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  “Good,” Luke sighed.

  Downy let the dog out of his truck door before locking it manually and heading straight to us with Mocha close to his feet.

  He came around to the passenger side since the backdoors didn’t open from the outside without a key.

  I hit the unlock button just as his hand met the door handle.

  He didn’t have to utter a word as the newest member of our team, Mocha, hopped inside and settled herself down on the floor between the two seats.

  “I got it. Judge Rice was fucking livid, too. He was the one to give temporary custody to Candice and Guy. Needless to say, he didn’t take much convincing,” Downy rumbled, eyes scanning the neighborhood beyond.

  I snorted, no it wouldn’t take much that was for sure.

  The Spears family was very well known in our small town. With Guy being a war hero, and then the family taking in all the foster kids they could handle, they were a revered, loving and caring couple in the community.

  “Alright, so here’s what we’re going to do,” Luke called from the back.

  The two of us watched the monitor up front at what was going on in the back, watching as Luke planned out what we’d do.

  While we’d been talking, a line of cop cars had started behind us. Some from the sheriff’s department, others from highway patrol. The majority, though, came from KPD off duty cops.

  Once we had our directions, the team got out and relayed the parts that the other cops, not on the SWAT team would have, telling them where to go and what to do.

  Cops were a resilient bunch.

  They could handle any situation and barely blink an eye; they took orders well. They wanted the op to go smoothly, and anything they could do to help, they would.

  “Everybody clear?” Luke asked.

  Since there was only one way in and one way out, and we were parked at the entrance, we had only one option.

  Walk down to the house.

  Which was what we did.

  After an officer knocked on each door telling them to remain in their homes, we made our way down to the house, hugging the neighboring homes as we went.

  “Scope, you in position?” Luke asked through his mic.

  We’d all spread out, each of us taking a different direction to get to the house.

  I was in the back, crossing over fences.

  At least the cops had gotten all the animals in. Sometimes I wasn’t that lucky and just had to move fast.

  My AR-15 was strapped to my back as I hopped privacy fence after privacy fence.

  It was a soothing, heavy weight from right shoulder to left kidney.

  Stun grenades strapped to my belt, and my Taser at my side, my .45 ACP was strapped to my right thigh. Everything was where it was supposed to be.

  If I had to pull a weapon, that’d be the one I’d go for unless I was sure what was surrounding me. It wouldn’t due to take out a bystander with the large rounds that the AR used.

  I jumped the final fence before the house we were going in, and came to a stop at the edge of the light put off by the streetlight out front.

  Pulling out the camera that was the size of a pink eraser, I hooked it onto the fence and said quietly into my mic, “Camera’s on in the back.”

  “Got it,” John confirmed. “Yard looks clear. There’s no movement in the windows.”

  With that, we all moved in.

  ***

  Three hours later

  We were standing outside the hospital when Georgia pulled up.

  She didn’t stop to talk to us, though, instead going to the front entrance instead of the side one that we were at.

  “Your woman’s here,” Downy said dryly, running his palm over his head.

  I nodded. “Yeah.”

  The last three hours had been fucking awful, and the end result had been the death of four people.

  Those four people being Candice and Guy Spears, as well as Anton and Masha Sergei.

  And with them they took all the answers as to why.

  The only bright spot in it all were that all seven children that’d been in the house, were okay.

  We’d gotten them out of the house before the actual gun fight had begun, thank God.

  The death of innocents were always hard pills to swallow. The deaths of innocent children, on the other hand, was unbearable.

  I stayed where I was, letting her do her job.

  I hadn’t been the one to call her.

  Detective O’Keefe had called her boss, who’d then called her since all four of the children were under her care. And now there were three more children that the Sergei’s had adopted.

  “Hey, did you ever talk to that chick that gave Sergei those kids?” I asked O’Keefe.

  He nodded and lifted the notebook out of his pocket. “Yes. She wasn’t helpful at all. She lawyered up almost immediately. I have an appointment to meet with them later this afternoon.”

  I nodded. “Do you mind if I tag along?”

  He shook his head. “Nope. Don’t mind if you do.”

  ***

  “She knows something. And whatever it is, they’re holding it over her head,” I muttered to O’Keefe.

  O’Keefe nodded.

  “Sure as hell does,” he agreed. “I’ll speak with the judge, see if I can get a warrant on what I got.”

