30. Linc
“Ready. Set. Go!” Remy waves his hands through the air like a crazy person, and we are off across the bullpen.
Dom has his chair tilted forward, using his feet to try and go faster that way.
But I’m smarter.
I turn around with my back to them and push in long, smooth motions.
“Damn it!” Dom calls out loudly. “Get back here.”
I waggle my fingers at him, only too happy to take the win. “Suck it, loser.”
Except I hit the wall and go down, and Dom is right there on top of me. The weight of my chair hits me in the chest, knocking the air out of my lungs, only to be compounded when Dom drops on top of me.
Laughter fills the room, and Remy holds his phone out to get video proof. “Shit, man. Parker’s gonna love this.”
“Speak for yourself,” Carter says from the other side of the bullpen. “Avery’s gonna want to show her class this. It’s awesome.”
I turn my head to see him standing on top of one of the counters, using his phone to get the entire scene in front of us.
The entire time, Dom doesn’t move. He just wheezes while lying there, and I want to punch him in the throat, but I can’t get close enough. There is an entire chair blocking the way.
I grunt under the weight of the other man and both of the office chairs. “Not again,” I groan. “Move, already. This is embarrassing.”
“Hey.” Dom laughs as he gets up and offers me a hand. “At least it wasn’t your balls in my hand this time.”
“Get out of here before I kill you.” I shove him in the shoulder once I get up and we right the chairs, but he laughs it off.
Neither chair is broken, which I guess is a good thing since we still have to use them to work in.
“Okay, our turn.” Carter hops off the counter and grabs his chair.
Remy practically sprints across the room to grab his.
“You guys wanna tell me why you’re not out on patrol?” Carter looks between us while he takes his spot on the other side of the room, at the de facto starting line.
“Chief benched all three of us, put on desk duty, so we don’t interfere with arresting Royal Prince.” Remy scoots next to him. “Probably a good thing.”
Carter nods. “Yeah, Avery said she wouldn’t blame any of us if we had to put a bullet in that guy’s head. She went to school with Mallory and said that lady was crazy. But no one deserves what happened to her.”
They are ready to go, starting their metaphorical engines, when Teri sticks her head out of dispatch, frantic and upset. “Linc, you need to come up here.”
When I don’t move fast enough for her, she snaps, “Now, Linc.”
I run the length of the hall, and I won’t be ashamed to admit it if asked about it later. When dispatch panics, patrol panics. That’s just the way it goes.
Henley Moore is in the lobby, pacing back and forth while worrying his hair. The last time I saw him was the night of Kennedy’s accident, and I hadn’t really gotten a good look at him. The kid looks like he should be out playing football or something, not standing in our lobby having a panic attack.
“Officer Hayes.” He rushes to the window as soon as he sees me behind Teri. “There’s something wrong.”
“Henley.” I lean forward, curious what would have him upset like he is. “What’s going on, kid?”
He turns around, checking over his shoulder for something, before turning back to me with wild eyes. “I’m going to sound absolutely crazy. I know that. But I need you to listen to me. I think there’s something wrong. My girlfriend, Lexi, the girl I was with the night of the accident. She lives next door to this guy. He’s creepy. Always watching her. He gives me the creeps. I was dropping Lexi off after school and I saw him going up to his house.”
My gut starts to churn. “What happened, Henley? Focus.”
He nods and takes a deep breath. “Yes, sir.” He takes another breath, more to calm himself than anything. “Sir, I think he was carrying Kennedy.” He swallows down something, and I feel like throwing up while I wait for him to go on. “He had a girlfriend, sir. A blond one. We used to see them fight. But then, she colored her hair red. So at first, I thought I must have been seeing her and thought it was Kennedy instead. But I got in my car and started heading to work, and my gut told me that it was her. That something was really wrong. So I came here instead.”
Behind me, I hear Remy and Dom muttering. Remy curses. “She’s not answering,” Remy hisses.
“Amie’s not answering either,” Dom says. “She’s off today, but she said that she was going to keep an eye out for Kennedy until one of us got there.”
