Coup De Grâce (Code 11-KPD SWAT 7)

“The two best things that ever happened to me,” he whispered, then left the room without another word.

Picking up my phone, I started to take a few hundred pictures of my little beauty when a knock sounded at the door.

I looked up, and smiled.

Because at the door was Wolfgang, or Wolf as I liked to call him, and baby Nathan.

Although Baby Nathan wasn’t so much a baby anymore. He was a toddler who was full of mischief and love for all things furry.

“Wolf,” I said softly, smiling at him once he breached the doorway. “Come in, come in.”

Wolf smiled. “I’d have waited to come see you, but I have to be at work in a couple of hours, and I didn’t know if I’d get to see you before you got out. How are you doing?”

He smiled as he looked down at the baby in my lap.

“He did good,” he rasped, a deep seated hurt evident in his voice.

His own child would’ve been six months just a few weeks ago.

“Would you like to hold her, Wolf?” I asked softly.

He swallowed, and looked into my eyes. “Yeah, if that’s okay.”

I held out my hands for Nathan, and he handed him to me.

Nathan immediately wrapped his chubby arms around my neck.

“Take her,” I said softly.

Wolf did, reaching forward and scooping Carolina up with nimble, practiced hands.

“She’s beautiful,” he rumbled, cradling Carolina to his chest.

“She is,” I agreed, turning away from the devastated look that came over Wolf’s face. “How ‘ya doing, Nathan?”

Nathan offered me a slobbery smile as he played with my hair.

“Fish,” he babbled.

“Fish?” I asked him.

“That’s his new favorite word,” Wolf explained. “That and ‘cup’. Seems he only says what he wants.”

I smiled.

I remembered that with Nico’s twins as well.

“How’s work going for you?” I asked softly.

Wolf spoke without looking up from Carolina.

“A lot longer than I realized it’d be,” he muttered. “I find that I miss the hell out of Nathan while I’m there.”

I smiled.

That tended to happen when you had children.

I’d witnessed it with all of the SWAT team, as of late.

They all wanted to get home to their kids and wives.

The parties had gone from all nighters to ‘we need to leave by eight p.m. to get the kids in bed’ kind of parties.

Although, it was nice to see all these reformed bad-boys turned family men.

That’s the way it was supposed to be.

“How do you like the new mayor of Uncertain?” I asked. “Michael said they got a Sheriff and Mayor in the same day. He said it’s been kind of crazy.”

Wolf nodded. “It’s been a clusterfuck. It’s going to take some doing to get things settled.”

I wasn’t surprised.

Texas was a true Republican state, and to have two Democrat officials in high positions in the city was really getting on a lot of the city’s nerves. I was still surprised that it’d happened in the first place.

“Cup?” Nathan asked, tapping my face.

I looked to him and smiled. “I don’t have your cup, big guy.”

Nathan frowned, and my eyes were drawn to the barely noticeable scar on his forehead.

He’d had plastic surgery done on his head about eight weeks into his hospital stay. Then four more reconstructions after that.

And they’d done a wonderful job. Such a wonderful job, in fact, that you could only see that something had happened when he frowned or cried.

Wolf got up, drawing my attention to him.

He really was a big man.

Today he was in his leather jacket that I never saw him without.

He had some extensive damage to the back of his head and neck, which made him grow his hair longer than I’d ever seen on any police officer before.

He wore the leather jacket to cover up the scarring on his back and neck.

Another thing I’d heard from Michael.

I’d never seen it myself, but it broke my heart that he wore it.

“I gotta go,” he rumbled. “I just wanted to come see y’all and make sure you were okay.”

So he’d heard.

“Don’t do anything, Wolf,” I reprimanded him.

His eyes looked up to mine, and I could see the determination here.

“We’ll see.” He placed Carolina into my arms and reached for Nathan. “I can’t promise anything, though.”

I looked into the sweet face of my little girl once he left the room, and came to a decision.

I’d do everything in my power to help make that man happy. Even if I had to throw one of my sisters at him.

They were tenacious.

“You and me will get him there, little girl,” I said, running my finger down the bridge of her nose.

She stirred, and my heart filled with just a little bit more joy.

I was so happy I could scream.

I had the man I loved with all my heart.

A baby with that man.

And a life that I loved.

And in a few months, when Carolina’s surgery was behind her, I would be complete.

I couldn’t ask for a thing more.EpilogueI missed you. Let’s have sex. A lot.

-Michael’s secret thoughts.

Michael

“You left the toilet seat up again,” Nikki grumbled from her bent over position.

She was loading the dishwasher and I winced. I was supposed to do that last night. She’d asked a million times, and I just plain forgot.

Fuck.

“And you forgot to take out the trash again,” she continued.

I sighed.

The woman was a freakin’ mess.

I didn’t complain about her inability to put things away.

Like the pitcher of tea. I hated drinking hot tea. And I didn’t like the way ice watered it down.

Yet did she make more of an effort to put it away?

No.

So I drank my tea with ice now because it was inevitable that she’d forget to put it away.

And don’t even get me started on her makeup, hair products, curling irons, and God knows what else.

The first thing on our remodeling agenda, if it ever came to it, was a duel sink for him and her, because I couldn’t tell you how many times I’d wished I didn’t have to put away shit on the counter to shave my face or brush my teeth.

I didn’t tell her any of that, though.