Chapter 8 #2
Rose didn’t have an answer for him, because honestly, there was a good chance she had. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. Letting out a shaky breath, Rose admitted, “I don’t know what I’m doing, Keys. I don’t know how to keep him safe, while also letting myself be happy.”
“It’s a big step,” he said softly. “I’m not offering you anything other than safety, Rose.
You and me, it’s off the table as long as you need it to be.
But you deserve the chance to relax, to take a breather without worrying that the second you let your guard down is the moment it all goes to shit. That’s all I’m offering you.”
Rose stared at her son, refusing to look away. She might break if she did. “Why?” she asked, honestly needing to know the answer. “Why would you do any of this for me? I’m not worth it.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Rose. And even if you weren’t, he,” out of the corner of her eye, Rose saw Keys tip his chin towards Oscar on the slide, “is worth it.”
She was barely holding her tears at bay.
Keys held a tablet in front of her. “Is this Oscar’s father?”
The unmoving, smiling mask of Tyson Kennedy stared up at her from the screen.
Fuck, she hated that smile. Hated the man even more.
He may have given her Oscar, but he wasn’t worth the air he breathed.
Rose did not feel guilty in the slightest for hoping and praying every day that he pissed off the wrong person in prison and ended up maimed or dead.
Hell, she’d even take complete paralysis where his brain was functioning fine but his body was completely immobile.
Maybe then he’d know what it was like to be scared, alone, and held against his will.
Her mouth too dry to speak, Rose nodded stiffly.
Keys lowered the tablet, hit some buttons, and then held up a digital copy of an unredacted file. Beyond the Eyes Only decree at the top, she knew one when she saw one.
Fear turned her blood cold as she read only the first portion, her eyes unable to move from the words released.
“He cut a deal seven months ago,” Keys told her, his voice barely above a murmur.
“To avoid the embarrassment of what he did from getting out, they gave him a new name and a cushy life on the sunny beaches of California. In exchange, he gave them the list of names of his clients as well as his partners within the Marshals agency.”
Rose started to shake. “He’s free?”
“Official records still show he’s in federal prison, but he’s out.” Keys lowered the tablet. “He’s not hunting you, Rose. As far as I can tell, he’s never looked for you. Does he know about Oscar?”
Rose shook her head. “He was… I thought he was my boyfriend.” She sniffled, hating herself for her own stupidity and na?veté. “I thought he loved me. He was my handler in WITSEC.”
“Was it consensual?” There was a darkness to Keys’ voice she’d never heard before in the question.
Rose nodded. “With me, it was. With the others…”
“I read the report,” Keys stated when she stopped talking. “He blackmailed many of his female witnesses into committing numerous sex acts for paying clients.”
Bile threatened to rise in her throat at the knowledge and memory.
“He was grooming me, breaking me in for the others. We started sleeping together almost immediately, and I was careful. Really,” she added quickly, not wanting Keys to judge her further.
“But even protected sex has its risks. Once I discovered his true intentions, I got him arrested, but by then, I was already pregnant. Hell, I was already months along before I really put two and two together.”
His hand closed over hers, engulfing her in his heat. Despite the warm spring day, she was freezing.
“Prior to seven months ago, he was in prison this whole time. So who have you been running from?”
Rose licked her lips. “I suspected one of his partners was higher on the food chain than his immediate supervisor, but I never found any proof. As soon as I learned I was pregnant with Tyson’s child, I knew I couldn’t stay in WITSEC.
But I was in WITSEC for a reason. The 3Ts are like roaches.
Knock them down, but they keep coming back.
Every time I take out or kill a leader, even the lowest members start vying for position.
And they all know I was the one who took down the Congressman. ”
“Did you stage his suicide?”
Rose let out a choked laugh, even though there was nothing funny about her situation. “No. That was all him. I would have much rather he suffer a lot longer than a quick drop and a short rope.”
He squeezed her hand like he understood. “I want you to stop running, Rose.”
“I can’t,” she insisted, panic starting to rise.
