Into the Blackness (Blackness Series Book 4) (12 page)

“They’ve been goin’ at Aunt Kay for over half an hour. Where the fuck were you?” Cole seethes.

“Workin’. Where are they?”

I don’t know who
they
are, but if they’re going after Kat, I want to be there now. They march off and I follow until we reach the school office. As soon as I breach the door, I can hear a man yelling. Oh, fuck no. I blow past the receptionist who’s ninety years old and attempting to stop me by calling me sir. Fat chance.

I follow the bellowing to come to a conference room where I can see a man standing inches from Kat’s face pointing at Jake, screaming. I take a breath and then throw the door open. This motherfucker doesn’t miss a beat.

“He’s a fuckin’ trouble maker,” he yells as I enter the room.

“I don’t know who the fuck you are, but if you don’t get away from my wife in two seconds I’ll rip your fuckin’ throat out,” I growl in a menacing tone I recognize from my monster years. It’s cold, ruthless and terrifying on its own, but matched with the look on my face it’s a promise of unbridled pain and anguish.

“And you are?” he asks in a cocky snide voice.

“Get the fuck away from my wife. Now!” I roar.

Jake jumps while Kat remains still. Her back is to me so I have no idea what her face looks like. Jake is also facing away from me and right now, I want their eyes.

The motherfucker takes a step back and I approach Kat with caution. I step between her and Captain Douche to see her face is a mask promising the same things mine was earlier. She’s livid. She’s looking through me to get to him. I glance away from her to see Jake’s face is bruised at the jaw and beginning to swell beneath his eye. I see.

“Do you need a hospital?” I ask in a painfully mustered soft voice.

“No, sir,” Jake replies instantly holding my eyes to let me know he’s fine.

I turn my gaze back to Kat’s fiery hazel slits and grab the side of her neck. Her eyes finally cut to me like she hasn’t been aware of my presence until I touched her.

“You good?” I ask again in a tortured softness.

“No,” she growls.

“He touch you?”

“Not really.”

“Kat,” I demand in a low timbre.

“He poked my chest.”

That’s all it takes. I spin away from Kat and launch at the piss-ant behind me, catching his throat and pinning him to the wall.

“Did you poke my wife you pathetic piece of shit?” I seethe into his face constricting tightly as he flails to get free.

“Yes,” he rasps.

“Are you Hoyt Burke?” I fume.

“Y-es,” he sputters.

“Did your son get his ass handed to him by my nephew?”

He nods because he can no longer speak.

I release his throat and he drops to the floor.

“You’re fired as of now. Get your sorry ass outta Maybelle along with your piece of shit son. If you’re not gone by nightfall, I’ll have the State’s Attorney file felony charges against Will for assault of a child, since Jake’s only fifteen. Then I’ll have him file assault charges against you for touching my wife. I suggest you leave the state if you know what’s good for you.”

“You just assaulted me you psychopath,” he chokes out.

“I was defending my wife and nephew who you had held captive in a room where I found you assaulting my wife. Explain that to a judge and see what they have to say about it.”

“I’ve been the assistant principal at this school for a decade. My family has lived here for five generations. I’ll take my chances,” he scoffs climbing to his feet, his pussy fingers still clutched around his neck.

“Suit yourself,” I say blankly. I turn to Kat who has a small smirk on her lips matching a similar one on Jake’s.

“Kat, call the police and tell ’em you and Jake have been assaulted on school property by a school official. Jake, run out to the boys and have ’em round up witnesses to the first assault and this one. I’ll sit here and keep Assistant Principal Burke company.”

Kat dutifully pulls out her phone as Jake rises from his seat. Three, two, one.

“Wait,” the pussy says dejectedly. “We’ll go.”

I spin around and pin him with a gaze that holds all the promises I’ve just made and then some.

“I’ll be drivin’ by your house at nine tonight. If there’s any sign that you’re still in that house, I’m comin’ in and what I just did to you will look like child’s play.”

He nods briefly.

“Let’s go,” I instruct my family holding out a hand to Kat.

