The UN Series Complete Box Set

by Shantel Tessier

  “You too, Sir,” he responds shaking his hand.

  “I hear you quit the firm?” he asks adjusting his tie.

  Slade nods. “I did, Sir,” Slade places his hands back on my belly. “It was time for me to move on.”

  Richard looks down to my growing stomach and smile. “Yes, I heard that. Congratulations.”

  “Thank you,” we say in unison.

  He claps his hands together once and then looks me in the eyes. “So, my Son has told me all about your bakery and the foundation you have started. I’m sorry to hear about your mother,” he adds softly, and I murmur a thank you. What are you supposed to say? “I arranged for a couple of news stations to be present and the newspaper to do a spread on the Grand Opening,” he says excitedly.

  My mouth falls open. “No?” I ask looking from him to Parker.

  “Yes,” Parker says proudly. “So get out there and smile real big.”

  I spin around and look up to see Slade smiling down at me. “They are waiting for you,” he says before he spins me around and pats my ass.

  *****

  SLADE

  I wake in the darkness to an annoying noise. Once I realize it’s my phone vibrating, I reach over to the night stand to answer it.

  “Hello?” My voice sounds rough from sleep. I try to clear my throat.

  “Slade. It’s Parker,” he whispers. “Were you up?”

  I pinch the bridge of my nose and blink a couple of times noticing how dark it is in my old bedroom at my parent’s house. “No. What time is it?” I say softly not wanting to wake Angel. We were up late last night due to the opening of her bakery yesterday. And she has problems trying to sleep as it is. She’s always tossing and turning and waking up with half her body numb from the baby.

  “It’s four ten.” He pauses. “In the morning.”

  “Why would I be up at four ten in the morning?” I growl getting out of bed and making my way to the bathroom. “What do you want, Parker?”

  He takes in a deep breath. “I found him. I found Officer White,” he says, and I can tell by his voice that’s he’s proud of this fact

  I look up at myself in the mirror and watch my jaw tighten. “Are you sure?” He better not be playing with me.

  “I’m positive. He’s got himself holed up in a farm house about an hour out of town.”

  “How do you know it’s him?” I wanna be a hundred percent sure before I allow myself to be excited about this news.

  “Because I’m staring right at him through my binoculars,” he growls. “I wouldn’t have called you unless I was a hundred percent sure, Slade,” he says softly.

  I swallow. “What is your plan?”

  I hear rustling around in his car. “Well, I haven’t called it in yet. I thought I would give you a few minutes with him.”

  “You would do that for me?” Parker has already done more for me and Angel than I could have ever asked for.

  “Of course I would. He deserves to know what pain feels like.”

  I allow myself to smile in the mirror. “Send me the address. I’m on my way.”

  I walk out of the bathroom after hanging up with Parker and walk over to Angel sleeping on her side. I smile when I see her holding onto that life-size pillow that my mother had bought her. It has totally taken over my spooning opportunity. I frown when I see Peaches has already made herself comfortable in my spot. That dog never leaves her side for long.

  Leaning down I give her a soft kiss on her cheek before I throw on some clothes and am out the door.

  *****

  “Now just do one thing for me.” Parker asks as he eyes me up and down as we stand by the side of an old farm house in the middle of fucking nowhere.

  “What?” I ask impatiently.

  He sighs. “Just don’t kill him. I can explain a lot of things but death—” He shakes his head.

  “I can’t promise you anything,” I say truthfully.

  “That’s about what I figured you’d say. But I had to try.” He nods his head and walks toward his truck as I turn and walk to the front of the house.

  I go right up to the door and try to turn the knob. Locked. I know he’s sitting in the front living room so I make my way to the back of the house. I reach down picking up a rock and break the back window hoping he doesn’t hear it. Even if he does, Parker will stop him if he runs out the front door.

  Making my way into the house I frown when I smell cigarettes and cheap liquor. I quietly make it down the hallway toward the front of the house. I come up to the living room and just stand there as I stare at the back of his balding head. He sits in a recliner and laughs as he watches reruns of Family Feud.

