Chapter 42
Chapter Forty-Two
Kain
I stood inside Quench Your Thirst, a quaint café that offered a variety of drinks, and looked across the street where Grandpa Collins and his friend sat on a bench chatting.
A car approached, and the man in the Bingo Delivery jacket got up from the bench, turned, and waved at the driver.
He patted Grandpa Collins’s shoulder and left in the car.
With a tray of two drinks in hand, I walked over, but Grandpa Collins had gotten up from his bench and was walking toward the park.
I followed him but kept a respectful distance, searching to see if anyone was waiting for him.
A quick glance at my phone showed no reception.
This was a residential area with several businesses nearby. Why was there no internet connection?
He stood by a bench that faced a swing set, preparing to sit down.
“Grandpa Collins!” I called out, making long strides toward him.
He turned around, saw me, and his face brightened. “Kain! How are you?” He patted my back.
“Excellent. Can we talk?” I gestured to the bench.
“Sure.” He sat, fixed his paperboy hat, and looked at the drinks. “How did you know where to find me?”
“I saw you earlier when I was inside the café. Try this mango iced tea, Harold.”
As his name escaped my mouth, emotions surged in me, along with memories of the past.
“Call me Harry.” Tears filled his eyes. “Have a seat.”
I couldn’t believe I got to meet my savior again. After all these years, fate had brought us together because of Eva.
I stared at my mango iced tea. “Eva says it’s nutritious and light. Perfect for your health.”
“Thank you. She’s always worried about me.” He sipped his drink. “It’s delicious. I’ve never had this kind of tea before. Being in this lively town has introduced me to so many things.” Brown eyes focused on me. “Including you.”
“You’re Eva’s only family.” I drank my tea and sighed. “I never thought I’d get to see you again.”
When we departed that fateful day, I should have asked for his information.
But the police were asking too many questions, and I wanted to make sure the boys were okay.
Besides, I was dealing with the overwhelming fear of what I’d done.
I’d killed many people in that explosion.
I feared what the authorities would find.
My mind was wrapped around the thrumming danger.
Harold wasn’t part of that, so asking for his contact slipped my mind.
“Life works in mysterious ways, Kain. You can’t stop what’s meant to happen, nor can you push what isn’t allowed.” He lifted his face to the clear sky with a purple hue. “Someone up there knows what he’s doing. You just have to trust in that power.”
“Did you recognize me the day I chased after the thief?”
“Sort of.” Harry’s mouth formed into a smile. “You looked different from the twenty-two-year-old man I remembered. But I had to make sure, so I invited you to lunch at Eva’s.”
If only she knew her grandfather wasn’t being irrational, inviting complete strangers to her apartment.
“So you weren’t being gracious for my heroics.” I twirled the drink in my hand.
“I was both gracious and suspicious.”
“Suspicious?” I asked.
“Two suspicions.” He held up his fingers. “The first was wondering what you’ve become. People change. Sometimes it’s from circumstances, sometimes greed. It’s hard to tell what moves a man.”
“What’s the second suspicion?”
“The way you looked at Eva that day reminded me of how I used to look at my Melinda.” Harry’s brown eyes gleamed with warmth. “She told me I was a criminal for stealing her heart, and I wanted to find a criminal for Eva.”
“I thought that comment was strange coming from an old man.”
He laughed. “You didn’t recognize me, did you?”
“No, you look different.” I gestured to his round belly. “You’ve gained a lot of happiness.”
“Twenty pounds of joy!” He chuckled and patted his belly, then his cheeks. “You’ve gained weight too. More muscle than me.”
Even though I didn’t recognize him at first, I felt a tug of familiarity.
“I should have asked for your information back then,” I admitted.
“I was going to give you my number but decided it was safer for both of us to go our separate ways.” He patted my arm. “After what you told me, I feared for myself and my family. I thought I could reach out later when things settled.”
If Harry hadn’t found us that night and driven us to safety, I didn’t know how my friends and I would have made it home.
Hawthorne’s other men could’ve caught us.
We could have died from lack of food and water, exhaustion, or infection.
My friends and I got cuts from the thorns and sharp branches obscuring our escape.
That night, adrenaline and survival numbed everything else.
