Page 87 of Breaking Conviction
“Please… get Thea,” Naomi yelled over the commotion, pointing at the closet and breathing a sigh of relief when Hawk nodded.
Devil came to her side and Naomi watched with a strange mix of horror, fascination, and gratitude as Wes fought for her. Dean was attempting to give back everything he got, but Wes was obviously the better fighter. After one particularly harsh strike to his bloody neck, Dean collapsed.
“Wes,” she called, needing him to come to her. Hold her. Soothe away the adrenaline, pain, and fear coursing through her.
But the Wes in front of her was singularly focused. He’d gotten down on his knees and was punching a thrashing Dean. A demented, broken part of her loved it, finding a thrill in seeing the man who’d tormented her for years and made her baby girl cry finally meet his karmic retribution. But another part of her saw the consequences play out for Wes, too.
Naomi’s eyes widened as Dean’s face and body slackened beneath him.
“Fuck, he’s gonna kill him,” Devil murmured, taking a step forward, no longer holding her back, something she hadn’t even realized he was doing.
Sirens in the distance snapped her out of her thoughts and before she could think, she ran up to Wes and jumped on his back. Whispering soothing words in his ear, he immediately went rigid underneath her. She held on, her arms clinging to his neck and her legs wrapped around his waist, hanging on for dear life as she talked him down.
“It’s okay, Wes. It’s okay. Come back to me.”
She whispered the words over and over and over, hoping they’d reach through the haze to the calm, rational, caring man she’d come to know. She’d recognized the look on his face. Deep-seated anger boiled within him, threatening to take over reason. She’d had the same thoughts when she was defending Thea, and now they’d taken over him.
Wes fell back against his calves and wrapped his arms behind him awkwardly, holding on to her sides. She rose and fell with his breaths as he slowly stood. It wasn’t until he’d taken a few steps away from Dean that she slid down. As soon as her feet were on the floor, though, he turned and wrapped her up in his arms, bringing her flush to his chest in his embrace.
He kissed her hard against the cheek, his breaths still coming in spurts and continued to back away until his back hit the wall.
“Fuck, I’m sorry, Naomi. I just… seeing him… with you? Fuck, I was gone. I wasn’t here. I-it wasn’t him. In my head, it wasn’t him. But it was stillyou. I thought he was going to—”
“It’s okay. I’m safe.”
She didn’t know what he’d meant, but it didn’t matter at that moment. Dean couldn’t get to her with Wes there and Wes had just proved to her that even at his worst moments, she was literally safe in his arms.
All of a sudden, the living room flooded with officers in uniforms and EMTs. A few went straight to Dean, where she realized Devil was already administering first aid.
“Why the fuck is he helpin’ Dean?” she asked, all compassion for the man who attacked her daughter completely out the window. He’d made a grave mistake putting his hands on Thea. Now Naomi would come at him with everything she had to keep him away.
“Because if he dies, I’ll probably get locked up.” Wes’s words came out matter of fact, but still sent a frisson of panic down her spine. He must’ve felt it because he squeezed even harder. “It’s okay… you stopped me. They’ll likely say it’s in defense of others.”
She pulled away to look into his eyes. “But Dean’s got friends on the force… what if—”
“We do too, Naomi. Shh, don’t worry about me. It’ll be okay. Let’s go get Thea and get you guys home.”
Home.
For the first time in a long,longtime, that word finally had meaning.
Chapter Thirty-Five
“Tell me again what happened.” Officer Henry Brown looked uncomfortable in his questioning, shifting on his feet. “Sorry, man,” he whispered to Wes. “He’s a former officer so we gotta make sure we play this one by the book.”
Shit, maybe Naomi was right and her ex has more pull than we thought.
Wes nodded and did his best not to go into another fit of rage as he recounted what happened since Thea called him crying. It was hard to piece everything together as it was. All he’d known after hanging up was that he needed his teammates.
He’d put out an SOS alert on his phone to Hawk and Devil, knowing they’d be the fastest ones to Naomi’s, and thankfully they’d pulled through for him. Wes didn’t even want to think about what would’ve happened if they hadn’t all gotten there in time.
Seeing that pistol underneath Naomi’s chin had taken him back to a childhood he’d desperately tried to forget. One where he’d been helpless to do anything. That hadn’t been the case tonight.
Naomi had given Wes an opening to intervene when she’d used her damn four inch heel to stab Dean in the neck. But once he’d gotten going, Wes gave in to a flashback and had nearly killed the man. It didn’t help that Naomi had dug so deep with her heel that—according to the medics—the injury was likely going to have to undergo surgery to make sure she didn’t hit anything too vital.
Paramedics checked Thea and Naomi over, too, and aside from minor injuries, gave them the all clear. Thea didn’t have any wounds. Not physical anyway. Wes knew from experience that the pain of this memory would last a lifetime. Naomi’s bumps and bruises were already starting to show. He’d watched her body language while she spoke to the medics and when she insisted she felt fine and was satisfied with an ice pack and extra-strength Tylenol, he believed her. It still made his soul ache to know she’d been hurt again.
Right before they’d been separated by officers and EMTs, Wes told Naomi not to worry about him and made sure she could leave with Hawk, Devil, and Thea after she gave her statement. But now that Naomi was gone and adrenaline had subsided, Wes recognized the shit show he’d thrown himself into.