“They might not be hunting me now, but the moment I stop, the moment I mess up and someone realizes that I’m alive, that I have a son, they won’t stop until they make him pay for my sins.
” For the first time, she looked at him, meeting his gray-blue eyes.
“I can’t risk it, Keys. Please don’t ask me to.
This is the reason I broke contact with you, because you are the only person in this world who could tempt me to say ‘yes’, to get me to stop running.
Even now, I want you to pull me into your arms, hold me close, and never let me go.
But where does that leave Oscar? What happens to him while I’m distracted by you? ”
Keys stared down at her. At nearly six feet, the bill of her baseball cap came to his bearded chin until he smoothly removed it from her head. Letting it fall to the ground, Keys gently cupped the side of her face. Rose couldn’t resist resting her cheek against his palm.
“He grows up,” Keys told her, gaze boring into hers.
“He becomes a young man, a strong man who knows he’s loved, protected, and cherished.
A man who was taught by his incredible mother what it’s like to sacrifice for those weaker than him, to never hesitate to stand up to those who wish to harm, to take, to bully…
all for their own gain. A man who knows it’s okay to make mistakes, because he’s human, and is never afraid to ask for help.
A man surrounded by friends, family, and endless cousins because my brothers don’t know how to keep it in their pants.
And most importantly, he’ll be a man who knows what he wants in a life partner, because he has witnessed the unbreakable bond between his mother and father, a man who isn’t his blood but loves him unconditionally all the same. ”
Tears streamed down Rose’s cheeks now, her heart beating thunderously in her chest as Oscar’s innocent laughter crescendoed loudly in her ears.
“I’m offering you a home,” Keys continued, one hand still on her cheek and the other gripping hers. “Safety. The ability to stop looking over your shoulder every five seconds. But mostly, I’m offering you revenge.”
Rose stiffened, her fingers tightening around his. “Revenge?”
“You can’t come out of the shadows, can’t stop looking over your shoulder, until there’s no one left who would be standing there.
” Keys moved his hand from her cheek to around her ear, fingers sliding into the hair at the base of her skull.
“And you’ve done such a good job of hiding yourself that no one has a hope of finding you unless we let them.
” Bringing his face down so their noses were nearly touching, he added softly, “So I say, we let them. Bring the roaches out of hiding, and we squash them one by one until the only ones left are too terrified to ever come near you and Oscar.”
Rose was near hyperventilating, though she had no idea if that was from Keys’ close proximity or his words. “You’re serious?”
“Deadly,” he vowed. “And when it’s all over, you can step into the light and live your life as you choose to.”
Nerves caused her knees to weaken, but she did not fear falling. Not with him here. “Did you mean it?”
“Every word,” he vowed. “But what specifically?”
“About loving Oscar? About wanting to be a father to him?”
Keys searched her eyes, though for what she didn’t know.
When he spoke, it was precise and unflinching.
“Every. Word.” She felt his fingers at the base of her skull twitch.
“I have plans for his mother, too. It involves a ring, endless hours of chess, grand adventures in Azeroth, and countless quests through Faer?n. When she steps into the light, I’ll be right there at her side, and when she’s ready, that ring is hers. ”
Rose wondered if this was how parachuters felt, right before they stepped out into the open air.
“I’m not ready yet, Keys. I want to be.” Tears continued to fall down her cheeks as Oscar obliviously climbed the rock wall again.
“You have no idea how much, but I feel like I can’t until I’m free of my past. And maybe it makes me a bad person, but roach hunting has never before sounded like such an incredible idea. ”
“Yeah?” he asked, crooking a smile at her.
Rose nodded. “Yeah. What’s the first step?”
“Well, you’re a bit behind the times, because I’m already on step, like, seventeen.” He tipped his chin down at her hat, which was still on the ground at their feet. “And you’re not going to like this next part, because I’m going to need some of Oscar’s blood.”
Rose blinked rapidly at Keys, and that initial feeling of weightlessness that she’d experienced at agreeing to his plan completely vanished. “I’m sorry, what?”
* * *