Page 115 of Hey, Daddy

He knew I didn’t want him here, or Desi.

“Yeah,” he croaked. “Come on, Des.”

Desi looked at me like I’d broken her heart, but I shook my head once.

This was one time that cute little pout wouldn’t win her anything.

“Go.” I said one word.

Shasha ushered Desi out of the room.

The paramedics had Nastya seconds later.

Once they were gone, I finally turned to survey the damage.

Rich was lying on top of the two others.

“What’s going on?”

The familiar sound of Auden had me turning around, only I realized quickly it wasn’t Auden, but Atlas, his twin brother, who worked for DPD—Dallas Police Department.

I gave him the complete rundown.

Atlas started to peel Rich off of the other two.

“This one is the one that Rich pushed?” Atlas asked, feeling for a pulse on a heavily bleeding Julia.

“Yes,” I said.

“She has a pulse,” he said as he moved her to lie on her back. “Got the gun?”

“On the floor by the fireplace,” I said.

He glanced at it and nodded before turning back to the one that I’d hit.

“This one has no pulse,” he said. “Dead.”

I couldn’t scrounge up the desire to care.

Good riddance.

First he terrorized my daughter, then he tried to kill the woman I was desperately in love with.

My only regret was that he didn’t have a longer and harder death.

The one I’d given him was too easy.

“Dispatch, this is unit…” as Atlas called it in, I went to sit on the fireplace to survey the damage.

Medics arrived.

One took Julia to the hospital.

The other stayed with Eddison’s dead body until the JP—Justice of the Peace—arrived to pronounce Eddison dead.

Rich was sitting on the concrete when I came outside, cuffed with his hands behind his back.

He was giving his statement to a redheaded woman who wasn’t falling for his shit and was staring at him like he was nuts.

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