Chapter 29 Liam
LIAM
Oh, fuck.
Emma takes off like she’s been shot out of a cannon, and my heart nearly stops.
I don’t think—I just run.
“Emma! Get back!”
My voice cracks, but she doesn’t even flinch.
She’s gone, already halfway across the street, laser-focused on that house as if nothing else exists.
God.
She’s going to get herself killed.
The whole neighborhood is chaotic—people shouting, doors slamming, someone crying, someone screaming at a 911 operator.
Cars revving.
Dogs barking.
It’s all one giant, messy blur.
Until I hear it.
A tiny, terrified voice that slices through everything like a blade.
“Mommy!”
My stomach drops.
My vision tunnels.
Every instinct I have snaps tight.
Laddie.
Emma gasps a raw, broken sound, and I swear I’ve never seen anyone run faster. She doesn’t look back. Not once. She just tears across the lawn toward the house as she’d happily take a bullet if it means getting to him.
“Emma! Slow down! Let me go first!” I shout, but it’s useless. She’s too far gone.
I push harder, angling myself toward her, trying to slide in front of her to get between her and the line of fire. I don’t even know where the shots are coming from. I just know I’m not letting anything hit her.
Gunfire pops again, closer this time, and Emma flinches but doesn’t stop.
Christ, I’m going to lose my mind.
We reach the front steps just as the tactical team is shouting commands over the chaos.
Smoke. Screams. The sound of a struggle deeper inside.
“Stay behind me,” I command.
But, no, she ducks under my arm and shoves herself into the doorway.
And I follow her inside.
I’m not letting her go alone.
Because that little boy was screaming for his mother.
He’s mine too.
The second we cross the threshold, it’s a warzone.
Shouting.
Gunfire somewhere in the back rooms.
Boots pounding against old floors.
The metallic sting of fear is sharp in the air.
Emma screams.“Laddie!”
A small body bursts around the corner at the end of the hallway, cheeks streaked with tears. One of the tactical guys reaches out to grab him, to pull him out of the line of fire, but he slips right past.
He’s tiny and terrified, and running for his life straight toward us.
“Mommy!”
Emma lunges forward, but I’m closer; I reach him first.
I scoop Laddie into my arms so fast he squeaks, clutching him tight against my chest. He fits there like he was made to fit there, his little hands fisting in my shirt, shaking.
“It’s okay, buddy. I’ve got you. I’ve got you,” I breathe, adrenaline making my whole body tremble.
Emma reaches us a heartbeat later, eyes wild and frantic. She yanks Laddie right out of my arms, holding him so tight I can hear the air leave his lungs.
She’s crying.
He’s crying.
I’m hell.
She checks him over, shaking with fear. There is no blood.
Thank God.
Then she rounds on me, eyes sharp with panic.
“Where’s Talia?” she demands.
And the gunfire behind us hasn’t stopped.
I look down the hallway, toward the shouting, the flashes of light bouncing off the wall, and the danger still alive in this house.
“I’m going,” I say, already moving toward it.
“Liam—wait!” Emma cries out, voice breaking.
“I’ll find her,” I promise, meeting Emma’s terrified eyes just long enough to make sure she hears me. “Stay with Laddie. Do not follow me. Get the hell out of here. I mean it.”
Another gunshot explodes in the distance.
When I hear a woman’s screams, I barrel toward the battle. Emma’s sister is lying on the ground, unmoving, when I find her.
There’s still fighting going on in another part of the large house, and I don’t want to take a chance, so I pick her up, carefully jogging back out to the front lawn, where I gently set her on the grass. She has a bullet wound in her chest. She’s breathing, thank fuck, but it’s shallow and labored.
I don’t know what to do. I can’t take her. She’ll bleed out in the car. I don’t know the area. What if I can’t get her to a hospital in time?
The sirens are closer. I can see the lights a few blocks down. I look around, wildly gesturing to the nearest man in black.
“I need some help!” I below.
He comes close, kneels in the grass beside me, and feels for Talia’s pulse.
“She needs an ambulance,” I say. There’s so much blood. “She needs help, or she’ll die.”
The guy listens to something in his earpiece, then says, “We’ll get her taken care of. The boss says you should get out of here quickly.”
I look at him, feeling helpless and useless, and he shoves me.
“Run!” he yells.
So I run.
I sprint across the lawn, covered in blood, and throw myself into the front seat. I slam the door and shove the car into drive.
I take the first turn I see, down a narrow alleyway, and then another. And another. Just trying to get us away from the mayhem, from the gunfire, from everything.
Emma and Laddie are in the back seat, clinging to each other, both crying.
They say some words, but I can’t comprehend a thing as I navigate through the neighborhood.
Finally, I find a main road. Neon signs glow ahead, cheap and bright, lighting the sky above several fast food joints.
I pick one at random and pull into the back of the lot, easing the car into a far corner space where we won’t be seen.
After I turn off the car, I just sit, trying to catch my breath. I am at a total loss for what to do. It occurs to me that Laddie could be hurt, too, so I finally turn around and look into the back seat.
“Is he okay?” I ask. “Is he hurt?”
Emma holds her little boy close. She kisses the top of his head and looks up at me. “He’s okay. He’s okay.”
