Page 50 of Gifts

The fuck?

I speed down the street to my relatively new house in my usually boring neighborhood. There’s nothing dull about it today. Today, it looks like a scene out of a movie. Marked units line the street with two ambulances and a shitload of unmarked units. But this is no set—this is the house where my kids live and sleep. Windows are shot out all over the front, I see the evidence where bullets ricocheted off the stone and trim, and cops are swarming the place. But worst of all, Keelie’s plain, nondescript minivan is sitting in my driveway shot to shit.

To fucking shit.

I put on the brakes and screech to a halt in the street since my driveway is barricaded with crime scene tape and my fucking insides do something I’ve never felt before.

In all the shit storms I’ve been in over the years, I’ve never experienced this.

A strange fear mixed with anger, so strangling, I’m not sure I can tamp it down, even for the sake of my kids or the woman I want in my bed. My chest tightens and it takes concentrated effort to fucking breathe at the sight in front of me.

The van doors are standing wide open, the windows are shot out, and the tires are flat. Even if Crew hadn’t filled me in, it doesn’t take an investigator to know Emma and Keelie were in the car when it happened.

Levi pulls up behind me in his Jeep—I yanked him from practice because I have no idea what’s going on and I want my kids close. Crew didn’t have to say it, but we’re all thinking the same thing. After all these years, we’ve never experienced blowback from our work—but it could happen. We’ve done all we could to protect ourselves from it and still have a life.

“Shit, Dad. What the hell happened?” Levi catches up to me.

I look to my adult son and grasp his shoulder. “I don’t know, but I promise you, I’m gonna figure it out.”

I need details—right after I see for myself that Emma and Keelie are okay.

I scan the area and find Crew standing in my front yard with his arms crossed talking to a man in plain clothes with a badge and weapon sitting on his belt. I keep searching and, fucking finally, find Grady leaning against the side of an ambulance with my daughter in his arms.

She’s curled into his chest where Grady’s head is tilted down and he’s talking to her.

I move straight for them. “Grady!”

Both he and Emma look my way as I take in her red face. My insides rage as I make my way to them. Emma pulls away from Grady and when I get there, she throws herself in my arms, her face planting in my chest as she starts to sob.

I hold her tight but look at Grady. “How long have you been here?”

He crosses his arms. “We got here right before the police did. Carson called Crew when he couldn’t get through to you. Some of the men came with us, but Crew just sent the others for plywood. We’ll get this boarded up when the investigators are done. Jarvis stayed with Addy and Vivi.”

“Where’s Keelie?”

At the mention of her name, Emma starts to cry harder and Grady nods his head toward the ambulance and narrows his eyes.

My arms constrict around my daughter and I bite out, “Crew said everyone was okay.”

“She’ll be okay,” Grady assures me. “She’s tough as nails—only concerned about her kids coming home to an empty house. I sent Ozzie to get Maya. She can get them off the bus and stay with them or bring them to you, whatever Keelie wants. Go see her. I’ll stay here with Emma.”

When I pull Emma away from me, she shakes her head quickly, still crying. “I’m so sorry she got hurt, Dad. She pulled me down and laid over me. I don’t know how we weren’t killed—I didn’t think it was ever going to stop. It just kept coming and coming and the whole time she laid over me. Dad,” her face is etched in pain and terror, “she was bleeding.”

My eyes shoot to Grady and he gives me a quick nod. I lean into my daughter to kiss her forehead. “Stay with Grady. I’ll be back.”

I move away from her and notice Levi going in the house with Crew as I pop open the back door of the ambulance.

The first sight of Keelie does it.

The fear I had before I saw for myself they were okay vanishes. It’s gone. Even my anger melts as Keelie’s head turns, her blonde hair with hints of red flipping over her shoulder.

Besides getting my kids and Keelie away from here, I only feel the need for one thing.

Revenge.

She’s sitting sideways on the gurney—her blood-soaked shirt is hanging off one shoulder as the medic works on her other.

Her face is hard, but there’s something else hiding behind those blue eyes. It’s hard to see, but it’s there. Fear.

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