Chapter 35

Shawn

Wood shatters as I kick the front door in—fuck trying to be quiet. I’m pissed, and I want the fucker to know I’m coming for his ass. He has messed with the wrong man and the wrong family.

After looking into two rooms, I finally find James in the third one.

“Dad!” Tanner exclaims.

I look him over briefly, wondering why he’s calling me Dad and to make sure he isn’t hurt. Once I see he isn’t, relief floods me, and then I turn my focus back onto the asshole who’s the cause of everything fucked up in my life.

James just stares at me, but I can see a slight hint of fear in his eyes when he gets a good look at that fury on my face. No doubt he can also see the intent to kill.

“You fucking bastard,” I growl.

In a flash, I fly across the room and throw a right hook powered with all the anger inside of me.

I’m vaguely aware of Tanner screaming. I don’t want to scare him or for him to become frightened of me, but I can’t hold back all the frustration and fury this jackass has caused me.

He’s the one who took seven years of my life with my family away from me. He’s the one who kidnapped my son at my own damned wedding. I should be kissing Evelyn as we become man and wife right now, but instead, I’m chasing after this jackass trying to get my son back.

James goes flying backwards into the wall with a grunt. He stumbles slightly and tries to push away from the wall to come at me, but I don’t allow him. I grab him by the neck and pin him to the wall.

“I know now exactly what happened, James,” I tell him. “That little stunt you pulled, backing your SUV into mine when we were chasing you, literally knocked everything back into place. I got my memories back, you fucker.”

He struggles against my grip, trying to pull my hand off his throat. I have a grip on him tight enough to make sure he can’t get loose, but not so tight as to deprive him of oxygen so he passes out. It’s still a pretty tight grip to be very uncomfortable for him.

“Shawn! Tanner!” I hear Evelyn cry out. Tanner bolts out of the room when he hears her.

Before he’s completely out the door he yells. “I knew you were my Dad before James told me,” and then he’s gone.

Good. I don’t want him to hear what I’m about to say.

So James told him I’m his dad. I should thank him, but I won’t. I’ve got another bone to pick the prick.

“It was you this whole time!” I yell. “It was you that knocked me out all those years ago back in Afghanistan and left me for dead. You deliberately tried to kill me—but you failed.”

“You don’t have shit on me,” James rasps. “You have no proof. It’s your word against mine.”

“The hell I don’t,” I growl as I bring my face closer to his. “I have evidence, dumbass! And no matter what you say or do, you’re going to pay for the shit you’ve put my family and I through.”

James seems to go a little pale.

“You’re bluffing,” he tells me.

“You wish, wouldn’t you?” I reply.

He probably thinks there’s still a way to get out of this, but I’m not letting that happen.

“The only thing I can’t piece together here is a motive,” I continue. “Why’d you do it, huh? Was it the inheritance money Tanner has, or was it so you could have Evelyn to yourself?”

“Fuck you,” he growls.

Suddenly, he punches me on the corner of my eye and pushes away from the wall, causing me to step backwards. I don’t let him go, so when I trip on the rug, I take him with me as we go falling backwards. We plummet onto a wooden side table that shatters completely underneath our weight.

Now he’s just pissed me off even more.

We roll around, trying to get the upper hand on the other.

“Enough of this bullshit!” I yell.

I get my feet under me and lift James up. With my hand still around his neck, I lift him high and slam him down into the low-sitting glass table in front of the couch. James screams.

I lift him up again and slam him back into the wall, pinning him once again with my hand around his throat.

“You bastard,” I growl. “I should kill you for what you’ve done…what you’ve taken away from me and my family!”

Making sure he can’t break away again, I press my free arm into his chest. I release his throat and pull my hand back in a fist, ready to beat the living shit out of him.

“No!” someone shrieks.

I stop, and James and I both turn towards where the scream came from. Evelyn is standing there with Tanner peeking out from behind the fabric of her wedding dress.

She starts to argue with me about inflicting pain on the asshole who’s caused us so much trouble.

I get what she’s saying, but my determination doesn’t waver.

How can she ask me not to make James pay in some way for everything he has done? We’ve been through so much pain and heartache because of him. We’ve lost time that we could have spent together.

He deserves to feel a fraction of the same pain.

He’ll never feel what we have felt, but I can at least try to make him feel a semblance of what Evelyn and I have had to deal with.

She keeps arguing, though. It isn’t until she says one particular fact that my determination cracks.

“Please,” she begs. “Don’t let him cause any more damage to our family. Let him be the only one who goes to jail.”

I stare at her and see the worry in her eyes. I also see the fear and worry I’ve seen before, when she thought she was going to lose me again. I don’t want to lose her or Tanner again, either.

She’s right. If I do anything to James that would make the cops arrest me along with him, then James would win once more. He would be the reason for being taken away from my family for a second time.

If there’s anything I refuse to let happen, it’s for me to be taken away from Evelyn and Tanner. I lost them once; I won’t lose them twice.

I bow my head in submission.

“Call the cops, Evelyn,” I finally tell her.

She nods her head and walks to where the home phone is located. She dials and then starts to communicate to the dispatcher what has happened and that we need an officer to come arrest James.

I tug James towards a chair. I yank his belt off, before shoving him down into the chair.

First, I secure one of his arms with the belt to one arm of the chair. Then, I remove my own belt to secure his other arm to the other armrest.

James seems to realize he has lost and that he can’t escape. He doesn’t struggle as I secure him.

Leaving James tied up, I walk towards Evelyn and Tanner, who are standing out in the hall. I pull Evelyn towards me and wrap her in my arms. She clings to me tightly.

I can feel relief wash through her as her muscles relax. Without releasing Evelyn, I tug Tanner up against my side, and he hugs onto me like his mother.

“Let’s get out of here,” I whisper to Evelyn. “We have a wedding to get back to, sweetheart.”

She looks up at me with the sweetest smile.

“Yes, we do,” she agrees.

We walk towards the front door. Just as we step outside, a cop walks around the front of his car and heads towards us.

“He’s tied up to a chair in the living room for you, officer,” I tell him.

“I’m going to need statements from you all,” he replies.

“We know, and we promise to give them after the wedding we had to rush out of earlier.”

He looks at us to finally take in our attire.

He nods before I give him our contact information and address.

Evelyn, Tanner, and I all hop in to the SUV James was driving earlier and head back to the church.

Soon, we’re standing in front of the pastor as he goes through the whole Do you take this woman? Spiel.

“I do,” I say confidently.

“I now pronounce you husband and wife—again,” he says.

We both smile at each other, and then I grab her to me and kiss the shit out of her.

She’s mine, and I’m hers…now and forever. I won’t let anything get in the way of that fact ever again.