“A year later, I looked into you and the boys. You seemed to do well, and I left it at that. But I thought about you all the time.”
“We wondered about you too.” Over the years, questions emerged as I flipped back to that night.
“How are the boys doing?” Harry asked.
“They’re doing fantastic. We talk about you constantly.”
“So that’s why my ears have been itching.” He tugged at them.
“I haven’t told them about you yet. They’d be thrilled to meet you. Are you okay with that?”
“Of course.” His eyes sparkled. “You’re all family to me.”
“I didn’t want Hawthorne and his men to have a quick death. I wanted them to suffer, but I wanted to get the boys out of there as soon as possible.”
“You made the right decision.”
“What did you know about the incident?” I asked. “Why were you fearful for your life?”
“I knew little about Victor Hawthorne. I only knew about him selling organs.” A loud laugh erupted from the swings, and Harry looked toward the children chasing each other.
“I was scheduled to pick up a new heart for my wife. They gave me an address to some warehouse, but I got lost on my way there.” He stared at the squirrel nibbling on something in front of us.
Harry had purchased an organ from Hawthorne?
I let the silent shock wash over me. How should I respond to this?
I knew people did desperate things to save those they loved.
Would I have gotten an organ for my mother if I’d known how it was retrieved?
Would my mother want an organ that way? The internal struggle was too much, so I focused on something else.
“Who was your contact person?”
“Tony Hesselberg.”
I nodded, recognizing his name. Tony had been part of Hawthorne’s crew long before I got there.
“A few days before the meetup, I wired a deposit to a bank. I brought the rest of it with me in cash. Then I got lost and couldn’t get reception on my phone.
I heard some loud explosions, and that scared me.
I drove around and stumbled upon you and the boys.
” He met my eyes. “I guess God led me to you, and in doing so, He also prevented me from getting an organ that way.”
I met his eyes and saw regret.
“I was desperate to help Melinda, and that made me blind to the terrifying reality of the black market.” Guilt sagged on Harry’s face and shoulders.
“I should’ve known the family members of the deceased didn’t donate those organs.
” He paused and took another sip of his drink.
“When I learned what that monster made you boys do, something in me snapped.”
“We do indescribable things for those we love,” I said, remembering what I had done to my father for hurting my mother.
Did I regret it? No. Sometimes you have to commit certain crimes to prevent others from happening.
I was no saint and would never be one, and that was okay. At least I got to live a truthful life.
“Did your wife get a heart transplant?” I asked, even though I knew parts of the story from Eva.
But I feared the story she knew wasn’t the whole truth.
“Melinda never knew I was searching the black market for a heart. When I brought up the idea, she dismissed it. She just said let God decide for her. So we got on a waitlist, and one day we got a call from the doctor.” He placed a hand over his chest. “She lived with that new heart until a few years ago when her heart weakened and she developed some other health issues.”
“What does Eva know?”
“Just that her grandmother got a heart transplant,” Harry said.
“While researching the organ black market and Victor Hawthorne, I met Emilio. We both attended several underground meetings. At first, I didn’t trust him, or anyone.
” He released a heavy sigh. “The more we talked, the more my gut told me to trust him. He had lived under a different alias prior to Emilio, and he was hiding from dangerous people. Over time, we became friends, and he had access to things I didn’t.
Because of him, I learned the magnitude of evil taking over this world. It’s run by sick people.”
“Was Emilio part of Hawthorne’s syndicate who went rogue?” I asked, not remembering anyone with that name when I was there.
Harry shook his head. “No. He escaped an organization called Scorpion Trine. They’ve been around a lot longer than Hawthorne’s organization and have a wider network.
But they’re discreet, running businesses under various aliases.
I don’t know the full story, but for whatever reason, Hawthorne and Scorpion Trine are enemies. ”
I had to investigate this organization when I had a moment to spare.
“What do they do? Sell organs too?”
“I think they have their hands in everything,” he said. “There are too many gangs out there.”
My mind had been so focused on Hawthorne’s organization that I didn’t even consider there were others who hated him.
“The world is made up of elite gangs,” I said.
“And they’re all dressed in Armani suits, live in fancy homes, and hold top-level positions worldwide.”
“The best way to hide their true character.”
More questions popped into my head. “How did you learn about the organs for sale?”