My heart drops out of my stomach, and I turn to Henley. “Is he a tall guy, with dark hair?”
Henley nods. “Always wears expensive suits, but just looks like a douche.”
Remy snorts. “It’s him.”
I look at Teri. “Keep him here.” When I turn around to see Dom and Remy standing there, ready to go, I nod. “Call the girlfriend. Tell her to lock the door and keep her on the line.” Teri is already murmuring to Henley to get Lexi’s phone number. “Make sure she tells us if anything changes.”
I nod to the men who will always have my back. “Let’s go.”
“I’ve got to call Chief Townsend too,” Teri calls out to my back. “Try to get there before he stops you.”
“He’s not stopping shit,” Remy growls. “That’s my sister.”
“Fuck that,” I snap at him. “She’s the love of my life.”
My cruiser leads the way, with Remy and Dom following right behind. I hear, even though I don’t process it, Teri’s call for backup and a supervisor to the address, but I don’t care.
The entire drive, I see Kennedy. Hurt and bloody like she was in those photos. I see her superimposed on Mallory’s dead body. I see her in pain, crying and needing me there for her.
The radio on my chest clicks. “I’m not going to lose her, Linc.” Remy’s voice breaks through the static. “I don’t care what we have to do.”
Two clicks from another mic, followed by two more. And another two. Over and over again. Our own silent show of support, but I don’t care. I need to get to Kennedy. Everything else can wait.
I turn off the siren when I approach his street and let my lights go with it. Every car behind me follows suit, and I roll up to Royal’s house silently. When I get out of my cruiser and shut the door, Remy and Dom are right there with me.
Carter rolls right behind, blocking the other side of the road. Instead of moving to the front of the building, he runs to the small gray compact car that sits across the street.
“Amie’s out,” he calls out quietly. “But she’s breathing. Smells like he used something on her, though. Ether or chloroform.”
We are already moving toward the house, and Carter stays with Amie. My phone starts to vibrate, but I don’t bother checking it. Anyone calling will be trying to tell me not to go in, and that isn’t going to happen.
“If you go in without a warrant, you could lose your jobs.” I don’t give two shits about myself, but I figure I should warn Remy and Dom about the danger.
My only answer is for them to pull out their guns and walk up the steps to Royal’s house.
“I’ll take the back door,” Dom says and walks away without looking back.
“You may love her, but she’s my sister, and no one is gonna hurt my family.” Remy motions for me to take the lead, and I try the doorknob quietly while I wait for Dom to indicate that he’s made it to the back door.
It is locked. “Fuck.”
Two mic clicks on my chest tell me Dom is in place and ready to breach. I answer with a single click and then boot-stomp the front door to breach. Thankfully, the wood splinters; otherwise, I may have broken my foot.
I hear Dom make entry at the back door, and we go in, guns ready. As a unit, we clear the bottom floor. But we aren’t working as cops anymore. No. We are moving together the way we did in the Marine Corps as a strike team out on a mission.
Before Kennedy forced her way back into my life, the thought would have sent me into a raging attack where I’d be left with nothing but an empty stomach and a migraine for days. But now, nothing is worse than the thought of what Royal is doing to her.
Dom whistles and falls in behind us. “Kitchen and back half clear,” he whispers.
“Front half clear,” Remy tells him.
Something hits the floor upstairs, and we move together up the hall.
“Let me go first,” Dom orders. “Neither of you are prepared for what we might find.”
I don’t want to move. I don’t care what happened or what I see. But he is right. If Royal hurt her, I’ll put a bullet in his head. No trial, arrest, jury, or sentence will make me pull back, either. There will be no mercy. No hesitation. I meant it when I had Royal by the arm and warned him not to touch her.
Dom elbows his way to the front, and I adjust my gun hand to account for his presence. He doesn’t wait. We clear every room on the floor until the last one. The one that is cracked open, with grunting coming from the other side of the door.
