Chapter 7 #4
I debate my options. Jackson knows that this has become my plan.
When I asked Jackson when we arrived if he trusted me, I could tell that Cassel had already told him what we were thinking, which is why he was reluctant to let me go.
But I also know that Jackson’s not happy about it.
He’d never be happy about me heading right into the lion’s den.
However, I have no beef with these people, so I can’t fathom they’re bringing me in just to shoot me in the head.
They want something from me, and I’m of little use dead.
“Well… let’s go,” I say, leaning Calliope against my shoulder and slinging her strap over my arm before I hurry toward the door that’s lit up by an exterior light. I think Sophia is a little surprised about my eagerness to charge ahead and she momentarily gets left behind.
“They’re probably going to kill me. If they do, please get my son out and back home,” she says.
“I’m glad you didn’t task me with keeping you alive. That would have cost you.”
Sophia eyes me. “I assumed that wasn’t an option after I drew you into this.”
“Yeah, but I at least wanted the option to tell you no to your face. Let’s role-play it, at least. Ask me so I can deny you in a spectacular manner.”
She ignores me and keeps walking until I start glowering at her and she realizes that if she wants my cooperation, she will appease me.
“Oh, great Sandman, will you please save my useless life with your phenomenal and breathtaking skills?” I’ve literally never heard a dryer plea for me to save someone.
Even Tavish bleeding out on an island didn’t sound that reluctant to have my help.
“Every word out of your mouth makes me not want to save you,” I inform her. “It actually makes me want to join their side.”
“Of all people I had to run into, it had to be you,” she mutters.
“Making you the luckiest woman alive,” I say. “I would say the luckiest person alive, but Jackson fills that role because he gets to spend the rest of his life with me.”
“Narcissistic much?”
“Oh ho ho, let us not compare when you’re over there pretending to be Miss Perfect Pants while your husband and son live in ignorant bliss, unaware that their precious family member is a backstabbing, evil woman.”
“It’s better for them.”
“Is it? They were completely unable to prepare, whereas my son has been trained to be a master martial artist. He knows no foe strong enough to take him down.”
“I saw the way he held that knife,” she says very flatly. “You’re fooling no one.”
“I’m fooling everyone,” I snap. “Don’t you dare judge my precious son. Is this because you’re jealous that my son is superior to yours?”
“I looked into him, after you came to my house. And I found it awfully suspicious how he went from being involved in a major crime to suddenly being adopted by you.”
I stop walking and I feel like she understands that she finally said something that I’m not willing to put up with.
“Listen here, Miss ‘So-fee-a,’ I don’t have to help you.
I can wash my hands of this whole thing and turn around and trot on home.
And let me assure you that I will sleep just fine tonight. ”
She hesitates before lowering her head. “I’m sorry.”
“And?”
“Uh… I apologize?”
“And?”
“I won’t tell anyone that you very clearly illegally adopted your son. I truly need your help and am aware that I couldn’t do this without you.”
“And?”
“What the fuck else do you want?” she asks.
“I want it all.”
“Uh… you were right, I was wrong. I’m nothing more than the dirt you walk on. I praise your ability to be the best human alive. Does that satisfy you?”
“Possibly,” I say as I strut up to the front of the building. Sophia pulls open the door, and I step inside to find four rather muscular men awaiting my arrival.
“No wonder you stayed with this family so long,” I comment. “I mean… my husband is still more handsome, but these men look like they’d crush fences with their hands instead of getting stuck on them.”
“What are you even going on about?”
“You’re coming with us,” one guy says.
“Oh nooo, I’m being kidnapped. I never expected this to happen,” I say with much sarcasm.
A woman walks up and orders, “Hand over the weapon.”
“This is just a prop. It’s a Nerf gun, actually. I’m cosplaying as a badass motherfucker.”
“It’s quite obviously not a prop,” she says as she holds her grimy hands out.
I grimace when I see them itching to stroke my baby. “Not going to happen. Jackson is the only other person allowed to stroke her.”
Her face scrunches up, like something I said could possibly have been strange. I bet it’s because she hasn’t met Jackson and only gets to hang around these men whose pecs she could motorboat.
