Page 37 of Trusting the Team

Hammer tried her cell, but she did not pick up. “Somebody call the taxi dispatch see if she got picked up.”

They headed in Hammer’s vehicle toward his apartment. They stopped when they realized a cab had picked Brooke up and dropped her at the hospital. They turned around and went toward hospital security. “We need to see footage at the entrance.”

“Excuse me?” the security guard stated, chest out.

“My girlfriend disappeared from the front door, in labor!” Hammer stepped into the man. “It could be a really messy PR event,” Duke intervened.

“Shit,” the security guard started rewinding footage.

“There,” Chaos pointed. The feed stopped and started going forward again. “We need a better angle,” Chaos stated. The security guard rewound a different camera. The team immediately recognized the 300 that stopped. They watched Brooke get shoved into the car with Asher following behind calmly. The car took off and they watched it for as long as possible through the different cameras in the parking areas.

Hammer’s phone started buzzing. “Brooke!”

“Listen, can you hear her, crying?”

“Where are you? I’m trying to help. She’s having your kid.”

“The fuck, honky. She wasn’t pregnant.”

“Look again, you moron.” He could hear her in the background her talking timing the contractions.

“Antoine, I…am in labor…Please get me…out of this…apartment!”

The team snapped too. “Her old apartment. Let’s go!”

“What’s the address, Hammer?” Cowboy asked as they ran for his vehicle. “We want an ambulance to meet us, didn’t sound like she had a lot of time.”

The ambulance pulledup as they arrived. Hammer met them as they came out of the vehicle. “We have at least one male and one female inside with a toddler. Female is in labor. Let us go in and once it’s secure you can come in.”

“Should we call the police for this?” the EMT asked.

“They’d have more equipment,” Ferret answered honestly as the team ignored him and continued moving toward the apartment.

They went up the external stairs, Ferret climbed up the back wall and through a window. He found Asher asleep in bed. He moved to the door to wait for the signal, grabbing the only thing he could find, a pencil, just in case. The guys stacked on the door, Chaos kicked it open, and the team stepped in.

“Maybe they are the police?” the EMT looked at his paramedic partner. Hammer saw Antoine standing over Brooke in the kitchen, she was lying on the ground bent over her stomach, mid contraction. Antoine swung around at the sound of the door crashing open, a pistol in his hand. He let off two pop shots as Hammer got to him. Hammer knocked the pistol free, and body checked Antoine over the counter. He followed Antoine over the counter with a bound and one cross punch, leaving him unconscious.

He popped up into view, “That should cover it till the police get here.” Cowboy and Duke were bent over Brooke. Cowboy was opening drawers trying to find necessary supplies.

The EMS team came in and Duke looked up, “I think we’re having this baby here; it’s already crowning.”

Ferret came out of Asher’s bedroom, with a sleeping boy in his arms and on the phone with the police.

38

BROOKE

The police arrived as Duke was cutting the cord. Chaos was sitting on Antoine who was zip tied at the ankles and wrists at this point. Hammer was cradling Asher, sitting on the floor next to Brooke. The rest of the team was gathered behind the EMS crew watching.

“Cael,” Brooke said exhausted. “His name is Cael.”

The police started to pick up Antoine, “I was supposed to kill you, you bitch!”

“I guess that sews that up, right?” Trey looked at the police. “No release, no visitation, no sun…” he followed them out of the apartment toward their patrol car.

The EMT went to get the cot but was waved off by Cowboy. Ferret took Asher, Duke took Cael, Hammer picked up Brooke. Duke settled Cael back into Brooke’s arms and Hammer took them both down the stairs to the waiting ambulance. He passed the keys to his vehicle to Chaos as he settled into the ambulance.

Hammer settled into the overnight chair in Brooke’s hospital room. Asher was in his arms, Cael in his mother’s arms. He would adopt both without question when he married Brooke, and the next time would be their flesh and blood.

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