Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 69772 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69772 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
My heart sank.
“God, I fuckin’ hate this job sometimes,” I snarled mostly to myself.
“He’s a kid,” she whispered, looking on in shock.
“A kid with a fuckin’ semi-automatic rifle,” I growled as I looked at the kid I’d just laid out with one hit. “Did you get ahold of the cops?”
“Yes,” she answered. “They’re on the way here now.”
I handed her my keys. “Take my car and get to work. I’ll stay here and wait for someone to take me back to the station after I’m done here.”
She looked at me worriedly. “But this is a brand new truck.”
As if the last ten minutes hadn’t just been the scariest of her life.
“Baby,” I couldn’t help the chuckle that left my lips. “The truck is just that. A truck. I don’t care if you wreck it as long as you’re okay inside it when you do. Go to work. Then pick up some lunch and bring it to the office, because I imagine I’ll be there for a while.”
She patted my shoulder, then leaned up on her tiptoes to kiss me. “Be safe, Quinn. You’re gonna break me if you leave a second time. Whether it’s intentional or not. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
With that heartbreaking comment she took one last look at the kid, then got in my truck and drove away.
The kid started to stir right when a police cruiser one of my brothers was driving pulled up.
“Auden,” I said as he came to a stop beside me. “Why were you in a bad mood last week that the cute bakery owner noticed and can’t stop herself from asking how you are?”
Auden glanced up at the bakery, his eyes lingering a little too long on the woman I could see behind the counter clocking every single thing that happened outside her shop window.
He glanced back to me before saying, “Bad day at work.”
He didn’t elaborate, and I didn’t force him to.
“What happened here?” Auden asked as he took in the kid with the busted up face now staring at us with fear in his eyes.
“Kid tried to shoot me.” I jerked my head toward the gun that was now unloaded and lying behind me. “Was wearing a mask, so I didn’t see that it was a kid, though. I might not have hit him so hard.”
“Play stupid games,” Auden said, and I finished with, “win stupid prizes.”
Auden crouched down and looked at the boy who hadn’t moved from his spot on the pavement. “Why aren’t you in school?”
The kid’s eyes went molten. “Don’t need no school.”
“Sounds like you might,” Auden quipped. “Why were you trying to shoot my brother?”
The kid’s eyes widened. “Was told to.”
“By who?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest.
“I, uh, I…” he stuttered.
I lifted the kid up by the scruff of his neck, then went and parked his ass in the cruiser’s open back door before saying, “You have two options. You can tell me what you know, and why you were going to shoot me. Then you can go home and keep your nose clean. Or, I can read your Miranda rights to you. Then you can go to jail and be charged as an adult.”
“I’m not close to an adult, though,” the kid snapped.
“No,” I agreed. “But sometimes, when you make adult decisions, despite being a kid, you get to have the adult punishment. And attempted murder of a police officer is a big deal. You won’t be charged lightly.”
“You’ll just let me go?” he asked.
“I’ll let you go after talking to your parents.” I shrugged.
And ensuring that they got him the fuck out of the gang he was in, kept tabs on him, and ensured that he didn’t try to shoot any more police officers.
I could tell based solely on how scared he was that he hadn’t wanted to do this.
I could also, now that I was less hopped up on adrenaline, realize that he’d been hiding and trying to convince himself to do it. But he probably wouldn’t have been able to.
Mostly because after unloading the rifle, I realized he hadn’t even had a round in the chamber, let alone taken the safety off.
“I’ll tell you everything,” he said as he held his hands up. “Just don’t talk to my parents. You can take me to jail.”
Nice try, kid. Nice try.
After leaving the kid’s house with Auden on my heels, I had to have a good laugh.
Mostly because, the woman who was the mom of my would-be assassin, Jaylon, had gone off on him from the moment she realized he wasn’t at school.
When she realized what he’d done?
It’d been nuclear.
She had ripped him a new one, and there wasn’t a single thing he could do about it.
The kid was in the wrong.
And after a discussion, it was found out he’d been trying to be tough with his new friends at school. He’d been offered to have a gang initiation, but he had to ‘knock off’ the cop who was putting all their crew in jail or rehabbing them.