Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
FREAK
Both Bullseye and Tempest stay silent when I finish talking. I suppose I’ve given them a lot to chew on. I’d gotten a bad case of verbal diarrhoea once I’d started, and probably spouted too much. I blame the drinks I had earlier, and the whisky which Bullseye keeps topping off.
“This woman coming here tonight, she stirred up old memories,” Bullseye comments after a full minute has passed.
I raise and dip my chin. “More than that, she’s brought up old concerns.” I look up and meet their eyes. “Bipolar runs in families.”
Prez glances up sharply. “But Ace isn’t bipolar.”
“No,” I agree. “The genes he inherited from Josie manifested as autism instead.” I preemptively glare, in case either offers commiseration.
It may have been a long journey, but Ace is a fantastic kid.
His intelligence is off the fucking scale.
His condition is a blessing, not a curse.
I fucking love my kid and will always defend him.
I underestimated Prez, as he fast cottons on to the heart of my worry. “And now this Antoinette wants to see your boy? You think she might also be unstable?”
“If what she says is right, she’s Josie’s twin,” I remind him.
Tempest looks thoughtful, then offers his view. “Doesn’t mean she is. She might have won the lottery as far as her mental issues are concerned. She could be a well-balanced woman who just wants to connect with her nephew. Makes sense if the rest of her family is gone.”
“I’ve been protecting Ace all my life,” I rasp. “And that’s not going to stop. Just because she’s got a birth certificate that looks genuine…”
“And looks enough like Josie for you to mistake her for your ex,” Prez interrupts.
“Yeah, that, too.” I wave my hand dismissively. “It does mean I want to find out everything about her, including her full medical history, before I even think about letting her within a mile of Ace. But Genie’s drunk himself into a stupor, and Pippa…”
This time, it’s Tempest who doesn’t let me finish, “Is too busy screaming her new husband’s name.”
“Yeah,” I respond, offhandedly.
Prez motions toward my glass, but I’ve drunk too much already, and I really need my senses about me. So I shake my head, and he puts the bottle he’d picked up down.
“How did she find you?” Deep lines appear on Tempest’s brow.
I huff a mirthless laugh. “Because my fuckin’ genius son put his DNA on one of those ancestry databases. They found each other on there, according to her. And get this, they’ve been emailing back and forth.”
“Fuck.” Both Prez and Tempest voice the sentiment simultaneously.
There’s silence for a moment, then Prez frowns. “Freak, Pippa and Genie won’t be able to help until tomorrow. There’s nothing anyone can do now. And you need to talk to Ace before you start thinking about how to proceed. Why don’t you go get your head down, then talk to Ace in the morning?”
“With all due respect, fuck that, Prez. How can I sleep with all this shit going around my head? If Ace has been talking to her? That kid, the one who’s so intelligent he can hack into the most secure databases, shows he’s got so little common sense he’s probably told his aunt that he lives with my ma.
I’m going to sit outside that house until morning to make sure she doesn’t come around.
And you can bet your last dollar, as soon as I can, I will fucking be talking to him. ”
Prez sits back in his seat. After rubbing at his temples, he starts, “You joined the club, what, thirteen years back? Rose up to an officer role fast. We’ve always accepted Ace as yours.
He’s under the protection of the Kings. You’re not fuckin’ alone, Freak.
We’ve got your back, just as you’ve always had ours.
And Ace? Well, he’s got our support on his own merits.
Doubt there’s any brother here that wouldn’t throw down for that kid.
” He points his finger at me. “Agree Antoin-fuckin’-nette turning up out of the blue is suspicious.
We need to know whether she’s got an ulterior motive before she sets eyes on your boy.
I’ll get Genie right onto it once he’s sober.
And yeah, you go watch your mom’s house.
If you need help, call on Dum or Dee. But, Freak?
You need to talk to Ace about the fuckin’ mistake he’s made.
Kings don’t volunteer their DNA for anybody.
” He breaks off, rubs his forehead, then adds, “It could be a problem for you, Freak.”
I know what he’s thinking. “Nah, Prez. The government already has the information on me. I served, remember? Fingerprints, DNA, blood type, identifying features, shoe size, and probably the length of my dick, fucking any and everything to identify my body, Uncle Sam’s got it all.
Ace couldn’t have made it worse. The issue is, he could have.