She places her sweaty palm in mine, shaking from head to toe with unused adrenaline. Heavy bag is in for some torture tonight.

I move my family down the hall and back past the ancient receptionist as the boys run up to us from the waiting area. From our faces they know now is not the time to talk. With my arm tightly around Kat, I pull Jake into my other side as we step outside.

We swiftly arrive at Kat’s illegally parked car half on a median. I let Jake go, but he stays right at my side. I cage Kat’s body to the driver’s door and cup her cheeks in my hands, staring as deeply into her blue-green-grey eyes as I can so she can’t lie to me.

“You good?” I ask softly.

“Fuck no,” she whispers.

“Can you drive?”

“Yes.”

“I’m takin’ Jake with me and followin’ you.”

“’Kay.”

I press a long kiss to her forehead before I let her go and stalk to my car a few medians down. She can handle anything…I know this. Still, walking away from her right now is making me sick to my stomach, but I don’t have a choice. We have to get both cars home. I’ll take care of her once we’re there and away from prying eyes. Then I’ll plot the untimely deaths of the Burke men because the monster within me has the taste for blood on his tongue and craves immediate satisfaction.

Nick

Jake and I climb quickly into my car, waiting for Kat and the boys to drive off. I turn to him and grab his chin so I can get a good look at him. Not bad. Will maybe got two hits.

“You fuck him up?” I ask letting his chin go.

“Yes,” he responds without hesitation.

“He hit you first?”

“Sucker punched me in the jaw.”

“Pussy.”

“Yeah.”

“Where’s he at?”

“Hospital.”

“Bad?”

“He’ll live. Maybe have a limp.”

“Good.”

“Kat flipped the fuck out in there,” he whispers with pride.

“I bet,” I snort as we pull away behind Kat’s SUV.

“She was wasting time waiting for you.”

This stops my breath for a second. Kat was waiting for me. I wasn’t there and she didn’t know when I would be…she was willing to wait for me. Because I run shit. Fuck me.

“I silenced my phone for the meeting and forgot. I came as soon as I figured out what was goin’ on. Think I broke about twenty laws gettin’ to you guys.”

“Thanks for comin’. Never had anybody stick up for me like that. Today I had the boys, Kat and you. I kinda dig bein’ fifteen again.”

“I’ll always fuckin’ stick up for you whether you’re fifteen or fifty. Get me?”

“Yeah,” he whispers with a glint of satisfaction. He gets me.

“This shit about homecoming?” I ask as we legally wind and weave through picturesque Maybelle, which I’m finding houses the scum of the Earth behind its towering hills currently covered in shades of gold, copper and emerald. Nothing is ever what it appears.

“Yeah,” he scoffs. “I’ve stayed the fuck away from Regan and her girls. Today at lunch, she saunters up to our table and asks me to go to the dance with her. Will was two tables away and lost his shit. I couldn’t turn her down in front of the whole school, Nick. That woulda caused a whole new level of drama. Before I could say anything he came at me from the side and caught my jaw while I was tryin’ to get Regan outta the way. I launched at his ass, took him down fuckin’ his knee up and pounded his face until he wasn’t movin’ anymore.”

“Hands hurt?” I ask with a smirk on my face. Kid did good. There’s a piece of me that wishes I was there to watch it. Looking at Jake you wouldn’t think he could hurt a fly…he wouldn’t. Jake would never be aggressive unless necessary. He’s not like me. I
like
that he’s not like me.

“It’s a good hurt. Split a couple open, but other than that I’m solid.” He shrugs it off. I glance over to his hands resting in his lap and they’re pretty torn up. That’ll piss Kat off even more.

Finally, we pull in the garage next to Kat. The boys pile out looking exhausted, stressed and a little crazed. Kat stays in the SUV, not moving, her hands tight on the wheel. I climb out and gesture to Jake to go clean his hands up as I make my way to her door. I pull it open and brace my forearms at the top of the opening leaning into her.

