Say It Ain't So (SWAT Generation 2.0 Book 9)

by Lani Lynn Vale

  He’d been a rock for my girl over the last couple of days for sure.

  “At the scene?” Sammy confirmed.

  Miller nodded.

  “We were traveling down the road when that asshole stepped out into the road.” Sammy’s lips tightened. “The eighteen-wheeler that was beside me swerved. I slammed on my brakes but saw what was about to happen before it happened. Speeding up, I barely managed to get in front of that truck before it fell over sideways.” He looked down at my girl in his arms. “Right on top of the car that was holding her father and sister.”

  The room went utterly silent as everyone processed his words.

  “After…” He shook his head, sorrow lacing his voice. “I hit another car when the truck’s tail end swung around and knocked my back end loose. I came to a while later with my truck on its side next to the eighteen-wheeler.” He looked at Patman who was sitting in the seat across from us. “And that asshole right there yanked me out of my truck and put me into the back of his. My head was all fucked up. I’m not even sure I knew what was happening. It felt like I’d gain consciousness just to lose it seconds later. I know that I was hogtied to the backseat anchors, though. Every time I tried to move, I would jar myself in surprise. Then knock myself out again due to the pain. It was only hours later that I came to enough to realize that I was handcuffed to a fuckin’ chair and Patman’s wife was giving me water trying to wake me up.”

  “Patman’s wife knew that you were being held prisoner by Patman?” Luke, the sexy Viking, asked.

  “Yes.” Sammy glared at Patman. “They’re both twisted fucks if you ask me.”

  Patman grinned as if he didn’t care.

  “Patman stepping out into the road caused all of that,” he said.

  “The driver of the truck was over the legal limit,” Luke offered.

  “I don’t care,” Sammy said as he looked down at Hastings who had shifted in his arms. “He stepped out, and that truck swerved hard. He wouldn’t have swerved if it wasn’t for Patman.”

  All eyes turned to Patman who was now laughing.

  Laughing.

  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” I stood and walked over to the piece of trash. “You’re laughing? Eighteen people were killed because of your stupid ass.”

  Patman grinned at me.

  “Fuck off,” he mouthed.

  I pulled back my arm and punched him.

  “You fuck off,” I snarled.

  When he fell over out of his chair, I reared back and kicked him with my good foot.

  Right in the nads.

  “Fuck you.” I punctuated that statement with one more kick.

  To the throat this time.

  Epilogue

  You ain’t shit.

  -T-shirt

  Sammy

  Six months later

  “Adrianna Aurora Baker Spurlock.”

  I looked over at my girl to see what she thought of that name.

  Her eyes were sparkling with tears as she said, “That sounds… perfect.”

  A mouthful, but perfect.

  “A beautiful name for a beautiful girl,” Suzanne said, her hands covering her face as she cried tears of joy.

  Suzanne had been a rock over the last eight months.

  I couldn’t have done it without her.

  Understandably.

  “Then you’ll be even happier to hear,” I heard my dad say as he pushed into the room, his face lit with excitement. “That Patman and his wife were sentenced to prison. Patman is getting twenty-eight years with a chance of parole at twenty. And his wife is getting fifteen, a chance of parole at eight.”

  Suzanne fist-pumped.

  “Yeah!” she cried. “Hopefully they’ll both die there.”

  My dad chuckled, just as amused as I was to hear the fucker was going to be there for a while.

  “I wish they would’ve given him the electric chair,” my mother muttered from my side as she slowly ran her fingers over my new baby girl’s cheek who was safely ensconced in my arms.

  “I read some ancient capital punishment rituals,” Hastings said as she lay on her back, eyes closed, and waited as the doctor sewed her up. “I was thinking Scaphism.”

  “I’m almost afraid to ask what that is,” my dad said from his spot behind the curtain so that he couldn’t see my wife’s goods.

  “An ancient Persian method of execution in which the condemned was placed in between two boats, force fed a mixture of honey and milk, and left floating in a stagnant pond. The victim would then suffer from severe diarrhea, which would attract insects that would burrow, nest and feed on the victim. Where, later, the victim would die of septic shock,” the doctor who was sewing up my wife said. “Inventive. What about the pendulum?”

  None of us knew what that was, so Suzanne kindly Googled it.

  “A type of machine where a pendulum is actually an ax head and each time it swings, it gets closer and closer to the torso.” Suzanne’s eyes gleamed. “That’s nice. A psychological way to go. The fucker actually deserves something like that.”

  “I always enjoyed when they would die by crushing,” my dad piped in. “They used to put them on this block, and a rather large slab of weight was put on top of them where they would slowly add more and more weight until he was crushed to death.”

  “How about the Brazen Bull?” my sister suggested. “That one sounds cool. The person is put into an iron statue of a bull. Then the bull has a fire lit under it where the person is slowly cooked alive.”

  My girl burst out laughing.

  “I can’t believe we’re talking about this while I’m having my vagina sewn up.”

  My lips twitched in amusement, and I looked from her to my girl and back.

  When I looked up one more time it was to find Hastings’ eyes on me.

