We climbed silently, both of us in our own little worlds.
I loved the hell out of Viddy. She was so intuitive, and always knew when to shut up, or talk it out.
This was one of those ‘shut up’ times; she didn’t try to get me talking like most would do.
Only walked at my side, climbing the steps, one by one, until we reached the surgical ICU.
“What room is he in?” I asked quietly.
“First door on the right. They deemed him a flight risk. He’s the furthest away from the elevators, and the closest to the nurse’s station,” Viddy explained.
“Hmmph,” I said. “That won’t keep him where he’s supposed to be. It’ll only make it easier for him to escape.”
“That’s what I told them, but the ‘nurses know best’ or, at least, that’s what the nurse I told it to, said,” Viddy explained, turning into the first room.
Trance was sitting at Foster’s side reading something on his phone.
Foster’s eyes were open, and glaring at Trance, whom I guessed, had refused to say a word as was his usual. He didn’t do conflict well, and by the look in Foster’s eyes, he knew a storm was a brewin’.
“What the fuck happened?” Foster seethed.
Trance grimaced and stood. “I think Viddy and I will…”
“Sit,” I said, pointing back at the seat. “Foster, they had to take your leg from the knee down.”
Trance didn’t sit.
He left, taking Viddy with him.
Foster stared at me like I’d grown a second head and then jackknifed up in the bed to stare at the blanket where you could definitely see that he was missing a leg.
“You’re telling me I’ve made it through three tours in the goddamned sandbox,” he said softly. “Countless missions as a SEAL. And the way I lose a motherfuckin’ leg is by some royal BITCH RUNNING ME THE FUCK OVER?”
I winced as my brother’s voice went from soft and deadly to an all-out roar.
“They got her, though. She was caught red-handed,” Luke said tiredly from behind me.
We’d all been here all night. Me because I’d been with Mercy. Luke and the rest of them had split their time with Foster and Mercy, going back and forth to hand off updates on the other.
“And what was her reasoning?” Foster shot back.
“Revenge,” I said, walking tiredly into the room. “She hated Mercy so much, from the first time she met her, that she took it upon herself to ruin Mercy’s life. She killed Faris Blue after he went into the bathroom after Mercy. Her only reasoning was that she ‘couldn’t let another man have what was her son’s.’”
Foster snarled a curse. “That fucking bitch!”
I nodded, looking down at the bed. At the empty spot where my brother’s leg was supposed to be.
“You ready to talk to the doctor?” I asked.
“Fuck the doctor,” Foster growled. “Where’s Mercy?”
I smiled. “The maternity ward. They had to monitor the baby while you were having your leg chopped off.”
He blinked, then threw the covers off the bed.
“Get me some crutches,” he ordered.
I blinked. “You can’t move.”
“I had a leg amputated; I’m not a cripple,” he snapped.
“Let me go ask the doctor,” I hesitated.
Turning around, I walked out to the nurse’s station and to the first doctor I saw.
“I need you to come talk to my brother. Now,” I said hurriedly.
The man and his bushy eyebrows looked at me in surprise. “Who’s this?”
Nonetheless, he came with me, picking up the chart when I told him the room number.
“I’m a cardiologist, not an orthopedic surgeon, but I’ll try my best. Where is he?”
He accompanied me into Foster’s room, but it was empty.
“Motherfucker.” I sighed, and then said, “Never mind. I know where he is.”
I found him exactly where I thought he’d be.
In bed, directly next to my wife.
His wounded leg propped up on a pillow in the middle of the bed.
All his cords and drains hooked on the bed and hanging in a jumbled mess at his side.
How he’d even managed to get in the bed was beyond me, let alone get down here.
He was always a stubborn one, our Foster. If anyone could tackle this hurdle, it’d be him.
Mercy sat crying on Foster’s shoulder, her eyes pouring tears as she apologized to him over and over again for ‘bringing that monster into his life.’
“It’s okay, Mercy Me. We’ll kick life’s ass, you and me together. Linda’s not even a player in our game anymore. I’m just glad you’re alright,” Foster said, leaning his head against hers.
She didn’t see the revenge in his eyes, though. Didn’t see the rage burning deep.
A rage so pure and all-encompassing, that I knew it’d explode.
It was just a matter of time.
***
Miller
Three months later
“Foster’s developed a bit of a reputation around town,” Mercy said, eyeing Foster as he limped up to the front of the restaurant.
He staggered inside, and not one single person got in his way. He literally had everyone, and I do mean everyone, moving out of his way.
That was because people had a fine-tuned instinct to avoid danger, and Foster was that in a nutshell.
One hundred percent dangerous. He was a live wire of built up aggression and resentment.
He didn’t blame anyone, except Linda, for his condition, but he wasn’t giving anybody anything anymore.
Gone was the carefree Foster who had a laugh for absolutely everyone, and in his place was a man who was so mad at the world that he could barely function.
He was now known on the force as Crush.
We’d all seen the video.
Foster had, impossibly, been the one to apprehend Linda.