  “It was nice of you to invite me over,” I speak looking around to make sure there’s nothing he can use to kill me with.

  He jumps out of his seat and spins around. He stares at me wide-eyed for a few seconds and then bursts out laughing. My fists tighten down by my side.

  “Slade. What an unpleasant surprise. I wasn’t expecting company,” he says now wearing a straight face.

  “What a coincidence,” I say placing my arms over my chest. “I wasn’t expecting you to try and kill my wife,” I growl.

  He smiles. The motherfucker actually smiles. “It was nothing against her.” He licks his lips. “She really is something special. But you don’t need me to tell you that do you?”

  “Shut the fuck up,” I warn.

  He takes a few steps away from the recliner and toward the kitchen. My guess he is going to try and get near a knife or gun.

  “It would have happened to any woman you fell in love with,” he says coolly trying to take my attention off of his movements.

  “Why?” I demand getting ready to snap. “You piece of shit,” I snap.

  His face hardens, and he sucks in a breath. “Because you’re a punk ass kid who didn’t deserve all the praise you fucking got,” he shouts losing his temper as well. “Do you know how long I worked my ass off to put dirty bastards like Jeremy and Jax behind bars? Twenty years. And you show up and blow every case I fucking had. I should have been the Chief of Police.” He points a finger at me. “But that’s kind of hard when I can’t keep the criminals behind bars.” He sighs trying to regain his temper. “My wife got tired of me trying to get a job that you kept me from achieving. She took my children. I lost everything because of you. So I joined the other side. I realized it’s much easier to work the system from the inside.” He smiles. “Lo and behold, Jax came to me with a debt he owed. Guess how excited I was when he mentioned Samantha was his ex-girlfriend. I offered him her in exchange for you.”

  I shake my head. “What are you talking about?” I snap.

  “That night of the meeting. The one you never showed up at? Jeremy called you and scheduled that meeting. I was going to kill you and then Jax was going to keep her.”

  “He fucking had her drugged,” I shout.

  He shrugs carelessly. “Would she have stayed with him any other way?”

  I take in a shaky breath. How long would he have kept her that way if I wouldn’t have found her? How long would she have survived?

  “And Jeremy?” I ask as my voice shakes from anger.

  “Ah, Jeremy.” He sighs. “He was an idiot. First he broke into her truck to place a tracking device on it when he could have just placed it under the truck.” He shakes his head as if he’s taking about a son who let him down. “He deserved to die in that accident. It was supposed to just be a hit and run. You know? And your Angel was supposed to die. Funny how things work out,” he says with a smirk on his face.

  I lunge for him as I scream out. I knock him backwards, and we hit the wall before we both fall to the ground. He lands on top of me and punches me in the jaw. I don’t even feel the pain. I punch him back, making contact with his ribs, which gives me the advantage to push him off of me.

  “I’m gonna enjoy beating the shit out of you,” I say between clenched teeth as I stand and look down at him. “Did you have Jeremy a
ttack her outside of Larry’s?” I demand. This is the only part of the puzzle we haven’t been able to fit in place.

  He sucks in a breath and looks up at me. “No.” He shakes his head. “Jeremy just wanted a piece of her, and I gave him the green light.” He smirks. “You know after he watched how she liked to be fucked…”

  I reach down to grab a hold of his ankle and yank it back before I kick him right between the legs connecting with his balls. “You son of a bitch,” I shout and my body vibrates.

  He cries out, clasping his hand between his legs. I lean down and grab his shirt and haul him to his feet before I shove him into the TV and entertainment center. Shit goes crashing to the floor along with him, and he shields his head to try to protect himself from the falling items and the shattered pieces of glass.

  I take a step toward him, and he places his hands up. “Wait, I can help you,” he says frantically.

  I reach down and punch him in the jaw and his head snaps to the side. “You are of no use to me. You had my wife kidnapped. You tried to have her killed along with my child,” I say breathing heavy as I stare down at him.

