Instantly, I wanted to slam them shut again.
“What do you want?” I croaked. “Where’s my woman?”
Agent Lawrence looked at me with pity.
“You’ve got two options, and I’m pretty sure you won’t like either,” he sighed.
My eyes scanned the room and landed on the scene that was replaying over and over on the TV.
We’d made CNN
The reporter, the one I didn’t like because she didn’t support the military, nor law enforcement, spoke about the incident that likely was one of the mafia’s ‘biggest mistakes they’d made in years.’
Kilgore, Texas SWAT team consisting of seven men, entered the home of one of the most prominent members of the Russian crime mafia and his wife earlier this afternoon. The SWAT team was acting upon a court order for the arrest of Adam Agata and his wife Stephanie Martin Agata. The Agatas were suspected to be linked to the deaths of a disabled military hero and his wife. Upon entering the home, SWAT members were assaulted with a hail of gunfire from not just the Agata’s, but nearly five other suspected members of the Russian crime family located in Texas. News is still pouring in on the case, and the Chief of Police of Kilgore PD has declined to comment at this time.
My mind was replaying the events as the newscaster recited what she knew. I went back to that morning as we’d entered the home. The gunfight that’d broken out between the SWAT team and the occupants of the house. The first one to go down was the wife. The second the husband. The others followed in short order afterward as the shots continued to rain down. And it’d been a massacre.
I’d taken a bullet to the left lower chest and right upper arm.
The others had been luckier, getting away with minor scrapes and bruises among the lot of them.
The reporter’s closing statement shattered my recount as the news anchor finalized her newscast with a potshot at the KPD police department for how the entire situation had been handled.
The entire segment took less than four minutes to report, but it felt like a lifetime.
“I can see you’re understanding what this means,” Agent Lawrence asked softly.
I nodded. “War.”
He stayed silent for long moments. “From the papers we were able to recover from Stephanie’s personal files, she accepted bribes for rushing adoptions and overlooking certain details. She’d done that for all of the Sergei family’s children, as well as twelve other children. What the company had thought a flawless adoption rate turned out to be Stephanie giving kids to people who’d then do some very bad things to them. Some of which include rape, selling them overseas, and collecting the dividends that the state sends every month without the child seeing any of it.”
I wanted to shoot her again. Too bad she was already dead.
“What else?” I asked as I saw he had more on his mind.
“As of right now, we don’t have much more information than what was learned shortly after the warrant was carried out. However, we do know two things.”
“What’s that?” I asked, having a sinking feeling I knew exactly where this was about to lead.
“You’re a target. And so is your entire team,” Agent Lawrence said without inflection in his voice.
I nodded again. “Yeah.”
“Two, your name was the only one that was released. All other names were sealed, and we’ve made sure to keep it that way,” Lawrence assured.
“What does any of that have to do with me?” I asked tiredly.
“There was a survivor,” Agent Lawrence said.
I opened the eyes I hadn’t been aware of closing and glared at him.
They’d all been dead.
“What do you mean there was a survivor?” I barked.
They’d all been dead. I’d checked the pulses on them myself.
Then I remembered something. Something that’d been in the back of my mind all this time.
As I’d entered the back entrance, I’d seen what I’d originally thought was the husband in the room with the child. But if that’d been the husband, who was the man that Stephanie Martin kept calling out to as she tried to crawl across the floor to a man who’d been taken out by one of James’ sniper bullets?
“Took the kid?” I asked.
He nodded. “You were the only one who saw him. You counted seven when the rest of them only counted six.”
A knock at the door had me looking up, and I saw the shiny gold badge hanging off the belt of a man wearing a large cowboy hat on his head.
A Texas Marshal.
“You want me to go into Witsec,” I stated hollowly.
He nodded. “Yes.”
“Can I take her? Georgia?” I asked fearfully.
At the shake of his head, I turned to the Texas Marshal and stared, knowing I only had one option. “Can y’all watch over her? I won’t go if you can’t watch over her. If my name was the only one released, my family and woman will be the first ones they look for to draw me out of hiding.”
They nodded. “We know. They’ll have twenty-four-hour surveillance for as long as it takes. And as of twenty minutes ago, you had an embolism and died.”
My head fell back, hitting the pillow beneath with a soft thud.
I felt sick to my stomach.
She’d think I abandoned her all over again.
“Can I talk to her one more time?” I asked. “Tell her what’s going on?”
They both said ‘no’ instantly, and I became nearly dead inside.
Just when I thought I had it all, it all fell away, slipping from my grasp like a paper bag ripping and its contents spilling carelessly all over the floor.
All things that could break, would. It was a law.
The words I’d spoken to Georgia just yesterday replayed in my mind.
More than absolutely anything. More than my own happiness. More than my own life. That’s how much I love you.
I swear to God I wasn’t crying. I was watering my beard. Then I laughed humorlessly. I should’ve known. I didn’t deserve anything nice. Especially something as beautiful and perfect as Georgia.
