Page 78 of Single Mom's Firemen

“Colby, are you talking about the fire that killed over a hundred people and left hundreds more with scars and nightmares for life?” I manage, the full picture coming in hot and clear, hitting me so hard that I can barely breathe. “Did you start that fire?”

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want to hear the answers to.”

“You killed all those people!” I scream, losing control as grief cuts through me like a red-hot knife. “Colby, you murdered innocent people. For what? What did you intend to gain from that?”

That’s it. The fuse is lit.

“Shut up!” he snaps and comes at me with a heavy swing of his left hand.

I anticipate the pain before he even hits me. My body takes over and I find myself cowering, arms over my head and knees up to my chest as I cry out in desperation. “Please, stop hitting me, I’m pregnant!”

The hand never comes down.

Time stands still for the longest minute. I’m stuck in this position, unable to look up as I await the incoming pain. The blow that might draw blood from my lips or break bones in my face. But it never happens. When I realize it’s not coming, I finally look up to find Colby staring at me, his eyes as wide as saucers. His lips are parted and quivering in shock.

Hell, I can almost hear a motherboard in his brain crackling, short-circuited by unexpected information. I want to smack myself for saying it, but I couldn’t take another blow. I couldn’t put my baby at risk.

“You’re what?” he asks, his voice barely a whisper.

“Pregnant,” I mumble. “Please, don’t hurt me anymore.”

I don’t know what to make of his reaction because there isn’t one. He’s just standing there, inches away from me, unraveling in slow motion as he tries to wrap his head around this new nugget of truth. He knows that it’s not his. He’s probably wondering which of the Danson brothers is the father.

I regret my decision to tell him, and now I’m expecting the worst.

Colby is out of his mind, a loose cannon capable of unspeakable atrocities, as he has so clearly demonstrated one too many times.

And I may have just pushed him over the edge.

32

Chase

The first address that Harriet gave us is a dud.

But the second one has us casing an apartment on the shady side of Dallas, smack in the middle of Drug Dealer Central. The building we’re looking at doesn’t really stand out. It’s old brick, much like all the others on this block. On the third floor, however, there are lights on, and we know that there are several of Colby Nash’s associates living there.

“Harriet said they let Colby stay here when the BOLO first came out,” Eric mentions.

We’re still in his car, armed to the teeth and ready for action. Wyatt insisted on wearing slim Kevlar vests beneath our clothes. I certainly couldn’t disagree since we don’t really know what we’re walking into.

“They might be able to point us in the right direction,” Wyatt says with a subtle nod.

Night is about to fall. The local dealers are starting to come out, anxiously glancing both ways before they start walking and disappearing behind corners.

“Is there any movement up there?” I ask.

Eric is watching the place through his night-vision capable binoculars. Military-grade, with spectacular zoom capabilities. “Yeah, I’m counting three. Big, burly, grey hoodies.”

“Keeping a low profile, I presume,” Wyatt says.

“One of them is leaving.”

“You can see the apartment door from here? Amazing,” I mutter. “So that leaves two.”

“Yes.”

Our goal is to go in and do as little damage as possible. Though the predator inside me is screaming and scratching at the walls, ready to destroy everything in its path. Evening covers the sky in dark shades of blue, a spatter of stars blinking. I wonder if Halle can see the sky from where she is. I pray that she’s still alive, that the kids are okay. I never imagined I’d feel this way. So lost and scared, so angry and helpless, at the same time. We promised her that she would be safe with us. She promised us that she wouldn’t go anywhere without us.

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