Go to Hail (The Hail Raisers Book 2)

by Lani Lynn Vale

  I nodded. “That I did. Travis’ mother has them. As well as TJ.”

  She looked away, and I saw her throat work as she swallowed.

  “You did good.”

  Her eyes came back to mine.

  “I did?”

  I nodded. “You sure the fuck did.”

  She looked startled at the vehemence in my voice.

  “You did what you were supposed to do. You did what the Second Amendment was designed for. You protected yourself and your girls. I don’t care if you broke the law doing it. I don’t care if you did it on purpose. I only care that, at the end of the day, you’re all right. Those girls are all right, and that you’re going to see tomorrow breathing.”

  She blew out a breath.

  “I got an update on Travis about twenty minutes ago,” Hannah informed me. “They told me that Allegra shot him in the chest in the middle of the truck bay at work. When I left him at the hospital, he was so out of it, but he tried to follow me.”

  I nodded. “They did. When I got the call, they gave me the same info.”

  Her brows rose.

  “Who called you?”

  My lip twitched. “Travis’ brother.” I paused. “And then Wolf.”

  Hannah’s brows rose.

  “Really?”

  I nodded. “Really.”

  She whistled. “Wolf heard how?”

  I shrugged. “Don’t know. The law enforcement community is tight-knit. Whatever happened, it was inevitable that I’d hear about it since you’re my sister. Wolf probably has a few of his buddies watching out for you as well.”

  Her smile was small, but there.

  “Will you go check on him for me?” she pleaded.

  I touched her cheek through the bars. “You bet.”

  Her shoulders slumped. “Thank you, Mikey Mike.”

  “Be good.” I winked at her and left, not stopping until I found the piece of shit that’d arrested her.

  The FBI agent that was staring at me knowingly. As if he’d assumed that I’d be looking for him.

  “That was a courtesy that won’t be offered again,” the man said.

  I smiled. “Is it now?”

  His eye twitched.

  “Let me tell you something, Agent Arrogant.”

  The agent’s eyes widened. “I know a lot of people. Good and bad. Hannah? She’s not a bad person.” He opened his mouth to say something, but I interrupted. “I know that you’re a good agent. I also know that you have the authority to charge her, which you won’t be doing.”

  His mouth twitched in an almost smile. “I won’t?”

  I shook my head. “No, you won’t. But you gotta make it look good, I understand.”

  The agent’s eyebrows rose. “You do that. Keep her for a little while, make everyone think that she’s in a lot of trouble, but I also want you to be careful here. Your story’s known.”

  The man’s eyes changed, but the rest of him didn’t.

  “I know about the little girl you lost. In Sandy Hook. I know, and I won’t say anything.”

  Wolf had called me the minute that he’d heard that this particular agent was here. He’d then given me all the details on him and then gave his two cents on the matter.

  The agent swallowed, showing emotion now.

  “And if I were you, I’d be really careful about what you do.”

  We both knew what I meant.

  School shooters that had the unfortunate luck to run into this agent normally had some bad stuff happen to them.

  Bad stuff that left them little more than a shell.

  As much as I was all right with this bitch who’d shot at my sister being a ‘shell,’ I was not okay with my sister going down because he’d fucked up and gotten a little too creative. Hannah wasn’t going down because this guy was on a revenge mission for every single school shooter that ever lived.

  But I knew in the next instant that there wouldn’t be any misunderstandings between us because this agent had his shit together.

  “I’ll be back to get her in a few hours. Try to make it before dinner so they don’t have to eat without her.”

  The man nodded once. “Be back around four.”

  And I left and didn’t look back.

  ***

  Travis looked like shit.

  He had bruising all over his chest, and it went all the way up to his neck and disappeared into his beard.

  “You look like shit.”

  Travis grunted, not opening his eyes as he did.

  “She okay?” he rasped.

  I stared at him and waited for him to look at me before I replied.

  “For some unknown reason, she’s worried as hell about you.”

  He made a sound under his breath. “Imagine that.”

  I rolled my eyes. “So I hear that your ex-wife is in the room next door.”

  That got his attention.

  His eyes narrowed, and I swear, had the side rails been up on his bed—why they weren’t I quickly realized was because he’d have used them—then he’d have been up and out of that bed.

  “Thanks a lot.”

  I turned to find another of his brothers, Baylor, standing there.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Been keeping that secret for the last four hours. He’s hell on wheels wanting to get to Hannah, and then you have to go and mention that,” Baylor grunted.

  I shrugged. “If it makes you feel better,” I returned my eyes to Travis, who was staring at me with an angry intensity I’d never seen in him before. “She has three armed guards, and your brother standing outside her room making sure she’s not going anywhere.”

  Travis shook his head. “Not really.”

  My lips quirked. “Hmm.”

  He flipped me off. “Go get my girl. Then go take care of the girls.”

  “Done and done,” I said. “Your mom has the girls, and Hannah’s getting out by four.”

  “How do you know that?” Baylor asked before Travis could.

  “I stopped by on the way here. Seems like you have a friend…one that is pretty good to have on your side if you ask me.”

