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I took half a second to consider what I was doing, then reared back and let my fist fly directly into the kid’s glass jaw.
He dropped so hard and fast that the curb met his fall.
Bayou was out seconds later, practically ripping the door off its hinges to get to his son.
His son, who came into his arms with a sleepy smile a second later, turned his face into his daddy’s neck and went back to sleep.
I’d never seen a grown man cry before. At least not so silently, but Bayou did.
It was honestly quite terrifying.
To see the amount of emotion that the man kept bottled up inside…not even in his body did he show any of the tension that had to be filtering through him.
Just those silent tears.
“In the truck,” I ordered.
Bayou got in the truck.
I got in, too, and drove around to the other end of the station, where I expected to find Sam.
“I contacted state police,” Folsom said. “They should be here any second.”
Sam came around the corner of the building, wiping his lip free of what looked like a speck of blood.
So he’d taken care of the other two, good.
Bayou drew in a large, steadying breath and then pressed his lips to the baby’s forehead.
The tears dried up. Just that suddenly.
He opened his eyes again, and I saw the rage, barely concealed, hidden in their depths.
Oh yeah, dude was pissed as hell.
“I called the mama,” Folsom said. “She knows that you have him. I’ve also dealt with the police. Head back to the helicopter.”
So we did, trusting her to be telling the truth.
“Think they’re gonna make it?” I asked carefully.
I’d hit the kid pretty hard, and he’d hit the concrete quite forcefully. If he was okay, I’d be surprised.
However, in my deep moral code, I knew that I’d done the right thing. That “kid” I’d hit wasn’t really a kid. Hadn’t been for a while. He’d been playing dangerous games, and he’d won a dangerous prize.
I just hoped that, if he was okay, he would know to turn his life around, learning from this experience.
We all arrived at the helicopter at the same time. After dawdling slightly around with the vehicles, she pulled a magic marker out of her backpack, then wrote on a piece of paper before slipping it under the hood of the truck. Then, pulling out a couple of crisp hundred-dollar bills, she placed those under it, too.
I was just about to get out and offer her some of my own money—because this had been my op, after all—when she started running toward me.
I finished my checklist, made sure everything was safe to fly, then had us in the air moments later.
Sam was offering her money about two minutes into our flight, handing it to her expectantly.
She waved him off. “I stole it out of his wallet,” she waved her hand at me. “Give it back to him.”
Sam raised his brows at me, a grin on his face.
