Rivers

Leaning against the cop car, I have my legs crossed at the ankle and my arms over my chest. It’s been two hours since I arrived, and I refuse to leave until they release Stella from the scene.

I relaxed once I heard from her. The scene investigators found her phone, and though they’re keeping it for evidence, they let her call me on a different one. Once I heard her voice and that she was okay, which was bullshit given she passed out for a minute, I breathed a sigh of relief and have been impatiently waiting outside on the street since they won’t let me inside to see her.

God, what she said . . . What she did . . . running off . . . I can’t believe she risked herself. It makes me furious and desperate to see her, to hold her again.

My brothers were waiting with me until the gathering crowd saw them and started making a scene. A few screams of glee had officers pulling their weapons thinking they were in the middle of another developing scene. They were but not the dangerous kind. Jet and Tulsa signed a few autographs and then left to wait at the hotel with the other guys.

Meadow is at the hotel for safety reasons, and once she heard from Stella, she agreed to stay put for the time being.

Like a vision, I don’t trust my eyes when I see an angel coming my way. I push off the car and wipe my eyes. I nearly lost her tonight. I start walking toward her, but there’s no way I won’t run. I speed up, running toward her as she starts running to me. Right into my arms. I could have lost her again. She could have died or been hurt. Not one second of holding this woman in my arms will ever be taken for granted.

My hands roam her body, making sure she’s all in one piece even after setting her down. I look at those big green eyes filled with what I hope are happy tears. I think she’s okay. For now. And even though I want to yell at her for leaving me, I think she needs me to carry that burden for a while. So I suck back my anger and go for light. “How are you, Rambo?”

That elicits the laugh I hoped to get. If she can laugh after what she’s been through, I know she’ll be okay. A crocodile tear breaks free from her lower lid and rolls down her cheek. “I was supposed to die today.”

“No. You were meant to live today, or you wouldn’t be standing here with me.”

She nods while looking behind her, the ambulance’s siren blare before pulling around the barricades. Turning back to me when Suthers approaches, she tightens her hands on my sides. I bring her against me and angle toward him, becoming a united front.

He stops a few feet in front of us, his hands jangling keys or change in his pockets from the sound. “I’m not much of a detective it seems.”

Stella says, “I think Brian was good at hiding the other side he didn’t want people to see.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t see. It was my job. I just wanted to tell you that I’m sorry you had to go through everything you did.”

“You’re not to blame.” Her arm slides around my back. “Rivers and I have felt the pain that carrying unwarranted blame can do to your soul. I’m alive. No one that died in there today was good.” I see through her. My woman with the love bigger than the sun gives him a reprieve so another doesn’t suffer like me. I still carry the guilt of my mother’s death, but she’s right.

I’m not to blame.

That won’t take away the pain, but it eases the sting.

She steps forward to shake his hand. When he takes her hand, she covers it with her other, and is determined when she says, “His son has been groomed by his monster of a father.”

* * *

With the names of the deceased unreleased, a sting was set up to catch Josh Baird before he flew the coup as Suthers called it. When that much money is at play, he could disappear and never be seen again. But as a witness, as an accomplice in his knowledge of his father’s operations, he was vital to them to gain more information.

Stella was nervous but was convinced it was the right thing to do. Who says she doesn’t wear a cape. I refused to let her do this alone. I can’t be in the classroom without blowing her cover, but I can be in the school.

My band, my brothers, my family who extends to Johnny and Tommy all insisted to be here as support despite Stella saying we can’t blend in. We’re blending into the teacher’s lounge just fine, proving her wrong.

I made Stella promise two things: If she felt she was in danger at any point, she would leave immediately, and that when she was ready for the police to come into the classroom, she would FaceTime us so I knew she was safe. With these promises in place, she sent the substitute who had filled in for her today to the lounge to cover the class for her, if necessary.

The sub couldn’t be more than a few years older than me. The mug shakes in her hand as she brings it to her mouth, her eyes glued to us. She takes a messy sip and then swirls her finger at us. “Do you always travel in a pack . . . like this? All together?”

“By pack, you mean band?” I look around at Johnny, Jet, Tulsa, Ridge, Tommy, and shrug. “It seems to happen more often than you’d think.”

“Can I get a picture?”

Smiling, I wink. “I was just about to ask you for one.”

Her cheeks turn bright red. Standing up, the guys and I gather behind her, and Tulsa stretches his arm to get us all in the photo and takes it.

Everyone settles back around the room, drinking coffee while we wait for the action to begin. The sub asks, “So you know Ms. Fellowes?”

“Yes.” I try to play it cool, but there’s no fucking way I can keep from smiling. “She’s my girlfriend, soon-to-be wife.” I wiggle my eyebrows.

“Wow. Lucky girl.”

Resting forward on my elbows, I say, “Nope. I’m the lucky one.”

The screen of my phone lights up, and it’s Stella FaceTiming me. I turn to the guys. “Showtime.”

When I answer, the phone shows a panoramic view of the classroom. Stella moves back to the chalkboard and continues her lesson. I lean in to try to find the fucker. He’s easy to spot—slumped back with his pen, like a dick, poking the side of his cheek as he looks at my Stella like she’s there for his personal entertainment. His father just died, but I’ve lost any sympathy for these psychopaths.

The door swings open and two men—Suthers and a cop in uniform—enter the classroom. Asshole sits straight up when he sees them. Through the commotion, it’s hard to hear everything as it goes down, but Suthers holds his badge out as he walks to the prick’s desk and stands right in front of him.

When he’s told to stand, I rush out of the lounge and up a flight of stairs, taking the steps three at a time. There are a few people in the hall outside the classroom as well as other officers. Working together to put this plan in place, I walk right past them but move to the side when the door is pushed open.

He’s walked out by the officer holding him by the handcuffs behind his back. He’s struggling and turns to look back over his shoulder. “You’ll pay for this, you fucking bitch,” the son of a monster yells at my woman.

He has some fucking balls to talk to my Stella like that.

My whole reason to live.

Fuck this little fucker.

He never saw me coming. Pinning him to the lockers behind him, I tighten my fingers around his neck. “You’ll pay for what you’ve done, for the thoughts you had the nerve to voice. You’ll never fucking talk to her again. Don’t even think about her, or you’ll never have the ability to use that small dick of yours again.”

Just as his face starts turning a deeper shade of red, I release him. He hacks a lung, but when his eyes come back to mine, they go wide. “What the fuck? Hey! Wait . . . aren’t you in The—”

Suthers sweeps him to the side. “Take him away and don’t forget to tell him that his father’s dead.”

The prick’s feet stumble, and his head falls forward. “What did you say about my father?”

Another officer takes his other arm, and they move him down the hall. We hear him yelling obscenities at the cops, but I just don’t give a shit. Rot in hell, asshole.

Stella comes out of the classroom and nudges my side. Wrapping my arms over her shoulders, I say, “You did the right thing.”

“I’m not feeling the satisfaction I thought I would.”

“Because you have a heart, unlike that sicko. You’ve saved a lifetime of women who would have had the unfortunate luck of meeting him. He was like his father, and Meadow was his next target.”

She nods, and even though I see how heavy her heart is by the sadness in her eyes, she manages a small smile. “You’ll be happy to hear that I’m hanging up my cape. I don’t want to be the hero anymore.”

Squeezing her tight, I kiss her head and sneak a little ass grab. “I prefer you naked anyway.”

I get whacked in the chest and rewarded with the best damn sound in the world—her laughter.