She’d hit us, and then thrown her car into reverse, hitting Foster in her attempt to get away.
Although he’d been taken down, he was most certainly not out.
In the video, you can see him get up, using only one leg, and take out the car’s tires.
Linda overcorrects and spins into a tree all in the span of thirty seconds.
Foster had saved the day, but he’d also lost his leg to a crush injury.
Hence the nickname ‘Crush,’ and the entire community of Kilgore now looked out for ‘The Crush.’ In fact, he was very well known, as well as the ‘hot cop’ who gave tickets to everyone. Even old ladies.
“What are you smiling at?” Mercy asked me.
“You see that girl over there?” I asked, pointing toward the booth by the door.
“Yes,” Mercy said, turning her gaze to the old man and the young woman eating lunch together.
The girl was a spitfire.
Something half the department had witnessed when she’d come in to protest a ticket that Foster had written her grandfather.
“Foster wrote that old man a ticket yesterday morning, and the granddaughter came in to protest it. She lit into Foster like I’d never seen before, and I thought Foster was going to lose his new-found cool.” I laughed, thinking about his reaction he’d had to her. “But he held on to it, just barely, and then she knocked into his shoulder on her way out.”
Mercy nodded, enraptured with the story.
Foster was her hero, and she loved him to pieces.
Sometimes I had the distinct feeling that she favored Foster over me at times, but I’d figured out that it was just a special bond that the two had.
He was now living with us full time.
We’d moved him out of the apartment the day after he’d been released from the hospital, after his amputation, paying the rent even though nobody was there.
This week had been his first month back on the force.
“He fell down,
and she didn’t even realize it. I’ve never, not in my life, seen him as mad as he was right then. Even after finding out that Linda wasn’t going to jail, but to a psych facility.”
Two months ago, the state of Texas had decided that prison wasn’t the right fit for Linda, and had sentenced her to a high security psychiatric ward where they’d be monitoring her for the rest of her life, never having the ability to leave on parole.
Which worked for all of us. We were happy that she’d never have the possibility of getting out again.
Our child would be safe from her forever.
“Uh-oh,” Mercy said. “She’s getting up.”
I turned my eyes from my wife’s face to find the girl practically bowling through the tables to get to Foster.
“Hey! You!” the girl yelled.
Foster froze and slowly turned to face the girl.
“Yeah?” Foster asked, his stoic features not giving a single bit of his feelings away.
Foster’s hands went to his hips as he took in the girl.
“Do you know anything about my grandfather’s car getting fixed?” the girl accused.
Foster didn’t move.
Mercy leaned closer, her arm going around my shoulders to get more comfortable as she listened.
Her belly pressed up against my arm, and I felt the life we’d created stir underneath her skin.
I smiled, looking down at her belly as I lifted my hand to rest on the small swell.
“What time do we have to go to the gender screening?” I asked, turning to study Mercy’s face.
She’d put on some weight since I’d met her all those months ago, but in my opinion, she looked just as good now, as she had then. If not even better.
I was partial to the ways the baby had changed her.
Especially when it came to her ass and tits.
The belly wasn’t a letdown, either.
“Shhhh!” Mercy hissed, covering my mouth with her hand.
I rolled my eyes and turned back to survey the altercation taking place in the middle of Catfish Charlie’s like the rest of the place was doing.
“Well, if it was you, I don’t want to accept charity, so I took the tires off the car and sent them back to the retailer. If it wasn’t you, then, whatever,” the girl said, turning on her heel and stomping off.
Foster watched her go back to the table before turning around and making his way to us.
His face was what I would describe as ‘thunderous.’
Pissed was only a fraction of what was on his face right then. Gone was his new, cool composure. In its place was the old Foster. The one who was hotheaded and emotional.
One that I missed.
One that I was happy that girl had just pulled forth from him.
The moment Foster sat, I smiled at Mercy.
“He bought her the tires,” I said to her.
Mercy’s laughing eyes turned to me.
“He bought her the tires,” she confirmed.
“You can both go fuck off. Maybe join that snotty woman when you go,” Foster muttered angrily.
Literally, how could he expect me not to laugh? That was what brothers were for, right?
Chapter 24
I like your outfit… did it come with the stripper boots as well?
-Mercy’s secret thoughts
Mercy
“Alright, alright, alright,” the announcer, which happened to be Bennett, yelled through the microphone.
I winced as his voice hit a particularly high note, but nonetheless hefted my big ass up and started to clap.
The firefighters and the cops of Kilgore were competing to see who could raise the most at the auction.
I, of course, had to be here out of moral support for my husband.
Husband.
That still felt so weird to say, even now, five months later.
It felt like just yesterday that we’d met, and now here I was, nine and a half months pregnant with our child at an auction that he’d made me promise to win so he wouldn’t have to go home with some weirdo.
“Alright ladies,” Foster boomed. “It’s time for everyone to get a look at what they’re getting. The first thing we’re going to do is give y’all a sneak preview. Please, ladies, do not grab the men inappropriately. Any of you ladies who break that rule will be escorted out of the premises. Understand?”
