Chapter 7 #3
WiseWave620: I get it. I’m nervous about finally meeting you, too. I feel like you know me better than anyone, and yet we’ve never been in the same room before.
Gl!tch.OS: Same, but that’s not what I meant.
WiseWave620: What did you mean then?
Gl!tch.OS: I can hide OS from your men. I can’t (or won’t) hide him from you.
WiseWave620: Your son is safe with me, Rose. I swear it. I might not be a big macho warrior like my brothers or my men, but I can still protect you.
Gl!tch.OS: Don’t bring yourself down like that. You’re every bit the warrior they are. You just have different skills.
WiseWave620: Thanks for saying that, but no I’m not. I’ve never been able to take any of them in a fair fight, let alone a true one.
Gl!tch.OS: You know better than anyone that not every battle is fought face-to-face. They wouldn’t be able to accomplish half of what they do if it wasn’t for you.
WiseWave620: We got off topic.
Gl!tch.OS: I don’t care. Say it.
WiseWave620: Say what?
Gl!tch.OS: Say you’re every bit the warrior they are! And fucking mean it, Keys.
WiseWave620: You’re hot when you’re bossy.
Gl!tch.OS: SAY IT!
WiseWave620: Fine!! I’m every bit the warrior they are.
WiseWave620: & I mean it.
WiseWave620: Happy now?
Gl!tch.OS: Ecstatic.
WiseWave620: Glad to hear it. Can we get back to the topic?
Gl!tch.OS: I never doubted your ability to protect and provide for us. & I’d like to remind you that I’ve done a damn good job protecting and providing for us before your penis came into the equation.
WiseWave620: Please leave my penis out of this conversation. He’s done nothing to you.
Gl!tch.OS: Nice double entendre. Intentional?
WiseWave620: Happy accident.
Gl!tch.OS:
WiseWave620: Glad my penis amuses you. Back to the topic at hand, I know you’ve done an incredible job on your own. My point is that you don’t have to BE on your own anymore.
WiseWave620: & neither do I.
Gl!tch.OS: Which I love! You have no idea how much. I want there to be an “us” in the future. A real us with cuddles and kisses and bedtime stories and vacations and…everything.
WiseWave620: Me too. It’s all I dream about, Rose. I’m trying to make a life here worthy of you.
Gl!tch.OS: But I don’t know how to get from HERE to THERE. I know it sounds stupid and silly, and please don’t ever think I don’t trust you. But I don’t know how to let you in more than I already have. I don’t know how to come out of the shadows.
WiseWave620: Look, as much as I want to tell you to just tell Thorne to bring you here instead of to your new destination, I’m not going to.
It has to be your choice. It’s always your choice, Rose.
All I’m going to say is that my door is always open.
You never have to worry about me not being here when you’re ready.
Gl!tch.OS: I am working on it, Keys. It might not seem like it, but I am.
WiseWave620: The fuck?!
Gl!tch.OS: What? I was being serious!
WiseWave620: No. No. Sorry, not you.
Gl!tch.OS: What happened?
WiseWave620: Um. I gotta go. Ghost just paid a prostitute $1000 in Knoxville when he’s supposed to be in Alabama at Ranger’s sister’s wedding.
* * *
“Are you sure?”
Though nervous, Rose nodded. “I’m sure. I need to start stepping out of my comfort zone, and I’d rather do that with you here than not.”
Thorne towered over her, looking very much like a brick wall.
The furnished condo she was renting this time was outside of Chicago, overlooking Lake Michigan.
It was on the tenth floor of a high-rise and in a secure building.
The older couple who was renting it out only had the listing available for three weeks, which was perfect.
She never wanted her moves to become predictable, and lately, she’d been trying to stay in each location longer and longer for Oscar’s sake.
And Chicago wasn’t that far from Pennsylvania.
It was…a step in the right direction, even if it was a very tiny baby step. But Thorne was supposed to be leaving in a few hours, and she wanted to utilize him while she could.
Over the past several months, since Keys had been sending the brothers to escort her between locations, she’d gotten to know Thorne and Goose pretty well.
Thorne was more aloof than Goose, who at least knew how to smile.
She’d only met Grimm, the youngest of the three brothers, once, and she couldn’t help but think that his name was a bit on the nose.
