The Agent and the PI (Sequel to Falling For the Undercover

Please note this book follows along with some of the chapters from Falling for the Undercover Detective and then picks up from where it left off.  I would advise that you read the first book to fully understand the story better.  This book also contains violence and triggers.  This is the first, last and only warning.   David’s POV The phone was incessantly ringing, and I just wished it would stop.  But it wasn’t.  It was the middle of the night, and I just knew in my guy that something bad had happened.  My phone never rings in the middle of the night unless it was bad.  Groggily I answered the phone.  My brother Larry was on the other end, and I could tell he had been crying.  That woke me up instantly.  Larry never cried.  “Dude what’s going on?”  I asked with my heart beating a million miles a minute.  “David, mom and dad were killed in a horrible car accident tonight.”  I couldn’t believe my ears it was like the whole world stopped.  “Did you hear me?”  I sighed and said “yes I heard you I just don’t know if I believe you.  This is some kind of sick joke, isn’t it?”  “I wish it was brother but it’s not.  I’ve already talked with the other guys, and they are heading over to mom and dad’s place.  We are going to tell Elizabeth together.”  Oh God how could I forget my little sister.  She was not going to take the news lightly.  “I’ll throw on some clothes and be right there.” We hung up the phone and I jumped into my clothes, grabbed my car keys, and headed out the door towards my parents’ place.  When I got there everyone was gathered and I could tell most of them had been crying.  Some of the girlfriends were there as well.  “Where’s Elizabeth?” I asked.  “We haven’t woken her up, yet we wanted everyone here.  She’s going to need all the support we can give her.”  I nodded my head and watched as Larry made his way to Elizabeth’s bedroom to wake her up so that we could tell her the tragic news. This was not going to go well I could already tell.  Elizabeth’s POV I could feel it somebody was shaking me.  Trying to wake me up but for the life of me I couldn't figure out why.  My alarm hadn't gone off, so I knew it wasn't because I was late for school.  Aside from that mom and dad had promised they would be home today before I left for school so, with that promise I had set my alarm an hour earlier.  I planned on making breakfast for all of us when they got home.  But who was trying to wake me up?  Then I remembered that my parents had asked one of my brothers to spend the weekend at the house with me.  It didn't matter that I was going to be sixteen in a few short days they still didn't want me being alone.  They told me it was because there were people out there that wanted to hurt them and would use me to do it.  I really didn't understand as I didn't really know anyone or anything outside of my parents, my older brothers, and classmates.  I didn't go anywhere or do anything except go to school and come home.   "Elizabeth honey you need to wake up.  Everyone is in the living room, and we need to talk."  It was my brother Larry talking to me.  I opened my eyes wide enough to glance at the clock beside my bed.  THREE AM?  What the hell!  Why was my brother waking me up at this ungodly hour?  What did he mean by everyone?  Opening my eyes more I looked at my brother in the dim light coming from the hallway and noticed that his eyes were all red and splotchy.  He'd been crying.  But he never cried.  He was one of the strongest people I knew.  I nodded my head to him and said, "give me a few minutes to wake up a bit and I will be right there."  He nodded in agreement and left the room gently closing the door behind him as he left.  At this point now that I was conscious, I could faintly hear voices coming from the living room.  It sounded like all the guys were here.   I climbed out of my bed, slipped on my bathrobe and slippers, and headed out my bedroom door. As I made my way to the living room, I could hear my brothers and a few of their girlfriends talking in hushed tones.  I could make out a few words here and there but wasn't completely certain about what was going on.  I could hear my brother David say, "we have to rally together and make sure we protect her as much as possible now."  I could hear the others agreeing to the statement.  Larry spoke up and said, "this is going to destroy her and I'm not sure any of us are equipped to handle this."  What in the hell were they all talking about and who is the “she” they kept referring to?  Surely not me. Because for the love of God they already protected me more than enough. As I further approached the living room, I could hear my brother Daniel saying, "How are we going to tell her that mom and dad are dead?"  With that I felt a gasp escape my lips and the world went dark.   When I woke up, I was laying on the couch in the living room.  My head was throbbing in the back.  I gingerly reached my hand up to touch the back of my head and felt blood.  My brother Brian broke through the crowd of brothers and girlfriends with his ever-handy doctor bag.  "There, there little sis you took a nasty fall and got a nasty little cut on that pretty little head of yours."  Brian always had a way of making me feel better.  His smile reached his eyes and he always made you feel like you were the most important person in the world.  That's probably why at only twenty-seven he was such a successful doctor.  His patients all adored him.  He quickly administered to my wound with the help of Larry's girlfriend Amber who was a nurse at the local hospital.  "Ok sis I'm going to give you a little something for the pain, but this wound is going to need a few stitches.  