Uncovered Desires_A Single Mom Alpha Male Protector Romance

by Kelli Walker

  He waved his gun at my son’s face and my stomach rolled.

  “Who are you?” I asked. “How do you know DeShawn?”

  “Because you sure don’t look like him,” Dom said.

  “I’m his godfather,” the officer said. “I was there when he was born. I was there when DeShawn’s mother died in labor giving birth to that boy. I was there every damn night when Darnell called me up, crying because he couldn't even look at his son without thinking of her. I changed his diaper. Fixed his bottles. Fed him his fucking meals until Darnell got back up onto his feet. Then I go away for work once. Just once. And you swoop in with your greedy hands and your privileged attitude and your holier-than-thou outlook on life and you took that boy from me!”

  “So that’s your excuse for where were you when Darnell cold-clocked that boy so many times it left him unconscious and bleeding on his living room floor?” I asked.

  I watched anger flare in the man’s eyes and I knew what I had to do. I turned around as I heard the officer cock his gun and I shoved Dom towards the porch door. He stumbled over his feet and crashed into the glass door, ripping it open as I turned down the hallway.

  “Run, Dom! Get out of here!”

  A gunshot rang out and I heard my son scream. I raced into his bedroom and pulled back the curtain, peeking out as he darted across the lawn. He didn’t look as if he’d been shot and relief flooded my veins. But the victory was short lived as I turned around and came face to face with the angry brown eyes of Officer Deacon.

  “You’re coming with me,” he said.

  He grabbed my arm and wrenched me out of my son’s room. I clamored along the wall, raking my fingernails across it until the paint came off underneath them. I struggled with all my might as that man tugged me towards my front door, fighting to get away from his grasp. I peeked out the back door and couldn’t see Dom anywhere. Tears flooded my vision as my feet slipped along the kitchen floor. His grip was tight. Harsh. Unforgiving. I knew it would leave bruises as blood dripped from my broken and battered fingertips. I threw my elbow back and caught him in his rib cage as he groaned, but his arm quickly wrapped around my waist and picked me up off my feet.

  “You’ll pay for that,” Officer Deacon said. “You’ll pay for all of it.”

  Sirens in the distance graced my ears. Were those for my boy? Had they found DeShawn? I kicked my legs in the air, trying to throw them back and connect with anything as the officer kept walking to his car. I clawed at his arm and threw my head back, trying to get myself away from his strong grasp.

  Then, he slammed me into the side of his car, forcing me to gasp for air as he dipped his lips to my ear.

  “I’m his godfather. You had no right to take him away.”

  “Yet you were going to… hand him back… to his abusive father?” I asked breathlessly.

  “I was never going to give that man his boy back!” he exclaimed. “I would never give DeShawn back to that man.”

  “How did you see this… going?” I asked as I gasped my last breath. “How did you see all this happening?”

  “Not like this,” he said as his gun pressed into my side. “Now get in the car, Miss Carpenter.”

  The sound of the sirens got closer as the officer raised his head up. My eyes followed him, watching the worry that crossed through his vision. His face flipped between frustration and fear as he wrenched me from the side of the car. Then he opened the door and tossed me into the back.

  I went tumbling to the seat as the door closed and the air around us filled with loud sirens and squealing tires.

  I curled up into a ball while gunshots rattled off around me. Police cars parked themselves on every square inch of my block as tears streamed down my face. Where was Dom? Where was DeShawn? Where was Tristan?

  Where were my boys?

  “Stand down, Officer Deacon! You’re surrounded!”

  “This woman had no right to take that boy from me!” he exclaimed. “I’m DeShawn’s godfather!”

  “Not legally,” an officer said.

  The sound of the woman’s voice was soothing, and I uncurled myself from the seat so I could look out through the window.

  “You're not legally DeShawn’s anything, and only legal guardians and blood-related relatives are defaulted to in cases like DeShawn’s,” she said.

  “I raised that boy,” Officer Deacon said.

