Chapter 13

“Gage wants to put any groups with kids on cots in the training room,” Max said, stopping Remy as he led a pack of four werewolves and their children toward the exit of the building.

Max’s head was spinning a hundred miles an hour as he tried to figure out where the hell they were going to put so many people. The whole place was crawling with betas and omegas, all of them trying to find a place to sleep for the night.

Remy shook his head. “Sorry to tell you this, brother, but the training room is already full. Before you ask, so is the basketball court. And a dozen new omegas just showed up. They’re waiting in the admin building.”

Max bit back a growl as the two little girls in the group turned big, curious eyes on him. The werewolves who’d come here for protection were already rattled by the news that not only were the hunters in town, but they had also succeeded in taking down a SWAT alpha. He didn’t need to freak them out any worse by losing his cool in front of them.

“We still have the break room and the maintenance bay,” Max pointed out. “And if we fill those up, we can move some equipment around in the storage areas on the second floor of the admin building and squeeze a few more in over there.”

Remy considered that, then nodded. “Okay, I’ll see how many more we can fit. But some of the omegas are going to have to sleep in the rappelling tower. There isn’t enough room for everyone inside.”

“That’ll work,” Max agreed. It wasn’t ideal, since it didn’t have any doors or windows, but it was better than nothing. “At least the walls are thick enough to”—he almost said stop hollow-point bullets but glanced at the kids and caught himself—“keep them warm. Just make sure they stay away from the window openings.”

Remy agreed and disappeared without another word, leading his small group back down the hallway and into the training room, finally giving Max time to slow down enough to think a little for more than five seconds.

Then again, that probably wasn’t a good thing, since the first thought that popped into his head was that the hunters were still out there looking for Lana while he was here at the compound coordinating bedding accommodations like he was a frigging hotel concierge. He understood why Gage had wanted him and Trey to come back here, but damn, it was hard to think about anything but the woman he loved being in danger. If something happened to her, he couldn’t imagine wanting to live.

Max felt another growl of frustration building in his chest and headed for the exit. He didn’t want to be around the betas—or their kids—if he lost control and started to shift. That would be all they needed right now—one of the alphas they were depending on to protect them fanging out for no reason.

He stepped out the back door of the maintenance building and took a deep breath of the brisk November air. The sun was going down, so it was a little cooler than it’d been earlier in the day, but it was still unseasonably mild for this time of the year, so he wasn’t complaining.

A few minutes later, Remy walked out, leading a big group of omegas toward the far end of the compound, where the rappelling tower was located. The omegas moved warily, keeping an eye on the perimeter fence, as if they expected hunters to start shooting at them at any moment. Considering how easily the hunters had been able to catch the SWAT team off guard, Max supposed he couldn’t blame them. He only hoped they could catch the sons of bitches before they grew bold enough to hit the compound. The thought of another werewolf writhing in agony like Zane wasn’t something he even wanted to consider.

He pushed that image aside and turned to head back inside. He still had a ton of work to do, and if he buried himself in it, he wouldn’t worry about Lana so much. Before he could open the door, his phone rang. He yanked his cell out of his pocket, praying it was Lana, but he didn’t recognize the number. He thumbed the green button and put it to his ear.

“Max?” a soft, familiar voice said before he could get a word out. “Is that you?”

Even with his keen ears, Max had a hard time hearing Terence. “What’s wrong?”

“Dad showed up outside the shelter today and convinced Mom to go out and talk to him,” the boy said, still whispering. “I begged her not to go, but she said he only wanted to talk. She came back in a little while ago and said she was taking us home.”

Max’s stomach dropped like a rock. “Terence, is your father there now? Are you and your sisters in danger?”

The words were barely out of his mouth when he heard Wallace shouting in the background.

“Max, it’s bad. He’s been drinking for hours and I’ve never seen him this mad,” Terence said, barely audible over his father’s shouts. Then his voice dropped down even lower. “Max, he has a gun.”

Shit.

“Get out of the house now, Terence,” Max ordered, interrupting whatever the boy was going to say next. “Get out of there and run to Mr. Miller’s house.”

“I can’t leave,” Terence said. “Dad has my mom and sisters in the living room. I can’t leave them. I have to take care of them.”

Max opened his mouth to argue, but before he could say anything, there was a curse, then a loud crash, followed by a gunshot.

The phone went silent as the call disconnected.

