Chapter Forty-Four
Phoenix
Standing next to the empty hospital bed that took up the entire darkened living room, guilt ate at me.
None of his videos showed what was right next to the piano.
I glanced at my watch, rescanned the small space, then looked out the front window. A car pulled into the driveway, and Judas spoke through comms.
“Nix, copy?”
“Affirmative.”
“Subject is Oscar Mike,” he warned. “Incoming to your position.”
Adrenaline surged. “ETA?”
“Seven-eight minutes.”
Not to plan, but I had time. “Copy. Going radio silent. Mic tap protocol.”
“Radio silent,” Judas confirmed.
Through the front window, I watched the old woman get out of the ancient Ford.
With a single grocery bag hanging off one arm, she used her other hand to pull herself out of the sedan.
That same hand braced on the side of the car, she stood and waited a beat.
Then, looking like every step was an effort, she slowly made her way to the front door.
Thirty seconds later, keys sounded in the lock, and the woman shuffled into the house.
Without turning on a single light, she headed to the kitchen.
Halfway there, her weathered but stern voice carried across the living room. “You might as well come out now because I ain’t got no money, and I ain’t got no time for this kinda hooliganry.”
I stepped out of the shadows.
Cans clanked as she set her grocery bag on the kitchen counter.
Then she looked up and huffed out a grunt.
“She said the boy looked like you. Said you was a looker too. No finer man she ever saw besides her boy, she said. Didn’t think she was fibbing, but didn’t think she was telling the whole truth neither.
” She shook her head in judgment. “Mothers got a way of thinking all sorts of false flattery about their offspring, but hoping and wishing ain’t never been the same.
At least, I always thought as much. Guess I was wrong ’bout something.
Live long enough, I suppose it’s bound to happen. ”
Tamping down rage—at her for calling him boy, at myself, at the Vice Admiral—I cut to the objective. “Then you know why I’m here.” With or without her blessing, I was taking my son with me.
Focusing on her grocery bag while she pulled out a can of soup that wouldn’t feed her, let alone a growing fifteen-year-old kid, she didn’t immediately reply.
“I don’t know nothing except my granddaughter showed up here on death’s door, looking to dump her boy before she met her maker.
Hadn’t seen nor heard from her since she’d left home.
Didn’t even know she’d had a boy. I told her I’d already raised her.
” The old woman looked up at me. “Said I buried her mama, too, and I wasn’t looking for the expense of burying her.
” A flash of emotion hit her stern features before she quickly masked it and focused back on her groceries.
“I was too old back then to raise another child I didn’t give birth to, and I’m even older now.
I told her to take that boy to his father, but she didn’t listen.
Said his father was dangerous.” She eyed me.
I didn’t give her ammunition.
She huffed out a disdainful snort anyway.
“I asked how much more dangerous could it be than leaving the boy with the likes of me when my days are numbered. Suppose in the end, it don’t matter.
You standing in the dark, breaking into homes, looking like you do, I don’t need no fancy college degree to figure out why you’re here or why my granddaughter chose what she did. You’re gonna try and take him.”
“He’s my son.” There wasn’t going to be any trying involved. This was a done deal.
“From the looks of you, I ain’t denying that.
But that child has been through hell and back.
And that’s just in the past three months.
You think you wanna be a father now, but I’m betting my pension that you never so much as raised a dog, sneaking around the way you do.
How you think you gonna raise a boy that ain’t had no father figure his whole life?
You think he’s gonna be receptive to a man?
To you? Stepping in now like you got a right because you share kin blood?
And I ain’t even touching upon the subject matter of you being dangerous.
I can see with my own eyes you got that soldier look about you. ”
I didn’t correct the soldier comment. I also didn’t tell her my son initiated contact and had been texting me for two months.
I never would’ve known about him if he hadn’t, but now I clearly knew more than her, which both enraged me and validated my plan.
“Unlike here, Lincoln won’t be in danger when he’s with me.
What did you tell the U.S. Marshals last night? ”
She let out another huff. “You think I’m ignorant? I didn’t tell them bullies nothing except to get out of my house.”
I didn’t let her off the hook. “Was that before or after you let them in?”
Anger twisted her wrinkled face. “Now you’re accusing me of something?”
“I’m stating fact.” My tone controlled, my rage escalating, I ticked off the list. “You have an unsecure home. You allowed armed men to enter without a warrant, and you instructed Lincoln to answer questions without asking why the Marshals were here. To start, I’m accusing you of negligence.”
“I’ll tell you fact, mister.” She jabbed a finger at my chest. “The boy ain’t going nowhere with the likes of you. You don’t know the first thing about him.”
“Lincoln will be safer with me, and I’ll meet him on his terms.”
Anger raised her voice. “That boy is fifteen years old! He ain’t got no terms!” Inhaling, she gripped the counter with both hands. Then a breath rattled in her lungs, and her tone came down a notch. “That boy’s got grief, and a lot of it.” She aimed her accusation well. “Some of it because of you.”
I took full responsibility. “I understand that.” He was still coming with me, and she was only getting one more minute of my time.
“That ain’t what I see. From where I’m standing, it looks like you broke into an old lady’s house to steal her great-grandchild with no regard for anyone else. And don’t feed me no line about him not being in danger with you.”
“It wasn’t a line, and I came to you first as a courtesy.” I came to make sure she wasn’t going to be a problem for Lincoln.
She huffed out another grunt of disapproval. “You don’t got the sense God gave you, let alone know how to be courteous.”
Rage and guilt for the fifteen-year-old in the videos who had to live with this woman threatened to snap my control. “Would you have let me in if I’d knocked?”