  “I know things,” he says grasping for straws.

  “Which is?” I demand. When he doesn’t answer I reach down and grab him by the collar of his shirt. “What do you fucking know you sorry son of a bitch?”

  He leans his head to the left and spits out blood onto the pastel rug. Then he licks his bloody lips and gives me a cold smile. “I know she loves to beg to be treated like a fucking whore.”

  I rear back and hit him once more, this time in his chest. I step back as he falls to the floor once more and coughs.

  “Like I said.” He grabs his neck. “I know things. You fucking her wasn’t the only thing I saw or heard.”

  I pause from kicking him in his face and lean down to get eye level with the son of a bitch. “Care to clue me in?” I snap.

  He shakes his head as he lets out a strangled laugh. “You should find out soon enough.”

  I wrap my hand around his throat and stand pulling him with me as he claws at my face and shirt trying to get loose. I tighten my jaw at the sting of his nails on my skin as I squeeze harder. This motherfucker is just gonna continue to mess with me. I’m done messing around.

  I heart the front door bang open and then hear Parker’s voice. “Slade, let him go,” he says calmly.

  I shake my head. “I can’t do that,” I grind out as I watch White’s face start to redden and his attempt to free himself get more frantic. “The bastard deserves to die.”

  “Believe me when I say jail will be much more brutal then you just choking him to death,” he responds. “Now, let him go.”

  I tilt my head and my nostrils flare. I need to kill him. My wife and child deserve justice for what he has put them through.

  But then I remember the look on Angel’s face when I told her I had freed a guilty man of murder. Is this man worth going to jail over for the rest of my life? Missing out on her having our child? I left my career to do better. And this is not better.

  I release him, and he falls to his knees before me sucking in breath after breath.

  “You deserve to spend the rest of your life being someone’s bitch,” I spit out.

  Parker walks over to us with his gun drawn and pointed down at White. “Face down and hands behind you back,” he demands.

  He shakes his head quickly with his hands on his knees still trying to breathe. “I won’t go to jail.” His voice sound raw. “Cops don’t survive in jail.”

  “Maybe you should have thought about that beforehand,” Parker shouts as he continues to point the gun at him.

  “You did hear about Jax, right?” White asks looking up at me taking in a deep breath. “I hear he had an accident while in his cell. It’s terrible really.” He laughs and it turns into a cough. “But I did hear that he got to see Samantha one more time.”

  I fist my hands down to my side. I had heard that Jax had been jumped in his cell after Angel had visited him. I never told her. I didn’t really think it mattered in the grand scheme of things. She had the accident and then took weeks to fully recover. After that she was so happy with life, I didn’t think it mattered what the fuck happened to him. He was history, in more ways than one.

  Then he looks at Parker. “You should listen to Tate more often.” His words send up a chill up my back. “There are dirty cops on the force, and I promise you, you’ll never find out which ones are the good ones.”

  “You’re lying.” Parker shakes his head. “He’s just trying to fuck with us,” he says to me. “Now quit stalling and lie down and place your hands behind you back,” he says once again.

  “Fine.” He sighs raising his hands as Parker starts to walk over to him. Just as Parker pulls his cuffs out White lunges right for him. Parker’s gun and cuffs go flying as they hit the ground.

  I run over to them. As soon as I reach down and pick up the gun, someone slams into my back and sends us both through the open front door causing me to also drop the gun. We continue falling back and tripping over the front steps. I feel my shoulder dislocate, and I clench my teeth so tightly my jaw aches. Once I hit the grass I come to an abrupt stop and look up just in time to see White’s fist come toward my face.

  I take the hit, and my vision temporarily vanishes. When it comes back I feel his hand wrapped around my throat now. “Too bad you’ll never get to fuck that cunt again,” he growls. “Don’t worry,” He licks his bloody lips. “I’ll take care of her,” he smirks.