  “But that didn’t give you legal right to him when his father did what he did. Now stand down, officer, and stand up.”

  “No! Not until I hear from Darnell! Not until I know DeShawn’s safe!”

  I looked over the edge of the window and looked around, taking in the sheer amount of police surrounding the front of my home. If they were all here, who was going after my son?

  “It’s over, Officer Deacon. We know you were working with Mr. Winston to take DeShawn Carpenter,” the woman said.

  “That’s not his last name!” he exclaimed. “He’s a Winston. Like me.”

  “Officer, I’m going to give you one last chance to surrender before we take you by force,” the woman said.

  Every single officer had their guns leveled at the man crouched down in front of the police cruiser I was in. I panned my gaze over and looked at him, watching the anger and sadness that dripped from his vision. But there was something else there. Something almost undetectable, but recognizable no matter how it was masked.

  Guilt.

  Officer Deacon’s eyes were laced with guilt.

  “When I found out what was going on, I tried talking with Darnell,” he said. “Several times. I even took that boy into my own home on occasion whenever he didn’t feel well enough to go to school. But I didn’t know he was beating the boy. I swear I didn’t.”

  His eyes connected with mine in his police cruiser as he drew in a deep breath.

  “That man was my brother. Maybe not by blood, but he was my best friend through high school. We both stayed in this town when everyone else left it. He stuck by my side and I stuck by his. I was the one that introduced him to Lilly, you know. DeShawn’s mother.”

  I reached for the door handle of the car before his gun aimed itself straight at me.

  “Officer Deacon, it doesn’t have to end this way today,” the woman said.

  “When Lilly died in labor, I made it my personal mission to look out for those two. I saw the grief Darnell spiraled into. The drinking that started. I’d listen to him as he slowly began to blame DeShawn for killing the woman he loved, and I knew he needed help. I told him to get help. Begged him to get help. I even drove him to a few appointments. I tried everything to piece the only slice of family I had back together.”

  His gun began to waver and his eyes fell closed. I took the opportunity to reach for the door and threw it open into the yard. I tumbled to the ground as a gun went off, shattering glass and forcing another yelp from my lips. Then all at once, gunfire reined down in my front yard. I curled up once again, ducking my head and pulling my knees to my chest. My heart ached. My soul ached. Behind the gun and the uniform and the anger was a man who felt responsible for what happened to his best friend. For what happened to DeShawn. And instead of having the chance to get it right, I adopted him instead.

  But none of that gave him the right to do what he did to my family. To do what he was going to to with DeShawn. Whatever the hell his twisted plans had been, DeShawn was my son. My boy. My family. And no one was taking that from me. Not after all we’d been through and not after the years it took to convince him that what happened to his father and his mother was no fault of his own.

  My jaw quivered as my mind came to a grinding halt.

  My boys. My sons.

  Where was Dom?

  “Miss Carpenter?” the woman asked. “Are you all right?”

  I felt hands come down onto my arms as she helped me to my feet.

  “Don’t look back,” she said as I tried to turn my head. “Just look at me.”

  Officers and paramedics rushed by my bod
y as I stood there, trembling in the middle of my driveway.

  “Are you hurt?” she asked.

  “My son,” I said breathlessly.

  “We have two officers in pursuit of a man going after your son. Tristan Overcash?”

  My heart soared at the name.

  “My other son. Dom. He uh…”

  “Mom?”

  “Dom!?”

  I tried to whip around at my son’s voice, but the woman cupped my cheek and turned my eyes back to hers.

  “Don’t look back,” she said. “Some officers are going behind the house now to find him. You’re safe. He’s safe. Everyone here is safe.”

  Yes. Everyone at my house was safe. But DeShawn wasn’t at my house. He wasn’t at his home. He was still in the grasp of an angry man who still felt he still had a legal right to his son.

  “Where the hell DeShawn?” I asked.

  “We’re working on that,” the woman said.

