My heart felt heavy watching the ambulances take away Walter and Nikki. But that wasn't the only reason my ticker felt like a ten thousand-pound boulder was hanging from it; it was also feeling heavy because my wife was stabbed near the heart, my son- and brother-in-law had been kidnapped, and I had no idea how any one of them were doing.

Not only am I standing here worrying about how my family is doing or where they were, but I'm also disturbed fools destroyed the place my wife and I call home. I know that's the least of my worries, but it's still troubling to see the beautiful home Walter designed for us burned to the ground for nothing.

The second the police and the fire chief finished asking me questions, Buck, Neron, and I immediately fled to my favorite remembrance spot, hoping to find my kid and Justin.

"How are you so sure they took your son- and brother-in-law to your special thinking place?" Neron asked.

"Obviously, I don't know they're there for sure, but it's the only other logical place I can think of where they'd be," I admitted rubbing my thighs, feeling anxious and on edge to get to my treasured spot up on the hill.

"And your reason for that?" Neron pressed, adding, "Because I didn't think anyone else knew about that place."

I patted my stomach. "It's my gut feeling. And you're right, nobody else should know about that place. But with everything that has gone on in my and Aria's lives these last few years, it wouldn't surprise me to see that they've been following me since my relationship with Shelby. And since it's where I'd go to think, relax, and find peace, with it also being where I proposed to Aria, I feel that's where they took them. So Felicia and her friends are most likely thinking that if they harmed Wyatt and Justin in my special spot, the police and investigators would believe I was the one who had done it. Not only that, but because they know what that particular spot means, they'll want to ruin it for me. To ruin me-making me want to hate it so much that I'd never go back."

"Makes sense... so what's the plan?"

I have no plan... yet.

My body tensed, and I shook my head, unsure of the plan. "I have no idea," I admitted, wondering how many people Felicia rounded up to go along with her scheme. "I have a strong feeling; we may be outnumbered."

Neron leaned back in his seat, an unworried look on his face. "I'm sure it's nothing we can't handle," he said, then told me his reasons for us not to worry and why he feels we'll be able to conquer Felicia and her cronies.

"Neron, stop," I interrupted, waving my hand from me to him and then to Buck, "it's just me, you, and him."

"Yes, I know. But that doesn't worry me. Not when they're amateur hoodlums trying to show they're better and smarter than us."

"They destroyed my house!" I yelled. "Whose to say what else they'll do!"

Neron removed his phone from his inside jacket pocket, scrolled through his contacts, then tapped his phone and lifted it to his ear.

My brows drew together. "Who are you calling?"

"Xavier."

Shit... I forgot about having them make sure Walter and Justin got to my place safely.

"He won't answer," I groaned.

"Sure, he will."

I shook my head. "I'll guarantee you he won't answer your call. I'm also willing to bet you anything that when they dropped off Justin and Walter, they were attacked and kidnapped as well," I suggested. Then, suddenly, my eyes sprung open wide after remembering something Stella had mentioned. "They have him too..."

"Who?" Neron asked, lowering his phone onto his lap.

"Vince. Aria's father. Stella mentioned that he had run after the guys who stabbed Aria." I looked at Neron's phone resting on his lap and pointed. "I told you he wouldn't answer, which says they have them. Xavier has always answered the phone, no matter what he's doing. Hell, he'll even answer his phone while in the middle of satisfying his girl."

Neron finally agreed, and then he leaned forward, folding his hands together as he looked me in the eye. "The three of us may be up against something fierce. But to be honest, I couldn't care less about that because there ain't no mountain we can't climb. We're more competent and more formidable than they are. So no matter what they've got up their sleeves hoping their plan will bring you down, or worse, end your life, you need to remember what brought us there in the first place. So when you face those heartless villains, remember the faces of those you love and who they hurt and took. That will get the fire in your soul going-fueling you with the energy needed to overpower them and reach triumph."

Surprisingly, I received some wise words from Neron for once. He must have been taking notes from Walter this entire time...

Neron's mouth curved upward, looking like the Cheshire Cat. "As I stated earlier, I'm not worried about what'll happen to us. We've got everything we need to accomplish this battle."

I looked away from Neron and to the window when our vehicle stopped. "We're here," I mumbled, then muttered, "They're here," I informed after seeing smoke creeping through the tops of the trees.

Neron quickly opened the door, saying, "Let's prepare ourselves." I followed Neron to the back of the vehicle. He opened the backend, reached inside, and removed a large tote. "Because of your father's murder, the shit that went down with Shelby, and the recent threats to Aria, I made sure to have all our vehicles stocked with items we'd need if there were ever an emergency."