“I kill people for a living. I track ’em, work ’em, squeeze information from every pore and then I kill ’em…most of the time. There’s a need to kill at the end of most ops because the marks I’ve had have been demons preying on the innocent. There’s no loss in the world when they’re gone. I don’t wanna kill ’em…it’s my duty. I
want
to kill Will Burke. I
want
to poison his Gatorade and watch him struggle for his last breath, begging for his daddy to help him. What the fuck do I do, Nicky?” she asks turning her hazel eyes to me, pain and fury setting them alight.

“You get outta this SUV and go inside to take care of those four kids. They need you right now more than you need blood. Let me handle this. I promise you I’ll make those motherfuckers pay. Then once the boys are calmed down you head to the basement and kick the shit outta the heavy bag and eat a pint of ice cream like you do when I piss you off.” I keep my tone light but intensely pointed so that she knows I’ve got this. I’ve got her.

“I’m beyond ice cream,” she sneers. “My parents had me late in life. Really fuckin’ late and I only had them into my teenage years. It was a good life, but I was always unusual because of it. My perspective on life was different from the kids that had parents in their thirties. I lost them six months apart my senior year of high school. My father was a Korean and Vietnam War vet…he loved that he served his country. He wanted that for me. When the DCA came calling, I knew it was what he would want me to do. That he’d be proud of me. I kill people and my father would be proud of me. He would not be proud of me wanting to murder a child because he hurt someone I love.”

“If your father was there today what would he have done?”

“If my father came in a room and thought someone had hurt me when I was Jake’s age, he woulda done what you did. Without question.”

“Then he was a good man. He was a loving father and a strong caretaker. And you’re just like him. You wanna take care of Jake, but you’ve learned a different way of dealin’ with shit. That doesn’t make you anything less than the hero your father was. You’re just more lethal. He’d be proud. Trust that, Sunshine,” I finish softly and peel her fingers from the steering wheel that’s at risk of being crushed under her grip.

“Mindfuck,” she mumbles as I pull her from the SUV.

I put my arm around her shoulders and place a firm kiss on her hair as we make our way into the house.

“I’ve gotta call this in,” I whisper into her ear as we hit the kitchen where the boys are huddled around Jake who’s trying to clean his hands.

“’Kay,” she says pulling away from me and heading to her boys. She immediately takes over cleaning Jake up while the others close in on her, trying to get a bit of comfort from her presence.

I run up the stairs two at a time before locking myself in the sound proof office across from our bedroom.

“Code in,” a male voice directs.

“Alpha Bravo seven four six three,” I respond.

“The line is secure Agent Cooper,” the voice notifies me.

“Shane Hollander please.”

“One moment.”

The DCA could work on their hold music. Kenny G doesn’t really fit the scene.

“Cooper, you’re not due for a brief for two weeks. Tell me you’ve got somethin’,” Shane insists excitedly.

“Nothing. We had an issue at the high school today,” I explain annoyed at him and his constant pressure to end an op that he fucking knows is going to take months to even begin to dig into.

“Local authorities involved?” he asks professionally, thank fuck.

“Not yet, but I may need to involve ’em. William Burke, a kid at the high school, has been fuckin’ with Jake since day one. Got physical the first day but has laid off to just verbal shit since then. Today he attacked Jake in the lunch room in front of the whole school. Jake fucked him up good, put him in the hospital. I gave the order if this kid touched Jake again that Jake had clearance to retaliate with force. He did.”

“Fuck! High school is such a pain in the ass. That shit doesn’t change. Jake good?”

“Yeah, nothing a Band-Aid and a hug won’t fix.”

“Didn’t know you gave out hugs, Cooper. I’ll put that in your file for future reference,” he snarks.

I snort but don’t respond because he’s getting on my nerves.

“Burke’s father is the assistant principal. He was in Kat’s face when I got on scene. Shit got physical and I told him that his current career was done and he had until tonight to vacate Maybelle.”

“I’ll deal with this from here. Shouldn’t be an issue to remove the family. Send the details to me through the network and I’ll get it done before end of business. Jake doesn’t need any more shit to deal with, that’s for fuckin’ sure. I worried about sendin’ him in with his history. Kid’s unreal with a rifle, but with people things can get bad.”