Execution Style (13 page)

We both turned and stared at him in confusion. “Really?”

He shook his head. “Dead serious.”

“What would happen to him?” I asked curiously, turning back to the news station that was playing the live news.

“Broken back. A lot of broken bones…if he’s lucky,” Dad said.

“Hmm,” was my reply.

“Is that him?” My mother asked excitedly.

I moved to the edge of my seat to look at the screen more closely. “No. That’s his brother.”

“How do you know?” Dad asked.

I got up and pointed at the screen.

“That,” I said indicating the bald spot on his beard. “This is where he had to have his beard shaved for his stiches.”

“Why didn’t he shave it all off?” Mom asked.

I shrugged and took my place back on the seat. “I’ve asked this question myself
.
It all boils down to the fact that the brothers have a bet, and whoever is the first one to shave their face has to pay for their beer for a year.”

My father snorted. “Now that’s a bet.”

I secretly agreed, but I was staying out of it. Seemed the Spurlock boys played dirty when it came to their bets, and they weren’t going to spare their ‘women’ if push came to shove. All was fair in a love and war, and all that bullshit.

“That’s him,” I said, pointing to the screen.

Miller was approaching Devon from behind, moving slowly so as not to draw attention to himself.

It was good that he was there, too, because the moment Miller reached the edge of the building, Devon jumped.

Miller only had enough time to grab a hold of Devon’s belt.

Devon’s shift in body weight took Miller down to the base of the ledge,
hard
, slamming him so roughly against the brick that I was sure he’d be able to hold on.

My mother and I both gasped as we sat forward in our seats.

Devon was dangling like a small child by his belt, but he was anything but a child.

The camera zoomed in on the two men, and I focused in on Miller’s face. What little I could see of it was beat red, and veins popped out all along his neck and forehead.

The muscles in his arms bulged as he tried desperately to hold on.

People underneath scrambled.

I half expected them to do what those clowns in circuses do by putting out the trampoline. Yet,
there was none of that going on. They all just moved out of the way.

Miller’s hand and arm was bursting with veins, and it wasn’t helping that Devon was flailing around like a fish out of water.

He was saying something, yelling it really, and Miller was yelling something back.

Then I fell, sliding off the couch to my knees as Devon lifted something out of his pants pocket, pointing whatever it was at Miller.

Miller visibly recoiled, but kept a hold of the belt as he tried in vain to hide his head from whatever Devon had.

Then the gun came into view as Devon put the gun up to his chin, and then pulled the trigger.

The violence of the shot threw the rest of Devon’s body backwards, and Miller dropped him.

That was the second time I saw someone’s head blown to pieces in less than two months.

I barely made it to the bathroom in time to heave about five pounds of popcorn, as well as dinner, spew out of my stomach in a rush.

“Jesus Christ,” my father growled, dropping down to his knees to smooth my hair away from my face. “Get it all up, baby.”

I did, and then some.

“Daddy,” I gasped into the toilet bowl. “Why’d you let me eat so much popcorn?”

He snorted. “Because you don’t know how to listen.”

Shut your
3.1415926 hole.

-T-shirt

Mercy

“Alright boys,” I said to the crew. “Wrap it up so we can go home. Remember we have a three day weekend to celebrate Easter, okay?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Brock laughed. “Don’t forget we have that meeting with the realtors on Tuesday, okay?”

I nodded, gave him a thumb’s up, and said my goodbyes.

I walked out of the freshly painted house that we were building, waved to Maine, and moved quickly to my car.

The drive to my place was short, and I was thankful because I was exhausted.

This pregnancy shit ain’t no joke.

Add in painting an entire living room on top of that, and it equaled out to one very tired Mercy.

Miller was waiting for me when I pulled into my driveway.

I lived in a small, middle class home in one of the older neighborhoods in Kilgore.

The outside of my house was painted
a dark gray, while the shutters on the sides of the window accented with a deep red. The front of my house had flowerbeds that begged for weeding
; yet, I just hadn’t had the time.