He removed the lid, dug inside, and then began handing Buck and me weapons-knives, guns, ammo, ropes, handcuffs, and more. After Neron finished handing out the supplies and had loaded his gun, he looked at Buck and me. "Don't do anything stupid. It's only the three of us, so always keep your eyes and ears on the lookout. Do you hear me?"

What a stupid thing for Neron to suggest and say to me.

Who does he think I am? Frank Drebin?

"No shit," I quipped, cocking my firearm. "Now cease with your stupid talk. I'm here to bring down these assholes and get my family out of harm's way. I'm not here to kill myself if that's what you're suggesting." I shoved my gun into my holster, threw the rope over my shoulder, and then shoved my knife into my boot. "I'm ready to get the fuck out of here, have my son back into my arms, and be by Aria's side."

Since Buck parked further away from my commemorative spot and how my adrenaline was running through my veins, anxious to get this over with, it seemed to take us forever to get to where we needed to be.

The closer we neared the area, the clearer I heard the monsters laughing and talking while antagonizing their captives-revving up my adrenaline even more, especially after hearing Wyatt's cries. Finally, I turned to Neron, quietly groaning, "I swear to God. If they hurt Wyatt, I'm warning you now; you'll be visiting me in prison... because instead of pulling the trigger once and being one and done, it'll be multiple times like some deranged psycho killer would do."

"The ones going to prison will be those assmonkeys, not you," Neron retorted. "I'd make damn sure of that," he added, extending his arm across my chest, stopping me from walking further after a branch I stepped on made a loud cracking sound.

"Did you hear that?" I heard a man ahead of us ask.

"Hear what?" a female asked.

"Something is moving over there."

Shit... there's an arm aiming our way.

"You probably heard an animal passing by."

"What if it's him?" another man said.

A female laughed, mocking the man's assumption. "Yeah, right. Do you actually believe Gunner would be here this quick? He's probably still at his home, mourning the losses of that old fart, that blonde bimbo, and his precious home. Besides, it's not like he's intelligent enough to figure out we'd be up here, in the spot he proposed to that spoiled-rotten brat." She mockingly and evilly laughed again. "The ignorant moron was so much in love with Shelby that he couldn't see she was using him."

Felicia's words instantly angered me, causing me to see red and my blood to boil rapidly. My muscles flexed firmly, and my teeth clenched tightly together. "I'm going to kill her," I groaned, my hand covering and gripping hold of my sidearm. "I've had it with all of them," I said, taking a step forward until Neron moved in front of me.

"Hold on a minute. Before we show our faces, we need to see how many of them there are. And then come up with a plan so we can all leave this place unharmed," Neron suggested, making me angrier than I already was.

"Fuck coming up with a plan. Let's just go in there and get the fucking job done," I hissed, shoving Neron to the side. I removed my sidearm, aimed it into the air with my finger around the trigger, and just as I was about to fire a warning shot, someone grabbed hold of my arm and pulled it down. "What the fuck is your problem?" I snapped, turning around, then freezing, when I saw who it was.

Vince raised his hand, then covered his mouth with his finger, silencing me from saying anything. "Don't shoot. It'll scare your son," he whispered.

My breathing hitched-Vince was right. Wyatt is most likely already scared and confused, and the last thing I need to do is to make it worse, including ruining his hearing by firing my weapon.

"How many of them are there?" Neron asked.

"There's about eight of them," he enlightened, then sadly sighed, "including my daughter." He looked at the monsters standing around a fire, saying, "I know I'll never understand what she's thinking, why she did this, or what Felicia's thinking doing this will solve, but it hurts seeing what she's done to Aria, Justin, and your family. As her father, I'll never want to see anything terrible happen to my daughter, but because of what I now know, have seen, and learned, I know that isn't possible. For the reason that my heart knows, something needs to be done to stop Felicia from causing anyone more pain or doing any more damage than she's already done."

I don't know if Vince is implying we do what we must do to bring Felicia and her friends down, or if he's suggesting that we go about this situation differently because she's his daughter. Flashbacks of my father, Shelby, and their deaths suddenly hit me. Losing Shelby was a blessing in disguise. However, losing my father has been difficult, and to this day, it still weighs heavily on me that I'll never see, hug, or be able to talk to him again. So I do understand Vince's pain and fear if he were to lose one of his children tonight.

I shoved my sidearm back into the holster. "What are you doing?" Neron asked.

"I don't want anyone here losing their lives tonight. So we have to go about confronting them differently. Since there are four of us and eight of them, we'll have to go out there and approach them as if we were on the streets-like a street fight."

Neron's brows wrinkled together. "Are you fucking nuts?" Yes, I am. "They stabbed Aria, for Christ's sake!" Yes, I know... "Did you forget that they injured and left Walter for dead, including Justin's fiancée?" I haven't forgotten. "And who knows what the fuck they did to Maxwell and Xavier?" he loudly and angrily whispered. "What if they pulled a gun or knife on us? What would you like us to do, then?"

