“Let me call Gavin and we’ll go from there.” I made the call giving him the bare bones. I preferred to let him deal with the cops while I saw to my family, but there was still the woman in the next room to deal with.

I kissed my child’s head and took Zandi’s hand in mine, leading her from the room. We headed back down the hallway where we could still hear her ripping into Mike. She balked when she saw us enter the room with the children and the crazy meter went up a notch.

My son tensed up in my arms and my daughter started to fuss in her mother’s. I haven’t been around that many children, but I understand humankind well enough to put that shit together.

They’d been happy enough to see their mother and I, two complete strangers to them, but one second in the room with the heinous twit and they were already acting up. I gritted my teeth and soothed my son as his mother did the same with his sister.

“What’re you doing with my children? I’m going to call the police.” She tried getting up from the chair but Mike pushed her down again. From the look on his face I knew I had two people on my hands who were going to be hard to contain in a minute. How am I the calmest one in the game? The fuck did that happen?

“They should be here any minute.” I’m sure Gavin had lit a fire under their ass after my call. Her eyes looked like a trapped animal at my words and I could almost see the thoughts running through her head. Too bad for her there was no way out.

I still didn’t recognize her but there was something almost familiar about her now that I had the time to look. “Mike do you know her? Zandi?” My woman had been busy checking over our daughter for the fourth or fifth time.

At my words she seemed to snap out of it as her head came up and around. I should’ve expected it, but somehow I slept on what came next. She passed the baby off to Mike who was staring at his niece and nephew like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing either.

“Zandi…” She ignored me in her forward move and attacked. With her hands around the woman’s neck she pulled her up from the chair Mike had been holding her in and slammed her fist into her face…hard.

We all watched as a blonde wig went flying to the floor and then the world tilted as loud gasps from my brother and wife filled the room. Zandi dropped her hands and took a step back in shock as the face beneath the now obvious disguise was revealed.

I still wasn’t sure of what I was looking at, it’s like my mind was taking a little longer to catch up. Until Zandi pulled some glue like shit from around the woman’s nose and beneath the eyes to reveal the true flesh beneath.

“Mindy? What the fuck?” My feeling of shocked surprise was quickly followed by the most intense anger. I’ve never felt such murderous rage in my life. I was finding it hard to process what my eyes and mind were telling me.

The three of us looked at each other like we’d fallen down the rabbit hole. The looks of silent horror on their faces I was sure, was reflected on mine, while I tried to make sense of this new development.

“Bitch!” Zandi screeched before she started whaling away on her again. My hands were full so I couldn’t do shit. Let’s be honest, I didn’t want to stop her because right then she was doing something I still wasn’t comfortable doing myself as a man.

It’s true I’ve never put hands on a female, but there’s always a first time for everything. So I watched as the two of them fought, or more to the point, as Zandi beat the ever-living shit out of Mindy before deciding it was time to call a halt.

No fucking way am I letting her go to jail for offing this bitch. “Mike, hold my son.” I passed the baby off to my brother who now had both hands full and went after my little scrapper.

“Okay baby, let her go, I think I hear the cops outside.” I had to pull her off and put her behind me because her blood was still up. I ran my hand up and down her back soothingly to calm her down because she was nowhere near done.

“Alright baby, calm down.” I saw the look of hate on Mindy’s face over Zandi’s head as I held my wife and shit started to make sense. I’d been fooled. Well fucking played!

“I’m going to kill her!” Zandi huffed out the words with her out of breath ass and tried to make another move for her.

“No, you can’t do that, the cops are here.” I lowered my head to her ear.

“We’ll find a way to handle this stay cool!” Her head came up at my whispered words and they seemed to have the desired effect of calming her down just as the knock came at the door.

Mindy picked herself up off the floor and eased herself away out of the line of fire as I walked over to answer the door. Gavin lead the pack followed by Anderson, Borelli and two uniformed cops.

The questions came hard and fast but as usual Anderson seemed more interested in my part in the whole thing; like how I knew to come here in the first place.

