Page 48 of Keegan's Promise

“Landry!” I shout again.

My goddamn heart stops when I see the kitchen door standing open too.

Landry doesn’t answer.

“Check the house. I’ll check out back,” Dillon says.

I ignore him, already running toward the kitchen door. She isn’t in the house. If she were, she would have answered me by now. I know she would.

“Goddammit, Keegan,” Dillon mutters, hurrying after me.

I step out onto the back porch, scanning for any sign of her. A flash of white catches my attention near the tree line, too tall and wide to be her. I don’t know who the fuck he is, but he isn’t Landry. And he has a gun.

He turns toward me and Dillon.

Dillon and I fire at the same time.

I’m not sure which of us hits him, but one of us does. He drops like a ton of bricks, the weapon falling from his hands.

“Landry!” I scream into the deafening silence that follows as Dillon rushes across the yard, on high alert, his gun still pointed at the man on the ground.

I scour the tree line, trying like hell to keep it together. She has to be out there somewhere. She has to–

I choke on her name when she stumbles into view with Lily clutched in her arms. Terror fires through me when I see the blood smeared all over her. Christ. She’s hurt. They hurt her.

“Landry!” I leap off the porch, racing toward her.

She stumbles toward me, her shoulders shaking with the force of her cries. It takes me a goddamn lifetime to reach her. To drag her into my arms.

“Where are you hurt, baby?” I ask, running my hands all over her, frantic. “Which one of them hurt you?”

“N-n-not my b-blood,” she cries. “I s-stabbed h-him.”

Jesus fucking Christ.

I drag her back into my arms, cradling her and Lily as she cracks apart, sobbing brokenly.

But she isn’t broken. She’s here, safe in my arms. And so is Lily.

“Everything is okay,” I croon to Landry and Lily, holding them close on the bed of my pickup as Dillon, Easton, and half the goddamn police force crawl across the property, checking to ensure there’s no one else out there waiting to make a play for my wife and baby.

Alessandro Banger and Emmett Madden, two local firefighters, are helping load her uncle into the back of an ambulance a few yards away. That prick is, unfortunately, still breathing.

Garrick isn’t, however. I’m still not sure if I shot him or if Dillon did, but whichever of us shot him ended his miserable life. The bullet went right through his throat.

I hope he felt every single goddamn second of his death.

Landry hasn’t let go of Lily once since I carried her to the truck fifteen minutes ago. I doubt she’ll be letting go of her again anytime soon. I know exactly how she feels. It’ll be a long fucking time before I let either of them out of my sight again.

I just keep reminding myself that they’re right here in my arms, safe. Eventually, it has to calm me down, right? So far, it isn’t working. I desperately want to slide her off my lap, slip over to the ambulance, and finish her prick of an uncle off.

It’s what he deserves for the pain he’s caused her. He started all this shit when he sold her to save his own miserable life. Every single minute of pain and fear and torment she’s endured rests at his feet as much as at the feet of the MC.

“I don’t regret it,” she whispers, her voice raspy as we watch them load him into the ambulance.

I glance down at her.

“S-stabbing him,” she says. “I don’t regret it.” Her gaze flickers to my face. “Maybe I should, but I don’t.”

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