  Over my dead body. I raise the only arm I can use and reach across my face before slamming my elbow back into his face knocking him off of me. I roll over onto my knees and cough as my throat burns from his hand.

  I sit up quickly when I hear a loud bang followed by a thump as White’s body slumps next to me in the grass. Now dead. Just what Parker didn’t want to happen.

  Well, fuck!

  I look up to the front door as Parker stands there holding out his gun still trained on White. “Are you okay?” he asks me.

  “Yeah,” I manage to say through gritted teeth as I hold my shoulder. Fuck me! “Thought you wanted him alive?” I say trying to stand.

  “Yeah well,” he comes over to me and helps me up slowly, “I didn’t have any other options.” He points to the pocket knife that lies next to White on the ground. “I wasn’t going to let him kill my best friend.”

  “I had it handled,” I sigh holding my shoulder once again.

  He gives me an ‘are you crazy’ look. “Your wife would kill me if she knew I was the one who got you killed.” He frowns. “So I was saving both of our asses.”

  “Thanks for the consideration,” I say inhaling sharply due to the pain.

  “Don’t mention it.” He laughs.

  I hear the sirens in the distance and look at him with a raised eyebrow. “I called Brad,” he says before putting his gun away. “And your wife, along with Tate, are with him.”

  “What? Why?” I sit down on the stairs and take a few deep breaths.

  “She woke and you were gone. She called Tate. Tate called me.” He shrugs like he doesn’t understand either.

  We sit on the steps as we hear the sirens get closer. I watch as my pregnant wife gets out of the cop car and hobbles toward me with a hard look on her beautiful face once she spots me, and I can’t help but smile. It’s finally fucking over!

  *****

  Angel’s Dream has been opened for three months now, and it is doing better than she could have hoped, or so she says. I knew it would be fucking amazing.

  Parker loved the fact that Angel had wanted to do something for her mother. He felt he had power to help her out with that. And against his better judgment, he called his father for a favor. He and his father aren’t all that close. Richard’s life goal was always to be mayor of this town and having a son who ran around fucking random girls and getting caught at parties for underage drinking, while his pants were down around his ankles, didn’t make Rich
ard look good. Braxton was always the Golden child. He saw how much hell Parker put him through, so he walked a tight rope. He’s still favored even if he did become a defense attorney.

  Richard has been my father’s good friend since high school. They don’t hang out much publicly considering their careers but still keep in touch and try to meet up privately often.

  As soon as Richard had heard Parker out, he fell in love with Angel as much as we all did, and he wanted to help.

  Having the newspaper show up was great for business. She has since then been on the local news, and it has done nothing but go up from there. It keeps her busy, but she’s happy, and that’s all that matters to me.

  I spend all of my time up at the bakery as well, I thought it would drive her nuts for me to be up there all day, but she’s too busy to even notice me eating all the wonderful muffins she makes. I wish she would notice though and tell me to stop, I’ve gained like ten pounds. Josh said that’s normal though when your wife is expecting a baby. Of course he said that as he was shoving some kind of cookie into his mouth.

  Parker, Tate, and I have even placed a table in the back of the kitchen over by her office where we all hang out while the girls cook. True to her word, Holly quit Larry’s; Micah hated her working there as well but he would have never told her that. It made me feel like a total jack ass. Guess I’m the only guy who would make their significant other quit their job. But I’m sure if Holly had been attacked, he would have gone crazy and demanded she quit just as well.

  Courtney also quit the bank, and she helps out in the front and the marketing side. She says she’s not much of a cook, but she is always in the kitchen eating something, blaming it on the two growing boys who are in her belly.

  Yes, they are having twin boys.

  She cried and said that she could not live in a house full of only men. To my surprise, Josh said they would try for a girl. The rate they’re going, I expect them to have five kids within the next four years.

  Missy has been around a lot. She is always helping Angel no matter what it is. Driving her to appointments. Staying late at the bakery. Putting up flyers. The girl is always working, and I know Angel is thankful for that.