Execution Style (27 page)

Thump-thump.

“Your son’s awake,” she murmured into my side, sounding half asleep.

“Let him come. It’s alright,” I said just as tiredly.

There was just something about having Mercy in my arms that made me let go. Made me release all of the tension of the day, even if all I did the entire day was sit on my ass and do nothing.

The door to the room creaked open, and I heard the distinct sound of my son’s feet slapping against the hardwood floors before he was climbing up into our bed.

He didn’t bother announcing his presence with his voice, he only threw himself down on the bed between us, and squirmed until he was under the covers, exactly where he wanted to be.

We’d tried to discourage the act when he was around nine months old, but now, at a year and a few weeks, we’d yet to find a solution for it besides locking him in his room. Something neither of us wanted, so we let him do whatever he wanted.

Hopefully, just hopefully, in a few years, he’d start sleeping in his own bed. For now, though, I was happy. I liked having my family in my arms; the feeling was enough to make my heart full to bursting.

Valentine’s Day, one year later

I’m not sure what I
thought would happen, me marrying her. One thing I c
ould say for sure, though, was that
I was in love with her now just as much as the day we married. There’s not one day I regret being married to her.

She’s a wonderful mother two children, a perfect, supportive wife, and a loving, caring woman.

I was amazed by her, daily.

“I can’t believe she got this event set up so quickly,” my mother said at my side.
“It’s amazing.”

I couldn’t either.

Slinging my arm around her shoulders, I pulled her close to me and rested my cheek against the top of her head.

“I can’t either. She raised over fifty thousand dollars in a little over three weeks. Now every single person on the police department has a brand new bullet proof vest. She even got one for Downy’s K-9 unit, Mocha,” I told her.
“Now she’
s throwing a birthday party for Elton’s kid.”

I still couldn’t believe it.

She’d worked her ass off after another officer, a rookie named Elton Beret, had been shot in the line of duty.

Mercy had become somewhat of the ‘class mom’ of the police station.

She took care of us all, as well as our children.

Samuel was now two, and was a spitting image of me when I was his age.

Sierra Nevada Spurlock was the newest addition to our little family, and at two months old, she was the most perfect child in the world.

Of course, that was a matter of opinion, but I felt that way nonetheless.

“Oh, look! Seems your Samuel has found a woman to call his own,” my mother said, laughing happily at my side.

I turned to find Samuel in the sandbox, playing nicely, next to the birthday girl.

“You did really well, my boy. I’m very proud of you,” my mother said quietly, running her finger down the middle of my daughter’s nose.

I nodded.

“Thanks, mom.”

“Thanks for what?” Mercy asked as she sidled up to me, wrapping her arm around my chest and giving Sierra a kiss on the forehead.

“She’s proud of me for eating thirty two hotdogs at the carnival you set up for the PD,” I lied.

She narrowed her eyes at me.

“I don’t think it counts as ‘eating,’” she finger quoted. “If you throw it all up twenty minutes after you’re done.”

“Hey!” I said indignantly. “At least I went longer than Foster.”

“That’s ‘cause I ate forty hotdogs,” Foster tittered from across the room.

I discreetly flipped him off.

Not discreetly enough, however, since I received a smack on both shoulders from two of my favorite women.

The only other one that surpassed them both was the little girl currently shitting her pants in my arms.

“Here you go,” I said to my mom. “I have to go to the bathroom.”

I didn’t make it twenty feet before my mom started yelling at my back.

“Hey boy!” my mother ordered. “Come back here and change this baby!”

“Whoever smells it first, has to change it! You know the rules!” I yelled back.

Foster and Trance snorted once I reached the bar.

“Nice one,” Foster said.

“I try,” I agreed.

Sitting down, I reflected on how much my life had changed in a little over three years.

A wife. Two kids. A house. A stable job.

Fuck, but I’d become
domesticated
.

A wail pierced the air, and I looked over to see my little guy getting the smack down laid upon him.

He got free of her, finally, and came barreling at me like a ball of fire and energy. His little heart was broken, and as I caught him up into my arms, I felt complete.

Everything about this moment was right.

My brothers at my side, happy with a family of their own.

My parents in front of me, doting on my other child.

Then there was my Mercy Me. My everything. My heart, soul, and drive, staring at me.

I love you,
I mouthed.

She winked.
Back ‘atcha, big boy.

Charlie Foxtrot

September 3rd, 2015

Chapter 1

I don’t know why people think I’m such a dick. I’m a fuckin’ delight to be around.

-Secret thoughts of Foster

Foster

“I need to speak to the officer that gave my grandfather a ticket. Right now,” I heard snapped over the phone.

I shook my head and stood up out of my chair.

“I’ll be there in a minute, Pat,” I said tightly, reining in my anger as best I could.

Pattie Hightower was the front office receptionist who sat behind the wall of glass. The first person the general public saw once they entered the building.

She had a shit job, and didn’t make enough. Everyone in the precinct was guilty of abusing her niceness, myself included.

Limping around the desk, I winced as my leg started the familiar aching burn that usually came around when I’d done too much work with it.

Which I had.

I did every day, but today I’d re-qualified with the SWAT team.

I’d run the obstacle course that every new potential member of SWAT had to run to be accepted into the fold.

I’d previously been on the SWAT team, but an incident last Valentine’s Day with the crazy bitch that tried to take my brother, Miller’s, and my sister-in-law, Mercy’s, life had sidelined me temporarily.

Linda Moose, a.k.a. Crazy Bitch, CB for short, had tried to plow her car straight through Mercy’s face.

At the time, Mercy had been pregnant with my nephew. I’d seen her small body fold into my brother’s, and before I knew it, I’d started running.

