or change his stance.
The look on his face said it all: This is your mess now.
And maybe a little bit of I told you this would happen mixed in there too.
That signature O’Rourke expression that combined disappointment, resignation, and just a hint of dark amusement at my expense.
I turned away, my gaze sweeping the room again, searching desperately through the sea of uniforms and badges when I saw him.
Whisper. He was being hauled out of an interrogation room by two agents, his hands cuffed behind his back, his lean frame tense and rigid as they gripped his arms. His expression was cold and unreadable, that familiar mask he wore when he was trying not to let anyone see what he was really feeling.
And as the door swung open wider, I caught a glimpse inside the cramped, fluorescent-lit room.
John. Handcuffed to the metal table, his wrists raw and red from the restraints.
Glaring up with pure defiance at an ATF agent who was bent over the table, his meaty hands planted on either side of John’s arms, his face inches from John’s, shouting something I couldn’t hear through the thick glass and metal door.
But I could see the veins bulging in the agent’s neck, the way his mouth twisted with each word.
My blood turned to ice. Then it boiled, white-hot rage flooding through my veins.
I didn’t think. Didn’t hesitate. Didn’t stop to consider the consequences or the fact that I was surrounded by federal agents.
I pushed through the crowd, shoving past officers and agents who barely had time to register what was happening, my heels clicking sharply and purposefully against the tile floor.
And then I kicked the interrogation room door open with every ounce of fury I possessed, letting it slam against the wall with a deafening BANG that echoed through the entire building.