Max gripped his cell so tightly he almost crushed it in his hand. His first thought was to call Terence back, quickly followed by the urge to run to his car and drive straight to the boy’s rescue. He resisted calling, knowing it would only make things worse for Terence, his sisters, and their mother. But as he headed for his car, he remembered how badly things had gone the last time he’d tried to go it alone. Spinning around, he ran for the admin building, barreling through the door and freaking out half a dozen betas in the process.

He was moving so fast he slid through the open door of Gage’s office, skidding to a stop in front of the boss’s desk. Gage was leaning over it, scanning a map of the city with Mike, and he looked up with concern at Max’s sudden appearance.

“What’s wrong?”

“Terence Wallace just called,” Max explained quickly. “His mother decided to move back in with her husband. The man’s drunk and angry. I heard a gunshot right before the phone disconnected.”

“Dammit,” Gage growled. “Mike, grab Remy and Diego and get on the road. I’ll alert dispatch and get a crisis and hostage negotiation team over there to meet you.”

Max looked at Gage even as Mike headed for the door. “Sarge?”

He didn’t expect Gage to let him go, especially considering how he’d lost control the last time he’d gone out to the Wallace house. But he had to try. He needed to be there for Terence and his sisters.

Gage regarded him thoughtfully for a moment, then surprised him with a nod. “Go. Just don’t do anything stupid.”

Max didn’t hang around and wait for Gage to change his mind. He caught up with Mike and the other guys in the parking lot, jumping in the response vehicle before Remy closed the back door.

The drive to Northwest Dallas seemed to take a lifetime, especially since they kept getting updates over the radio telling them that the situation at the Park Lane address was deteriorating by the second. They were still a mile away when the on-scene patrol officers reported that the occupant of the house was shooting at them. And all Max could do was sit on his hands and listen while a perimeter was established and nearby residents were evacuated.

Senior Corporal Alvarez met them the moment they arrived at the roadblock at the end of Park Lane, and he looked worried. “This is bad,” he said to Mike as Diego hurried over to join the civilian negotiator a little farther down the street. “Nick Wallace has completely lost it. He’s shot at us half a dozen times already and refuses to talk to our negotiator. He’s shouted out the window that he’s not letting us take his family away from him again, but the truth is, we can’t even confirm there’s anyone in there left alive.”

Max’s heart was pounding so hard he thought he might lose control and shift right there in front of half the DPD. But a glance from Mike calmed him down enough to keep his fangs and claws in, not to mention the fact that he knew he needed to keep it together for those kids in there. They were still alive—he had to believe that.

“Remy. Max. Work your way around to the back of the house and see if we can get some eyes on the situation in there,” Mike said. “Don’t go in until I give the word. I want to give Diego a chance to see if we can talk Wallace out of there.”

Max and Remy had just gone around to the back of the response vehicle to grab the bags that held their surveillance gear when a familiar white Chevy Caprice sedan pulled up to the barricade with a squawk of tires and lights flashing. A moment later, Coletti jumped out and ran over to them. He didn’t look too thrilled to see Max.

“DFPS called and told me what happened,” he said. “Are the kids okay?”

Max shook his head, focusing on tightening the straps of his tactical vest. “We don’t know. We’re slipping around back to get some cameras set up so we can get an idea of what’s going on in there.”

“You think it’s a good idea for you to be going in there, Max?” Coletti said, looking back and forth from him to Remy, then over at Mike, who’d moved over to join Diego and the other negotiator closer to the house. Beyond them, Max could see Wallace standing inside the broken front window in the living room, waving his weapon around and shouting at them to go away.

“Probably not,” Max admitted. “But we’re a little shorthanded right now, so I’m the one going.”

The IA detective seemed ready to argue that point, but Mike’s firm voice interrupted. “Max. Remy. You need to get a move on. This situation isn’t going to improve with time.”

Max turned to follow Remy, but Coletti grabbed him by his vest. He couldn’t stop the growl that slipped from his throat or keep his fangs from sliding out far enough that he felt the tips digging into his tongue.

Seriously, the guy was doing this now?

“If you have to go in there, be careful,” Coletti whispered, locking eyes with him. “Remember that this isn’t a replay of your life. It’s the here and now. Don’t let your own demons keep you from changing the way this situation plays out.”

To say those were not the words—or the tone—Max expected from an internal affairs cop like Coletti was an understatement. All Max could do was nod.

He caught up with Remy as his pack mate slipped behind the closest house; then they were jumping over fences and running across yards. Wallace was still shouting out the front window as they jumped the last fence and dropped into his backyard.

