Richard is already on the porch when we pull up, his breath steaming in the cold in front of him.
His face is hard as steel, eyes dark and fixed on the truck the second he recognizes it.
As soon as he sees us climbing out of it after we park and kill the ignition, his expression snaps into something far worse than anger: it’s full-bodied parental fury.
“What thehellhappened?” he demands the second my foot hits the top stair. His voice ricochets around the front yard. “We came back from skating and found Noelle curled up on the couch inconsolable. She could barely get two words out before I had to send her upstairs.”
I swallow.
I can still feel every brittle slice of glass pinching against my palm, hear the creaking of the wood from the displays I righted and the shelves I picked up off the floor.
It’s a shame the state we had to leave it in even after we picked up as much as we physically could.
But no amount of us doing things ourselves will fix the damage that’s been done to Noelle’s heart.
Not when it never should’ve happened in the first place.
“Her shop was broken into sometime last night or early this morning.” I try to keep my voice steady, because if I don’t I know I’ll start apologizing in an endless loop and we’ll never get to the point.
Richard’s eyes widen immediately, disbelief cutting through the lines of exhaustion on his face.
“What?”
I take a step closer and rest a steadying hand on his arm, guiding him back into the warmth of the house. “Cops came. They took photos and are filing a report with the precinct. They should be heading back sometime today or early tomorrow to dust for prints, but the street cam’s been down for months according to both Noelle and the officer. They think whoever did it knew what they were doing. Wanted to hurt Noelle because of how bad the destruction was.”
He goes still for a long, heavy second before his whole face tightens.
The muscle in his jaw flexes and his nostrils flare as he exhales harshly through his nose.
He doesn’t speak right away. Instead, he rubs his thumb along the bridge of his nose—an old habit I’ve seen him do plenty of times in the past whenever he’s trying to rein himself in.
It’s the same move I’ve seen him make while holding back anger that might just end with fists flying through a wall instead.
He drops his hand finally and looks between the three of us, his eyes sharp again. “She mentioned Jared’s name. Before she went upstairs.”
I nod slowly.
Richard’s face hardens further, that mixture of paternal instinct and decades of command flashing behind his eyes.
The man was a fire chief for most of his life, he knows all too well how to assess damage like this, how to read danger and tell when something’s escalating beyond control just like we do.
Right now, I can see him slotting every piece of this into place like a puzzle he’s been dreading to solve.
“Fuck,” he says finally, voice rough. “I knew he was going to be a problem when he showed up last time. Men like him don’t stop because they’re told to. They stop because they’remadeto. I should’ve taken care of him back then.”
Behind us, Callum leans back against the door.
The sound draws my attention briefly, forcing me to break eye contact with Richard for a moment.
His arms cross over his chest. “The three of us are planning on heading out tonight to find him. Shake some sense into him.”
“Or worse,” Dean mutters.
Richard curses under his breath, a hand coming up to rub along his jaw line. “While I appreciate the effort, boys, that’s not going to go well with the PD. If a case is already being created, trying to act out some vigilante work is going to make it more complicated to arrest him and keep him behind bars.”
“We can’t just sit back and do nothing,” Callum argues.
Richard lets out a humorless laugh. “That’s not what I’m saying at all.”
