Chapter Thirty-Nine
COOPER
Bang.
Bang.
A fist pounding on my door.
I woke from a dead sleep to wonder if I'd been catapulted back in time.
Alice was in my arms just like she'd been two nights ago.
I blinked away sleep.
This time Alice wasn't naked. She slept beside me wearing one of my old Army T-shirts and a pair of cut-off sweats. I wore a loose pair of athletic shorts. And beside us, curled into Alice’s side, was a peacefully sleeping toddler.
Petra.
I'd locked the door behind Griffen only hours before. Paranoid after what happened with Lacey, I’d triple-checked my security before coming to bed, unable to bring myself to wake Alice. Griffen said she thought I was angry with her.
She had to be crazy. If anyone had the right to be pissed, it was Alice, not me. For fuck’s sake, my own mother had almost killed her. The fact that she’d left my mother clinging to life was irrelevant.
Maybe it shouldn't have been, but Alice had been the only thing between a crazed Lacey and the little girl who slept beside us. What else was she supposed to do? Step aside because Lacey was my mother?
Fuck, no. Alice did what she had to do. I would never be anything but proud of her for that.
Bang.
Bang.
Bang.
Fuck. I’d been hoping that was a dream. But no. There it came again.
My gut knotted. There was no good reason anyone would be banging on my door at this hour.
Lacey was in the hospital, under surveillance and attached to tubes and wires. She wasn't going anywhere.
Griffen or another of my people would have called rather than waste time coming to my door.
My father and Tsepov were still on the loose.
I'd secured the building as well as I could, but Lacey's attack on Alice and Petra proved that Maxwell had built back doors into my security. I had no idea how many.
Rolling to my feet, I pulled on clothes, grabbed my weapon, and strode from the room, closing the bedroom door behind me. I pulled up the hall surveillance on my phone as I went.
What I saw made my blood run cold.
Fucking hell. Just when everything had turned to shit, only Maxwell could make it worse. He had a gift. I wished I could send it back.
I opened the door to my apartment, stepping to the side as Maxwell fell at my feet. Blood covered the front of his torso centering around a slice in his shirt just below his ribs. Stabbed. Fuck.
“Get in here.”
I reached down, hooking my hands under his armpits, and dragged him inside. I should have been scared at the sight of my father bleeding from a stab wound. Maybe I would have been a week ago. Not now.
Whatever he'd done to earn that wound, he was no innocent victim. I already knew that.
I dragged him far enough to clear the door, slammed it shut and locked it, setting the security in the hallway to alert at any movement. I hadn't bothered before since my guys were doing regular sweeps, but if Maxwell had made it up here I wasn't taking any more chances.
My father dragged himself to a sitting position, leaning against the wall by the front door.
“Talk,” I ordered. “What the fuck did you do?”
Maxwell's eyes slid away from mine, then back, defiant and apologetic at the same time. I was pissed as hell, but I couldn't deny my stomach twisted as he drew in a shallow breath and the stain of red over his stomach darkened.
Fuck. I needed to call the paramedics. I had a bad feeling that wasn't an option. I resisted the urge to order him to talk again and waited.
Sucking in another shallow breath, he managed, “Went after Tsepov. Needed to take him down before Holley—”
Maxwell shook his head, cutting off the line of explanation. I didn’t need to hear it.
He didn't want to go to jail, and he couldn't leave Tsepov out there, so he thought he’d take care of the problem and then disappear.
A part of me couldn't even blame him. I wouldn't want to go to jail either. Who did? I’d give him the tiniest bit of credit for not bailing on us again knowing that Tsepov would come for his family if he took off.
Forcing himself to sit up further, he took another breath and got to his feet slowly, laboriously.
“I need a weapon. He’s coming. I set up a meet, trying to lure him out in the open. Worked too well.” Maxwell gave a wry laugh that ended in a cough. “He has more men in town than I thought. Sent them ahead. Flanked me.”
Maxwell was on his feet, wavering but steadier. He walked to the kitchen and got himself a glass, filled it with water from the sink and drank.
“Get some gauze or tear up a sheet or something. Gotta bandage this. Can't be bleeding all over the place.”
Glad Alice and Petra hadn't woken up when Maxwell banged on the door, I grabbed the first-aid kit from the counter where Griffen had left it after tending to Alice’s cut feet only hours ago. It felt like a lifetime.
“Pull up your shirt.”
Maxwell did, and I got a first-hand view of the neat slit of the stab wound right into his gut. Fuck. No question he had internal bleeding. He was running on adrenaline, but I had to get him to a hospital soon or he'd be fucked.
Pulling out packages of gauze, I held them to the knife wound with one hand and opened up the roll of bandages with the other. Maxwell stood still, breath held as I wrapped him up tightly enough to keep him mobile just a little longer.
“What happened to the guy who did this?” I asked, not wanting the answer.
“I took down both of Andrei’s men. But there are more. He’s coming.”
“What the fuck does that mean? He’s coming. As in coming inside the building?”
Another guilty slide of his eyes away from mine. Fucking hell.
“You want to explain how he's going to get inside, Dad?”
Like a sullen teenager, he muttered, “I had a fucking plan.”
“Yeah, I can see that. Get Mom liquored up and sic her on Alice and Petra, then bring the mob boss who wants to murder you into my home. Great plan.”
Maxwell wasn't entirely immune to sarcasm. “You boys had me locked down so tight it was the best I could do.”
“No, Dad, the best you could do was work with the fucking FBI to put fucking Andrei Tsepov in jail and not egg Mom on until she tried to murder Alice and sell your goddamn daughter to a trafficker. I don't even know who you are anymore. The dad who raised me wasn't a great guy, but he wasn't evil.”
“I knew Alice wouldn't let her take Petra,” Maxwell said, sending an affronted look my way. Where he got the gall to look affronted, I couldn't imagine.
“You're right, there was no way Alice was going to let Mom take Petra.” I tied off the bandage. “She almost died trying to save Petra from Mom, and now Mom is in the hospital. What the fuck were you thinking?”
I didn't wait for him to answer.
“Stay here. I'll be back with supplies.”
“A weapon?” he asked hopefully.
I thought about taking a swing at him, then decided I might need him, assuming he planned to aim that weapon at Tsepov and not me. Given the way the rest of this bullshit had gone, I wasn't sure I could count on anything.
I left him in the kitchen and strode down the hall. First order of business—secure Alice and Petra. I didn't have a safe room in my apartment. Not exactly. Between the holding room on the company floor and the safe house apartment that Lacey and Maxwell had been using, it seemed like overkill.
The closest I came was a spare room where I stored equipment and files too sensitive to keep in the main office space. While it wasn’t a full-fledged safe room, it did have reinforced walls and a steel door that would be almost impossible to break down. It was the best I could do on short notice.
While Maxwell was out of earshot, I made two calls. Agent Holley was coldly furious but ready to move on Tsepov. Hanging up on him, I called Griffen and filled him in, glad he’d decided to stay on-site for the night. He could coordinate the team I had on watch while I took care of Alice and Petra.
Alice and Petra were still asleep when I went back into the bedroom. I sat on the side of the bed and ran one finger across Alice’s cheek, tucking a strand of her dark hair behind her ear.
I wished I'd woken her earlier. Wished I'd told her I loved her. That I believed in her. That she'd done the right thing. That, in my eyes, she'd always do the right thing.
I wished I'd woken her so I could have told her how sorry I was about Lacey. About Maxwell.
Sorry that I'd waited so fucking long to claim her.
I wished a lot of things, and I didn't have time for any of them.