“Stay the fuck away, or I’ll kill them all!”

Max hoped that everyone was still alive in there.

Farther up the street, the civilian negotiator was speaking through a megaphone, trying to calm Wallace as Diego whispered suggestions. They weren’t having much luck. Wallace seemed to be getting more wound up with every passing minute.

Remy dropped to a knee to the left of the back door, pulling the surveillance bag off his shoulder and unzipping it. Max joined him, reaching in for one of the small wireless cameras and the mounting bracket that came with it. Remy grabbed another one, pointing at himself and the backdoor, then Max and the left side of the house. Max nodded and took his camera around that way. As he moved toward a window he hoped would give him a view into the living room, he strained his ears for any clue about what might be happening inside the house.

In between Wallace’s drunken ranting, Max picked up sobbing. It was soft and muffled, as if whoever was crying was trying to hold it in. Natasha. Only a frightened little girl could make a sound like that, and it tore at his heart. His sister, Sarah, had cried like that after their old man had punched her. Had Wallace done the same to Natasha—or worse? The thought made his fangs slide out.

Then Max remembered what Coletti had said about not letting his own demons cloud his focus. Sarah wasn’t in there. This was a completely different family, in a completely different time.

Forcing his fangs to retract, he focused on the other sounds coming from inside the house. He heard at least four distinct heartbeats. He strained to hear a fifth heartbeat, but everyone was pressed so closely together he couldn’t do it.

“I have no view of the occupants from the rear of the house,” Remy said into his mic.

Max moved his tiny surveillance camera up, positioning it on the edge of a side looking into the living room. The urge to peek was hard to resist, but he didn’t do it. If Wallace saw him, it would push the man over the edge for sure. With that in mind, he instead flipped the power switch on the camera, hoping it was sending a clear signal to Mike back at the response truck.

“Camera one set,” Max whispered into his mic as he moved around to the back of the house again. “You getting a clear visual inside the house?”

“We have a visual on camera one,” Mike’s voice came back softly in his earpiece. “Adult female and three kids huddled together on the floor near the couch. I can’t tell if any of them are injured, but they all seem to be moving. Adult male over by the front window. His back is to the others and he has a weapon in his right hand. It’s an automatic.”

Max reached the back of the house to see Remy crouched down by the door, peeking inside. The coast must have been clear if Remy was doing that, so Max moved to join him.

Beside him, Remy reached up and cautiously put pressure on the handle of the sliding glass door. Max didn’t expect it to be unlocked, but it was. Remy slid it open an inch. Now, they could hear and smell everything better.

Unfortunately, Max didn’t like what his ears and nose had to tell him. Blood had definitely been spilled in there, and Wallace was muttering to himself about not ever letting his family go.

“Remy. Max. If you can get in the house, do it,” Mike whispered in their earpieces. “Wallace just reloaded and the negotiator isn’t getting through to him. The way he’s waving the weapon around doesn’t give me a good feeling about this.”

“Roger that,” Max said softly.

Remy slid the glass door open the rest of the way and noiselessly slipped inside. Max joined him, easing his Sig Sauer out of its holster as he went. He normally would have used his M4 carbine for a house entry like this, but with so many hostages in such a small space, he couldn’t take the risk. He noticed that Remy was following his lead, pulling his own 10mm auto out as they both moved through the kitchen and down the hallway toward the living room.

“Baby, why are you doing this?” Eileen Wallace pleaded in a quavering voice. “We came home with you.”

Max commended her for trying to talk some sense into her husband. He only prayed she’d be able to say something that would help this turn out differently than he feared it would.

“You came home?” Wallace shouted. “You never should have fucking left! Who the hell do you think you are, walking away from me, taking my kids with you?”

Every heartbeat in the living room kicked up a notch. It didn’t take Mike coming on the radio telling them Wallace was moving toward his family with his weapon pointed straight at them to understand the situation had rapidly gone from bad to worse. Wallace was done ranting.

“Nick, please!” she begged. “We love you. Why do you keep treating us like this?”

Wallace didn’t answer. A moment later, Max heard a cry of surprise, followed by a slap.

“Go now!” Mike ordered.

Max didn’t hesitate. He slipped out of the hallway and into the living room, his weapon raised and his finger on the trigger. He quickly jerked it away at the sight before him.

Shit.

Nina and Natasha were on the floor, their mother shielding them with her body even as blood flowed freely from a freshly split lip. Wallace was standing in front of his wife and daughters, holding Terence close to his chest, a small-caliber automatic pressed to the boy’s temple. The man’s eyes were red, bloodshot, and glassy, like he’d been drinking for hours. His eyes narrowed when he saw Max.

