“And what would that be?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest and taking in the men.
“Sarah says that Linda was behind the murder of Faris Blue, too,” Foster explained, gesturing to a signed confession that was on the coffee table between us.
I bent down and picked it up, reading what Sarah said word for word.
“Holy shit,” I said, surprised. “What the fuck? How did we not see her?”
“Makeup. She also cut off all her hair. There’s nothing more than a buzz cut left,” Gabe said.
Gabe was Puerto Rican.
He had dark eyes, even darker hair, and a year-round tan. The tats on his arms gave a ‘dark and deadly’ look to him, and I knew he was the first to catch Mercy’s attention.
She backed into me slowly, wary of all the men now filling the apartment.
Gabe was also a really good guy, something that I could tell easily in the year that I’d known him.
“Why hasn’t she been arrested yet?” I asked, picking up the picture of what Linda last looked like.
“Nobody can find her. She disappeared the day she got kicked out of the house,” Luke said. “We’ve got a BOLO out on her, but she’s good. Nobody’s seen her at all, even her ex-husband.”
I took the last remaining seat, which happened to be a kitchen chair that was made of old leather.
Once I was situated, I pulled Mercy down onto my lap and wrapped my arms around her, effectively cocooning her in my strength.
She’d been awfully quiet since she’d learned of Linda’s involvement, and I was worried.
Worried that her head was back in that church, where her whole life had changed in a single instant of time. Where her boyfriend, the man she was supposed to count on above all others, had turned on her. Had taken his hand to her, beaten her senseless, and then raped her for all to see.
She surprised me, though, by asking, “So what are y’all going to do?”
A knock on the door had Foster standing to move toward it.
Astonishingly, the man who came in was Silas.
“Finally, what have you got for us?” Sam asked roughly.
“If you’d chill your tits, he’d be able to talk, big fucking brother,” Sebastian growled as, he too, pushed his way past Silas.
Sam snorted and offered his hand to his brother, and I smiled, seeing a little of myself and Foster in the two of them.
“Move out of the way, this is fucking heavy,” Trance’s voice called from the hallway.
Speaking of brothers…
I looked away from Sebastian and Sam to find Trance walking in with what amounted to a large stack of papers on top of about ten boxes of pizza.
“Happy wedding dinner, big brother,” Trance said as he sat the offerings on the coffee table.
Mercy giggled, snuggling her nose into my neck.
“This wasn’t exactly how I thought our wedding night would go,” she said dryly.
I snorted. “We had a good run. I don’t think I’ll ever be free of these boys. They’re going to be permanent fixtures. Especially those two,” I gestured toward Trance and Foster who were fighting over the same piece of pizza; a more crust than pizza piece, which had a huge bubble of dough on top of it.
“I wish I had brothers like yours,” she whispered.
I squeezed her tightly. “You can have them anytime you want.”
***
“Some wedding night,” Foster teased once I sat back into my seat.
Mercy had fallen asleep about twenty minutes after eating, and I’d carried her to our room, kissing her on the cheek and tucking her in before I left.
“It wasn’t too bad. She liked the house,” I told them.
“Which house?” Sam asked.
“The old Holmes Homestead,” I explained, grabbing a slice of cold pizza and biting into it.
“I tried to get that land when I first moved here. The old fucker told me to ‘fuck off and eat shit,’” Sam laughed.
“I think,” Luke said, leaning forward to study the papers on the table in front of him. “That she’s here. She’s following Mercy, and since Mercy’s here, Linda won’t be far behind.”
I nodded. “I’d come to that conclusion as well.”
“She couldn’t have been far,” Sam said. “Someone had to help that crazy fuck from this morning get into that bomb. It was strapped to her chest.”
We sobered, thinking again about what could’ve gone wrong.
“You’re a lucky motherfucker, big brother. I’m glad you made it,” Sebastian said into the quiet. “I would’ve taken your wife in, as a concubine, for you, but your kids are fucking crazy. I don’t think they all could’ve come.”
Sam elbowed Sebastian. “At least my kids wear clothes. That’s more than I can say for your son.”
Sebastian smiled. “Yeah, he’s pretty beastly like that.”
“Back to business, boys.”
Chapter 22
Do not ring this doorbell unless you’re offering me a million dollars and you have it on hand. That or you’re Ryan Reynolds. If you wake me while I’m sleeping, I’ll never let you forget it, and that means you, too, Mr. Mailman.
-Words of wisdom from a pregnant person
Mercy
“Alright, so you believe you’re around ten weeks gestation, is that what you said?” Dr. Mead asked.
I nodded at him. “Yes.”
The door to the room burst open, and Miller, dressed in his SWAT gear, burst through.
“Shit, I’m sorry, baby. I didn’t mean to be late. I didn’t miss it, did I? Luke underestimated the time it’d take to run the course.”
I shook my head, a smile breaking out over my face.
“Nope, the doctor was just about to do an ultrasound,” I answered, holding my hand out to him. “I’d appreciate it if you closed the door, though, so the staff and other patients didn’t see my hoo-hoo.”