"You said it yourself, Neron. There isn't any mountain we can't climb." I held up my hands, clenched like fists. "I don't know about Vince, but I know you, Buck, and I can fight."

"I can fight," Vince interjected. "Where do you think Justin and Felicia learned how to fight?" a slight smirk formed on his face. "I know I can't take credit for teaching Aria how to fight, but she's still a fighter. And a damn good one at that."

"She sure is.. thanks to me," I proudly added.

Neron smacked my arm and cleared his throat. "Now isn't the time to be discussing how well Aria fights. We have more important issues to worry about-like saving some people and knocking out those fools."

Vince's hand rested on my arm. "Do what you have to do to save your son. I'll do what I have to do to save mine. I obviously failed at raising Felicia for her to act as she is, so if she has you in a predicament and you have to pull the gun on my daughter, don't worry about what'll happen to her or what it'll do to me. It'll be something that I'll have to learn to deal with."

"Hopefully, it won't come to that. We have handcuffs, rope, and zip ties. So rather than us ending someone's life, we all need to do what we can to make a citizen's arrest instead," I instructed.

Instead of carrying on with how we should take on Felicia's group without anyone getting harmed, I pushed through our huddle after hearing the fear sounds coming out of Wyatt's lungs when he started screaming and crying bloody murder.

I marched my way over to the clan, tormenting Justin as he stood tied up against a tree, begging they let him go. "Looks like I'm smarter than what Felicia told you," I said as I walked up behind the three men. They jumped, turned around, and when they saw me grinning like a demon about to bring their souls down to the eternal fires of hell, they pulled out their knives and began fighting for their dear life.

As they were swinging and stabbing their knives at me, instead of pulling out my knife, I fought back using my martial art techniques, knocking all three blades out of their hands when I jumped and spun in the air-Muay Thai kicking all three of them.

They came back at me with a vengeance by tackling me to the ground, beating me with rocks, tree limbs, and fists-wailing on me fiercely until the sounds of gunshots had them backing away from me. My head immediately snapped around to see who fired, and when I saw Neron on the ground, with two guys falling off him, I jumped to my feet and looked around-looking to see where they had Wyatt.

I didn't see him, but I could hear him screaming off in the distance.

The next thing I knew, my face was on the ground, and I was being attacked again. Using all my might, I wrestled my way onto my back, reached for the knife beside me, and began swinging it around, piercing one of the men in the stomach as he hovered over and strangled me. The poundage weighing me down suddenly got lighter when he fell from me, and the two others on top of me, securing me to the ground, fell as well. Then, unexpectedly, I saw a hand reaching toward me and looked to see who was at my aid-Vince.

"Thanks," I said, placing my hand in his. As I got to my feet, I looked down at the two men lying flat on their faces, with knives punctured into their backs.

"I never liked them two idiots anyway," Vince said as he reached down and removed the knives.

It looks like my plan of making citizen arrests is out of the question tonight because five of the eight monsters we were supposed to stop, contain, and bring to authorities are down. So while Buck and Neron were fighting off the other two men, Vince and I took precautions by securing the wrists of the five lifeless men behind their backs with handcuffs and rope.

My nerves instantly became on edge once again after Wyatt abruptly got quiet. The ill and fearful feeling of not hearing or knowing where he was intensified, thinking something terrible had happened to him. And since Felicia was nowhere in sight, I quickly wandered off, leaving the others behind to look for them.

I didn't have to go very far until I felt a head rush and became instantly weak. Because the second I got to the area where I proposed to Aria and saw the atrocity staring me in the face, my blood pressure dropped-feeling as if someone had drained all the blood out of me. I was weak in the knees and on the verge of collapsing after seeing Xavier and Maxwell sitting on the couch, bound and gagged, with what looked like homemade bombs strapped to their laps, and Wyatt sitting between them, reaching over and hitting the bomb on Xavier's lap.

Suddenly an evil guffaw like The Wicked Witch of the West's I heard behind me-a pitchy, nasally laugh that shot through my ears. Then, with my eyes on Wyatt, I asked, "Why are you doing this, Felicia? What have we done that brought us all to where we are today?"

She laughed evilly again. "You haven't figured it out?"

"For the life of me, no," I nervously answered after seeing Wyatt trying to push a button on the explosion device.

"It all started with you, Gunner. All those years of winning the championship, you'd think you would've allowed someone else to let their name be known as the greatest. All you had to do was give in to The Tormentor and allow him to win the title. But no-"

"That was his own damn fault. He was the one who got himself disqualified," I interrupted. "Not me."

"Whatever, think what you want."

"I don't think it. I know it," I argued. "I was there. Remember? The asshole put me in the hospital for what he did."

