“Didn’t I fucking tell you to leave and not to look back?” I growl.
Tears are streaked down her face. “I heard a shot, and I knew I couldn’t leave you,” she sobs, her hands trembling, when she pulls them away from the wound. “You’re shot. He shot you,” she repeats in a panic. She’s on the verge of going into shock, so I grip her neck in my hand, yanking her toward me. “I’m fine. Everything is going to be fine.”
She falls into my chest, her hands falling back to the wound to apply pressure. My eyes slam shut as pain rips through my body. “I can’t lose you, Baz. Please. I can’t lose you, too,” Mackenzie sobs, tears falling down her cheeks in torrents.
With my grip still fastened around her neck, I drag her closer, bringing her lips to mine, and kiss her, showing her that I’m okay. I kiss her through the pain, glad that she’s okay. She’s alive.
The sirens are immediate and deafening as they grow closer. When we pull away, I glance around, realizing Vince and Trent are gone, and Zach has gone immobile. Following the trajectory of my gaze, Mackenzie tenses when she looks down at him.
“Is he… Is he…?”
“Yes.” There’s a riot of contradictions happening inside me at the moment. This is a man I’ve called my brother for most of my life, and he shot me. He tried to kill my girl. He tried to take Ava from us. He beat Madison to death. Like all the years of our good memories are being wiped away, all I can see now, when I look at him, is the bad he’s done. He’s the one who started this. He’s the root cause of all our problems that have arisen. If it weren’t for him and his need for us all to remain a close unit, Mackenzie’s sister would still be alive.
I drop back onto the wood floor as police officers storm inside the house. They take one look around, and the medics have me on a stretcher in no time. Mackenzie’s panicked face comes into view, just as they’re about to shut the ambulance doors and drive me to the nearest hospital.
“I’m coming with you!”
I shake my head even though the small movement has pain ripping through my body. “Ava needs you more than I do right now. Go to her.”
The medic slams the door on Mackenzie, and I drop back onto the bed they have me strapped down to, staring up at the vehicle’s ceiling. I slam my eyes shut, hoping Ava will be okay. I’d trade my life for hers if it meant she got to take one more breath.
After I get patched up at the hospital, they keep me designated to one room, while Mackenzie is in one of the rooms next door, watching over Ava. The doctors have assured us she is going to be okay. We just need to wait for the drugs coursing through her system to wear off. She is lucky he didn’t give her the entire syringe, because if he had? She wouldn’t have made it.
I stir on the uncomfortable bed at the sound of soft footfalls as Mackenzie peeks her head into the room. Her eyes begin to water as she takes me in.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispers, stopping next to me.
“What are you apologizing for?”
She shrugs, her tears dripping down her cheeks in quick succession. “For doubting you,” she chokes out. Heaving a sigh, I pat the spot next to me on the bed, and she climbs in beside me, snuggling into my good side. I relish in the feel of her soft skin against mine. I could’ve lost her tonight, and I’m forever grateful that I didn’t.
“How did you know we were in trouble?” she whispers into my chest. Her voice is laced with fatigue, but I know her well enough to know she won’t be getting any sleep tonight.
I pause, unsure if I should tell her. “I had a dream. Or at least, I think it was a dream.”
“You had a dream we were going to be in danger?”
I clear my throat, then wince as pain shoots down my side. “In my dream, I thought it was you. But it wasn’t.”
“I’m not following.”
“I had a dream about your sister. She told me you guys were in trouble and that I needed to protect you both.”
She’s eerily silent. I nudge her, forcing her to look up at me, since I’m incapable of doing it myself, and when she does, my heart clenches. There are more tears swimming at the edges of her eyes, just waiting to fall.
“Don’t cry.”
“She came to you,” she chokes out.
I don’t say anything because, as much as I’d like to brush it off as a dream, I know it wasn’t one. It felt too real. She was too real. All of it was too accurate to be just a dream.
Maybe I am crazy after all.
Two Weeks Later
I head to the one place I know he’ll be, needing this to be over and done with. He tenses when he hears my approach, but unlike most people who are fleeing, he doesn’t make a break for it. I pause a few feet away from him, waiting for him to make the first move. He’s packing a bag. He’s running. That’s the only way he’ll escape the consequences of our past.
Of his past.
Slowly, he turns to face me, and a tense silence descends. We could stand here and do this all day, but I’d much rather get this out of the way. I have a family to get home to.
“If you come near them again, either of them, I’m going to kill you.”
He doesn’t reply. He doesn’t have to. He knows how serious I am. This isn’t a request. It’s a demand.
His jaw sets in a hard line, and he gives me the barest hint of a nod.
“Leave and never come back.”
He turns, giving me his back. The muscles tense there as he grips the edges of his suitcase. His grip is tight, white-knuckling the material. With a clear view of his profile, I see him grinding his jaw, I see him compartmentalizing the pain. His anger.
“Watch over her for me.”
I don’t need to ask who he’s talking about. Mackenzie told me he knows. That’s what she was most afraid of, that Vincent would come back and somehow try to take his daughter from us. I am here to make sure that never happens. For all his faults, I know Vincent has a decent heart somewhere in there. Even though he’s had a hard life, he shows compassion when it means the most. And I know losing his daughter has got to be painful. Knowing that she’s his, but he’ll never be able to have a relationship with her, is probably killing him.
“Always.”
He glances at me over his shoulder, and even though his face is tight with anger, his eyes glimmer with sadness. Sadness over a daughter he’ll never get to meet.
“What about Trent?”
A surge of anger sparks in my chest when I think of him. “He’s being taken care of. I’m doing what should’ve been done a long time ago.”
He turns away, refocusing on his task. “See you around, brother.”
“You won’t.” Is my last parting response. The last words I’ll ever utter to Vincent Hawthorne in this lifetime.
With that crushing weight lifted off my chest, I head home to my girls. I’ve washed my hands clean of the last standing Savage. I am done.
It is over.
One Year Later
Finally summoning the strength to do so, I rap my knuckles on the door. I’ve been standing just outside of the doorway for what feels like hours, trying to process how to say or do this. I’ve never had to deal with trauma like this. Sure, I’ve done it on my own, but I’ve never had to take on anyone else’s, and that’s essentially what I’ll be doing right now with Ava.