“Can someone please tell me what the fuck is going on? Can we go in yet?”
“I need you to stay calm, King,” JD’s soothing voice said into his ear, “We’re working on getting everything set up here and we’re waiting for them to open the door on that truck so we can see exactly what’s inside.”
“Waiting? We’re waiting? For what? For Row to get killed because he lost his shit?” he said, the tremor in his voice obvious towards the end.
“Do you really have that little faith in your man’s abilities? You two faced down suicide bombers in Iraq and you did just fine,” JD snapped.
Yeah, well, fine is a pretty fucking fluid term when you go through shit like that, King thought as he ground his teeth.
“How long?” he growled out.
“Our team is in place and just waiting for my Go. Hang tight, King, copy?”
King’s knife, that he always liked to hold in his hand in stressful situations like this, dragged through the dirt at his feet for several long, silent seconds.
Long enough for JD to snap, “Kingston Fisher, do you copy or do I turn you off?”
If JD turned his earpiece off he’d have no clue what was going on inside. That would be worse than this slow death he was undergoing right now.
“Copy,” he whispered.
“Good. Now, listen. I hear the door opening now. As soon as we have enough to nail these fuckers, I’ll release you.”
King nodded even though JD couldn’t see him. He nodded….and listened.
**********
Row tried to prepare himself for what he would see as the truck door raised. His heart was pounding in his chest harder than a bass drum at a rock concert.
He took another step closer and then, “Empty?” he whispered as he stared into the blackness.
But then he heard it.
A small sniffle followed by a whimper.
And then a pair of owlish eyes blinked in the darkness as a young dark-haired, brown skinned boy who couldn’t be more than ten or eleven took a step forward.
“Que es mi Papa?” (Where is my father?)
“Tu padre llegará más tarde (Your father will join us later),” Campbell said to the boy.
Row’s eyes snapped over to Campbell, “Really?”
Campbell shrugged, “Well his new Dad will be here later,” he said as he and held a hand out, “Ven aca.”
Come here, yeah right.
The boy took a tentative step forward but then looked behind him.
And that was when Campbell pulled out a flashlight, lit up the back of the truck….and Rowan Bates lost his touch with reality.
There’s no way, his muddled brain told him as it fought a battle with what his eyes were seeing. There couldn’t be that many kid’s in there.
There had to be at least two dozen.
And that was two dozen too many for Row to comprehend.
So, in order for his brain to save him from himself, it shut down.
Those aren’t children, it told him, they’re flower arrangements. This is a flower deliver truck. Look at how beautiful those flowers are.
He reached for a large grouping and pulled it into his arms, hugging it tight so he could savor its beauty.
He refused to acknowledge that those flowers were hugging him back, refused to believe that there were a pair of arms and legs wrapped around him tighter than an octopus.
He just turned and, like a robot, fell in line behind everyone else.
“Put him in there,” a voice told him.
He did as he was told, setting the flowers on the floor.
He frowned, though, when they still seemed to be attached to him when he tried to stand up.
He heard someone speaking Spanish to the flowers as they peeled them away from his body and then he stepped back.
He refused the hear the cries of fear that tried to penetrate his ears.
He didn’t notice that his cheeks were soaked with his own tears.
He just stepped back and followed the others back to the truck for more…..
Flowers….beautiful, beautiful flowers.
Thirty-Nine
The SUV they were riding in bounced down the long dirt driveway with Cain behind the wheel.
“Does she even know I’m coming?” Kelly said to Connor.
“I told her I had something important to tell her before I meet my new grandbaby.”
“Before? Didn’t she have him last week?”
“Yeah, well, the little bugger was early.”
The vehicle slowed and came to a stop next to Raine’s department issued vehicle. He looked out the passenger window and saw her sitting on the bench next to the window, alone.
“Fuck, she knows something’s up,” he mumbled.
“You want me to wait in here?”
“No, let’s just get this over with.”
The two of them climbed out and then began walking towards the porch.
Angry eyes watched him.
“When did you lose your faith in me?” she said.
Connor froze with his foot halfway up a stair, “What? Never, Raine, I, shit, I, no, never.”
“Then why didn’t you think I was strong enough to know about this? He’s my brother for god’s sake, Dad. Did you ever once think that maybe I wanted a brother? Hell, at the very least it would’ve given poor cousin Ben a little reprieve.”
A small smile lifted one corner of his mouth. Connor forced his feet to move again, “You’re right, baby girl. I should’ve told you. But I had to protect you, both of you,” he said as he looked between the two of them, “Information like that can be used to…persuade…people to talk. I didn’t want to put either of you in danger.”
Raine’s eyes snapped over to Kelly, “Are you out of that world now?”
Kelly nodded once, “I am. I work for Da….um….Connor now.”
Her eyes narrowed, “It’s Kelly, right?”
Kelly dipped his chin, “Yes.”
“Well, Kelly, I’m Raine. And if you don’t get over here and hug me in about two seconds, this big sister is going to be pissed. You don’t want to piss off your sister, do you, Kelly?”
