Page 75 of No Sweet Goodbyes

Ice fills my veins at the implication of what he’s saying, and I see the trembling in Emma’s shoulders as the realization that something terrible happened to Bee fills her mind.

I reach forward, while Jesse can’t see me, to take the gun from Emma’s hand, but she holds tight and refuses to let it go.

“Jesse.” Her voice takes on a stern note and she snaps the other man’s name. “Tell me that you didn’t hurt Bianca. You promised Dani that you’d make sure nothing happened to her. You told us at dinner that you would protect Bianca. You told me that you were taking care of her.”

Jesse nods, and his face is now a crying and sobbing mess. “I did take care of her. Now she won’t cry again. Now, she can rest.”

Emma lifts her gun from behind her back and points it directly at Jesse’s face before I can take it from her. “Jesse. Drop the gun. Right now.”

“No,” Jesse stammers. “I have to get Dani. We have to be happy.” He lifts the gun again. “We have to be. There’s nothing standing in the way. Not anymore. No more James. No more pain.”

Two shots ring out, but only one of them hits its intended target.

The other slams into the wall, raining more plaster down over our heads.

Jesse drops to the ground, brain matter spilling out and mixing with blood. Nothing more than a body on the ground, his life over.

Emma has her phone in her hand and her gun drops on the bed before I even blink.

“What the hell just happened?” I check Jesse’s pulse, even though half his head is missing, before turning back to Emma’s panic-filled face.

“Poppy,” Emma gasps into the phone. “I just killed Jesse Hart in self-defense in my bedroom. He did something to Bianca.” Emma holds her shit together a lot better than I am right now. That’s for sure.At least until I see her trembling.

I take the phone from her shaking hands.

“Poppy, It’s Dom,” I say into the phone. “You’re going to need to alert Bangor PD, Maine State Police, the Birch County Sheriff, and get Chief Townsend down here along with the coroner. Jesse Hart stated that he did something to Bianca before he attempted to kill either me or Emma. He’s dead, we’re not, and we need to find that little girl before it’s too late.”

“I’ve got units en route,” Poppy says quietly. I can hear voices in the background and know that officers are headed to us.

This isn’t a normal emergency call. Poppy doesn’t need to use medical dispatch protocols to make sure that the victim is taken care of. She doesn’t need to ask because I’ve told her everything she needs to know.

When I hang up the phone, Emma collapses into herself on the bed. “I froze,” she mutters. “I froze. I knew what to do and I fucking froze, Dom. I cost us valuable time.”

I was pretty sure that she’d be freaking out about having to shoot someone, but not Emma.

No.

Only she would be upset that she froze and didn’t snap into action immediately.Of course she’s ignoring the fact that she was the one to take out the threat in the first place.

“You were naked,” I point out logically. “And in bed. What the hell were you supposed to do?”

Emma looks down at her naked legs and glares at me. “Get dressed.”

I’m already a step ahead of her and grab my shoes off the floor. “Yup. Do I still have a shirt here?” She points at the closet, and I open the door to see every piece of clothing I left behind organized neatly, like she was expecting me back at any time. “When did you move your gun to the nightstand?”

“When I joined the academy and my boyfriend deployed, leaving me alone at home,” she snaps. “I don’t share a house with anyone. It’s not like it was actually doing anything in the gun cabinet.”Emma huffs. “Don’t you dare give me shit about not having it secured either. There aren’t any children in my house.”

We are both dressed and moving out the front door when the first units show up. Both Remy and Linc jump out of the same cruiser, and Remy opens the back door to let Daisy out.

“I’m checking their house,” Emma announces to everyone as a whole. “I don’t want to think he’d hurt her, but the things he said…”

There’s a car in the driveway of the Hart house across the street, and Emma takes off at a run. I look at Linc. “Jesse Hart’s body is in Emma’s bedroom. Gun’s slid under Emma’s bed. I’m with her.”

Remy follows us, Daisy at his side, while Linc heads into his sister’s house.

“She okay?” He nods toward Emma’s back as she inspects the vehicle.

“No,” I tell him. “And if something happened to Bianca, nothing is ever going to be okay again for her. She loves that little girl.”

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