I scoff, rolling my eyes. “Why are you still here?”

“Obviously because I’m a glutton for punishment!” he shouts. “Get your ass in my truck and I’ll take you!”

“Fuck off! I’m not going anywhere with you!” I yell back.

“Then you’re not going anywhere! If you leave this house, it’s going to be with ME!”

Dropping my arms to my sides, I take a few deep breaths to calm myself. He’s picking a fight with me on purpose. This is what we do. It’s like fucking foreplay, but I refuse to play into it.

Luckily, I hear the buzz of DJ’s pager attached to his belt. Without taking his furious eyes off of me, he yanks the thing off of his hip and brings it up in front of his face.

“Shit! Shit, motherfuck, shit damn!” he curses, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket and quickly dialing a number.

I listen to his one-sided conversation, finding out the page was about a huge warehouse fire on the opposite side of town and all paramedics needed to respond.

“Go be a hero for someone else, I don’t need you,” I tell him loudly so he’ll hear me over his phone call as I walk over to the coffee table and grab my purse.

He covers the mouthpiece with his hand and stares me down.

“Don’t fucking move!” he orders loudly.

He squeezes his eyes closed immediately and lets out a huge calming breath before softening his voice with his next words. “I love you, Phina. We’ll handle Dax together. We will handle everything together.”

He turns away from me and moves closer to the kitchen, quietly arguing with whoever is on the other line about how he can’t make it into work right now, that he has an emergency of his own at home.

I feel myself wanting to give in, to forget about all the reasons why being with him is a bad idea. My feet start moving me in his direction when Jackson clears his throat quietly from behind me.

I can’t do this. I can’t keep bringing DJ into this shit. He wants to skip work when there are people whose lives he could save because of my problems. What happens after that? What happens when I have another issue he needs to deal with? Eventually he’s going to realize I’m not worth all the trouble he has to go through just to be with me. I’m always going to have problems, and he’s always going to want to save me.

While DJ is distracted on the phone, I quickly turn away, grabbing Jackson’s hand and quietly pulling him out the door.

“No, do NOT call Collin. He’s got enough on his plate right now,” I argue with my captain.

He continues to explain about the warehouse fire, telling me that without Collin there, he needs someone to fill in and take charge and I’m the only option. The warehouse is a huge manufacturing plant on the other side of town and it’s full of workers who just got there for the next shift. The five-story building is over a hundred years old and it’s going up like a fucking tinderbox.

I can’t just NOT respond to this call, but I also can’t leave Phina right now. I could see her wavering when I told her I love her. Running my hand through my hair, I stare up at the ceiling, trying to come up with a plan. If I have to, I’ll tie her ass up and take her with me.

“Fine. I’ll meet you there as soon as possible. My gear is still in my locker, make sure someone grabs it on the way out so I don’t have to make an extra stop,” I tell him before ending the call.

I turn around as I shut off my phone, gearing up to explain the plan to Phina without starting another argument. When I see nothing but an empty living room and a wide-open front door, I completely lose my shit.

“YOU HAVE GOT TO BE FUCKING KIDDING ME!” I yell to the empty house.

Racing across the living room and out the front door, I search the street and of course, Jackson’s cruiser is gone. Making my way down the steps, calling Jackson every fucking name in the book for going against me, I hear the screeching of tires a few houses away and hope to God he had enough sense to turn around and bring Phina back. I watch an unmarked, black Crown Vic fly up to the curb in front of my truck and see Dax get out of the vehicle and race up the front walk.

“Where is she? Where the fuck is Phina?”

He tries to go around me into the house, but I stop him with a hand on his arm. “She’s not here. She just left to go see you.”

He takes off running towards Marcus’ cruiser, which was parked behind my truck in the driveway and still running.

“I thought I told you to make sure she stays here!” Dax shouts as he flings open the driver’s side door. “Oh, Jesus. SON OF A BITCH!”

Walking up behind Dax, I watch as he leans in and presses two of his fingers to Marcus’s throat, which is pretty pointless because even I can see from over Dax’s shoulder that the bloody hole in Marcus’s temple would make it pretty hard for his heart to keep beating.

“Who the fuck did that?” I ask in shock as Dax steps back from the vehicle.

“Did Phina leave alone? Tell me she left alone,” Dax says worriedly, ignoring my question.

I shake my head at him, wondering if he’s been drinking tonight.

“Um, clearly she didn’t go alone. She’s got police protection on her ass twenty-four-seven, dumbass. Although by the looks of poor Marcus here, you didn’t exactly hire vigilant guard dogs.”

Dax curses, pulling a wad of napkins out of his pocket and wrapping them around the bloody shoulder piece still attached to Marcus’s uniform.