I ignored his ignorant ass and turned my attention to Borelli who seemed to have gotten all the brains in that particular partnership. “You better get him before I lay his ass out. I’m not in the mood for his shit right now.”

Mike stepped up then and gave them his side before things got out of hand. Borelli got on the horn and made the call to send more cops in once Mike disclosed the location.

Throughout all this Mindy hadn’t said a word and from the way she sat gazing into space as she rocked back and forth I had a pretty good idea what her defense was going to be.

There was another kerfuffle when the EMTs showed up and tried to take the kids. Zandi wasn’t having that shit and neither was I. “You’re not taking them…”

“Ma’am, we have to check them over to make sure they’re in good health.” She looked at me with indecision and fear in her eyes as she clutched our daughter to her chest.

Cooler heads prevailed and I made a compromise that we could all live with. “Zan, we don’t have car seats for them. Let’s go in the ambulance with them and I’ll call mom and dad when we get there, it’ll be okay.”

I growled at the EMT when he opened his mouth to object to both of us being in the back of the ambulance and he piped the fuck down. I’d walk my kids to the emergency room before I let them out of my sight.

Mindy was cuffed and taken downstairs and she put on a good show of being batshit crazy all the way. We could hear her screaming and using some of the foulest language I’d ever heard from the woman I used to think was so genteel.

It was no secret, who all that hate and rage was directed at and I kicked myself for not seeing it before. She hates Zandi, no two ways about it.

I had to talk Zandi out of stripping the kids naked. She didn’t want them wearing the clothes their abductor had dressed them in. Once again I had to promise to have mom and dad pick some things up for them.

I was still moving on autopilot when I called my parents while Mike followed us in his truck behind the ambulance. “Mom I can’t talk now, we’ll see you there.”

“Okay son, I’ll get what we need and meet you at the hospital.” Her voice sounded hollow, like she’d suffered a blow and I knew in the coming days her guilt was going to be as strong as mine. I couldn’t think about that shit now either.

Zandi was still vibrating next to me as we squeezed together in the ambulance on one side while the EMT sat on the other doing his thing. We each held a child’s hand in one of ours which made sitting back there even more constricted.

It finally dawned on me that my kids hadn’t cried once and I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. Were they so accustomed to upheaval that this shit didn’t faze them?

I let Zandi do the talking as she questioned the EMT all the way to the hospital. I knew he wouldn’t know shit beyond the fact that they were breathing, but she needed this so I let her exhaust herself.

Once at the hospital the police presence had grown and there were news crews blocking the entrance. “Run them over!” I yelled to the guy at the wheel who grinned and hit the gas like he’d been waiting to do some shit like that all his life.

“Who called them?” It was a rhetorical question but the guy in back with us answered nonetheless. “They have scanners, no doubt the vultures were listening in on the airwaves for something to pick over.”

His face and tone said there was no love lost between he, and them and I guess he caught my questioning look because he rushed to explain.

“I remember your story from a few years ago. Pissed me off the way they went after you instead of trying to find your wife. I hate them almost as much as I hate the damn cops. Sorry!” He tacked on the last when he realized he might’ve said too much.

“No need to apologize.” I wrapped my free hand around my wife’s shoulders and took the first real breath since my brother called me hours ago.

It was only when the medical staff met us at the door and took over the care of the kids that I felt somewhat sane again. The same doctor who’d seen to her and I was there and for some reason that helped me relax a little.

I remembered his earlier call and why it now made sense. Zandi is going to hand me my ass and I deserve it. I’d allowed that toxic twat into our lives because I wasn’t smart enough to see through her disguise. Now I have to live with that shit for the rest of my life.

I kept the cops outside away from my kids while Zandi stood watch over the medical staff as they checked the kids over. Of course they were asking me questions to which I had no answers and I got the feeling, that Anderson at least wasn’t too pleased that he couldn’t find a way to pin this shit on me.

After his years of suspense and shit, he’d been wrong all across the board. Shit must be eating away at his ignorant ass.