Tristan #2
“Trevino?” Ben calls after me as I walk toward the busy street. “Where the fuck is Isolde? I know she’s not at her place.”
Ciaran answers me on the second ring. “Hey, is Ia—”
“Cade’s got a Spider working for him.”
“Is that supposed to mean something?”
“Talk to your uncle.” Boris knew the O’Connells would understand, meaning Cormac O’Connell would understand.
“Tell me what it fucking means,” Ciaran demands. “I’m dealing with enough shit as it is. I’m not decoding secret fucking messages.”
“Just talk to your—”
“Trevino!” I turn to find Adeline with her arms crossed over her chest. “We need to talk, Mr. Hot Grumpy Bodyguard.”
“Who the fuck is that?” Ciaran snaps.
“I’ll talk to you later.” I end the call.
Adeline arches one perfectly groomed eyebrow. “I know something’s going on with Isolde. Tell me why she ran off yesterday.”
“You should talk to your dad.”
Her face screws up. “My dad?”
“I’ve got to go,” I tell her. “Ben’s inside.”
“Wait.” She grabs my arm.
I like Adeline. She’s much more serious than she first appears, though, she’s quick to smile at everyone. She gets along with the guys and treats Isolde well. But I can’t stand around on the sidewalk all day. I need to get back to Isolde.
“I want to help,” Adeline says. “Tell me how.”
“Help me figure out how to take Cade down.”
Abe’s dad is in the kitchen when I get back to the safe house. Standing right next to him is my father.
“What are you doing here?”
“Luis called me,” he replies, slicing an avocado. “He’s afraid you’re upset with him.”
Abe’s dad politely retreats to the living room, where the doctor also sits.
“Isolde is okay,” Dad says. “Still resting. Jane’s with her. They’re a very nice couple. They told me their son is good friends with you.”
“Yeah.” If I know anything about Abe, he’ll try to strangle me for what happened to Isolde. It’d be nothing more than a sweet gesture since he’s got the strength of a gnat. “Dad. . .”
He glances at me over his glasses.
“Thanks for coming.” I’ve done everything to keep him away from these types of situations. Currently, I don’t care about any of it. I’m grateful he came.
He finishes slicing the avocado, offering me some. I try to decline, but he insists. “It’s important you take care of yourself too.”
“I’m not upset with Luis.”
“Of course you are,” Dad says. “Why wouldn’t you be mad at everyone right now?”
“You taught me not to dwell on the things that aren’t useful.” Not that it’s ever stopped me from taking a sledgehammer and smashing the world apart.
I’m angry I didn’t know who the Spider was. I’m mad I haven’t done more to take Cade down. The Russians literally told me all I could do was prepare for an attack.
I’m supposed to be the guy who protects Isolde, and I’ve failed in every way possible.
Part of me thinks I’ve been set up for failure.
Hadrian and Isolde didn’t tell me shit. It’s not like I can take Isolde by the shoulders and shake her.
Hell, I can’t even pull her into a hug because I’m afraid it’ll aggravate her wound.
I keep it to myself, but the truth is I’m hanging on by a thread.
“I almost lost the house once,” Dad says, slicing a tomato now.
“What?”
“I was young.” The tomato slices are thin because he claims it’s easier to eat that way. “The American dream, you know.”
He’s said this phrase several times now.
“I wanted to provide a home for your mother, who had just brought you home from the hospital. It should have been perfect. I had a steady job, a son, and a wife who. . .” Dad blinks, taking a breath.
“The water heater busted. Then the heater itself in the middle of winter. Our savings gone. The bills and insurance higher than I expected.”
He adds the tomato and avocado to a slice of bread and then grabs lunch meat from the fridge. Either he brought more groceries, or Abe’s dad made a trip. There’s a stack of Tupperware indicating how he spent his day here.
“Your mother told me she had gotten a job as a bank teller. That your grandmother had agreed to watch you. I’d never felt so ashamed in my life.”
“Mom was just trying to help,” I reason. That’s what they both did. Living a humble life, within their means.
“Yes,” Dad agrees, sliding a sandwich over to me. “But I’d had a plan, and it frustrated me when it all went to shit.”
My dad rarely curses.
“Your mother told me to get over my pride. That being a two-income family meant more savings. Layoffs were common back then, and I’d just started with the city.
Looking back, she was wise to realize it’d be a good idea in case something happened to one of our incomes.
But it took me a long time to realize that,” he clarifies.
“Because for months, if not longer, I carried around that failure. The knowledge that I’d moved us into a home and had almost lost it after only a year. ”
“You’re the one who taught me to keep going,” I say, swallowing the first bit of food I’ve had in twenty-four hours. “To make a plan and stick with it.”
It’s why I’ve got soccer trophies in my childhood bedroom.
“To put in the practice,” I add, thinking about all the time I spent in the gun range.
“And what did your mother teach you?”
I think for a moment. “That sometimes to achieve your goal you have to make changes to the plan. That it’s okay so long as you get to the end result.”
She told me that when I broke my wrist in the ninth grade. I should’ve made the varsity soccer team, but the injury meant I wouldn’t be able to until my sophomore year.
“This is a setback, son. I know it frustrates you, seeing Isolde hurt. You take after me and hate failure.”
That’s what the swirling, crush of unease in my chest is. I failed to keep Isolde safe.
Dad makes another sandwich, passing it over to me. I take it without a second thought, giving in to the gnawing hunger.
“I don’t know what to do,” I admit, aware of the Fujimori’s in the living room.
“Even if you did, it’s not just about you,” Dad says. “This is Isolde’s life, isn’t it? How does she want to move forward?”
I suck avocado off my thumb. I’m inclined to believe Isolde isn’t in any position to be making plans, but Dad corrects me.
“Jane got her to sit up,” he says. “The doctor says she can move around.”
But she doesn’t want to. It’s natural when the body goes through trauma, depression can hit hard and fast. Those texts from Lennie and Adeline stick out in my mind. Adeline had sent Isolde contact information for a therapist before yesterday’s attack.
Isolde’s in the thick of this. And I’m praying she’ll find a life raft before another Spider shows up.