  My eyes dropped to her nametag, committing her name to memory in case I needed it later.

  “Officer Drewery,” I said with a stern voice, “what do you know about the condition of my son?”

  Tristan

  “I just got word,” Officer Lopez said. “Isabelle and Dominique are safe.”

  “And Officer Deacon?” Jackson asked.

  “Killed in the line of fire,” the woman said.

  It pissed me the fuck off that I hadn’t been there to shield her from that. It made me livid that Dom and Isabelle had witnessed that on their own without someone to protect them. But I couldn’t allow that to distract me. The truth was, they were all right and DeShawn still wasn’t safe.

  Which made him my number one priority.

  “Do you have a status on the boy?” Officer Lopez asked.

  “Still working on it,” I said. “But I want you to relay a message to Isabelle.”

  “I can do that,” the officer said.

  “Tell her I’m getting her son back, no matter what it takes. That I won’t stop until I have him in my custody,” I said.

  “Mr. Overcash, I can’t honestly say I like your tone of voice.”

  “With all due respect, you’re not the one in pursuit of a kidnapper,” I said. “And neither are any of your officers, judging by the lack of sirens behind me.”

  “What she means is your badge can’t protect you from your actions because you have none,” Jackson said. “Stay calm, Tee.”

  “What he said.”

  “When the fuck is this road supposed to--?”

  I heard Jackson chuckle into my ear as my tires rolled over onto the dirt pathway.

  “What was that?” he asked.

  “The road finally broke off into dirt,” I said.

  “Uh huh. Don’t get impatient, Tee. Treat this like any other undercover operation.”

  “This is nothing like my fucking operations, Jackson.”

  “Then keep your anger under control. Stay alert. You always lose focus when your emotions get in the way.”

  “I’m not sure I’ll have cell service much longer,” I said.

  “Well, stay on with us until we lose you,” Officer Lopez said. “I’ve shot a couple of my best deputies your coordinates. They’re headed your way. About twenty minutes out.”

  “I don’t have you on camera any longer. Haven’t for a few minutes,” Jackson said. “But you’re on the right road. The last camera shot I have of that truck is the one you just dumped yourself onto. Do you see anything?”

  “Just some trees and some damn--”

  But before I could finish answering his question, my truck went skidding off to the side.

  Glass shattered into my truck as wheels raked against the dirt. Rocks kicked up and dust sprayed everywhere as I wrapped my arms around my head. My phone went falling to the floorboard as my seat belt locked up to keep me in place. My airbag deployed as my door crunched inward, forcing itself across the side of my leg. I roared out in pain as I volleyed between the airbags. I felt the other side of my truck run into something before raising up off its tires. My stomach rolled with nausea as my leg ached with the metal scratching against it, and I braced for more of the onslaught.

  Then, everything came to a grinding halt.

  “Tristan! You there?”

  “Mr. Overcash?”

  “Hey, Tee. Talk to me. What’s going on?”

  “I need an ambulance at the same coordinates I just sent my deputies. Now!”

  I heard the voices of Jackson and Officer Lopez, but they sounded very far away. My arms throbbed and my head pounded. My thigh burned with the searing edge of metal jutting into my skin. Every part of my body felt like it had been rolled over by an eighteen-wheeler before being tossed into lava. But the sound of a boy screaming off in the distance pulled from me from the fog of my pain.

  I opened my eyes and surveyed the damage. The cracked windshield. The deployed airbag. The shattered driver’s side window. The bent door that trapped my leg to the seat. I reached down and grabbed the sharp edges of the protrusion, pulling up just enough to slide my leg from underneath it. I panted heavily as my body sagged against the steering wheel, my eyes checking for any spurting blood that could signal an arterial bleed.

  “Tristan, damn it. Pick up your phone!”