Then something happened. I don’t know what it was. My head started to pound, and I went lightheaded.
When I tried to open my eyes, I couldn’t.
Warmth started to pour down my chest, and I heard some loud sounds coming from above me.
Code blue. Code blue.
What was code blue?
I was beyond caring at that point. My head was pounding, and I couldn’t scrounge up the urge to care about anything.
Anything that is, except for Georgia’s beautiful eyes. The way her voice sounded in the morning, all husky and rough from sleep. The way she used to laugh over her shoulder at something I’d said.
We need a crash cart in here. Epi. I need some epi. Stat.
Then I slipped into something blissfully close to peace for the first time in nearly eight years.
I love you, baby love.
***
Georgia
I woke up five hours later on the couch to a knock on the door.
My cheek was plastered to the leather by a thin layer of what I could only assume was spit, and I was fairly sure I looked really crappy.
I’d fallen asleep waiting for Nico to get back and had finally laid down on his couch so I could see him the moment he came in through the door.
Except he hadn’t come in through the door.
He most definitely wouldn’t have knocked.
I found Bennett at the door.
He didn’t even have to tell me.
The look on his face, and the red around his eyes denoting that he’d been crying…or had been trying really hard not to cry, was enough.
Nico was dead.
And I was alone again.
“No.” I shook my head. “No, Bennett. Please don’t do this to me. Please.”
His head dropped, and I lost it.
But through my
tears, I remembered.
My hand drifted down to my belly. To the unborn life residing beneath the palm of my hand.
Well… not alone. And that’d been Nico’s promise, hadn’t it? That I’d never be alone again.
A tear slipped down my cheek, and my breath hitched in my throat.
Bennett’s arms wrapped around my shoulders and pulled me into his chest.
It felt all wrong.
He wasn’t Nico.
His arms didn’t feel how they were supposed to feel.
That’s when it hit me.
I’d never have that feeling again. Not now. Not ever.
You promised!
Chapter 20
They say all good things come to an end… well, those fuckers can go fuck themselves.
-Food for thought
Georgia
Day 4
My eyes focused on the mourning band around Bennett’s badge.
All the officers were wearing them.
It was the department’s protocol.
Today would be their last day to wear it, since it was the burial day.
It was a simple band made of black fabric that fits around the middle of the badge at its widest.
It covered the entire middle of the badge, although it was less than a half-inch in width.
The same went for the cars that were in the motorcade that would take Nico’s ashes from the church to the gravesite.
“Officer Nicolas Giuliani Pena was a wonderful man. He was an exemplary officer, a loving brother and son, and a protector. When Nico and I first met, it was during Hell Week. Hell Week is known by everyone. We knew going in that it’d be hard. What I hadn’t known was that it’d be that hard.” Bennett’s smile was sad. “Nico always had a certain drive about him. There was just… something. He kept us going. He picked us up. He never left us behind. He saved my life. He saved it so many times that I can’t even begin to count. He brought me home to my daughter, then kicked my ass to get me to join KPD SWAT with him.”
Bennett’s head dropped, and he looked down at his hands.
“I was different after I got out. Both of us got out for different reasons. I never knew his, but I knew mine.” He took a deep breath. “I didn’t want to leave my little girl without both of her parents. She needed me, and Nico supported me every step of the way.”
His voice shook as he said what he said next. “I pick up the phone to call him, and it’s only when I get the voicemail that I realize what I’ve done.”
I kind of spaced out after that. I didn’t want to hear anymore.
I was the one who got those calls. I was the one who held his phone in my hand and prayed that he was there to answer it.
I’d sit on the edge of the bed and watch the door, remembering how he used to leave it wherever he happened to leave it, then run around the house frantically looking for it.
It was like a game to see if he could get to it before it stopped ringing.
He never did, but he always was there for the second call.
But the second calls didn’t come anymore.
He didn’t run around frantically anymore. He didn’t whoop with joy if he happened to make it to the phone in time.
I’d hold the phone in my hand, watch the screen light up with an incoming call, and cry.
Silence was what made me pick up my head, and I stared at the priest as he looked at me.
I must’ve missed the introduction, but I knew it was my turn.
I’d asked to speak.
Everybody had tried to talk me out of it, but I wanted to.
I needed to.
I stood and made my way past the men on Nico’s team. They stood to allow me by them, giving me a pat on the back or a reassuring squeeze of my arm.
I didn’t look at them.
When I finally got up to the podium, the priest squeezed my hand and gave me room.
I didn’t look up. I knew if I did, I’d never make it through my speech.
I only had a few things to say. Ones that needed to be said.
“I met Nico the summer I turned thirteen,” I said. “He was so forbidden that I couldn’t count the number of ways it was wrong. He was older than me. He was my best friend’s brother. He was catholic. I was catholic. There were rules that we were expected to follow. Rules that we broke.”