“I would’ve slammed the door in your face.”
I was done. “Unlike the Marshals?” Once I got my son to safety, I’d handle the Marshals. Right now, I was handling the old woman. “I’m taking Lincoln.”
“The boy ain’t even met you.”
I’d met her. “End of discussion.” A single mic tap on my comm was all the warning I got.
The front door banged open. “Gram! I’m back. I see your car. Why are all the lights off?”
It was instant. My son. His voice. I turned toward the entryway.
A gnarled hand distorted with age gripped my arm with surprising strength.
Adrenaline spiked, and I threw the woman a warning glance as I double tapped my comm for a sitrep, then palmed my Sig. So help her if she got in my fucking way.
Glaring at me, she raised her voice. “No need to bring that yelling into this house, boy. I may be old, but I hear just fine.”
Judas spoke through comms. “No sign of the hostiles. No one trailed him. I’m outside, across the street.”
“Sorry, Gram!”
Dislodging her grip on my arm, I aimed for my son, and the woman stepped in front of me.
“That’s still yelling, boy.” She fucking held a hand up to me as she dressed down my son. “Before you bring all that noise into my kitchen, go upstairs and get my slippers while I warm this soup up for lunch in peace.”
I feathered the trigger guard.
“Yes, ma’am.” Rapid footfalls sounded on the stairs.
She lowered her voice. “You ain’t taking him yet. You’re gonna let this old woman have one more meal with her great-grandson.”
My fingers flexed around the Sig’s grip.
Judas’s voice hit my comm. “Still clear.”
“Get,” she whisper-hissed, pointing toward the back door.
“I ain’t stupid. I know U.S. Marshals only come ’round when you got witness protection.
I also know I can’t physically stop you from taking him.
But you best understand, if you don’t do right by that boy, God won’t be the only one judging your soul come time.
” Her voice turned to hardened resolve. “I will haunt you from the grave.”
A modicum of guilt warred with my anger, and I made the call that went against every instinct I had to immediately extract my son.
For his sake, for the fact that his great-grandmother was the only family he had left on his mother’s side, I was giving the woman her damn meal.
“You have thirty minutes. Make them count.” I grabbed all the cash in my wallet.
She reared back. “I don’t need your dirty money.”
Steps sounded above us. “Gram? Is someone there? I hear talking. And, ah, I can’t find your slippers?”
The old woman raised her voice again. “Ain’t no one here, and I think I’ve earned the right to talk to myself in my own kitchen. Those slippers didn’t get up and walk themselves away. Keep looking, boy.”
“Yes, ma’am,” my son answered, dejected. “But, um, I don’t really have much time? I need to get back to school for practice. I only came to grab a music book I forgot.”
“You’ll get back soon enough, boy,” the old woman argued.
Slapping the bills on the counter, wanting to fucking strangle her for the way she spoke to him, I leaned in. “You’ll take the money, and you’ll never mention the U.S. Marshals to anyone ever again. Understood?”
“Like I said, I ain’t stupid.”
I shoved a business card into her jacket pocket. Matte black, single embossed word on the front, one number on the back. “Use this number when you need more money, but never berate my son again.”
“Found your slippers, Gram!” My son’s steps echoed in the small house as he rushed down the stairs.
I was already out the back door, pulling it shut behind me when his muted voice carried to the porch from the kitchen.
“Whoa, Gram. Where’d all that money come from?”
“None of your concern, but I decided I don’t feel like cooking lunch. We’re going to that drive-thru you like.”
“Really?” he asked excitedly before his tone flatlined. “I mean, you don’t have to waste money. I can make you something. Mom taught me to cook a few things. And, um, it’s barely past breakfast. I don’t think they’re serving lunch yet?”
“I’m too old to care what time it is or what meal they’ll be serving when we get there. And you ain’t cooking neither. Now get your coat. I ain’t getting any younger.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Ninety seconds later, from a secure position, I watched the sedan reverse out of the driveway. Sweatshirt, hood up, slouched in the passenger seat, I couldn’t see Lincoln’s face.
I double tapped my comms.
“Already on them,” Judas replied.
“Copy.” The car hit the street, and I was Oscar Mike. “Heading to my rental. Stay on them until I fall in on your six.”
“Negative.”
Quickly drawing, I scanned east to west. “Say again.”
There was beat of silence. Then Judas went personal. “I heard the conversation.”
Last night, for security, I’d withheld one detail. This morning, I’d still withheld it. I didn’t comment.
“Go back in the house, Nix. Get your son’s belongings.”
My son. Who I’d never met. Who’d been five paces away from me. Who was now in a vehicle with an octogenarian unfit to drive.
Fuck this. “Oscar Mike.”
“I’ve got his six. You have my word.”
“Don’t handle me, Judas.”
He did exactly that. “You want him going back in that house?”
Fuck. Fuck. “Tail? Company?”
“Negative. No sign of the Marshals or anyone else.”
That didn’t mean they weren’t watching. Not that Judas couldn’t handle half a dozen Marshals, but he had a point. Lincoln wasn’t coming back here, and I didn’t want someone else going through his things. My son had endured enough.
For the second time in five minutes, I made a call that went against every warfighter instinct I had, but this wasn’t the battlefield. This was parenthood.
“Don’t let him out of your sight. Sitrep every ten minutes,” I ordered Judas. “You spot anything, hot extraction protocol.”
“Roger that.”
I made absolutely fucking sure. “Protect my son, Judas.”
A Tier One who had the most nuanced call sign of any operator I knew made me a promise. “With my life.”
Scanning the street one more time, I took him at his word. “Heading inside now.”
“Good copy.”
I went back into the house.