The UN Series Complete Box Set (135 page)

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 attack 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 Richard 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.

She and Tate still haven’t spoken. Well, he tries to talk to her but she ignores him completely. I catch her watching him talk to other girls, and she has the saddest look in her blue eyes. But as soon as she looks away she puts a smile on her face. I know it’s fake. No one else does, because they are all too busy doing something. But I know she’s still hurting. She may hurt the rest of her life. I know if Angel were to turn around and walk away from me, I would never be the same. I would never feel this love for anyone else.

I also catch Tate watching her as well. I know how his body stiffens when Braxton kisses her on the cheek goodbye. If you ask me, it’s sad. Why waste time with one-night stands when the love of his life is right in front of him?

“You’re lucky you aren’t getting two girls.” Parker elbows Josh in the side as he speaks.

Courtney is less than two months away from her delivery date. And if you ask me she looks like she is about to pop right now. We are all gathered at Courtney and Josh’s house for the baby shower that the girls are throwing her.

I’m sure baby showers are for the women only, but Josh wanted to be a part of it. He had to persuade Parker to show up with food and then when that wasn’t looking like enough, he threw in lots of beer and a thing of rum. It was a done deal.

“Could you imagine?” Josh shakes his head. “I know how bad we were in high school.” He points to Tate and then Parker. “I would kill a boy if he treated my daughter like we treated girls.”

I nod my head.

“What about you, Slade? What are you hoping for?” Parker asks before taking a drink of his beer.

“I’m hoping for a boy.” I smile. Angel and I have decided to keep the sex of the baby a surprise. We don’t want to know. I keep having these crazy dreams that it’s a boy.

“That’s what I would want,” Parker says, and we all stare at him wide-eyed. He shrugs. “You know, if I ever wanted kids—which I don’t. I’m just saying.”

“I will never want kids,” Tate says matter-of-fact. “No to a boy. No to a girl.”

He shakes his head quickly.

“Why not?” I ask curious.

He sighs. “Just don’t want them,” he says carelessly.

I smile. “Courtney once said something similar to me and then turned up pregnant.”

Tate shakes his head. “I’m always careful. I don’t even want the responsibility of a relationship let alone the responsibility of being a father. Plus, when you have kids with someone that you’re not physically in a relationship with, the women seem to use the kids as leverage. That’s not fair,” he finishes before he takes a drink of his beer.

Parker nods. “I’ve seen that in many cases I get called on. Hell, some have even been married and still try to use their children as leverage.”