I took a halting breath.
“Eventually, we fell in love. Overcame all the obstacles that were placed before us. Then something tragic happened. My father took the life of two of my brothers, and my mother before taking his own.” I played with the program that was sitting on the podium. “I’d have died that day, along with the rest of my brothers, if it weren’t for him. It was his calm voice that told me what to do, to the letter. He taught me so many things. Things that I thought he was being paranoid about; obviously I was wrong about that.”
I finally looked up, making eye contact with Nico’s father.
I couldn’t look away.
He looked so much like Nico that it made my heart hurt.
“Now he won’t be there to teach our child those things, but I have high hopes that Nico’s friends won’t let our baby down. He’ll know those things. He’ll know who his father was. He’ll know that his father was a beautiful man.” I had to look away from his father’s crying face, instead focusing on Bennett’s face.
I saw him nodding his head at me. I knew he’d do it. Luke was nodding as well.
Then my eyes moved back a row to the line of Navy SEALS who’d somehow found the time to make it to Nico’s funeral.
They were sweet, and I loved each and every one of them. I didn’t know them well, but I knew I would.
They were nodding, too.
I could hear Nico’s mother’s cries in the front row. I knew his sisters were crying too.
I didn’t look at them. I couldn’t.
“My heart split in two the moment that he left me. One side is filled with memories of him. The way he used to wake me up by playing with my hair. The way he used to look at me when he thought I’d done something stupid, not that he’d ever say it. The way that his face lit up the moment he saw me walking toward him.” I looked down again. Losing my battle with the tears. “The other half died with Nico. It’ll never be whole again. Each night I lie awake and remember what we had, and I know it’ll never be the same. I have something, though, that’s going to keep me going. And that it’s the piece of him that will grow into something that I know Nico will be proud of.”
I didn’t notice the figure at the very back of the room wipe away tears. Didn’t notice when his breath caught in his throat at the mention of the life inside of me.
But somehow I knew, a sixth sense if that’s what one called it, that my life wasn’t truly as hopeless as I made it sound.
Day 83
According to Google, my new best friend, a human woman’s pregnancy lasted two hundred and eighty days.
I was on day one hundred and forty-three.
Over halfway done, and I felt no better now than I had eighty-three awful days ago.
Life went on.
I still went to work. I still got paid. I went to the doctor when I was told. I went home. I ate.
Really, I just went through the motions. I did what I was supposed to do so everyone didn’t stay. I didn’t want them there.
I couldn’t cry with them there.
The first time I’d felt the life inside of me move, I’d cried for four hours straight.
And I couldn’t do that with them hovering over me. Something that all of them liked to do.
Day 129
Day one hundred and twenty-nine was the day that something finally clued me in that it wasn’t right.
His friends started acting differently a couple of weeks ago.
I’d put it off as stress.
I hadn’t had a full night’s rest in nearly one hundred and thirty days.
My body ached all
over from the baby inside of me doing backflips all night. I felt like he was using my intestines as a necklace at times.
I’d made Nico’s home mine, but there was something every night that reminded me of him. And I’d had these dreams. Dreams that were so real that when I finally fell asleep then woke up in the morning exhausted, I felt like I could turn over and Nico would still be there.
I felt like someone was always watching me from around every corner.
And at times, I swore there was someone keeping tabs on me. Which wouldn’t surprise me since it wasn’t unheard of for Nico’s SWAT members, and even his old SEAL team members to show up to check on me.
I’d met Miller Spurlock. I’d met his brother, Foster Spurlock. I’d met Oden Finley and a man named Borne.
Most of them were familiar, me having seen them getting deployed right alongside Nico. I’d even had pictures of them. It was nice to put names to faces.
And they always seemed to know something I didn’t know.
And I had to know what they were keeping from me.
So I started to snoop.
Whatever it was, was big.
Fucking huge!
Otherwise they wouldn’t have moved me out of Nico’s house, the only place I’d found refuge in months.
They wouldn’t have given me the cold shoulder when I asked them about the case that’d taken Nico from me. Whatever was going on, they were not being subtle about it, and I wanted to know why.
And when the dog showed up, the beautiful fluffy brown and white puppy, I knew.
I knew because I’d never told anyone, not even my brothers about my desire to have a Saint Bernard. Never told anyone that I wanted to name him Hamburger.
Yet, this cute little puppy that would grow to the size of a small horse with a collar around his neck and a tag that denoted his name as Hamburger, showed up by chance on my porch?
I think not.
And I knew one thing. I was going to kick Nico’s ass.
As soon as I saw him again, that was.
***
Day 151
Hamburger didn’t bark.
Which should’ve alerted me that Hamburger knew Nico.
Hamburger, Hammy for short, was very protective of me. Even at a mere thirteen weeks old, he knew who his mommy was. He also knew who didn’t belong to him. Like Nico’s teammates. Although he was nice to them, he still barked every single time they came around.
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