I had a large oak tree with a wooden swing attached to one low hanging branch, and that was where Miller was currently sitting, pushing off lazily with one foot planted on the floor, while the other planted on the seat of the swing.

He was wearing blue jeans, brown cowboy boots, a white t-shirt, and a black SWAT hat.

He looked better today than he had last night.

Last night he’d just come to get me, and then had taken me to his place.

His only reason had been that he hadn’t wanted to leave Foster alone.

I hadn’t argued, and I’d gone to bed with a very silent Miller at my side.
He hadn’t explained, and I hadn’t asked. I didn’t want to push him, but I had hoped he’d have at least told me what was going on.

When I’d woken up, he’d been gone and at work for over an hour, and Foster had been there to take me home.

I’d learned in a news conference, put on by Downy, that Devon’s fingerprints had been linked to a long standing case that had happened three years ago,
of a woman who’d been raped, then murdered. Her body had been found in the Sabine River, and the only thing they had to go on
, evidence wise, had been a fingerprint.

Since it hadn’t matched anybody’s that’d been in the system, there was nothing they could do.

His prints had been scanned the day he’d been taken to jail, but his lawyer had been there to bail Sarah, as well as Devon, out the moment they’d walked into the police station.

So he hadn’t been there long before he was out again.

The prints had pinged about two hours later, and that’s when the arrest warrant had been served. However, Devon had known that he’d be pinged for it since the murder had been broadcasted far and wide throughout the region.

He’d been in hiding at a friend’s place when he’d been found.

Law enforcement officials had chased him all the way to the bank, where he’d climbed the outside emergency ladder that had been on the side of the building. That was when the standoff had occurred, leading to the SWAT team’s arrival.

I pulled into my drive and parked underneath the awning.

Miller didn’t move from his spot, causing me to frown.

He’d never once failed to meet me at my door if he was aware that I’d arrive. Never once.

I knew he’d seen me pull in; I’d watched his head follow my progression down the street from a quarter mile away. Hell, he’d heard me, too.

Grabbing my purse, I exited the car and started to walk slowly over to him.

“Hey,” I said once I was close enough.

I noticed that he had bags under his eyes.
Those baby blues didn’t shine like they usually did; they were hard and wary.
Not that it was a surprise that he’d be tired; he’d been gone half the night with that call and he had to be on shift at six this morning after that.

“Hey,” he said in his deep, rumbly voice.

I tried to sit down on the swing beside him, but he caught me around the hips and directed my ass at his lap.

I took the direction easily, sitting on his lap and pulling my feet up onto the wooden bench.

His arms encircled my upper body and he pulled me in close, resting his head on the top of mine.

This was new for us.

Although we were affectionate, and he kissed me every once in a while, he was always respectful of my personal space. Which got to be a bit annoying at times. Sometimes I just wanted him to be him and me to be me.

I wanted him to grab me from behind and try to scare me like I saw him do James’ wife, Shiloh, the other day while we’d been eating out with them.

I wanted him to wrap his arms around me and kiss me desperately.

I wanted him to be the man he wanted to be, without gauging his desires beforehand. He was always careful not to do something that he thought might scare me and, although I was grateful, I wanted to be normal.

To have normal with him.

And this, sitting in his lap, felt normal.

It felt right.

“We’re waiting on Foster, then we can go,” he rumbled.

His voice even sounded tired. Poor guy.

“Do you want me to drive? Didn’t you both have to work today?” I asked softly.

He shook his head. “Yeah, we both had to work. But we can handle it.”

“Hmm,” I said, not agreeing nor disagreeing with him.

I’d found that Miller did what he wanted, regardless of his limitations.

For instance, he’d fixed the sink in my house.

When I didn’t have the right tools, he’d improvised. Mostly by using his brute strength rather than letting me go buy a new tool that could’ve saved him a lot of trouble and time.

I found it easier just to let him do what he was going to do.

“How was your day?” He asked, rubbing his hand up and down my back.