He smiled sheepishly. “Sorry.”
Once the door was closed, he came to my side, eyes focused on the screen instead of the huge mother lovin’ wand about to go up my vagina.
“Are you the man who saved that little girl a few months back?” Dr. Mead asked, holding the wand out to the nurse.
Thankfully, though, the woman who said she’d be there, got there.
Nothing against the doctor, but I really wasn’t looking forward to having him shove that thing inside of me.
I still wasn’t a big fan of men being near me when I was so vulnerable and, lucky for me, I wouldn’t have to go through that.
“Sorry,” she said excitedly. “We had a young woman in a few minutes ago pregnant with triplets. I just had to go get a quick look. Are you ready?”
At my nod
She applied a generous amount of lube and then eased it inside of me.
I winced, heart starting to race slightly at the invasion, but Miller stopped the panic in its tracks.
Miller kissed my nose, running his bearded jaw over my face.
I giggled and pushed him away. “You’re so weird.”
He winked at me, those baby blues boring into mine before he turned back to the screen.
“Alright,” the sonographer said, clicking away at something. “This is your baby.”
I looked at the screen. Then squinted. “It looks like a big old blob.”
The doctor and sonographer laughed, as did the nurse.
“That it does. Next time you have your sonogram, he or she will look a little more human-like. And notice I said a little more. I get the ‘he looks like an alien’ quite a bit.”
“I’d say nine and a half weeks. Or a little less,” the doctor guessed.
My heart raced. Nine weeks would put it just shy of the night that Miller and I had… I shut the thought down. I’d promised myself I wouldn’t question it. What’s done was done, and we were going to be a happy family, no matter what.
“Yes,” Mrs. Brewer confirmed. “Nin
e weeks. The due date should be around the first week in October!”
Miller squeezed my hand. “That’s the week of my birthday.”
His grin was contagious, and I couldn’t help but kiss his hand, excited that he was excited.
“Alright,” Mrs. Brewer said, hitting a couple more buttons on the screen.
Papers started to print out, and she handed us both a copy. “There you go! Baby’s first picture.”
I started to cry.
Miller cleared his throat, and then tucked it into his front pocket, right above his heart, and directly behind his badge.
“Perfect,” I said, sitting up once the wand was taken from me.
“Now, I’ll want to see you back in a month. We should be close to telling the sex of the baby by then,” the doctor said as he headed toward the door. “Is there anything else you need?”
I shook my head. “No, you’ve answered them all, thank you.”
With that, the room emptied, and I was left alone with Miller.
“Well?” I asked him.
He’d been staring at the picture still in my hand, eyes never wavering.
His gaze slid to me. “I’m happy.”
My tears, which had just started to dry up, started to well again. “I’m happy, too. So happy I could scream.”
He leaned forward and gave me a kiss on the forehead. “Just wait till we’re outside, or they’ll think I’m beating you.”
I snorted and hopped up, my ass flopping free of the paper gown they had me in.
Miller took advantage and smacked it, causing me to jump in surprise.
“Hey!” I said indignantly.
He grinned. “It was hanging out. It wasn’t my fault.”
I glared at him but got dressed anyway.
“Do you want to head to lunch after this?” I asked, slipping my shirt back on over my head.
“Sure,” he said.
I looked over my shoulder to see him staring at my ass and had to laugh.
“Down, boy.”
He winked, grabbing my panties off the chair and tossing them at my face.
“If you don’t want me to look, how about you cover it?”
I caught the panties and slipped them on, making quick work of putting them and my pants on.
My shoes came last, but since I was wearing flip-flops, it didn’t much matter.
“Ready,” I said, snatching my picture from his hand and shouldering my purse.
He pulled my hair. “Lead the way, Mercy Me.”
I did, down the hallway, out of the office, and into the bright sunshine.
My hair whipped about my face at the blast of wind, and I giggled when it flew into Miller’s face.
What shocked me, though, was that his eyes were alert and oriented on something far out into the parking lot.
“What is it?” I said, catching my hair and twisting it before tucking it under my shirt.
His eyes followed an old, black car out of the parking lot, watching it drive down the road unhurriedly.
“Miller?” I asked in concern.
His eyes didn’t meet mine until the car was completely gone from his sight.
“Yeah?” he asked.
“What was it?”
He shook his head. “Nothing. It was nothing.”
***
Linda
The next morning
“Do you see this, my son? Do you see the craziness? Look at our house! I can’t believe you gave that to her! Her, of all people!” I gestured to our old place with a sweep of my hand.
My eyes turned from the ruined house to the silver urn that was holding my son’s ashes. The one I’d been carrying around since he’d been handed back over to me.
The paper delivery driver stopped at the end of the driveway, gawking at the place where our home had once stood only twelve hours before, and finally threw the paper.
Why, I couldn’t tell you. It was more than obvious, even to me, that the house’s occupants were no longer there.
Nonetheless, though, I walked down there and retrieved it.
It was a habit, keeping up with the happenings in the city.
If I didn’t know what was going on around me, I seemed to be a little…unsettled.
