Edge of Danger (San Antonio Security #2)

Chapter Eighteen

Fire was spreading in the living room, catching the throw rug, the curtains. Brax caught sight of a terrified Tessa holding a screaming Walker.

The smell of gasoline almost overwhelmed them. It must have been a Molotov cocktail that had smashed through the window. Common sense told him to get out of the house, but his gut told him somebody was outside. Waiting. Planning to do more harm than the fire.

Acting purely on instinct, he steered Tessa and the baby back into the kitchen. “Stay in here.” He shoved them into the pantry. It was safer in there: no windows, no way for anybody to get to them from outside.

But also no way to escape if the fire raged out of control.

“The fire!” Tessa clung to Walker as he squalled.

“I’ll handle it. Stay in here.” He closed the door and ran into the living room. Grabbing a pillow off the couch, he flailed at the fire on the rug and the bits of curtain that had fallen to the floor.

The room was smoky, but the fire hadn’t spread. Whoever had thrown the bottle hadn’t tossed it hard enough for the glass to shatter when it hit the floor.

Lucky break. Literally.

Once he was sure the fire was out, he moved to his safe, took out his gun and slid his back along the wall to a window. The soft light from the kitchen glowed behind him as he peered out into the moonless night.

“Where are you?” he muttered to himself. No one would go to the trouble of sending a message like this without sticking around to see if the message had been received.

Through one of the front windows, he caught the outline of a car sitting on the road leading away from the house. Far enough away that they’d be safe from the fire, but not so far that they couldn’t pick him off if he’d bolted from his burning home.

Hugging the wall again, he made his way back to the kitchen for the one phone he knew he could always find: his landline. He punched the speed dial button for Chance.

“Can’t talk long,” he barked. “Somebody threw a Molotov cocktail through my living room window. It’s not terrible, but I need you to call the fire department and the cops and get them out here. You guys too. I think whoever did this is hanging out waiting for me.”

Chance let out a string of curses before asking, “What’s your next move?”

“I have to get Tessa and Walker out of here.” He coughed on thickening smoke. He must have missed a smoldering ember. “Make the call. I have to get out.”

“Be careful.”

Brax returned to the living room. The curtains had reignited and the wall behind them had started to blacken. He fought through the building fear and focused on the only thing—the only people—who mattered right now: Tessa and Walker.

Why was Walker so quiet? Had someone gotten to them?

Forgetting about the flames that threatened to burn his home to the ground, Brax raced to the kitchen and flung open the pantry door. Tessa, sitting cross-legged on the floor, fed Walker the bottle she’d been warming before the chaos had erupted. Even in the middle of a blazing hellscape, her first concern had been for her son.

And somebody wanted to hurt them. His rage alone could’ve set the house on fire all by itself.

“Come on. We have to get out of here,” he whispered through clenched teeth, careful not to scare the baby again.

“What are we going to do?” Tessa’s eyes widened with terror.

That was a good question. “We’ll go out the back. There’s someone waiting in a car in the front.”

He reached down to help her up and hurried toward the kitchen door. Before rushing outside, he paused to check the backyard. It was clear. So far. “Keep him as quiet as you can and follow me. Don’t say a word.”

Even though everything looked quiet behind the house, he constantly scanned the area and listened hard, but he didn’t pick up the slightest hint of an intruder. Riviera’s men were either lazy or stupid.

No surprise. Not that Brax was in any position to complain.

He took Tessa’s arm and led her away from the house as he continued to survey the grounds. Every crunch, every footstep rang out like a gong.

Somebody would be sent to cover the back when nobody had come running out of the front—Brax was sure of it, so he wasn’t surprised when he heard a heavy tread coming their way from the side of the house. Brax pushed Tessa toward the trees. “Go!” he whispered. She darted off.

He turned and crouched behind a massive smoker that had provided the food for so many raucous gatherings, praying that Walker didn’t choose this moment to become raucous himself.

Nobody was going to hurt his family.

He waited, hardly daring to breathe, gun at the ready. A tall, heavyset man rounded the corner with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth like he was taking a walk in the park. A Sunday stroll.

Brax used this to his advantage, waiting for the man to pass him before hitting him across the back of the head with the butt of his gun. The man crumpled at Brax’s feet.

There was no one with him. No one following close behind. Everybody was out front waiting in that car.

For a split second, Brax was torn. Part of him wanted to make this goon—and all of the goons waiting in the car—pay for threatening his family, but the bigger part urged him to run for the trees so he could be with Tessa and the baby. They were too vulnerable out there, even while hiding.

The goons or Tessa and Walker?

Tessa and Walker of course. “Tessa?” he whispered once he was close enough to risk speaking.