Does that mean me, too? I mean, if I was the one to touch my husband inappropriately, I wouldn’t be escorted out, would I?
I’d like to see them try.
It’d be quite funny for them to do that without touching me. Something that, if they did, Miller might just lose his shit like he’d done last week when we’d gone to the police station.
He’d asked me to wait out in the hall while he went in to review some tape of a crime that he’d witnessed the previous night. Since I’d been on the phone when he’d gone in, I’d chosen to stay outside the door so as not to disturb him. When I’d finished, I’d looked up to find a newer officer barreling down on me. He’d explained to me that he’d have to escort me out since I wasn’t accompanied by authorized personnel.
When I’d tried to explain to him that I was waiting on Miller, he’d gently taken my hand and started leading me away.
I’d gone willingly enough but wasn’t surprised to hear that Miller had caught the entire thing on the video feed, and had flipped a switch on the poor, just trying to do his job, man.
I’d just stood back and shook my head in awe at the way Miller reamed the poor guy out.
I swear it was like the bigger I grew with the baby, the more and more protective he became.
“Now, please give our men a round of applause!” Bennett yelled, moving his arm in a dramatic fashion, kind of the way a magician would do as he revealed his big ‘ta-da’ at the end finale.
I’d say that the men were magical in their own way, though.
They started walking down the ‘T’ of the stage one by one.
When Miller finally made his way down, women started screaming and yelling.
Oh, they’d been screaming and yelling already, but Miller had become sort of a local celebrity with the way he’d saved that woman and child from their rapidly sinking car that’d crashed in the river last week.
When he got close enough to me, I yelled, “I volunteer!”
He grinned devilishly at me, blowing me a kiss before turning around.
He didn’t do it gracefully like a model would. Instead, it was all Hulk-ish, turning around in a stomp and walking back with his booted-feet stomping against the stage’s floor.
“You’re a dork,” Memphis teased, nudging me with her elbow.
I turned my face to hers and smiled wide. “That man makes me shameless.”
“No,” Reese, Luke’s wife, said, plopping down in her seat beside me. “He makes you a slut.”
I’d made great friends with the wives of the SWAT team, and I couldn’t wait to make more and more memories. It was like we had one huge extended family of love and support.
When a SWAT member loved, he loved hard.
I nodded in agreement. “Yes, for him I’d do absolutely anything. Anything. He told me to bark like a dog while we did it, I’d totally do it!”
Memphis burst out laughing, so hard that she nearly fell out of her chair.
Reese covered her mouth with her hand to control her laughing, and I had the distinct feeling that I’d missed something.
“Okay,” I said, turning to face Memphis. “What did I miss?”
Memphis wiped tears from her eyes as she spoke, finally finishing with, “And I was never really sure if it was Foster or Miller. Needless to say, what you said just struck me as funny.”
As she spoke, my mood dampened, becoming a roiling of emotions as I thought about what she’d just told me.
“You’re kidding,” I finally managed to grit out.
Memphis jerked her head. “No. I swear. A
sk Miller if you don’t believe me.”
The lights went down, and music started to leach from the speakers on either side of the stage, effectively cutting off the questions that were burning at the tip of my tongue.
I sat back in my chair, crossing my arms over my big belly, nowhere near in as good of a mood as I had been only moments before.
He seriously didn’t do that… did he?
***
I’d won him, but only grudgingly.
When the old man, the one that Foster had given that ticket to all those months ago, had upped his bid to six hundred dollars, I was very tempted to let him have him.
It was only his desperate, wild look that he threw in my direction when Bennett said, ‘Going twice’ that I finally bid for him.
“So you won me, where are you taking me?” he asked, looping his arm around my shoulders as we walked out into the balmy summer air.
“It’s a surprise,” I said, handing him the keys. “The surprise is at home, though.”
He took them and opened the door for me, offering a steady hand as I climbed up into his truck.
“Thanks,” I said breathlessly. “That’s getting harder and harder to do!”
He snorted. “That’s ‘cause you’re… nine months pregnant.”
My ears pricked up, and I turned to him sharply.
My big belly leading the way as I did.
“You hesitated. Why’d you hesitate?” I asked sharply.
He winced. “I was going to say ‘big’ but that didn’t sound good. So I changed what I was going to say.”
I glared at him.
“You know,” I said, no longer able to hold in my questions. “Memphis had some… things to say about you today. And I’m curious.”
Miller’s head fell against the steering wheel.
“I didn’t mean to knock the wall down when I was doing that. It was a flimsy piece of shit. I’m just glad she moved,” Miller said quickly.
My mouth dropped open. “You’re telling me that you knocked a fucking wall down when you were fucking someone, but you won’t do the same for me? When did this happen?”
I was hot!
He’d done nothing more than ‘slow and easy’ sex for the entirety of our relationship. Not to mention this was the first time I’d heard about any of it since we’d met nine months ago.
Code 11- KPD SWAT Box Set Page 80