  What he had wasn’t much, since Stephanie had refused to speak at all.

  Her lawyer had done most of the talking, and had refused to give an inch. Which I suppose was what a good lawyer did.

  Still sucked ass for us, though.

  “You’ll keep me informed?” I asked as I pulled out my phone to check the time.

  He gave me an insulted look. “Haven’t I given you information even before you asked this entire case?”

  I pounded him lightly out the back and left the interrogation room.

  Amazingly, I wasn’t stopped as I left the building. And even more amazing, I wasn’t stopped as I made my way out to my rental, a sweet little Tahoe that I’d debated getting when I’d gotten my truck.

  It was actually pretty nice, but I liked and missed my truck way more.

  As I drove home, I thought about all that had transpired that day, and how my life had gotten so out of control.

  When I got home, I walked straight to my bedroom and collapsed on my bed where I commenced taking a three hour nap.

  Chapter 18

  Bad shit follows me. Seriously, maybe you should walk in front.

  -Nico to Georgia

  Nico

  “This day has been a no good, very bad, day,” Georgia collapsed onto the bed next to me.

  I nodded. “Yep.”

  I agreed wholeheartedly. In fact, it’d been fucking horrible.

  “I’ve got the kids spread out throughout the city. All with police officers, believe it or not,” she sighed.

  My head turned to her in surprise. “Really?”

  She nodded, burying her head further into the pillow beside me. “Yep. Angel’s with your chief.”

  I believed it. Chief Rhodes had a soft spot for children. He’d lost his only child, a son, during a training exercise gone badly in Iraq early last year. His wife and him had been understandably devastated and had been in a depression ever since.

  It was the calls on children that always made Chief Rhodes react the greatest. He’d always say, “Kids are our future. They’ve got nothing but rose colored glasses on, and don’t have an ounce of corruption in them yet. Teach them right, and they could save the world. Treat them badly, and they can become their own worst enemy.”

  “Good for him. He deserves it and more. Are they looking into just fostering her for the night, or an extended period?” I asked, turning over to look at her face.

  Her eyes were closed, but when she felt my gaze on her, she opened them and smiled. “It’s only until they find pre-approved foster homes in the area. Although the state would be willing
to put them all through a fast-tracked foster classes if they’re interested in making it long term.”

  I nodded and looped my arm around her waist, pulling her closer.

  She came willingly, placing her hand on my chest and sinking into the curve of my arm.

  Her lips skimmed the sensitive skin of my neck, and I closed my eyes, trying not to remember how bad today was.

  Eventually we fell into a fitful sleep, but my dreams weren’t pleasant.

  They all consisted of everything I’d ever done wrong in my life.

  Losing my best friend. Getting innocent people killed. Nearly losing the love of my life.

  I woke up around two hours later to an empty cold bed, and got out of bed in a slight panic.

  The fog of my dream was still upon me, so when I found her in the living room watching re-runs of I Love Lucy, I wasn’t the most rational when I yanked her over the back of the couch and buried my nose in the crook of her throat.

  After long moments, her hands started petting my head, giving me the soothing touch of her skin on mine.

  “Bad dream?” She asked quietly.

  I walked around the couch and fell down, letting go of her so she fell on the cushion beside me.

  I nodded, and she laid her head on my shoulder. “Yeah, fucking brutal. They never stop, either. They only get worse. Before, there weren’t kids in them. Now there are.”

  She sighed. “I had a bad dream, too,” she admitted.

  I snorted. “Two peas in a pod we are.”

  Taking pity on my extreme dispassion at watching I love Lucy, Georgia turned the channel until she saw the oldest Spiderman movie on FX.

  I curled my arm around her shoulder, and we watched the old movie comparing it to the new one while we did.

  “I want you to kiss me like Spiderman kisses Jane,” Georgia said, sitting down on my lap.

  I furrowed my brows in confusion. “Upside down?”

  She giggled. “No, silly. Like you love me.”

  My hands raised up on their own volition, and I cupped the side of her face. “Honey,” I whispered, leaning in close. “I love you more than my oldest pair of Wranglers. Every time I kiss you, I’m kissing you like I love you. Because I do love you. More than just about anything.”

  She scrunched her nose up at me. “Just about anything?”

  “Well,” I hesitated. “I’m pretty fond of my mama’s tacos.”

