She didn’t even bother answering his original question but that should’ve been obvious. Dom got up and walked out of the room.
“You middle-named him.” I smiled at her. “I think that is a rite of passage to parenthood.”
“It's like he’s trying to piss me off.”
“He’s scared, Bex.” I looked in the direction he had walked off. “I will admit though, fear manifests in weird ways with him. Cut him a little slack. He’s being hunted and that can’t be an easy thing.”
“It's not.” She said it so matter of factly, it took me a moment to catch up and frown at her. She pursed her lips before she spoke. “My unit was in a war zone. It doesn’t matter where.”
No, especially since so much of what she did needed to be a secret. “Carry on, Bex. Before Dom gets back.”
“I was so sure we would die. Or that my team would.” She sat next to me, no tears. Barely any emotion at all. “Word got around that the warlord was looking for a unit with a woman. They figured that either I would crack if they threatened my teammates, or if they hurt me, my teammates would be more likely to talk. It was one of the reasons men were opposed to women on their team, originally. I mean along with all the other misogyny.”
“That’s why your unit was targeted.”
“Women in special forces was almost unheard of until a few years ago. There were very few of us that were Rangers. As for SEALs or DELTA… not even close. That made us targets. Once we had a situation where we were hunted, but that was a matter of days and we knew what we were doing. I can’t imagine how much worse it is for Dom. This has been going on for more than a month.”
I was about to answer her when a gunshot rang through the air. The bullet whizzed past Bex, barely missing her. The alarm blared and Dom came running back into the living room. “Down.” I shouted as another bullet came in, missing everyone all together.
The alarm was still loud and soon we would have the might of the entire police force at our house. The kids were crying in their rooms but for now, they were safe there. Away from the fucking bullets. I crawled over to where Dom had dropped and Bex was already there.
“Is everyone okay?” Her gaze darted between Dom and I. When we both nodded, she spoke. “Okay Lo, you and Dom makeyour way to the garage. Call Jared and keep your phone line open and as soon as you are in the car, drive. As fast as you can for as long as you can. Drive right to the police station if you have to. Use your car, it’s closer to the kitchen door.”
Dom looked scared out of his mind. “What about you and Landy and Vic.”
“I will have them.” She narrows her eyes for a moment. “Change of plan. Use my car. Lo, yours has the car seats and I’m going to need them. I will try and distract them.” She gestured to the window where the bullet came from.
“Bex.” It didn’t feel right, leaving her on her own. I wanted to protest but I knew she was right. And she knew what she was doing. “When we get out of this, I am marrying you and making those children mine. I am not waiting any longer.”
She nodded. “I look forward to it. Now, go.”
I tapped Dom’s hand and together we crawled along the floor. Bullets flew into the living room but Bex was already crawling in the direction of the gun safe. In my apartment she never had a weapon because I didn’t have a safe. She had gotten into the habit of not carrying one home from work and therefore was not armed when she greeted the kids.
The fact she did that for me and for our children, made me love her even more. Yet, in that moment, I wished she was already armed.
Instead of dwelling on all that, I urged Dom to crawl with me to the garage. The tiled floor was cold beneath me, but it also gave me something to focus on instead of the bullets flying into my house.
I had to trust that Bex had the babies and would handle whatever threat had come to our home. My only job was to get Dom to safety.
We reached the door between the kitchen and the garage. I turned to Dom. “I’m going to open, then I want you to go through first and I will follow right behind you.”
“I’ll head straight for Bex’s car. Give me the keys, I can unlock it and open the garage door.”
“No.” I've seen too many action movies. “Unlock the car. But don’t open the garage until we’re inside the car.”
“Okay.”
I handed him the keys and then opened the door. There was a slight step down and Dom slowly negotiated it. I watched him crawl ahead of me and hoped I was doing the right thing.
He was ahead of me as we crawled toward Bex's car which was on the other side of the garage.
The space was big enough for three cars and some storage. It was only as we made our way around my car that we could see our garage door was open. Another shot had me moving faster.
That was until I saw the man at the entrance to my garage.
Everything happened fast as I rounded my car. The man’s gun was pointed at my son and as that shot rang out, I pulled Dom behind me.
The searing pain to my gut told me the shot had missed Dom.