“Over here.” He could just make out the sound of her voice. “He’s sleeping.”

Tessa crouched between a pair of thick tree trunks, so hidden in the deep shadows he almost tripped over her before realizing she was there.

He squatted next to her and wrapped his arms around them both. “You okay?”

“Fine.” The trembling he felt under his hands told a different story. She was still terrified.

Smoke billowed from the house now, drifting out through the broken window. Another window shattered as the flames grew. He hated thinking of what was happening to his home, but what truly mattered was with him in his arms.

They were his, both of them, and he would die if it meant keeping them safe.

He stiffened at the sight of the unconscious man stirring, working his way to his knees. “Shh,” he hissed into Tessa’s ear. A glance at Walker showed he was fast asleep now that he’d eaten.

A second man came around from the other side of the house. “Hey, what are you doing?” His voice carried toward them as he helped his buddy up.

“...hit me...don’t know where he went...” The guy sounded confused, dazed. He was lucky. Brax would’ve liked to have done a lot worse to him—to both of those thugs.

“It’s okay,” he whispered to Tessa, his arms tightening around her and the baby. “We’re safe. They can’t hurt us.”

She nodded then buried her face into his neck. It was better that way. For her to hide her eyes and pretend none of this was happening. Otherwise, the baby might sense her agitation, and there was no telling how long their safety would last once he started screaming.

Sirens wailing in the distance calmed most of Brax’s anxiety. Beyond the house, he could make out the faint glow of the red lights on top of the fire trucks. The men froze for a second before taking off. It was the first smart thing they’d done all night.

When they were out of sight, Brax breathed a little easier, but there was no way he was going to lead Tessa and Walker out into the open before he knew with absolute certainty that they were safe. Which meant waiting and watching and listening.

It wasn’t until Weston and Luke appeared that he stood, helping Tessa to her feet. “We’re here!” he called out to them.

Seeing his brothers chased away the last of his apprehension. It also brought the grim realization that he could have lost Tessa and Walker. Now that he could think straight, now that their safety was assured, he could afford to think about what might have happened.

What if they’d all been upstairs asleep when the Molotov cocktail had come through the window? What if Tessa had been in the kitchen alone with Walker, fixing his bottle? Would she have panicked and run out the front door?

So many what-ifs bombarded him, it was a relief to be distracted by the pair of officers looking for answers.

He told them everything he could. He described both men he’d seen behind the house and what little he had been able to make out of the car that had been parked on the dirt road.

“What reason would anyone have to attack you and your family, Mr. Patterson?” one officer asked.

His family. That was what they were. He didn’t bother correcting the officer who’d asked.

“I’m scheduled to be the prime witness against Prince Riviera and his cartel,” he explained. “District Attorney Morgan will tell you all about it if you give her a call. Riviera and his men ran me off the road two nights ago.” He pulled up his shirt to show them his chest.

“Why didn’t you alert us to that before now? This could’ve been prevented,” the second officer said.

Weston spoke before Brax could, and that was for the best. “We’ve worked most of the past thirty-six hours straight trying to figure out how to protect my brother without making the situation worse for him or the people close to him.”

When he looked at Tessa and Walker, the officer softened. But not by much. “All the more reason to bring us in on this.”

“The shopkeeper who was set to testify went to you—” Brax cut himself off when Weston shot him a look.

No. He wasn’t helping things by mouthing off.

Though he believed he had a strong point.

“We’ll pick up Riviera now that we have a statement based on the encounter you had with him,” the second officer stated. “We can offer protection.”

“I’ve already arranged for a safe house,” Weston assured them. “That’s the first step. You take care of Riviera and his men. We’ll take care of our own.”

Chance wrapped Tessa and Walker with a blanket he’d brought from his car.

Luke looked grim when he approached Brax. “It could’ve been much worse.”

“I know.”

“It’s going to take some work to restore the living room. You did well putting out what you could before getting out.”

“I couldn’t let the place burn down with Tessa and Walker in it.” Just the thought made Brax’s stomach twist.

Luke clapped a hand over Brax’s uninjured shoulder. “I know what you’re going through, brother. I know how it is to feel like there’s somebody whose safety is more important than your own. Not that it helps you any, but... I understand.”

It didn’t help. Not in any concrete way. But it did ease Brax’s mind a little. He wasn’t completely out of his head for wanting to kill everybody involved in what had happened tonight. Not for his own sake. Not even for the sake of his home, which he’d always been proud of and thought of as a sanctuary.

But for them. For Tessa and Walker.

First and foremost, he had to get them to safety. Then he’d make it his mission in life to make sure something like this never happened again.