by Lane Hart
Knox is so intent on hurting him that he doesn’t notice the intruder slipping his hand into his pants pocket and pulling out a gun until it goes off. I can’t tell it if it hit Knox at pointblank range or went wide.
That’s when my training finally kicks in. I pull out my Ruger from my shoulder holster and aim it, only there’s no good shot with Knox on top of the man.
“Put down the gun!” I yell, but of course I’m ignored.
Knox drops the bat, and then he’s grabbing the guy’s wrist, trying to wrestle the gun out of his grip.
“Jade, get out of here!” Knox yells before the gun goes off again and this time the bullet finds a target. There’s blood spraying everywhere, and someone screaming so loud it’s deafening.
I don’t realize it’s me screaming until Ivan grabs me and pulls me outside. Carefully, he removes the gun from my hand and tells me, “Get in your car, call nine-one-one, then stay there!” before he runs back into the house.
Two more shots are fired before I make it to my car. I pray that it was Ivan and that he has good aim. I punch in the three numbers on my phone and tell the woman on the other end that there was an intruder in my house and to hurry and send an ambulance to my address.
Unable to deal with the worry for another instant, I stupidly get out of the car with the phone at my ear and jog back inside the house.
There’s more blood soaking into the carpet, but Knox is sitting up with Ivan kneeling beside him. The other man is still flat on his back and isn’t moving.
“I told you to stay outside,” Ivan grumbles when he glances over for a second and sees me.
“Is he…is he dead?” I ask.
“Yeah,” Ivan answers, but Knox only grimaces.
“Are you hurt?”
“Just a scratch,” he says through gritted teeth, but Ivan speaks up and says, “A bullet went through his hand. Since you’re in here, help me put pressure on it.”
“Oh, God,” I mutter before I snap into action. “Get his shirt off,” I instruct as I kneel down on the floor next to them, dropping the phone where a woman is still talking to me, telling me police and an ambulance are on the way. I start pulling the t-shirt over Knox’s head, and Ivan helps me from the other side.
“Are you okay?” I ask Knox as I wrap the cotton around his bloody hand as tight as possible, unable to tell how extensive the damage is because of how bad it’s oozing blood.
“Mus’ be if you’re undressing me. Can’t keep ya hands off me, can ya?” is his slurred response, and I’m not sure if it’s because he’s been drinking or because of the injury.
“Shit! The alcohol is gonna make him bleed out faster!” I tell Ivan as I press Knox’s wrapped palm into the carpet, putting all my weight on it.
“Goddamn, woman!” Knox cries out in pain.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him. “We need to stop the bleeding until the paramedics get here.”
“That guy needs help worse than me,” he replies, nodding to the dead man.
“Forget him,” I say, but by then Knox’s eyes are closed and his body starts falling backwards limply. “Dammit! I should’ve …I should’ve listened to you. You need to…need to stay awake,” I say as tears well up in my eyes and start to overflow when it hits me that Knox just risked his life to save our daughter’s.
“It’s okay, just restin’ my eyes,” he tells me.
“No, no, no. Stay with me. Stay with me, please?” I beg him when I hear the sirens in the distance.
“Try and…and make me…leave,” he whispers. “I’m sorry I fucked up. I’ll do anything, Jade. Anything…”
“I know,” I tell him as the paramedics rush in and urge me and Ivan out of the way. We both get to our feet and stand a few feet back. Knowing Knox is finally in good hands, I let my gaze fall to the masked man whose face is still covered. I have no idea who the hell he is or why he came after me, but I’m glad he’s dead.
I should feel guilty that Ivan put two bullets in him, one through the head and one in the chest. It reminds me of the Russo crime scene and how he was shot in the same way.
Feeling a nudge at my hand, I startle and then look down, seeing that Ivan is subtly trying to hand the gun back to me because it needs to be me who shot the intruder. I’m sure after a full investigation, anyone would find Ivan innocent by self-defense; but since it’s my house and my gun, it’ll be much simpler for me to be the shooter.
“Th-thank you,” I whisper to him since he was able to do what I couldn’t. All the training and years as an officer; but when it came down to it and actually counted, I couldn’t pull the trigger. Thank fuck I didn’t arrest Ivan for killing Russo, or Knox would likely be dead.
Turning away from the paramedics, I use the sleeve of my suit jacket to wipe my Ruger down, removing Ivan’s fingerprints; because in the official report I’ll soon have to make, he’ll only be an innocent bystander who was outside when he heard the shots go off. Only then did he come running inside.
“You need to ask Knox to give back your other one,” Ivan says as the paramedics load up Knox on a stretcher.
“Oh, right. I forgot,” I say, remembering him borrowing it a few weeks ago.
“Sooner rather than later,” he adds.
“Why is that?” I ask in confusion.
“Because he may hurt himself with it.”
“What?” I exclaim, causing one of the paramedics to look over at me before they go out the door.
“He’s been keeping it too close. I had someone sneak in and clear out all the bullets the other day when he went to get more booze, but he could buy more,” Ivan explains.
“You don’t mean…you think he would do that?” I ask in shock.
“You took away the one thing he’s always wanted, and it broke him.”