I’m going to be sick. My stomach churns, and the image of Royal using a weapon to hurt her fills my head. I glance at Remy, who stands at my side, and his face is as white as a sheet. Neither of us should be walking through that door. But nothing short of a bullet to the chest will stop either of us.
Dom pushes open the door with the hand not holding his gun, and we step in behind him, fanning out immediately.
“I hate you.” Kennedy swings the baseball bat again, hitting Royal in the gut. “And I’m the one who won, Royal.”
He is on the ground, curled in on himself with blood leaking from a wound on his forehead and vomit on the ground next to him. Clearly, she’s already gotten the upper hand, but we can’t take our eyes off him.
“Drop the bat,” Dom orders.
Kennedy, with wild eyes, looks up mid swing with the bat and freezes. She eyes him and the bat, and then me and Remy, before looking back down at Royal. Her red hair is drenched and hanging down around her shoulders, and the black shirt she put on that morning is soaking wet. Even her leggings are plastered to her body.
I don’t need to hear what happened from her; it is clear. Royal tried to drown her. The same way he’d tortured her before. The way he’d killed Mallory. When she shifts, taking everything in, I see the dark bruises already forming on her throat and chest.
“Hey, Kennedy.” I try to get her attention. “You doing okay?”
“No.” She hits him with the bat and raises it up again. “I’m not okay, but I’m doing better now.” She sniffs. “You can go.” Then she kicks him as hard as she can in the junk, and he wheezes, still not moving.
But she does drop the bat like Dom ordered.
“A baseball bat?” Remy holsters his gun and moves forward into the room, pulling a pair of handcuffs from his belt. “Really?”
Kennedy points to the machete on the ground next to the bed. “I was going to use the machete like the hallucination of Cassie told me to, but then I didn’t want to go to prison. And she said to chop off his head, but I wasn’t sure if she meant his actual head or his dick. And if I go to prison, I can’t see the boys or Nox. So I grabbed the bat instead.” She starts crying hysterically. “He wanted to kill me. It’s self-defense. You’re not going to arrest me, are you?” Her eyes are locked on the handcuffs in her brother’s hands.
“No, smart-ass.” He shakes his head and crouches down. “They’re for him. Notice the other two haven’t fucking moved? He’s under arrest.”
Once Remy has Royal secured, I put my gun away and vault across the room to Kennedy, pulling her into my arms.
“We’ve got an ambulance on the way,” I tell her. “Let’s go.”
“He’s the one who needs a paramedic,” she snaps. “And what did you three think? That you’d just bust in and rescue me? I didn’t need a fucking hero. I saved myself.”
When I finally get her to look at me, I smile. “Yeah, that’s true. But you can’t blame me, can you? I didn’t want to lose you.”
“I didn’t come for you,” Remy bites out waspishly. “I was trying to save this piece of shit before you cut him up with a machete. How do you always have one?” He rolls Royal over and forces him up, laughing when he sees that Kennedy has really beat his ass. “Do you know how much paperwork there would have been if you’d killed him?”
“I want to press charges,” Royal wheezes. “She broke in and attempted to kill me when I wouldn’t take her back.”
“Nice try,” Dom shoots back at him. “We’re responding to reports that you carried an unconscious redhead into the house. Not only that, but there’s a warrant for your arrest for attempted murder.” He turns to Kennedy. “Do you think you can keep your mouth shut for a minute so I can get this out? If you interrupt me, I’ll have to start again.”
When she nods, Dom turns back to Royal. “I’ve got my body cam on for your safety and mine. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you in court. You have the right to talk to a lawyer for advice before we ask you any questions. You have the right to have a lawyer with you during questioning. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be appointed for you before any questioning if you wish. If you decide to answer questions now without a lawyer present, you have the right to stop answering at any time. Do you understand these rights as I have read them to you?”
Royal doesn’t answer.
I can’t wait to see him spend the rest of his life in prison.
When Kennedy pulls away from me, I almost stop her, but I don’t. She is safe, and there is nothing I need to protect her from. She steps up to Royal, without a hint of fear in her eyes.
“I win.”