Kelly grinned, “No, I definitely do not,” he said as he stepped into her open arms.
When she released him from the hug, she kept an arm around his waist, “Come inside, Kelly. I want you to meet your nephew,” then she aimed a glare at Connor, “You can wait out here. I’ll come get you when I’m good and ready.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Her eyes moved over Kelly’s shoulder, “Who’s this?”
Kelly’s head turned and he smiled, “This is Cole, my boyfriend.”
“He can come too,” she said and with one final glare at her father, she, Kelly and Cole disappeared into the house.
Cain stepped up next to Connor, “I’d say I’d go talk to her on your behalf but she scares the shit outta me.”
Connor snorted a laugh.
“Come on,” Cain said as he pulled Connor towards the wicker loveseat on the porch, “We’ll sit in timeout together. It’ll be fun.”
He flopped down into the seat and pulled Connor down next to his body. “It’ll be okay,” he whispered as he pressed a kiss to Connor’s head.
“I know it will.”
A baby’s cry from inside had them both turning their heads. “Do you hear that babe? That’s your grandson,” Cain whispered as he pulled Connor closer.
“That’s your grandson too.”
Cain snorted a laugh, “Yeah, right. Oh look, Grandpa Cain got the baby a rifle for his first birthday. How sweet. That shit would go over really well.”
Connor lifted his head to look at Cain, “I’ve seen you with Colt and Annie, babe. You can’t fool me, you’re great with kids. You act all gruff and growly but inside you’re a total softie.”
“I happen to like gruff and growly, it’s a good look on me.”
“Gruff and growly?” Storm said as he poked his head out the door.
&nbs
p; Connor pointed to himself with his thumb, “I’m gruff,” he said and then angled his thumb at Cain, “he’s growly.”
Storm smiled, “More like squeezy and squishy once you see this guy. Come on, grandpas.”
He held the door open for the two men to come inside.
As they stepped over the threshold, Cain squeezed the back of Connor’s neck and whispered into his ear, “Told you everything would be okay, grandpa.”
Connor’s heart felt like it swelled about four sizes bigger when he looked at the bundle that was in Kelly’s arms.
A shock of dark hair had him turning to look at Storm. “Yeah, we thought about doing the whole put it in a blender and see what happens thing but since Irish has the red hair, green eyes thing going and I’m black hair, blue eyes, we figured it would be really obvious once the baby was born so we flipped a coin instead. I’m papa this time. Irish gets the next go around.”
“I get more?” Connor whispered, tears shimmering in his eyes.
Storm smiled and patted his back, “Yeah, grandpa, you get more.”
“Not until my hoohah heals!” Raine called from the couch.
Connor cringed, Cain laughed and Storm just rolled his eyes, “Vagina, dear. We’re parents now. We use actual words for our body parts.”
“Including your PA piercing?” she said with a raised eyebrow.
“Yes, dear, including my Prince Albert piercing on the end of my penis.”
Raine snorted, “I can’t wait until Bradley is ten and asks when he can get one too.”
Connor’s eyes went wide, “Bradley?”
Raine smiled at him, “Yeah, Dad. I was pissed but not that pissed. I wanted him to have a piece of you with him always. His name is Bradley Ranger Braddock.”
“Braddock?” Connor somehow managed to say around the lump in his throat.
“Yeah. We all decided that trying to do the hyphen thing was, well, stupid. And since Mac and I don’t really care that much about our names, we legally got ours changed to Braddock. I hope that’s okay with you,” Mac said as he walked over.
“Okay? No, it’s not okay. It’s fucking perfect,” Connor said and then he couldn’t hold the tears back anymore. He turned and buried his face in Cain’s big chest, thrilled in the knowledge that not only had he not screwed things up too badly but that they were better than he could ever imagine.
Forty
“Is that enough?” JD said to the man standing next to him watching the monitors.
He waited, grinding his teeth, forcing himself not to grab the man and shake him by his shoulders until, with a miniscule dip of his chin, the man whispered, “Yes.”
“Go, go, go!” JD shouted into his headset.
He both listened and watched, even though watching and not being there was its own kind of torture, as his husband, King, Justice and part of the FBI takedown team supplied by the man standing next to him stormed through the open door. The rest of the FBI team was positioned around the building to catch anyone trying to escape. Child Protective Services had been briefed on the situation and was on their way with four vans to take the children to area hospitals to be checked out and then placed in temporary homes until their parents could be located.
Gunshots had JD’s eyes snapping to one of the monitors.
“Don’t hurt the flowers!” he heard Rowan shout as the man fell to the floor, protectively covering the child in his arms.
Flowers? What the fuck?
He scrolled through his phone and shot off a text:
One of my new agents might need your help. Possible PTSD
I’m here and ready whenever you need me, Lucas replied.
JD hated the idea that he might’ve made a huge mistake by hanging this case on his new agent. He hoped it hadn’t pushed him so far that he couldn’t come back.
He forced his focus back to the scene unfolding in front of him. Bullets were still flying amid shouts of ‘Freeze!” and “FBI!”