“Me?” I scoff. “You’re the one who keeps pulling him into shit he doesn’t need!”
“You’re right,” Ivan surprisingly agrees. “It won’t happen again. I swear. Just tell him he can see his fucking kid before we lose him for good. It’s the least you can do, because he just took a bullet for the both of you.”
“I know,” I reply. “I’ll…I’ll talk to him.”
“Good,” Ivan says as he straightens his suit jacket and walks toward the door. “Since I didn’t see anything, I’m gonna ride with him to the hospital and let you handle this shit. If anyone wants my statement, they can find me there.”
And then he’s gone, and I’m left standing in my living room with the body of a dead man.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Knox
I wake up with a thumping headache. And when I try to rub my forehead, something soft hits it instead, causing a burning pain in my hand.
“Ow, what the fuck,” I groan as I blink my eyes awake or make the attempt, but the room is way too bright.
“Hey, you’re awake,” the voice I recognize instantly as Jade’s says from beside me, and then I feel her squeezing my left hand. “Your head’s probably hurting from the concussion, and your hand…”
“What about my hand?” I ask as I peek at her through one eye and lift my right hand in front of my face. “Why’s it got a pillow on it?” I ask when I see the thick white glove of gauze.
“You were shot.”
“Oh, right,” I mutter. When I try to recall the details about the shit that went down at Jade’s house, it only makes the stabbing pain in my head worse, so I say to hell with it for now.
“The bullet was a small caliber, so it went right through. The doctor said it looks clean, so you won’t need surgery,” Ivan speaks up and says from across the room, drawing my attention to him and the redhead he’s now married to.
“Small my ass,” I grumble as I turn my hand over to look at both sides. “Hurts like a son of a bitch.”
That’s when the memory finally surfaces all on its own without me having to concentrate. There was a guy in a mask at Jade’s house. He lunged at her with a bat, ready to hurt her…and the baby.
“Shit, are you okay?” I ask in a panic as I force my eyes to blink open wider and examine her. She’s wearing a hospital gown, so that means they admitted her too. “The baby?”
“The baby and I are both fine. They ran some tests to make sure, but neither of us have more than a bruise,” she replies with a smile.
“Thank God,” I say with a heavy exhale. “I remember shoving you down.”
“My elbow hit the wall, but it didn’t do any damage.”
“Good. Would’ve been stupid to hurt you while trying to keep you safe,” I tell her.
“The man in the mask broke in through a window at the back of the house. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you and that I disconnected my phone. I should’ve had my gun out, and then I could have killed him before he attacked...”
“No, it’s my fault,” I tell her. “I should’ve gone inside and checked the house before I let you go in.”
“You stubborn, shithead! You could’ve been killed!” Cain says as he steps up to the bed with Gabby beside him.
“When did you two get here?” I ask.
“We’ve been here an hour watching you snooze,” Cain replies with a half-grin as he gives a soft punch to my shoulder. “Glad you’re okay. We’ll get out of here so you can rest, but call if you need anything, yeah?”
“Yeah,” I agree since sleep sounds really good right now.
“Us too,” Ivan says. “We’re gonna grab dinner, and then I’ll be back.”
“Go home,” I tell him. “You can come back tomorrow if you want.”
“Nah, I’ll see you later,” he responds before they disappear and it’s just me and Jade with a bunch of beeping machines.
Finally tilting my head to the side to look at her sitting in the chair beside the bed, I realize there are tears in her eyes.
“You weren’t worried about me, were you?” I tease.
“No,” she snaps.
“You weren’t?”
“Uh-uh,” she mumbles as she grabs tissue from the bed tray to dab at her eyes.
“Not even a little?” I continue to prod.
“Fine,” she huffs. “I may have been a tad…hysterical when I got to the hospital and you were unconscious. The doctors said all the alcohol in your system mixed with pain killers didn’t help things!”
“Drinking myself into a stupor is the only way I know how to cope with the fact that you won’t let me be a father.”
“I was wrong,” she says. “Maybe you are a little…rough around the edges and are clueless when it comes to how to be a father. But you already have the protective instincts that I think will make you a damn good one when the time comes.”
“You think so?” I ask as my own eyes start to cloud with moisture.
Jade nods, unable to speak because her chin is trembling.
“I may not know what the hell I’m doing, but there’s no doubt I’ll love her and never let anything hurt her. That’s a start, right?”
“It’s a start,” she agrees. “What about me? Do you think…do you think you could ever love me if I stopped pushing you away?”
“Hell yes,” I reply.
“Good, because I miss having you around. And I think about you all the time even when I try not to. When you got hurt…it hurt me too.”
“I’ve never had anyone but my friends, so you’ll have to be patient while I figure out how to be more,” I explain to her.
“I can do that,” she agrees with a nod. “I thought you were all wrong for me-”
“I am,” I agree.
“No, I think maybe you’re just…unexpectedly right.”
“Come here so I can kiss you,” I tell her as I hold out my good hand for her.
She takes it, so I pull her to me and lift my head to press my lips to hers.