” Rubbing my temples, I draw in a deep breath. Then I stand. “I’ll get going now.”
“Take one of the club’s SUVs,” Tempest suggests.
At first, I’m going to protest. I ride my bike at all hours and in all weathers, only stopping during the ferocity of the summer monsoons.
A warm late spring evening is no problem.
Except, I’m tired as fuck. Mentally drained and exhausted, not to mention the drinks I’ve consumed have left me a little worse for wear.
I decide four wheels might be safer, and as a plus, in the morning, when I’m bringing Ace back, he won’t be able to avoid talking to me.
I raise my chin and leave them, then hop over or skirt around prone bodies as I make my way out of the clubhouse. Then I exit the compound in the vehicle Tempest had recommended.
As I drive along Ma’s road and park across the street from her Pueblo Revival two-storey home, I eye her property and the surrounding area cautiously.
There are no strange vehicles around, and I’m here often enough, dropping off or picking up Ace, that I would notice anything out of the normal.
I settle in to keep watch, rubbing my sore, tired eyes.
But I’m far from sleepy. I’ve dredged up a lot of history tonight, and my brain keeps reminding me of more and more details.
Dad had died before Ace had been born. Ma never met Josie.
Being an odd one, she didn’t like flying, and the thirteen hundred plus mile distance was too far for her to drive.
Once I’d joined up, I hadn’t been home except for a couple of times.
I admit I was always closer to my dad than to her, and Ma didn’t have many maternal instincts.
I didn’t tell her about the baby – maybe I would have – but being likely to be sent away with the team at a moment’s notice kind of made it difficult to do much planning.
I’d convinced myself that news like that was better delivered in person, with the evidence in my arms. I’d always thought there was no hurry, that there was plenty of time.
Ace had been too young to understand he was being introduced to his nana.
When Josie’s mother had died, time had run out.
I was going to Arizona, no longer employed, a twenty-month-old toddler by my side, and with a fuckton of baggage I didn’t feel inclined to share.
The accidental death of Ace’s mother would be enough for my ma to take in. I didn’t want to complicate matters.
Sitting in the SUV, eyes still firmly fixed on her house, I recall walking up the path with Ace on my hip, supporting him with one hand, my duffel in the other, and a diaper bag hung over my shoulder.
I was Delta Force. I’d faced dangers other men could only imagine in their nightmares.
But turning up unannounced at my ma’s with a twenty-month-old toddler in tow?
I foresaw that it was going to be a whole level of hell, one Dante could never have imagined.
With only a slight hesitation, I pressed my finger to the bell, and only had to wait a moment for the door to open.
I had a second to notice Ma’s face was more lined than when I’d last seen her, and that her hair definitely had more grey than I remembered. But the slight aging was the only sign she’d changed. She’d come to the door with a shotgun, racking it before she’d had a chance to see who was calling.
It had taken a moment for her to recognise me.
The last time she’d seen me, I’d had the short back and sides that my then rank had demanded.
When I became Special Forces, the grooming requirements had changed, something I hadn’t thought to alter since leaving, and my hair now reached down to my shoulders.
When she recognised who’d come calling, the shotgun went down by her side.
“Levi Moore. Ever heard of this new invention called a telephone, that you could have used to warn me you were coming? And what the hell are you carrying?” She peered at Ace.
Thumb tucked firmly into his mouth, his big eyes were focused in her direction. “Where the fuck did you get that from?”
Bending slightly, I lowered my son so she could get a good look at him. “This is Ace, my kid. His mom’s dead, and all he has is me.”
After staring into my son’s face for a moment, she shook her head. “I’ve done my time, raised you, and that was enough. You’re not leaving that kid with me.”
I’d huffed a laugh. “Last thing I want to do, Ma. But I’ve nowhere else to go.
I lost my place on the base as I didn’t re-enlist. I mean, how could I when I had him?
” I’d paused, then when she said nothing, I continued, “I just need somewhere temporary, while I work out where to go and what to do next. And I thought you might like to get to know your grandson.”
“You named him, Ace?”
I’d heaved a heavy sigh. “Fuck, Ma. It’s a long story. But I was overseas and out of contact when he was born. His mother decided what to call him. Thought it odd at first, but have to admit, it’s grown on me.”
Echoing the exhale of breath from my mouth, she stepped back and waved us in.