  Baylor looked at me with eyebrows raised.

  “Wolf called,” I started, causing both Baylor and Travis to groan. “Said that this agent had a kid. Five and a little bit. Was lost in that school shooting a few years ago right before Christmas…remember?”

  Baylor lost his scowl, and now he just looked sad.

  “Could’ve been my girls.”

  I looked over to where Travis, face white as the sheet he was lying on, was watching me intently.

  I nodded. “But it wasn’t.”

  He closed his eyes. “Thanks to Hannah.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “Thanks to Hannah.”

  Travis held out his hand. “Got a lot of things to thank you for.”

  I took that hand being careful not to pull the IV that was sticking out of it and shook it.

  “You do,” I agreed. “And as long as you take care of her, you’ll repay it.”

  That’s when his hand went limp.

  I looked over to see Baylor standing next to Travis’ morphine pump.

  “Stubborn fucker won’t do it himself.”

  I grinned.

  “Why does that not surprise me?”

  Chapter 29

  Autocorrect makes me say things Nintendo.

  -Text from Travis to Hannah

  Travis

  “Do you have any threes?”

  My eyes peeled open, and the first thing I noticed was that I hurt.

  Oh, God did I hurt.

  I licked my dry, cracked lips and turned my head, a wave of nausea rising in my gut because of the pain.

  “Go Fish,” Hannah giggled, smiling brightly. “Alex, do you have any fours?”

  “Ummmm,” Alex hedged.

  I started to laugh and immediately regretted it.

  “Daddy!”


  “Travis!”

  “Travis!”

  Then suddenly I had three gorgeous women surrounding me.

  “Hey,” I croaked.

  My eyes went from Reggie’s, to Alex’s, and finally to Hannah’s.

  “Everything okay?”

  All three of them nodded.

  “Mommy said that you were hurt.” Reggie leaned forward until her face was less than an inch from mine. “You don’t look hurt.”

  I grinned and lifted my hand to curl around her neck, then pulled her the rest of the way down so I could place a kiss on her forehead.

  “Good,” I grunted. “I’m okay.”

  Hannah snorted, and I let Reggie go.

  Alex then threw her arms around my neck and buried her face in my chest.

  I saw stars.

  However, I didn’t pull away, and Hannah didn’t stop Alex, even though Hannah could tell that she’d hurt me.

  “I’m okay, baby.”

  Alex brought her head up.

  “I’m sorry for all the mean things I said to you, Daddy. I didn’t mean them.”

  I watched as her face crumpled, and it was all I could do not to wrap my arms around her and hold her to me.

  The only thing that stopped me from doing it was something on my right side holding my arm in place.

  I tried to move it, and an annoyed grunt followed.

  “Oh, sorry,” Hannah said, walking around the bed.

  “No, don’t,” I told her. “Leave him there.”

  My eyes traveled down to my leg where TJ was sleeping between a pillow stuffed next to the rails, and my thigh.

  His reassuring heat had me breathing a sigh of contentment despite the pain in my chest from where I could feel Alex’s weight touching.

  “Alex, did you want to show your daddy your report card?”

  My stomach tensed, this time for different reasons.

  Alex had been on the verge of failing school for most of the year. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to see her grades.

  But the way Alex pushed off of me with an excited cry and then ran to the corner of the room where her backpack was, had me thinking it was good news—otherwise she wouldn’t be so excited.

  And then when she shoved the blue paper into my face, so close to my nose that I could see nothing but blurred dots, let me know that in all likelihood, she’d passed.

  Alex never wanted to show me her report card.

  Never.

  “You pass, baby?” I questioned.

  Hannah started to laugh and pulled the paper back, allowing my eyes to focus.

  My eyes went through the seventies, one sixty, and a fifty, all the way to the end, and what I saw was surprising.

  “You made a hundred in all your classes this six weeks?”

  “She even beat me,” Reggie said, sounding proud of that fact.

  I grinned and brought my hand up to Alex’s face. “Good job, honey.”

  Alex looked so proud. “Next year, I’m going to make all A’s.”

  I ran my thumb over her cheek, happy to see that not a single scratch or hair was misplaced on her head, and I owed that all to one woman.

  “Y’all think you can go find Uncle Baylor and ask him to take you down to the cafeteria for a while?” I asked.

  Now that the pain meds that my brothers had been slipping me throughout the day had cleared, my brain was back online.

  Reggie started to clap.

  “They have really good cinnamon rolls here!” she declared.

  How she knew that, I didn’t know, but I was going to ask to try one tomorrow morning.

  For now, I really needed to speak to her mother.

  “Aces!” Alex cried, then both children were out the door.

  I could hear my brother’s voice, so I wasn’t worried that he’d let them go by themselves, but Hannah left anyway just to check.

  I chose that moment to place my hand on my chest and look down at my sleeping son.

  A sleeping son who was asleep instead of screaming at, I looked up at the clock, seven o’clock in the evening.

  “He’s not crying.”

  Hannah grinned. “No, he sure isn’t.”

  I grinned and held out my hand.