I hear footsteps as a man wearing a suit walks down the hallway. His hands are in his pockets and he’s wearing a warm smile on his face while he strolls up to greet us.
It instantly makes me suspicious.
“The infamous Sandman at my door. Come, come. Let him have his weapons. He’s not a prisoner here, for heaven’s sake. Although… I feel like a grenade launcher might be a tad much.”
“The last guy who fucked me over agrees,” I say.
He chuckles and I find that I already like this man more than Sophia.
“I’m pleased to finally get to meet you,” he says as he leads us down the long hallway. “My name is Teo Barlow. I’m Raul Barlow’s son.”
“I would say it’s a pleasure, but it’s not.”
We move past many doors to the farthest point of the house and into a room with some couches.
“Please, have a seat,” he says with a gesture.
He sits down across from me and leans forward, hands clasped as his men hover behind me and Sophia except for two who take a spot behind Teo.
“I never thought I’d get this opportunity.
We’re about the same age and I’m sure you don’t remember me, but I was sitting at a table with my father while he met with this absolutely dreadful man.
The man was going on and on about these drugs he was planning to implement to keep his prostitutes working for minimal pay.
He was a trafficker who was dragging women and men in for work or sex, and then using addiction to keep them quiet and from trying to run.
“And as I sat there, my father was mesmerized by everything he had to say. I was old enough to understand what he was doing and young enough to question why, but of course I couldn’t say anything.
No, not when my father was raising me to take his place.
But I remember all I wanted to do was leave.
My friends were playing basketball and then they were going shopping to check out these new jerseys.
They were caught up in the life of a normal teenager, and I was left watching my father fantasize about the prospect of humans coerced into sex work.
I’m sure he wondered how he could use it on his killers to keep them in line.
I had opened my mouth to say something—I’m not even sure if I knew what I was going to say—but before I could ‘shame’ my father by speaking, the man’s head snapped to the side and blood sprayed out.
It coated my father and splattered across my face.
“My father grabbed me and tore me to the ground. His guards latched on to me, dragging me back and shielding me with their bodies as that man lay slumped in his chair, blood draining from the hole you had created in his head.”
I watch Teo, wondering why he took so much interest in this.
As a child who grew up in the Barlow family, it couldn’t have been his introduction to violence.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he already knew how to shoot a gun himself and had watched countless others die by that age.
Hell, his father was in charge of numerous killers.
So what made that shot I took so important to him? Unless…
“I became obsessed with trying to figure out who took that shot. It didn’t take long because your handler, Lucas, was more than eager to satisfy my hunger for knowledge.
He even let me meet you, although I still don’t know why.
I feel like everything that man did was like some kind of riddle I was never smart enough to figure out. Do you remember me?”
I don’t. I remember the shot that killed the man he was talking about, but I don’t remember meeting him. Honestly, I paid attention to very little when I was younger. I focused on my job and that was it. The people who Lucas introduced me to were usually of no consequence.
“You see, Sandman, when you took that shot, I envisioned my father being the one in that chair. I thought about what my life would have been like if you’d slid that gun over mere inches and shot the wrong target. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I couldn’t stop wishing for it.”
“Even now… after all this time, that is what you want?” I ask. “That’s why you dragged me here?”
“It is. I want you to kill my father.”
He has some wild delusion that I could end all of his problems just because of a single shot I took many years ago.
“Your father is surrounded by countless men and women who are highly trained to protect him,” I say, realizing that this is why he hired someone from outside the family to go after Waylon and Cam.
“Yes, and what a shame it would be if they all failed,” he replies. “I will give you the kid and let all three of you walk away if you do such a simple thing for me.”
“Simple, eh?”
He smiles at me. “Very.”
“You have plenty of men yourself. Why don’t you do it?”
“Because my father has built up an empire, and if people hear that I was the one who usurped him, they really wouldn’t look at me too kindly. You see, these people worship the ground my father walks on. Oddly, I seem to be the only one who hates him.”
“I see,” I say. “The problem is that I’m retired.”
“Not if you want to leave this place alive with that woman and her son.”