My son had kept me grounded, and now that he was gone, because of that stupid bitch of a whore, I no longer had that peace that used to keep me calm.
Then, what little ‘calm’ I had, evaporated when I saw the story on the front page of the paper.
Hometown sweetheart marries Kilgore SWAT officer.
That stupid bitch!
Didn’t she realize what kind of prize she had in my son? What kind of life he could’ve given her?
Then the words underneath captured my gaze, and I knew what I had to do.
Couple to celebrate their wedding this Saturday night at Sacred Spur Ranch.
Bye-bye, Mr. and Mrs. Spurlock. I hope you burn in hell.
Chapter 23
I didn’t choose this life, I chose him.
-Mercy
Mercy
Two days later
“Sometimes my brain shuts off where I sort of zone out for a while, and it’s nice to know that when I snap out of it, I can turn to you and be like, ‘We need to build a fallout shelter to protect ourselves from the zombie apocalypse,’ and you’ll give it serious consideration,” I said into the microphone at our reception dinner, my eyes on my husband. “That’s why I wanted to marry you. You put up with my quirkiness. You protect me, shelter me, and love me. There’s not one thing I would change about our relationship. It may have started on the verge of impossible, but you stuck with me and loved me through it. I love you, Miller Genuine Spurlock, and I’m proud to be your wife.”
My eyes started to fill with tears during the first part of the speech, and by the end of it, I was genuinely crying, tears pouring down my face in fast rivulets.
Miller leaned forward and captured my mouth, pressing his warm lips against mine.
“I love the way your lips get soft when you cry. I love the way you look at me when I wake you up in the morning after a long day at work. I love the way you watch me drive down the street until you can’t see me anymore. What I love most of all, though, is your heart. Your will to overcome. The way you continuously face the day when most people would’ve crawled into a hole and died. My wish, for the rest of our lives, is that I can live up to the man you’ve made me out to be, and forever offer you a shoulder to rely on. I love you more, Mercy Me. To the moon and back. To infinity and beyond. I’m over the fuckin’ rainbow in love with you,” he said into the microphone that was still clutched in my hands.
“Language,” I said, placing my hand over his mouth.
The crowd that was watching us laughed, and I turned to smile at the people that were at our reception, so happy I could burst.
“Alright, there’s one last thing we have to do before we can cut the cake,” Memphis said, gesturing toward a chair that was in the back of the room.
My heart started to flutter as I knew what was about to happen. He was about to see the garter I was wearing, as were the rest of the guests.
And it proved to be fun.
He loved the garter, and the fact that nearly my entire leg was exposed wasn’t nearly as big of a deal as I made it out to be.
Although having Miller’s large shoulders wedged between my legs also had something to do with not caring.
Twenty minutes after we cut our cake and the last goodbye was said, Miller and I headed to the car while the crowd around us threw birdseed.
“You ready, Mrs. Spurlock?” Miller asked, circling the garter he’d pried off my leg with his teeth around on his finger.
I blushed and dropped into the seat, laughing when he bent over me and hung the garter from his rearview mirror.
He stopped halfway out to give me a peck on the lips, then turned to wave at his friends and mine one more time.
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As Miller and I drove off, and the crowd of people stood behind us, I waved, turning around in my seat to do so.
Miller smacked my ass, “Turn around and put your seatbelt on.”
It was in that moment that I saw the car come out of nowhere.
It smashed into our right side like a battering ram.
Miller threw his arm out, gathering me to him, holding on for dear life while we were thrown this way and that.
We must’ve spun no less than fifteen times, finally coming to a stop against what I assumed was another vehicle.
My head, though, was a swirl of confusion.
My eyes were open, but I wasn’t seeing anything.
Shots rang out, an engine roared. A man screamed. More shots pierced through my fog.
Even those couldn’t make me understand.
I must’ve hit my head, because when I tried to look around, all I heard was screaming.
“She’s hurt!”
“Get ‘em out!”
“She’s bleeding from her head.”
“Foster’s fucked up.”
“My baby!”
“Foster’s hurt. Bad.”
“It’s Linda.”
My thoughts finally swirled back online long enough for three thoughts to pour through me.
Oh, please don’t let Foster be hurt.
Where is Miller? Why can’t I hear Miller?
Linda! You cocksucker!
***
Miller
My head was pounding, but I put one foot in front of the other.
I could do no less.
My mind was a riot of emotions as I walked down the hall, leaving Mercy sleeping in her hospital bed.
She was alright, but it could’ve been worse.
She could’ve been pinned in her seat, crushed because her seatbelt wouldn’t let her move.
Had she not had her seatbelt off, she’d have been crushed.
I’d have lost both her and the baby in one fell swoop.
“Is he awake yet?” I asked Trance as he walked to me with Viddy.
She shook her head. “Not yet. They expect it to happen anytime, though.”
“Thank you,” I said quietly. “Do you mind if we take the stairs?”
“No problem,” Viddy said, turning to the door instead of the elevators once we reached the end of the hall.
Code 11- KPD SWAT Box Set Page 79