  “Wonder why?”

  She took my hand and brought it up to her face. “Don’t know.” She paused. “And honestly, I hope that it’s going to be recurring.”

  I agreed.

  “Han?”

  I swept my thumb over her chin.

  “Yeah?”

  “Come here.”

  Hannah’s face broke out into a smile. Then she leaned forward and placed her mouth gently onto mine.

  I kissed her, and then pressed my forehead to hers.

  “Thank you.”

  Her eyes opened, and she pulled back slightly. “For what?”

  My mouth tipped up into a smile.

  “For saving my life.”

  She opened her mouth to disagree, and I stopped her.

  “You may not think so, but you did,” I interrupted her. “You saved Alex. You saved Reggie. You saved you.”

  Her mouth closed with an audible snap.

  “That woman next door…”

  Her brows furrowed in confusion.

  “Allegra. She’s in the room next door.”

  Hannah’s eyes narrowed, and I kind of loved the way she got all protective.

  “Don’t.”

  Hannah’s eyes lit. “You can’t…”

  “I know I can’t,” I agreed. “But for now, just stay with me.”

  She sighed and planted her butt on the bed next to my calf. I kept hold of her hand, though.

  “She could’ve taken a lot of stuff away from me today,” I said. “Then I’d be an empty hull like Dante.”

  She looked away. “I know how he feels now. Just thinking about how close I came…it’s a scary fucking experience.”

  And it was.

  I’d had plenty of time to think about what I’d heard Hannah had done, and each and every time I did, it was enough to send my heart into overdrive.

  Just the thought of losing them was enough to send bile rushing up my throat.

  And speaking of the devil.

  I looked up to find Dante standing there, his eyes on me.

  “You okay?”

  I swallowed and nodded.

  “Good.”

  Then he was gone.

  Chapter 30

  And then Satan said, ‘Put the alphabet in math…’

  -Coffee Cup

  Dante

  The moment that I made sure Travis was okay, I walked next door.

  There were no guards there any longer, and with Baylor otherwise occupied with the girls, it left me with plenty of time to do what needed to be done.

  I pushed through the closed door and gritted my teeth when Allegra’s exhausted face turned to me.

  She had two arms in casts, and her face was haggard.

  “What are you…”

  I held my hand up and walked further inside.

  “You fucked up,” I said, walking closer.

  Her mouth pinched.

  “What are you even doing here?” she snarled. “I thought you were out, mourning your kids.”

  A year ago, when it had all happened, that would’ve gutted me—being reminded of them.

  Now I was empty, though. Nothing left inside but an empty husk of my former self.

  Nothing inside of me was there any longer to get hurt.

  “I’m here because you thought it’d be okay to shoot at my brother, my almost sister-in-law, and my nieces.”

  She scoffed.

  “I didn’t kill them.”

  My mouth fell open.

  “You didn’t kill them?”

  I turned to find Hannah standing at the door, her eyes angry.

  “Exactly.” Allegra turned and sneered, pointing her anger at the
newcomer. “I didn’t kill them.”

  Before Hannah could reply, I held my hand up and silenced her.

  “Wasn’t really wanting witnesses for this,” I said as I walked toward the bed.

  That was when Allegra started to look nervous.

  She scooted back in the bed as far she could go, but it wasn’t far enough.

  My hand closed around Allegra’s throat.

  “There’s a payment needed here,” I said very quietly. “You need to either go down for your sins or I’ll take you down my own way. Which way is it going to be?”

  Allegra’s eyes were freaked, and I could tell that she didn’t want to answer me.

  She did, though.

  “I’ll admit to everything,” she said. “I’m sor-sorry.”

  I laughed in her face and let her go. “Sorry isn’t good enough.”

  I could still feel her throat in my hand.

  It was intoxicating, not giving a fuck.

  I no longer had a conscience.

  I could literally do anything, and not feel one single regret.

  “Make sure you do. Or I’ll be back.”

  Then I left, walking around a surprised Hannah, and left not just the room, but the hospital and Hostel altogether.

  ***

  Hannah

  I watched him leave with surprise.

  I’d come over here with the intentions of doing something very similar. However, Dante had gotten things across loud and clear.

  Shooting Allegra a smug look, I walked away knowing that Allegra would do the only thing she could.

  Admit to her sins.

  Chapter 31

  Some days the supply of available curse words is insufficient.

  -Hannah’s secret thoughts

  Hannah

  “She’s working out?” I asked.

  “Yes, she’s doing so great,” Carol Marks said. “Thank you so much for recommending her. I can feel my strength returning already.”

  I smiled into the phone, but only halfway.

  My heart was still hurting, and Travis was still in the hospital.

  I was worked to the bone.

  The day that I’d been freed from jail, I’d gone to see Travis.

  Once I’d ascertained that Travis would be okay, I’d then gone to work helping Baylor keep Hail Auto Recovery afloat.

  Apparently, without Travis, things went downhill fast.

  He was the one with the passwords. The contacts. The person that answered all emails, as well as made sure that the lights stayed on by paying bills.