"I remember," she admitted, "but that was still your fault. All you had to do was go powerless, to allow him what he needed to do to get what he wanted... just like Aria. All she had to do was become defenseless against me. She knew I wanted and needed the win."

I mocked a laugh. "Are you delusional? Why would she give up the win for you when she wanted it just as bad? She earned it; you didn't. Had you been the better fighter, you would have gotten what you wanted."

I didn't dare look away from Wyatt, afraid to see him hit something he shouldn't, and it cost me for doing so. The next thing I knew, she knocked me to the ground after using a lead pipe or something similar to force me onto the dirt, where I had difficulty keeping my eyes open.

"I am the better fighter," Felicia growled as she hovered over me. "It's just that Aria wanted to give my father another reason for him to continue bringing up her name in every conversation he has with me and others. So I needed the win to shut my father up-to stop him from gushing over how well of a fighter she is."

"You should have fought better then," I mumbled while going in and out of consciousness.

Her knees dug into my back as she kneeled on me, then she grabbed a fistful of my hair and lifted my head off the dirt, showing me what Wyatt was doing. "Tonight will be the last time you'll ever see your son and trainers because they'll be the ones paying the price for what you and Aria had done after you both chose to end the lives of my best friend Shelby and the love of her life, The Tormentor. And just think, you'll get to watch them die.. just like that," she happily added while snapping her fingers in front of my face.

"Leave them out of this. They've done nothing wrong," I breathed, then begged, "please. Whatever beef you have with me, take it out on me. Please don't do anything to hurt my innocent son; he's just a baby!"

"No..." she laughed. "This is the price you have to pay for taking away my friends."

Felicia tugged my hair harder, stretching my neck as she pulled my head closer to her. Her lips grazed my earlobe as she spoke. "Keep your eyes open and watch, Gunner. All your son has to do is push the button the second I activate it using this," she warned, showing me a small device in her hand.

"Felicia, stop!" Vince yelled. "You don't want to do this!" he continued after she laughed and mocked him. "Felicia. I'm warning you. Don't do this. It's not worth it," he pleaded. Then I saw him slowly inching his way toward us, holding a gun out of the corner of my eye. I also heard leaves rustling around us and knew the others were working their way toward us as well. "Let Gunner go, Felicia... please. Don't make me do something I'll later regret."

"What's new? Haven't you been living in regret these past twenty-one years, anyway? So what'll be different?" she angrily responded. "All you've done my entire life was worry and talk about Aria and Justin. Never. Ever. Have you ever worried a lick about me, my feelings, or the kind of hell you've put me through over the years... You've never cared about me!"

"That's not true," he disputed. "I have always loved and cared about you and have always been there for you, including your brother. Justin and Aria, on the other hand, are a different story. I was forced not to be there for them, and I wasn't allowed to show how much I loved or missed them. As their father, I had every right to act as I did! Just because I mourned for them daily never meant you weren't as important."

"Liar!" she yelled, choking on her tears.

I felt a bit of hope when Felicia's grip around my hair loosened, and the device in her hand fell into the dirt in front of me after her crying became more profound. But just when I thought Vince's reasoning with Felicia was working and that she was ready to end this nonsense, she held a blade against my neck, ordering me to pick up the device and activate it.

"... if you refuse to do so, you'll finally have the reunion you've been waiting to have with your father. Now, pick it up and activate it!"

I closed my eyes, apologized to Aria, said a prayer, and then opened my eyes and said, "No. I'm not killing my son, Maxwell, or Xavier."

"Fine," she happily said, then warned, "that means you're leaving me with no choice but to do this."

Felicia pressed the blade harder against my neck, and just as she started sliding the knife, multiple gunshots were fired, and Felicia fell off me, the knife sliding along my neck as she dropped to the ground.

My head snapped to where Vince was, seeing if he was the one who fired the shots, only he wasn't there; instead, he was lying on top of Felicia, muttering something in her ear that I couldn't make out. Leading me to believe he was apologizing for being the one who fired his gun and killed her.

Or so I thought.

Come to find out; it wasn't anyone associated with me who fired their gun. Vince tackled Felicia after the authorities arrived and fired their weapons into the air.

Vince helped Felicia stand, walked her to the police, begging that they take her to get the help she needed, then walked over to me and helped free Xavier and Maxwell.

"Thank you," I said, grateful for him helping end this frightful wild night by saving my son, mine, Justin's, and my friends' lives.

Including Felicia's life.

"You're welcome."

I picked up Wyatt, held him tightly against me while kissing the top of his head, then looked at him and smiled. "There's someone here I'd like for you to meet." I spun him around, then held him out for Vince to take. "Say hello to your grandpa."

I hope you enjoyed the chapter!!🤞🤞