  I saw my phone on the floorboard of my car, but that was the least of my worries. I wasn’t bleeding. Nothing was broken. I hadn’t hit my head against anything, so a concussion was out of a picture. There was nothing keeping me from continuing my pursuit, so a fucking intentional t-bone wasn’t going to stop me, either. I straightened my back and gritted through the pain as I peeked out the window.

  Seeing that damn truck pinning my door closed made me want that man’s neck in the palms of my hands.

  I unbuckled myself and slid across the seat. I threw the passenger door open, forgetting about my phone as I fell out onto the ground. The world tilted as I stood up. Bile rose up the back of my throat. I rested the palm of my hand against a tree my truck had almost knocked completely over as I took a second to catch my breath.

  Then, I heard it again.

  “Tristan! Help!”

  “Shut the fuck up, boy.”

  That gruff voice made my heart surge with ferocity. In an instant, my vision cleared and my body no longer ached. Adrenaline coursed through my veins as I whipped my head around. I reached for a nonexistent weapon on my hip and cursed underneath my breath.

  So, I reached for a branch on the ground and followed the voice as best as I could.

  I came around my mangled truck and shook my head. I had no idea if it was salvageable. Which meant if I wanted to get DeShawn out of there, I’d have to hotwire Darnell’s truck in order to get us out of here. I walked over and wrenched the door open then reached in to find what I needed. I pulled at the plastic wall until all of the wires in the truck exposed themselves against the pedals. I ripped out all of the ones I needed to break loose, leaving them dangling so I could easily get to them once I had DeShawn in my grasp.

  “Tristan!”

  “I said shut up!”

  A crack echoed so deeply through the forest that it came back to my ears. And a thirst for blood unlike anything I’d ever experienced flared my nostrils. I gripped the thick branch I had in my hand as I looked back up. And just before their bodies disappeared into the darkness, I saw two massive figures stumbling down one of the trails. My legs carried me as fast as they could while my vision cleared. While my ears focused. While my body became more alert through the pain I experienced.

  But just as I got to the edge of darkness--where the forest blocked out the sun and the Devil came out to play--a gunshot rang out among the trees.

  And all fell silent.

  Isabelle

  “Mom!”

  I held my arms out for my son as he ran straight into them. The officers had us standing on the corner while they took pictures, took statements, and cleaned things down. I watched over my baby’s shoulder as the hauled Officer Deacon
’s body. Zipped in a bag and stuffed into the back of the ambulance, my stomach rolled with both sickness and relief.

  “Copy that. Unit 4509 responding to gunshots off Sycamore Dairy Drive.”

  “Gunshots?” I asked.

  My head whipped over to the woman who had helped me to my feet. The woman who had helped find my son in the woods at the back of my home. But my nightmare wasn’t done yet. I hadn’t heard a damn thing about DeShawn, and I had a sinking feeling that report was about him.

  “Officer Drewery?” I asked.

  “I have to go, but one of my deputies will help you with anything you need,” she said.

  “What’s going on? Where’s Sycamore Dairy Drive?”

  I was a local, and it was hard for me to fathom that I didn’t recognize the name of a street in my hometown.

  “I can’t talk about it, ma’am. But rest assured everything is okay.”

  “With all due respect, gunshots were mentioned and I have a son that’s still missing. Or have you forgotten about him?” I asked.

  “We haven’t, ma’am. There are two officers in pursuit to where I’m headed now.”

  “So this is about my son. You tell me what’s going on right now,” I said.

  “You have to sit back and let us do our jobs,” she said.

  “And doing that the first time cost me my son,” I said. “Now you either tell me what the hell’s going on or I’m getting in that car with you.”

  “Just so you know, if my mother’s going? I’m going, too,” Dom said.

  The officer sighed heavily as I held Dom at my side. I wasn’t judging on this. I wasn’t going to stand behind at a house I no longer felt safe in while my other boy was out there in the throngs of a man who wanted to hurt him. A man who wanted to take him away from me. I stared the officer down, posturing as I held my son tightly at my side.

  Then, she held out her arm to her patrol car.