  She slapped me on the chest, and I gathered her close to my body and rolled, pinning her down with her hands above her head.

  “More than I need my next breath. More than I need a drink in the middle of an Iraqi sand storm. More than I wanted sleep during Hell Week,” I whispered, looking deeply into her eyes. “More than absolutely anything. More than my own happiness. More than my own life. That’s how much I love you.”

  Her hands wrapped around my shoulders and her hips raised up off the couch to brush the heat of herself against my half-hard dick.

  Sadly, that was all it took to remove my attention from our conversation, sending the blood I needed to think straight down to my cock. My brain had its priorities, of course.

  This sex was quick, raw, and dirty.

  And every single bit of it was done by her.

  After she pushed me back against the sofa, I found her sweet little tits dangling in front of my face.

  She’d lost the shirt when she straddled my lap, and my eyes had immediately fastened on them.

  When I would’ve captured one of her rosy buds in my mouth, she pulled away, but only to pull her panties to the side, push my underwear down below my balls, and impaled herself on my cock.

  Then she started riding me furiously.

  Like she was in a race to the finish.

  To be honest, she was. Because the way she was riding me, the way her sweet, hot pussy clasped my rock hard cock, I was a goner.

  I was so lost in the way she took over control, that I didn’t realize just how close I’d become until the sensation started boiling at the base of my balls.

  “Oh, fuck, I’m close,” I gasped, leaning forward to capture one of her nipples.

  She didn’t answer, and instead threw her head back and came.

  I was so surprised that she’d come so fast that I didn’t pay attention to my own body’s reaction to her.

  In a matter of moments I was coming too, shooting inside of her wet pussy.

  Just like always, I came to long moments later, when the blood finally decided to rush back to my oxygen starved brain, with Georgia panting on top of me.

  My cock was still buried deep, and still just as hard.

  “What have you done to me?” I asked.

  She snorted. “Nothing you haven’t done to me.”

  She was right, and I couldn’t wait to do it again.

  Chapter 19

  The only worthwhile birth control is listening to a baby scream for 6 hours straight while you’re puking and haven’t eaten anything in four days.

  -Reese to Georgia

  Georgia

  Shit, shit, shit. Just tell him already, Georgia! It’s not like he’s going to get mad. He’s probably going to be happy.

  I’ve been avoiding bringing up the subject all night, but I knew I couldn’t avoid it much longer. Especially when this morning I’d nearly hurled up the water I’d managed to force down right before Nico showed up for our run.

  I was pretty sure that he’d figure it out. He was a police officer, after all. Wasn’t that what they did?

  “Nico…” I started to say, but Nico’s pager went off.

  He stood and walked over to it.

  It was underneath a layer of mail that he hadn’t cleaned off in nearly two weeks. Since he’d been put on leave from KPD.

  With one glance at the readout, he was heading towards his room, and I was on his tail.

  Apparently being on leave from the force didn’t mean leave from the SWAT team.

  “How are you able to run on the SWAT team, but you’re relieved from patrol pending indefinitely?” I asked Nico as I followed behind him into the bedroom.

  He’d already stripped out of his shirt by the time I made it into the room, and he was shrugging into a black one from the closet.

  He left the flannel pajama pants on, but grabbed his black combat boots from the floor of the closet and slipped them on over his socked feet.

  He looked at me and shrugged. “They can’t see my face.”

  I waited for more, but I never got anything else.

  Since he didn’t seem like he was in the mood to expound on his answer, I let it go.

  I sat down on the bed and watched him pull his gun out from underneath the bed, followed by his badge and a few extra clips.

  The last thing for him to grab was his cell phone off the nightstand.

  After shoving everything into one hand, he leaned down and gave me a kiss on top of my head before leaving. “Bye, baby love. I’ll see you when I get home.”

  My stomach fluttered at the nickname he’d given me. When he’d started calling me that, it was what clued me in on the fact that I hadn’t had my period in all the time I’d been back in Kilgore.

  He said he started calling me that because of the way I loved my ‘kids’ at work. Little did he know that he was nailing it on the head. He didn’t know it yet, but that was going to become truer than true.

  ***

  Nico

  Special Agent Lawrence was the first man I saw in the hospital room when I opened my eyes.

  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 repo
rter, the one I didn’t like because she didn’t support neither 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 Agata’s 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 gun fight 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 afterwards 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 nearly 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.”