Right into the path of the stupid bitch’s bumper.

CB had reversed, so I had, too.

I’d stopped when my back had met the brick mailbox. Unfortunately, Linda had not.

She backed straight into me, pinning my left leg in between the bumper and the brick mailbox from hell.

Then she’d tried to leave.

Bad for her, my gun had been in my hand before I’d even consciously thought about it.

I’d shot her through the back glass.

The first two bullets had passed through her left shoulder, and the next one had grazed the top of her head.

She’d crashed after my last shots took out her tires.

It was inconclusive whether she passed out from hitting the tree, or the bullet to the head.

Regardless, I’d managed to stop her before my leg finally realized there wasn’t much left to stand on.

I’d fallen to the ground and promptly passed out.

Then had woken up in a hospital bed ten hours later, legless, and in a perpetual bad mood.

“You got a live one, Crush,” Chief Rhodes said, eyes alight with laughter.

I didn’t bother to respond.

I’d somehow become the laughing stock of the station.

They thought it was funny to call me Crush.

I, on the other hand, thought it fucking sucked.

I didn’t need to be reminded on a daily basis that I was missing my leg. Well, half a leg.

I had a below the knee amputation.

Which was better than, say, an above the knee amputation. Regardless, it was still an amputation and it had impacted my life greatly.

I witnessed the fact every morning when I looked down. Every morning when I fitted the prosthesis on my leg. Every morning when I walked into work.

My prosthesis looked like anybody’s leg when I was wearing jeans or long pants. The problem was, was that everyone on the force, as well as in the community, knew I was missing a leg. Knew the weakness I had.

“No, I just want to talk to him. It won’t take but a minute,” I heard a woman’s voice say once I reached the lobby.

Pushing the door closed behind me, I walked up behind the woman, surveying her.

She was around five eight or nine. Full figure, round hips, perfect ass. Long legs encased in tight jeans.

Curly, white blonde hair that was nearly the shade of mine came down to her mid back.

The ends looked like they’d been dipped in purple paint.

“Can I help you?” I asked the woman.

She whirled around, her eyes narrowing on my face, then taking in my badge, gun, and posture before returning her eyes to my mine.

My breath caught as I got a load of her face.

She was fucking
beautiful
.

Her eyes were the shade of warm, melted honey.

Her lips were luscious, and she had the cutest cleft in her chin that I’d ever seen.

And that was saying something, since my nephew and niece had cleft chins. That was hard to compete with.

I wanted to touch it.
Badly
.

But then her snotty attitude cleared that want right up.

“You’re Officer Spurlock? Badge number 654?” She asked, crossing her arms across her breasts.

I raised my brows at her.

She obviously had done her homework about me.

Looking down at my badge, I pointed towards it with a finger. “That’s me.”

She moved forward, closing the distance I’d left between us in milliseconds.

“Let me tell you something, Officer Spurlock. What you did was despicable,” she hissed.

I raised my eyebrow at her. “And what did I ‘do,’ exactly?”

“You gave my grandfather, a veteran, and a fine man, a ticket for having a pocketknife on him,” she spat.

I blinked.

What the fuck?

“Are you talking about that crazy old man that was wielding a butcher knife at me? That was anything
but
a ‘pocketknife.’ It’s closer to a machete than a pocket knife,” I clarified.

Her eyes narrowed. “That was a pocket knife.”

I gritted my teeth and pulled my phone out of my pocket. I’d show her how much of a ‘pocketknife’ it wasn’t.

I flipped through my pictures, past the ones of my brother who thought it’d be funny to post a picture of his ass on my phone, over the stack of beer cans we’d used to make a tower, and finally stopping on the one I was searching for.

“Does this,” I said, holding my phone out to show her the picture. “Look like a pocketknife to you, ma’am?”

Her brows lowered in confusion. “N-no. That’s not what he just told me…excuse me.”

With that, she pushed past me.

Caught off balance, I instinctually put my weight on my bad leg, and promptly ate dirt.

The woman was gone before I even hit the floor.

I was able to catch myself before I did any major damage to my person, but not in enough time to prevent the entire station from seeing me fall.

There were men lined up behind the counter, all of their eyes wide as they looked at me, wondering what they should do.

I could practically hear their thoughts.

Should we help him?

Can he get back up by himself?

Oh, my God. That woman just made the cripple fall.

Narrowing my eyes on them, I stood, making sure no one saw how awkward it was to actually stand, and walked out of the door.

Once I reached the front steps, I crossed my arms and watched as the woman yelled at her grandfather. The old man that looked like the most innocent man in the world.

The man who’d pulled the knife on me quicker than I could blink.

He was lucky all I gave him was a weapons citation.

I could’ve arrested him for threatening a police officer with intent to harm.

When she spotted me, she started to march up the steps, coming to a stop two down from me.

“He tells me you’re lying. That he had nothing more than his pocket knife,” she held up a fucking switch blade.

I reached for it, and she warily placed it in my hand.

Acting quickly, I pressed the lever, disengaging the blade and scaring the shit out of her.

“This,” I said, holding my hand out to her, offering her the hilt of the blade. “Is a switchblade. This is not a pocket knife. It’s also illegal, because it’s double sided.”

She looked at the knife now in her hand, then offered it back to me.

“Just keep it.”

I took the blade from her hands, collapsing the blade, and shoving it in my pocket.

“What the fuck, grandpa! That’s illegal, too!” I heard just before she dropped down into her nineties model Camaro and closed the door.

I couldn’t help the smile that overtook my face.

For the first time in months, I had something to smile about.