It's going to sting some, and I need you to hold still as much as you can do you understand?"  I gingerly nodded showing him I understood.  Amber grabbed my hand and calmly talked to me while Brian stitched up my head. After Brian was done administrating to me and making certain I was ok he moved away.  I cautiously looked around the room to see the faces of my six big brothers looking at me grimly.  Suddenly I remembered why I fell and hit my head in the first place.  It felt as if my face became deathly pale and by the looks of those in the room it had. My brothers all started to shoot forward to encompass me when Amber spoke up "give the girl some room, geez let her breath."  Amber turned to me and smiled.  It was a sweet, kind smile filled with concern and sadness.  "You heard didn't you honey?" Tears welled up in my eyes and now I couldn't even meet the gaze of the men standing in front of me.  I could feel their hearts breaking like mine was doing.  I looked up at Amber and her gaze confirmed my worst fears. Mom and dad were dead.  I had heard the words correctly when I was walking into the room.  I felt like the earth had just opened up and swallowed me into the depths of hell.  Amber squeezed my hand gently and whispered, "talk to us honey."  I looked up at my brothers.  Their faces were filled with concern, worry and worse of all sadness.  I looked at them and said "did I hear right?  Is mom and dad dead? How could they be?  They were coming home today from their trip.  They were going to be home before I went to school.  They promised and they never break their promises." Daniel broke from the crowd and came over to me.  He gently sat down next to me on the couch.  He took my face in his hands and softly spoke the words I didn't want to hear.  "Baby sis mom and dad were involved in a massive pile up on the freeway a few hours ago.  By the time rescue workers were able to get to them they had succumbed to their injuries.  There was no saving them.  They won't be coming home. I'm so sorry baby girl.  But we are all here for you."  I looked up into his face and started crying, shaking my head all I could say was "no, say it's not true." David’s POV I couldn’t help the tears that were forming my eyes.  Elizabeth was taking this so hard, and I wasn’t sure what we could do for her.  I mean losing our parents meant different things to us than it did to Larry and even to Elizabeth.  Mom and dad were their biological parents. The rest of us were adopted.  When mom and dad had Larry, they were told that mom would never have another child and if she did it would kill her and the child.  Our parents wanted a big family, so they adopted the rest of us to make sure that happened.  Mom always told me that she since she couldn’t have a huge family naturally then the natural thing to do was to make sure that she got a huge family by adopting and making others happy as well.  I couldn’t have asked for a better set of parents.  When they adopted me, I was seven years old and had been in foster care almost my whole life.  None of my foster parents were kind and they treated me and the other kids in their care badly.  When I came to live with the Cains, I kept acting out waiting for the other shoe to drop or worse yet for them to decide they didn’t want me after all.  But damn if that woman didn’t have patience and restraint.  She saw right through the tough exterior I was putting on and just loved me through the bad episodes.  When I would do something truly terrible, she would just shake her head and say “Davy you are better than that.  I know you are son.  I’m still not giving up on you so you might as well stop.”  Now that great woman was dead along with my dad.  Of course, we weren’t the only family going through a tragedy that night, but we couldn’t see past our own front door.  The focus for us guys at this time was to go into protector mode and get our miracle little sister through this once again.  Everyone took their time in comforting her and letting her know they were there for her.  When it was my turn, I couldn’t help the tears.  I grabbed her tightly in my arms and said “baby girl, I can’t even express.  Mom and dad were such great people I don’t even know how this world is going to go on without them.”  Elizabeth looked me in the eyes and then looked at the rest of us and started crying. “Can you all ever forgive me?”  We looked at her and questioned why she would need forgiveness from us, and she went on to explain.  "I got mad at them because they were going to miss my last concert of the school year.  I made them come home early.  I made them promise they would be home today.  If it wasn't for me, they would still be alive."  We all immediately tried to soothe her conscious and let her know that the accident and their deaths was not her fault.  But she was inconsolable.  Finally, Brian gave her a little something to help her calm down and go back to sleep.  I looked at my brothers and said “she has a lot of healing to do, and we have a lot of reassurance to give her.  She is going to blame herself for a long time.  I think it would be safe to say that we need to look into counseling for her as soon as we get the funerals taken care of.”  My other brothers agreed with me.  We all hugged each other tightly that night as we started to our old rooms at the house.  None of us were leaving this place we called home for years tonight.  We all needed to be here when Elizabeth woke up.  We also needed to be here for each other.  Luckily mom had redecorated our rooms as we got older and moved out to accommodate us growing up.  That we could be thankful for as I don’t think my adult body would fit in a twin-size bed any longer.