Page 106 of Healed
“Mom! Uncle Bam does not imagine seeing all four of them driving away.”
The headlights of a vehicle shone in their direction from the fork of the road near Kaid’s house, then the vehicle started slowly down the road toward them. “Maybe that’s your dad,” Janie said.
“I’m pretty sure it is,” Daisy said, keeping watch on Havoc’s truck as it got closer.
Janie set her plate and cup aside and stood, walking slowly toward the front of the porch.
Daisy could sense the apprehension in her mother as she waited for Havoc’s truck to reach them and come to a stop.
As soon as the truck actually stopped, the passenger side door opened, and Bane got out. “Honey, I’m home,” he said wearing a hint of a smile.
Janie rushed down the steps and threw herself into his arms. “I know you’re capable, I do. I really, really do. But I hate when you go out to take care of things, even when I’m all for it. I just worry so very much.”
“I know, love. But it’s fine. Look,” he said, hooking his thumb in the direction of the truck, “nobody got hurt. Lucien is naked, but that’s the worst that happened.”
The rear driver’s side door opened and Charlie got out.
Daisy’s gaze pinpointed him immediately. She set her cup down on the porch railing then stood up and moved toward the steps. “What is going on here?” she asked.
Havoc opened the driver’s door and got out, standing on the running board of the truck so he could wave at them over the top of his truck. “Hey! How y’all doing tonight? Everything’s lovely, no unexpected issues. Handled our business all neat and problem free.”
Daisy looked from Charlie to Havoc, and then back again. “What business?”
The rear passenger side window rolled down and Lucien stuck his head out. “I can’t get out. Naked as the day I was born, but I just want to say that I’ve been feeling the need to address the situation since I first met you, so it should be no surprise. Brandt was supposed to go, but since Tempest is ready to pop, he opted to stay home, so Havoc, Charlie, and Bane opted in.”
“I insisted we tell your father. He had a right more so than the rest of us,” Charlie said.
“Except for you,” Havoc reminded him.
Daisy knew without a doubt what they’d gone to attempt to do. She just didn’t know exactly how they went about it. “What exactly did you do?” she asked.
“Paid a worthless piece of shit a visit, told him to expect some charges to be coming his way. Beat a pound or two of vengeance out of his flesh while we were at it,” Charlie said.
Daisy shook her head and her gaze fell on the stair between them.
“Yeah, and that psycho bitch he was married to, too. Lucien just terrified the hell out of her, and made her pass out a little more roughly than it should have been if she was any kind of woman and not a damn banshee psycho,” Havoc said. “I tell you, if I was either one of them, having to live with the other, I’d have shot myself a long time ago.”
“Yep, you did say that,” Lucien said.
“Why are you naked?” Daisy asked, already knowing before she asked.
“My Gator’s big. When he makes an appearance, all the clothes go to tatters,” Lucien said with a wink, grinning at her.
“Why did you shift?” Daisy whispered.
“We left them both alive. Pissing on themselves and out cold, but alive. Then he made the mistake of chasing down your dad while me and Charlie were wiping away the evidence of us being inside the house. He pulled a gun on him and was going to shoot him. There wasn’t no decision making about it. It was your dad, or him. And it’s him I left stuffed in that gator hole back in the bayou, so your dad could come home,” Lucien said.
Daisy shook her head, as tears started to slowly leak from between her lashes. “I didn’t want you to know. I didn’t want any of you to be dragged into the gutter along with my name. I wanted to keep you out of it. I’m so embarrassed.”
“Seriously?” Havoc asked flatly. “They are shit people, or were,” he said with a grin. “They ain’t a pimple on your ass, not that I know you got a pimple on your ass, but still, if you did, it would be better than that fucker or his wife. They deserve every damn thing waiting on them in hell. Do not stand there and tellme that you think a damn thing they ever thought or did made a difference.”
“I should have known better,” Daisy said.
“You couldn’t have known,” Charlie said.
“How do you know?” Daisy asked.
“I learned a lot about shifters and mates on the drive there and back. You couldn’t read him because he was probably a mate. But he wasn’t the mate, I’m the mate. And I’d go there again and again and again to make them pay for what they did to you.”
