She spreads her arms, her smile wild. “You want to shoot me? Do it. You’d be doing me a favor.”
“Colleen, Brett doesn’t love you,” I tell her. “Leaving someone after losing a baby so young, he’s selfish. If anything I need to shoot him so you can be free of the pain, he caused you.”
She twists her neck awkwardly looking at me almost sideways. “I love him.”
“You need to love you, Colleen.”
“He just wants his son. If you let him have the boy, we will let her go.” Colleen tries to bargain.
I shake my head. “Sweetheart, I hate to break it to you, especially like this. But if that man was willing to stay with you as long as he had his son. If none of this was about her then he would have taken off with you the minute you got Justice from the school for him.”
“What?” She questions like she’s taking in what I’m telling her.
I stare at Brett. “If this fool loved you, he wouldn’t have his ex-wife here. You and him would have already been out of the state with the boy. You’re here to take the fall for whatever he had planned for Josie and Justice.”
“Oh you think you’re so smart, don’t you, Riffraff. Fuckin’ Hellion garbage.” Brett taunts. “Got it all figured out.”
“Well if I’m wrong, tell me, Brett. Tell Colleen matter of fact, clue her in.”
“She is here to see what a mother does for a child. She has begged me to forget how she is the reason my baby is dead. I can’t forget. Josie is a good mom. The best. Colleen is here to see the depths a mother will go to in order to save their child. The way she never would for our baby.”
I shift my eyes to lock onto Josie looking for any moment I can get the shot off. Colleen screams a gut-wrenching scream dropping her gun and rushing towards Brett. “I didn’t kill our baby. The doctors did it!”
Her movement causes Brett to twist the gun on Colleen giving Josie the opportunity to maneuver out of his grasp.
Brett fires his shot into Colleen, while I embrace Josie running towards me and Grinder lets off the shot killing Brett.
“It’s over,” I whisper into Josie’s hair. “Don’t look back. Stay focused on me,” I explain holding her against me. I give a nod to my brothers, putting the safety back on my gun before sliding it into the waistband of my jeans.
I back out of the house keeping Josie against me so she can’t see the pools of blood from the two dead bodies in what was once her living room.
“You’re safe,” I whisper over and over.
“Thank you for making Justice the priority,” she tells me when we stop in front of my bike waiting on the police to come.
“I love you, Josie. I love him. In order to protect you, he needed to be safe. I’m always going to keep him safe and you too.”
She drops her head against my shoulder. “I love you, Dean,” she whispers holding onto me.
We stand there and I give her the quiet to process what just happened.
Eighteen
Josie
I’ll give everything for him including my freedom.
* * *
A scream rips from my throat, yanking me from the depths of the nightmare. My chest is heaving, my skin damp with sweat, and my hands clutch at the sheets like they might anchor me back to reality. The terror lingers, clawing at the edges of my mind, even as I blink into the darkness of the room.
Justice.
I saw him disappear. One second, he was in my arms, warm and safe, his little face tilted up toward mine with a sleepy smile. The next, he was gone. Vanished into a void, like he had never been there at all. And I couldn’t find him. I screamed his name over and over, my voice tearing through the night, but he never answered. I ran, I begged, I sobbed—but he was gone.
My breath shudders out of me as I force my eyes to adjust. My body is still tense, bracing for the loss that isn't real. The nightmare tries to pull me back under, whispering that it could be real, that it was real, but then I feel it?—
Warmth. Strength.
