Page 89 of Even if You Fall

When I finally managed an unsteady nod, he turned the phone around to me, and all hope that the man at my door wouldn’t be the man on the screen fled as soon as I saw the grainy image.

Heavy tears built and fell within seconds as I met Adam’s worried stare before looking at Beau.

Beau’s brow furrowed when he realized Maverick was also watching him. With a quick look at everyone, he irritably asked, “What?”

“Evans,” Cameron began, his voice pure hesitation.

“What?” Beau snapped.

“Let’s talk in the other room,” Cameron suggested as Maverick decisively but sympathetically said, “It was your dad.”

The following silence was thick and deafening.

No one moved. It felt like no one breathed as the bomb settled in the room, leaving shock and denial fighting for dominance on Beau’s face. Just as anger surged up andstarted winning the battle, Asher suddenly appeared beside him. Grabbing Beau’s shoulder and pulling him away from the rest of us, toward the front door.

Beau tried shoving Asher off him, but Asher just gripped tighter and steered him to the safety of solitude.

“I’m sorry.” The words bled free as my attention shifted back to Adam, but his head was shaking.

“I’m proud of you.”

“But if I’d told y’all?—”

“Don’t,” he said over me. “Evans’ dad...Chloe, he’s a real cop. A corporal with the Dallas police department. We know what he can do and get away with, especially with the Wreckers lining his wallet. I have no doubt, when we look into it, all evidence of your nine-one-one call will have been erased. You telling us earlier wouldn’t have helped us know anything other than a supposedly fake cop had been sent to scare you.” He bent closer, searching my eyes. “What you thought he was there for was a logical assumption, given everything else Vance was saying to you.”

My head moved, but I wasn’t sure if I was shaking it or nodding. Before I could figure out how to respond, the sweetest little girl unsteadily tottered over to me, bunny outstretched in her hand, before she fell to her diapered butt just beside me.

“Hi,” I said through the knot of emotion in my throat and held my hand out when she pushed to her feet again, bunny still extended. “Is this for me?”

Kaia made a tired sounding grunt as she ignored my hand and started crawling onto my lap, pushing the bunny into my neck as she did.

I shifted my feet so there was room between my knees and chest, then helped her up, snuggling her pajama-covered body close. “Well, hi,” I whispered when she mumbled more exhausted nonsense.

“Thatch,” Cameron called from behind me.

Adam hesitated before reaching out to brush his fingers across my cheek and into my hair to cradle my head. “You gonna be okay?” When I started responding, he softly added, “Just you and me.”

I gave him a look because we weren’t the only two people left in the room, but I knew he was telling me he needed the truth after such a massive breakdown from me. “I don’t know,” I told him honestly. “But I’ll be okay if you go do your job.”

With a decisive nod, he carefully leaned forward to press his forehead to mine, and then he was gone.

Seconds later, Lainey settled onto the floor beside me. With a disheartened sigh, she rested the side of her head against mine and whispered, “There’s a lot we need to discuss, starting with the fact that you went through all that alone. But first...Thatch?”

My eyes rolled as a blush stole across my cheeks, a smile tugging at my mouth that I couldn’t contain.

“I knew it,” she murmured as she gently trailed the tips of her fingers over Kaia’s head. “Real-life novel.”

The girls had gone to bed hours ago. The rest of us were sporadically grouped in the dining room, kitchen, or living room, either working or keeping an eye on Beau. Or, in my case, arguing.

“This should be mine,” I told Briggs, refusing to back down.

He released an irritable sigh before looking up from one of the laptops and setting his cold stare on me. “It shouldn’t,” he said again. “I get that we rarely stay within the law to do what needs to be done, but you’re too emotionally involved in this, so you’re not thinking clearly. You going out and murdering Vance isn’t gonna do anything but land all of us in a lot more trouble.”

Maverick huffed out an amused sound from where he’d been seated in front of a laptop most the night.

Briggs’ glare slowly shifted the twin’s way before snapping back to me. “Besides, that isn’t who we are. We were under orders whenever we carried out hits. We aren’t anymore, which means we’re done with that.”

“So, if this had all happened to Lainey?” I asked, carefully watching his expression.

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