  The last six months we’d done a whole lot of soul searching.

  It hadn’t been easy by any means.

  But I was so fucking glad that I was here to help her when she needed me the most.

  I took our girl over to her mama and slowly started to unwrap her.

  I had this all planned out, down to the fuckin’ onesie.

  “Look at our girl’s shirt,” I ordered her.

  She frowned but slowly started to unwrap our baby and reveal her shirt that I’d had the nurse dress her in.

  When her eyes finally once again met mine, she said, “Who are you calling a lint licker, you cootie queen?”

  Then, with the diamond ring that her father had married her mother with, I dropped down on one knee and looked at her.

  “Hastings Hughes,” I said. “I know that the last nine months have been very hard for you, but I want you to take a leap of faith with me. I want to be at your side for the rest of your hard times, and all of your good. I want to marry you. I want you to have the same name as me and our daughter. I want to grow old with you. I want to be your book boyfriend inspiration. I want you to post silly photos of me on your Instagram and make me cringe with embarrassment. I want it all with you.”

  “Yes.” Hastings covered her face with her hand, and I pried it away to slip the ring onto her finger. “You are the weakest link. Goodbye.” She grimaced. “Fuck, ignore that!”

  She only cried harder.

  “Say hi to your readers, Hastings,” Suzanne cried. “We’re live!”

  “My cooch better not be anywhere in that frame!” Hastings cried.

  “Over here, Mr. Hot SWAT Cop.”

  I looked over to see Suzanne holding her phone aimed my way.

  Hastings’ cooch was luckily way out of the frame.

  “Smile.”

  I winked instead.

  ***

  Two hours later

  Live Video.

  199292 Likes. 7272 comments. 9929 shares.

  What’s Next?

  Officially Over It

  Book 10 of SWAT Generation 2.0 Series

 
; 10-13-20

  Prologue

  Rise and shine, motherfucker.

  -Coffee Cup

  Nathan

  The day before college graduation

  “I need you to make a pact with me,” I said as I stared at the woman that was hell-bent on ruining me.

  The same woman that I never could quite pull myself away from. Could never quite pull all the claws out of my skin before she sank yet another one in deeper.

  “What?” Reggie asked, just as drunk as I was.

  She was also not the woman that was hell-bent on ruining me.

  That woman happened to be the one that was crying about her life on Facebook. About how she had cancer and was about to go through multiple rounds of chemo and radiation that might or might not help her.

  “Don’t let her fuck me over. I will fall for those big tears just like I always do and I know that I’ll lose,” I murmured, glancing one more time at the text message that I’d received from Eerie, my own personal hell, and shoved it into my pocket.

  I looked around at the bright sparkling lights that Las Vegas had to offer.

  “And how do you propose that I do that?” Reggie snorted. “You have a toxic relationship with her. Just walk away.”

  I looked down at the paperwork in my hand that the toxic woman had given me the night before and shook my head. “It’s not that easy, Reg.”

  Reggie rolled her eyes. “Listen, I have a solution. But you’re not going to like it.”

  Reggie and I had never gotten along. But, despite the fact that we hadn’t, I knew one thing forever and always—she would have my back. No matter what.

  Which was the entire point of having this conversation.

  Though, maybe if I’d known what she was going to offer, I would’ve maybe suggested she think of something else.

  My drunk brain wasn’t firing on all cylinders, though, and I’d never really been able to tell Reggie no.

  ***

  Two years later

  “What do I do?” I asked.

  “We get a lawyer,” my father suggested. “And you fight her.”

  I groaned and rubbed my hands against my face as I tried to make sense of all of this.

  “Start over.” My mom pinched the bridge of her nose. “Why did you do this?”

  I looked over at Reggie who’d been remarkably quiet through all of this.

  “I didn’t know what to say,” I admitted. “She had these fucking tears. You know how I am with the tears.”

  When Eerie had come to me two years ago and asked me to fertilize her eggs because she had cancer and had to undergo chemo, I’d done it.

  Thinking back, I probably should’ve stayed far, far away. Because I knew that that wasn’t the end for Eerie. She could’ve just as easily done the same thing with a sperm bank.

  Yet, I’d done it anyway.

  At the time, Eerie hadn’t done me wrong time after time as she had over the years. At the time, I was a lovesick fool.

  I loved Eerie, and I’d do anything for her. Even fertilize her eggs and freeze them for when the time came that she wanted to have babies.

  The chemo and radiation that she was required to have due to the cancer was sure to harm all of the eggs that were in her body. The eggs that the company harvested for her said that the eggs would do better if they were fertilized, and at the time, Eerie and I had been going strong. I’d loved her and I’d thought that she loved me.

  “Mark my words, kid. This is going to come back and bite you in the ass.”

  I was already shaking my head.

  “It’s not,” I said. “When her lawyer called me today, I already told them that there was an ironclad agreement with the cryo-bank that we did this with. She can’t use them. It’s against the law.”

  Reggie snorted. “Since when has that ever stopped Eerie Foster?”

  Since when was right.

  But Eerie had some morals. She wouldn’t do this without making sure it was okay with me.

  Right?