I breathe a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness.”
“Talia?” she asks. Her voice is small.
I meet her eyes, and I know she can see everything there. I shake my head.
“I carried her out,” I say. “But there was too much blood. They told me to run, that they’d take care of her, but I don’t... I don’t know if she made it, Em.”
She stares at me, eyes wide, mouth turned down, skin pale. I can see she’s processing.
“You just...left her?” she finally asks.
“I couldn’t...I didn’t know what to do. She’d been shot. I couldn’t just...”
“You couldn’t what, Liam? You couldn’t put her in the car and drive her to the hospital?”
“The shooting might carry outside. I have to get you and Laddie out of there.”
“So you left Talia behind? You left her to die alone?”
The octave and volume of her voice are rising with each question, each accusation. Laddie buries his head further into her side, whimpering.
“They said they’d get her taken care of,” I say, but it sounds pathetic, even to my own ears. I don’t know those guys. How can I know what it means to take care of her?
“Take me back, Liam,” Emma says, an order, not a request.
“Emma, the police will be swarming. Many people just got shot.”
“This is my sister we’re talking about,” Emma says.
“Maybe I can just text Nik and—”
“Take. Me. Back.” She isn’t screaming, but she will if necessary.
We hold each other’s gazes for a heartbeat, then two.
I turn around and start the car, throwing it into drive and driving back to the hellhole.
As I rewind my way through the neighborhood, Emma cries in the backseat. “No, no, no, no. Not my Talia.” Over and over.
I don’t want to go back. I don’t think I can handle seeing Emma facing her sister’s death. They’ve been the best of friends their whole lives. Emma is strong and pragmatic, but this might break her.
And it will be all my fault.
I drive slowly as we ease down the street toward the house. Just like I expected, half a dozen police cars block the way, lights spinning and blazing against the night.
The yellow crime scene tape is already strung around the perimeter of the property.
One ambulance is pulling away. Another sits half on the lawn, engine running.
Neighbors crowd the sidewalks. Others gather in clusters on porches, murmuring, staring, trying to figure out what just happened.
I pull over as best I can and kill the engine.
Somehow, Laddie has fallen asleep. Emma leans forward and whispers for me to roll the windows down. I do, and she gently lays him on the backseat, smoothing her hoodie over him like a blanket.
Then she slips out of the car.
I jump out and intercept her before she can bolt toward the chaos. I grab her shoulders, stopping her short.
“Emma,” I say firmly. “You can’t just walk into an active crime scene.”
“I can if my family member is in that ambulance,” she snaps.
“Just… wait,” I say, forcing my voice low and steady. “Please. We’ll figure out what’s going on. Just wait. I want to look around first.”
She looks ready to ditch me and run anyway, but after a long second, she nods. I lift my hands off her shoulders and turn my attention to the scene.
The men in black are gone, like they were never here at all.
A coroner’s van pulls up. And that’s when I see it: a line of bodies laid out on the lawn.
My stomach twists. I squint and move a few steps closer to get a better look.
None of them looks like a woman.
None of them has the red-brown curls Talia has.
Thank God.
But the relief is fragile, because if she’s not here…
Where the hell is she?
I turn back to Emma with a look of hope on my face. “I don’t think she’s here,” I say. “She’s not among the dead.”
Emma steps forward, pushing a few paces ahead of me, stretching her neck to see everything she can.
I scan the rest of the scene, and then I see a tall, dark-haired man in a suit.
Nik.
He’s leaning into a conversation with a police officer, talking with a gloved hand. I watch as they speak, then shake hands.
Nik reaches into the inside pocket of his suit jacket and pulls out an envelope. He passes it to the cop, who pockets it without hesitation.
The whole exchange takes seconds.
And it tells me everything I need to know.
I’m one-hundred-percent certain I want nothing to do with whatever I just witnessed.
The back doors of the remaining ambulance slam shut, and Emma jumps. The vehicle pulls off the lawn and makes a U-turn, facing back toward us as it slowly moves through the crowd of cars and gawking people.
As it nears, Emma flags it down. The driver rolls down the window.
“My sister,” she says, her voice hoarse from crying. “My sister is in there. Is she okay?”
“We need to get past, ma’am,” the driver says. “I can’t give you specific information, but you’re welcome to follow us. The hospital can share any relevant information once you get there.”
Emma sags, letting them pull her sister away.
We head back to the car, and I climb behind the wheel, pulling out fast but carefully, trying not to lose sight of the ambulance as it winds through the side streets.
When it reaches the main road, the sirens activate, and the lights flare to life. It picks up speed. I have to focus hard to keep up, weaving through traffic without crashing.
At the hospital, Emma tells me to drop her off at the ER entrance. She wakes Laddie, but he’s still groggy, so she lifts him into her arms and carries him inside.
I watch them go until they disappear through the doors.
Then I pull away and circle until I find a short-term parking lot.
I just sit there for a while, gripping the wheel, breathing in and out, trying to calm down.
I have a son.
I still love Emma Reyes.
She might hate me now because of all this damn chaos. And if her sister dies because of what happened?
Holy hell.
I don’t know how I’m supposed to live with that.