Page 17 of Handcuffs & Honey

Great, now Julian was taking his anger out on people who didn’t deserve it. How he wished his dad was still alive. He always knew what to say and do to make Julian feel better. And now Julian was sitting here already missing Dominic.

Fuck. How had a wonderful day turned sour so fast? Had he overreacted? Dominic had said they were mates, and the guy had just been looking out for him. They still had no idea who that wolf was or why he’d attacked Julian.

Maybe he had overreacted. It was just that when Dominic started telling Julian what to do, Julian had flashbacks of Rob doing the same thing. Those old wounds had opened right up.

Gah, he wasn’t ready to date. It was glaringly obvious, but as far as Julian knew, mates didn’t break up. He was going to have to work through his own bullshit, or this relationship was doomed.

* * * *

Dominic was in a piss-poor mood by the time he showed up at the scene. Apparently, some guy had barricaded himself inside his home when his wife had threatened to leave him. He’d taken her hostage, along with their two kids, and was threatening to kill all of them, including himself.

“Human or preternatural?” Dominic asked.

“Humans. Wyatt’s around back,” Deputy Cannon Lowry said. “He’s going to try and see inside.”

He was referring to Deputy Wyatt Birch, a cheetah shifter who was pretty damn good at this type of thing, given his stealth and the ability to remain cool under pressure. If anyone could get inside and defuse the situation, it was Wyatt.

“How long has this been going on?” Dominic had stopped at the station, quickly changed into his spare uniform, which he kept in his office, and grabbed a cruiser.

“About forty minutes.”

“And you just called me twenty minutes ago?” Dominic asked.

“We had an open line of communication with the guy, but his wife tried to shove the kids out the door, and he lost it. Snatched them back inside, slammed the door, and we haven’t heard from him since. His name is Brett, and according to the arguing I heard inside, his wife’s tired of his drinking.”

Domestic situations were the ones that were highly sensitive in nature. Not that other situations weren’t, but emotions ran high, and people, most of the time, weren’t in their right frame of mind. The guy inside stood to lose his family and clearly wasn’t taking that well.

With a deep breath, Dominic forced thoughts of Julian out of his mind. “How was he communicating with you?”

“On his cell phone.”

“Give me his phone number.” Dominic had to try and talk the guy out of the house, because if Wyatt got to him first, things might turn deadly. The wife and kids didn’t need to see that.

Once Cannon gave him the number, Dominic called it on his own cell phone.

“Leave me the fuck alone!” Brett said when he answered.

Before Dominic could say anything, he heard a crash from inside. “Brett?”

“He’s down,” Wyatt said from the other end of his phone. “His wife and kids are coming out.”

Dominic cursed. He hadn’t wanted the kids to see Wyatt do that, but they were already traumatized by their father’s actions. They were going to need some serious therapy, and Dominic was going to make sure the wife and kids had access to it.

Midnight Falls had an amazing therapist in town. Dr. Taylor Kaslov. He’d worked with hundreds of patients over the years, was a good friend of Dominic’s, and a bunny shifter. He had a knack for making a person feel at ease around him and could get kids to open up.

It didn’t hurt that he was downright adorable.

Cannon got the family to his patrol car. Dominic made sure they were ushered away before Wyatt brought out Brett.

“I just didn’t want to lose them,” Brett was saying, tears in his eyes as Wyatt took the handcuffed man to Dominic’s cruiser. “She wouldn’t listen to reason.”

“So you decided to hold your family hostage with an assault rifle?” Wyatt asked.

Brett clammed up, and Dominic breathed a sigh of relief that things hadn’t turned deadly. Once Wyatt closed the door to the cruiser, Dominic asked, “Where is Cannon taking them?”

Wyatt ran a hand through his hair. “Adele has family two towns over. Cannon is taking them there.”

Sad thing was most people who were abused by a partner returned to that partner. Dominic had seen the cycle too many times, and legally, there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. But kids were involved, so he would do a follow-up just to make sure Adele and her children were okay.

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