He watched one ricochet off of cement floor near Row’s legs. He couldn’t tell from his view if it had hit him or not.
He dialed 9-1-1 on his cell and brought it up to his ear, “What is your emergency?” the operator said.
“This is Special Agent John David Preston with Special Task Force Bravo, Oscar, Tango, badge number one, five, seven, Delta, Foxtrot. We’re going to be needing some aid cars. Possible multiple gunshots.”
“Oh, OH!” she said, “Where and how many do you think you need?”
JD took in the scene unfolding in front of him. He counted at least four people injured on the ground already, including Row, “Four, maybe more.”
“Okay. I’ll get them dispatched right away, Sir.”
“Thank you,” he said and then he ended the call.
He searched the screens for his husband but couldn’t see him at the moment. That didn’t necessarily mean anything but he’d still feel better if he could see him.
Movement on the dark side of the warehouse caught his eye on the bottom right screen. He’d smiled because he’d know his husband’s body in the dark with his eyes closed.
But then another figure, with the unmistakable shape of a gun in his hand, appeared a few feet behind Brent.
“Brent, behind you!” he said and then watched as his husband both spun and dropped to his back while raising his gun and firing. The other person’s arm flung up to the air, sending out a wild shot and then dropped to the ground.
“That was close,” JD mumbled.
He expected a smartass comment and the longer he didn’t get it, the more worried he got.
“Brent?”
Silence.
Brent was still in the exact same position he was in when he fired.
“Babe?” JD whispered, his heartrate tripling.
“I, I, I’m jus gonna stay here,” he mumbled as the arm that held his gun clattered to the cement floor.
“Fuck,” JD mumbled as he scanned the other screens. “Justice?”
“Yeah?”
“I,” he cleared his throat, trying to force the shakiness from his voice, “I think Brent’s been shot.”
Justice had his knee in the back of someone as he zip-tied their wrists. He barked a curse as he jumped to his feet, “You!” he said pointing to one of the FBI men, “Secure this man.”
He turned and glanced around, “Where?”
JD tried to answer but he found that he couldn’t speak. He felt like he was both drowning and suffocating at the same time.
“JD, I need you to tell me where he is so I can help him.”
JD’s eyes snapped up to the screen. He swallowed, “Behind the shelves to your right.”
His fingers were squeezing the table in front of him so hard he knew he was either going to break it or dent it.
“JD?” Justice said in JD’s ear. His voice was calm, too calm.
“Yeah?” JD said, his voice cracking because…..well….because.
“Ambulances on the way?”
“Yeah. Does, does he need one? Or does he need the ME’s car?”
The fact that Justice ignored him made JD feel like he was too big for his fucking skin. He wanted to rip everything off so that he just didn’t exist anymore. No feelings, no heartache….no pain…just nothing.
“Billy still there?”
“Yeah, I’m here.”
“You’re in charge there. You got it?”
“Yeah, I’m good.”
“G?”
“Yeah, babe. I’m here.”
“Bring him.”
“Justice, please. Just fucking tell me. Is he dead?”
“No, he’s not. But I don’t sugar-coat shit and this is bad.”
JD tore his headset off, pulled both firearms from their holsters, the one at his hip, the other on his ankle and started to hand them to Billy.
“Is he an agent?” the FBI dickhead standing there doing fucking nothing said.
JD got in his face, “You want to write me up for not following procedures? Go right
ahead. This job doesn’t mean shit when it comes to the man inside that warehouse who owns my fucking heart.”
“JD. Give them to me,” Ben whispered.
JD frowned at him. It was as if he was seeing Ben for the first time even though he’d been sitting next to him for hours.
“And you are?”
“Ben Braddock, Capitol Police.”
The man sneered as he looked away but he mumbled, “Fine,” like the word was ripped out of his chest.
JD hit the ground running and didn’t stop until he slid on his knees next to the pale, grey skinned man who, as he choked out a raspy, “No,” appeared to be bleeding from a gunshot wound…..to his neck.
Forty-One
As Jaden climbed into the front seat of the car and closed the door, he stared out the windshield at the dilapidated house in front of him.
Colby smiled as he watched him for a moment and then he said, “What is it, babe?”
“It feels like home,” Jaden whispered as he slowly tore his eyes away from the house and looked at Colby.
“Yeah, it does,” Colby said as he squeezed Jaden’s hand, “It does because you’re here now.”
Jaden looked down at the phone that was squeezed tightly in his right hand, “I’m not sure who to call,” he whispered.
“What about Brent? He has military connections, right? It might work in your favor to face this with someone who can really go to bat for you.”
“I thought of him but he’s on that Op right now. I really want to get this done so we can move forward,” he looked out the window again but this time is eyes were unfocused, “God, what am I going to do,” he turned tear-filled eyes to Colby, “I mean, with my life, with work.”
Colby frowned, “You don’t want to keep painting bridges?”
Jaden shook his head, “Not really. I have to travel for it a lot and I really don’t want to be away from you that much.”
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