Page 79 of Second Chance Serenity

But the response is not going to be what he hoped.

I start toward Lance’s truck, which is parked just down the street a ways, as he speaks with one of the deputies.

“Michael!” Reyna calls after me, but I keep walking.

I can’t look back. Because if I do, I might not want to leave.

“Wait!” Reyna catches up to me and grabs my uninjured arm, turning me to face her. “Where are you going?”

“To handle this.”

“What are you going to do?”

“What I should have done in the first place. Confront him on his own turf.”

“Michael, you can’t do that. We still don’t have any proof?—”

“Proof?” I yell as I point back toward the front of Pastor Redding’s house. “He nearly killed her, Reyna! We’ve been looking for a legal way to take this guy down, and we haven’t found one. Well, I can solve that right now.” Rage envelops me like a welcoming blanket, urging me to do its bidding.

“You can’t do this, Michael,” Reyna insists, reaching up to cup my face.

“She’s right.”

I glance over my shoulder, surprised that Lance, Silas, Elijah, and Jaxson have all formed a half circle at my back while my focus has been on Reyna. “We can’t let this violence come here.”

“No, but there is a better way. There has to be.”

I shift my gaze to Lance. “Then tell me what it is, and I will happily go that route. But he knew Reyna and I were there. He knew we were alive, and instead of coming for us himself, he sent a hit man after Pastor Redding’s wife.” Fear mingles with the rage, churning my stomach. Why did I let her open the door?

If I’d been one heartbeat slower she would have been killed.

Kyra Redding would have died right in front of me. Her only crime? Being there for us.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath.

“Hey, I got here as soon as I could.” Carter’s voice has me opening my eyes again. He’s wearing casual clothes—dark jeans and a black T-shirt—and when he comes to stand beside us, I have to fight the urge to slam my fist into his face.

More anger.

More temper.

The enemy is having a field day with me.

“Michael.”

I turn and see Pastor Redding standing right behind me. His gaze is hard, his jaw set. “I’m sorry,” is all I manage.

“You saved her.”

“I put her in danger.”

“We put her in danger,” Reyna corrects.

But really, it’s me. I did it. Because I let her open that door. I gave her the go-ahead, knowing that she didn’t recognize who was on the other side. “I let her open it,” I tell him. “I told her it was okay.”

“Had you not, he would have come through anyway, and then my Kyra might have been in the way.” He glances back at her, then reaches out and pulls me in for a hug. “You saved my wife, Michael.”

“If I’d been one second later.” I picture her falling back, blood pooling on her chest, while I watched her die just as I watched Private Andrews take his final breath.

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