“You!” he sneered, his eyes fixed on Max, all but ignoring Remy as the other werewolf moved off to the side and pointed a weapon straight at Max’s head. “You’re the one who took my family away from me!”

Max suspected Wallace would have shot him right then if he could have taken his weapon away from Terence’s head long enough to do it. But even drunk, the man was smart enough to know the gun he was holding on his son was the only thing keeping Remy from killing him.

“I didn’t take your family away,” Max said quietly. “You did that all on your own.”

Max slowly lowered his weapon, holstering his gun and taking a step toward Terence and his father. There was a risk Wallace would say the hell with it and put a bullet in Max’s head. That would be fatal, even for a werewolf. But he had to do something to get Terence away from the man.

“The first time you punched your kids and your wife, you lost a little piece of them,” Max continued.

He was so close now he could almost reach out and touch Terence. Behind Nick, outside the front window, Max saw Mike, Diego, Coletti, Alvarez, and half a dozen uniformed officers closing in on the house. But none of them could take a shot, not without risking an innocent.

“And every time you hit them after that, you lost a little more,” Max said, remembering exactly how being the victim of an abusive father had felt. “Until you were nothing more to them than the man who beat them. That’s when you really lost them.”

He took another step closer. Wallace was so different than his own father, yet so similar at the same time. Even the bleary, half-defiant, half-accepting glare in those eyes was the same.

“Your wife held out longer because she loved you before you were like this,” Max told him. “But how many times did you think you could hit her and her children before she started to despise you?”

Wallace threw a quick glance at his wife. Whatever he saw on her face must have hurt because his rage-filled demeanor slipped for a moment. But it came right back, and he looked angrier than ever.

“You think I give a shit what they think of me?” he shouted, pressing his weapon harder against his son’s head.

Tears of pain sprang into the boy’s eyes, but Terence didn’t utter so much as a whimper. Instead, he kept his gaze on Max, as if he believed Max would save him.

“Somewhere inside you, I think you do care,” Max told Wallace. “Else why bother to go to all the effort of getting them back?”

As Max spoke, the cops outside the house moved closer until they were at the broken windows, their weapons pointed at Wallace from a dozen different directions. The laser sights on Mike’s and Diego’s M4’s were little red dots on the side of Wallace’s head, and it was hard to believe the man didn’t see them out of the corner of his eye.

Maybe he did. Maybe that was the reason his face suddenly hardened. Or it might have been the simple fact that Max’s words had finally gotten through to him and he’d realized he’d lost the only thing that should have mattered to him—his family.

Regardless, the man’s heart rate spiked and his finger tightened on the trigger, slowly pulling it.

Max lunged forward, slamming into Terence and ripping him out of Wallace’s arms. He twisted in midair, so his body was between the boy and the barrel of the gun. He expected to hear the report of the gun going off followed by a bullet in his back, but as he hit the ground with his arms wrapped protectively around Terence, all he heard was the mad shuffle of feet as Mike, Diego, and the rest of the police moved in, shouting for Wallace to drop his weapon.

Max drew his own weapon, his body still shielding the boy, praying it was over and that they’d disarmed Wallace already. Instead, he caught sight of the man backing away with the barrel of the auto planted firmly under his chin, his eyes locked on his wife as he ignored the police ordering him to put down his weapon.

Max expected Wallace to say something, to blame everything on his wife and kids. Instead, he simply pulled the trigger. The weapon wasn’t very big, but it was big enough to make a mess, and Max quickly moved to shield Terence—not from injury, but from seeing his father die like that.

He was only partially successful. Terence had still seen enough, and his sisters had seen even more. No one moved. Then Terence, Nina, Natasha, and their mother were all in his arms, crying hysterically.

All Max could do was hold them and let them cry. Thankfully, one of the uniformed cops got a sheet from one of the beds and covered Wallace’s body, but there was only so much it could cover. No matter what was hidden now, the memories never could be. Max knew that all too well.

Sensing someone, Max looked up and saw Coletti standing there. Wordlessly, the detective sat down on the floor beside him and helped comfort the Wallace family even as he gave Max a nod of approval.

Max nodded in return. This hadn’t turned out the way he’d hoped. A father was dead, and that was going to take a long time for this family to get over. But Max had saved a woman and her kids, and at the moment, that felt like enough.