Based on her own research of the three brothers, they’d all been Navy SEALs, though they served in different units and over different years.
Grimm was the most recent to retire, and from what little Rose saw, a part of him was still living in a war zone.
He couldn’t even look her full in the eye, and perceived everything as a potential threat. He made her paranoia seem like blissful ignorance.
It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Grimm. Keys trusted him, which meant that she did, but there was an eeriness to him that made her uneasy. She wasn’t sure if it was by design that he hadn’t been back since, but she was secretly grateful for it.
Thorne was gruff and stoic, but he was also kind and patient.
He respected her privacy, and like a dutiful soldier, did not ask questions.
Goose also kept his mouth shut, but he was the most relaxed of the three brothers.
Not jokingly, he didn’t have a class clown personality.
Just more laid back. She’d even caught him making funny faces at Oscar once.
“If we do this, then I have rules,” Thorne informed her, crossing his arms over his chest. Rose nodded.
“Sneakers and trackers on both of you. You will be armed with one of my spares, and never out of my sight. And you’re not going to like this last rule.
” He bent lower to be more on her level. “I need to know your kid’s name.”
Rose frowned. “You can call him ‘OS’.”
“In an emergency, he’s not going to reply to OS. Also, I’d like to point out this is the first time I’ve had confirmation that he’s a boy. You keep him hidden with glasses and a baseball cap. I assumed, but I didn’t know.”
Rose cursed her slip up, but she supposed she had to relinquish that information at some point. Fuck. Maybe this was a bad idea. She didn’t need to do this now. There was nothing specific about today.
Looking over her shoulder, she found Oscar playing with one of the LEGO sets Keys had bought him. Oscar deserved this—and frankly, so did she. She needed to stop just saying that she trusted Keys and actually start trusting him. Especially if they wanted even a chance at a future together.
Crap. Not knowing what else to do, Rose pulled out her phone and typed one word.
Gl!tch.OS: Oscar.
Not waiting for a reply, she returned her phone to her back pocket and looked up at Thorne. “My son’s name is Oscar, and he’s never been to a playground before. I’ll go get the trackers. And you don’t need to give me your spare. I have my own gun.”
* * *
“Is he asleep?”
Rose looked to her left to see Oscar was dead to the world.
While he no longer slept next to her since Keys had bought him a Lightning McQueen toddler bed.
They were still in the same room, which allowed her to keep an eye on him and made it easier when he wanted to crawl into bed with her in the mornings.
But it was a start to, maybe, eventually, giving Oscar his own room so, hopefully, Rose could have someone else in her bed.
Like a handsome tech nerd who made her heart flutter even after almost two years of near-daily communication.
“He’s out,” she confirmed softly. She was wearing headphones so Keys could talk normally while they video chatted.
In the background of the video, she could see him walking down one of the halls in his building.
She hadn’t been paying attention to where he was specifically, though she had wondered why he was at his building so late.
It was nearing midnight where she was in Chicago, which meant that it was nearing one in the morning for him.
Poison and the Non Cras were heading down to south Mississippi to investigate accusations of a town mayor embezzling from a town.
Normally, that wouldn’t be something the Non Cras would bother with.
That was the town’s problem, and they had bigger fish to fry.
But Rose had found a connection between the missing money, a lack of funding for the fire department, and a string of house fires that resulted in the deaths of three elderly residents.
The land those homes sat on was also prime real estate that had been in families for generations, and was now being sought after by developers.
And that was exactly the sort of crime Poison’s MC looked into.
It could be that the thieving mayor had nothing to do with the fires, that the developers saw an opportunity when they realized how defunded the local fire department was, or they could have paid the mayor to specifically target certain systems that made those houses vulnerable.
Either way, three people were dead. And despite the mayor being cleared of all charges by a jury of his peers, he hadn’t been tried by a jury of the Non Cras, who would also judge and execute, if found guilty.
Keys stopped before a door. “Okay, please keep an open mind.”
Rose frowned. “About what?” From the limited view of the camera, she still couldn’t tell where he was. Her laptop was across the bed on the nightstand, and she was already curled up like a burrito. Keys would get to the point of this conversation and where he was eventually.
“I don’t want you to think this is me pressuring you in any way. But I wanted to show you something I’ve started, so you know, when you are ready, so am I.”