I smiled, resting my head against his collarbone.

“It was great,” I yawned. “But I’m so tired I could sleep for hours.”

He chuckled, causing me to bounce up and down on his chest.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “I know the feeling. How were you going to drive if you were tired, though?”

I shrugged, jostling his head that was still resting on the top of mine.

“I’d have stayed awake,” I mumbled to him.

Maybe.
Probably
.

“Hmm,” he said. “Everybody left you alone?”

I nodded. “I didn’t go anywhere out in public but out to lunch with the guys. They’re like a human fortress, though. Nobody got within ten feet of me except for the waitress, and she was new in town, so she didn’t know me.”

“Good,” he said, sounding pleased that the guys had taken care of me.

Although I found it nice that they were doing that, they couldn’t be there forever.

When my belly started to grow, and I couldn’t hide my pregnancy anymore, I was sure the gossip mills would start running full force.

“How was work?” I asked, running my palm up and down his chest.

“Long.
It was fun, though. Foster got to help deliver a baby with the paramedic today,” Miller laughed.

I smiled. “How’d that go over for him?”

Foster, from what I could tell, was baby-phobic.

He liked his nieces and nephews, don’t get me wrong, but there was just something about the small ones that freaked him out.

Like a few weeks ago, I met Miller and Foster while they were having lunch. While we were eating, some woman had come up to Foster and asked him if he’d be willing to take a picture with her baby.

I’d had a good laugh because Foster had looked so incredibly uncomfortable holding the child that it was hilarious to me.

A big, badass police officer was scared of a tiny kid.

Foster chose that moment to pull into the driveway, and Miller waited to answer until his truck was turned off and he started towards us.

When Foster got to within three feet of us, he said, “Alright, boys and girls. Who the fuck is ready to fly?” announcing his presence.

I raised my brows at him, and he smirked at me.

Raising my legs with one hand, Foster sat down on the empty space where my feet had been, and I heard the swing groan.

“Oh, Jesus,” I whispered, looking up at the branch. “Just don’t swing us and I think we’ll be okay.”

Foster snorted and pushed off with both feet.

“It’ll be fine,” he said laughingly.

“Would you two stop it?” I said in exasperation.

Miller turned his pissed off eyes to me and glared. “I deserve the right to glare at him.”

“Yeah, well maybe you should do it when we’re not getting frisked and cavity searched,” I snapped.

A giggle from the other side of airport security had me turning to see a very beautiful,
black haired woman. Trance, Miller’s other brother, had his arm wrapped around her, hugging her to him close
ly.

“What the hell are all of them doing here?” Miller rumbled by my side.

His eyes weren’t on the black haired beauty, however, they were on…

I stiffened and turned my head past the pretty black haired woman to a wall of…leather.

There were seven of them in total, and they all had women with them. All except the last two. Those two were older. One reminded me of Dumbledore…or Santa. The other one reminded me of Sam Elliott with his bad ass beard, and salt and pepper hair.

They were all dressed nearly identical. Blue jeans, black motorcycle boots, and a t-shirt. They also had a leather vest over those t-shirts that I’d learned, from watching Sons of Anarchy, were called ‘cuts.’

Airport security was giving them wide berths, but they kept their eye on them nonetheless.

From what I’d heard about The Dixie Wardens, these men were heroes, every single one of them. Their wives were heroes, too, for supporting them.

I just hoped, one day, I’d be able to give Miller what their wives gave to them.

I’d heard nothing but good about them.

“They wanted to come and mom invited them,” Trance shrugged.

Miller sighed. “You know, I wanted this to be low key. You know this is going to get out of hand.
Really
quick.”

Trance wasn’t the one who nodded, though. It was the woman on his arm.

“Especially since there’s drinking allowed on the plane,” the woman smiled.

I blinked. “Why would that matter?” I asked curiously.

“My baby brother is scared to fly. So he drinks until he forgets he’s in the air,” Miller drawled, emptying his pockets in the box that the airport security provided him.