I didn’t expect such an innocent kiss to turn downright dirty so fast or that I would be wide awake from the sizzling heat of it. The next thing I know, Jade is climbing into bed with me. She’s on top of me with her tongue in my mouth. It’s hotter than any other kiss we’ve shared, tinged with the desperation you apparently only get after a life-threatening situation.
“I need to be with you,” I say against her lips. “Every day. Every night. Please let me in.”
“Today was scary,” she replies as she pushes herself up to look at me. “But it was the wake-up call I needed so that I could finally see just how much you care about me, even though I haven’t done anything to deserve it. Knowing I could’ve lost you before I ever really had you…I was terrified.”
“You and the baby are the most important things in my life. Not because of duty or responsibility or because I’ve always wanted a family, but because now I can’t see myself having any sort of future that doesn’t include the two of you.”
“I’ve felt the same way about you since the very beginning,” Jade tells me. “It was a crazy path we had to take to get here, one I never would have expected, but I know this is where we’re supposed to be. The rest we’ll figure out too.”
“You think so?” I ask.
“I do,” Jade agrees. “And while there might be some rough roads ahead of us, at least there will be fantastic sex to distract us.”
“Fantastic sex?” I repeat with a grin as I reach between us with my good hand to shove my boxer briefs down since that’s all I’m wearing.
“And lots of it,” Jade agrees with a nod when she hikes up her gown so that she lines me right to sink into her tight heat.
“What if…someone comes in?” I ask her as she starts to move.
“Sexual…healing,” she jokes before her mouth crashes down on mine and erases all other questions.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Jade
“What I still can’t figure out is why someone would want to hurt the baby,” Knox says from his hospital bed that I spent all night in with him. After we made love, we cuddled until the sun came up. One nurse made the suggestion that she could pull out the sofa for me. After Knox and I both ignored her, no one else said another word about our snuggling.
Since Knox’s injuries are painful but not severe, the doctor is thankfully ready to release him to go home this morning.
While we wait for the nurse to come back with the discharge papers, I pace back and forth across the room, mulling over what I’ve been holding back from telling Knox since yesterday. Not only am I afraid of what action he may possibly take when he finds out, I’m also ashamed of what I did and don’t want to admit it to him. Still, he risked his life because of my secret, so he deserves to know.
“I have an inkling,” I finally admit to him as I chew on my thumbnail.
He sits up straight in bed. “You do?”
“Yeah. I think I know who may have hired the man in the house.”
“Well, who? A guy you arrested?”
“No. Someone who thinks the baby is theirs,” I admit with a cringe.
Knox blinks in confusion. “But the baby’s mine.”
“Yes, but I haven’t exactly made our relationship public knowledge. Apparently, he must still think it’s his, even though I told him it’s not. He…he even told me I should end it when he found out I was pregnant.”
“Who? Who, Jade?” Knox asks as he throws his legs over the side of the bed like he’s gonna take off after them as soon as I answer. “Tell me the fucker’s name, and I will rip his goddamn throat out!”
“You can’t do that, Knox!” I warn him.
“Watch me,” he challenges, jaw clenched with fury.
“No. This is why I didn’t want to tell you. He’s untouchable.”
“No one who wants to hurt you or my daughter is untouchable!” he shouts.
“Keep your voice down,” I warn him before I go over and shut the room door all the way.
“Tell me, Jade!”
“If I tell you, will you promise me that you won’t go after him? We’ll make him pay, but we have to do it together.”
Knox doesn’t respond, only grinds his teeth even harder.
“Knox?”
Blowing out a breath, he says, “Fuck! Okay, fine. Just tell me his name.”
“Randall Stokes, the Chief of Police.”
“What the fuck?” Knox exclaims as his head reels backward. “Isn’t he, like, old as hell?”
“He’s almost sixty, with a tiny dick that takes him forever to get up.”
Knox’s jaw drops before he erupts. “Oh my God! You slept with him? Jesus! When?”
“It was before we met,” I say in a rush so that he doesn’t worry about that.
“Why, Jade? Did you…fuck, did you care about him?”
“Hell no,” I answer with my nose wrinkled in disgust. “He said…he said it was the only way to get my detective badge. And if I refused, he threatened to fire me.”
“So, what?” Knox exclaims. “You could’ve got a job working for another police department!”
“No,” I reply with a shake of my head. “Not when he threatened to tell them about what happened in the academy.”
Grumbling a curse, Knox asks, “What happened in the academy?”
“I had an affair with my instructor. Stokes told the chief in Greenville where I was trying to transfer to that I slept with Clint because I wasn’t going to graduate, which was a lie.”
“Wow.”
“At the time, Clint said he was in love with me and that we had to sneak around so no one would find out…”
“Sounds like bullshit to get you to fuck him.”
Sighing, I admit, “Well, it worked. I fucked him, graduated, and he ended it immediately. I didn’t think anyone would ever find out.”
“But the chief did?”
“Yep. He used it against me. Also, he’s married. So, when he found out I was pregnant, he thought there was a chance it’s his. He can’t have his wife finding out he knocked up his detective…”
Clearing his throat, Knox softly asks, “But he didn’t, right?”
“Of course not! I took a Plan B to make damn sure, and then I had a period before you and I were together.”
“Did you take one of those pills after we were together?”
