Victor
J ackson notified Wilson when they arrived at the hotel with Lilly. Jackson carried her in, still wrapped in her Disney Princess blanket. She’d been put to bed wearing her clothes and shoes. Jackson had talked with her in the car as they’d waited. “You’re silly, wearing your shoes to bed,” he’d said.
“Mommy said it would be easier. We’re going on an airplane very early,” she’d said.
Jackson transmitted this info to the Digital Team. They could comb over security video from the airport looking for Stella Adams and Blake Keening and go through the passenger manifests for all flights looking for a party of three, traveling with a small child who was a no show for the flight.
Reina gave her a big hug, so relieved that she was okay and away from Stella and Blake Keening. “I promise you they will keep looking for your mommy.”
“Blake hurt mommy. He hit her,” Lilly said.
Reina hugged her again. “Well, you know what? Your mommy is tough. She’s working hard right now and will be back as soon as she can.” Reina felt kind of bad for lying to her, but she didn’t need anyone telling her that her mommy was as bad of a person as Blake Henning was. She needed to believe her mommy was working to get back to her.
After a drink of water and a snack, Reina put her back to bed. She sat with Lilly until Lilly fell asleep. Then she left the room and went back out into the living room area where Jimmy and Lambchop sat. She wasn’t sure where everyone else was.
“She’s finally asleep,” Reina said. She sat on the couch beside Jimmy.
“Our plane will be here in approximately five hours,” Lambchop said. “You and Lilly will come back to our headquarters in the Chicago area with us and we’ll deliver you to the Marshals. They’ll clear your house in Cedar Rapids out and arrange a new identity for you.”
“My cat?” Reina asked, remembering him. She’d thought about him starving to death while she was in that hole, but hadn’t thought about the cute little tabby since she’d been rescued.
“He’s fine. We stopped by your house when we first got into town. I left out enough food and water for him to last at least a week.”
“Can we stop and get him so I can bring him with me?”
Wilson’s gaze went to Lambchop. If it were up to him, he’d say yes, but Lambchop officially was the team lead.
“Sure,” Lambchop answered.
“What about Lilly? What happens to her now?” Reina asked.
“That’s going to have to be determined,” Lambchop said. “A suitable guardian has to be found.”
“I want to be that guardian. She knows me. I’ve been that little girl whose mom is suddenly gone from her life, and I know how afraid she is right now. She can’t be put with some stranger,” Reina pled.
“We’ll put the request through our boss to submit to the Marshals. They’re going to have to relocate you both anyway,” Lambchop said. “We’ll heavily petition for you to be named as her guardian.”
“Do we really have to leave Cedar Rapids?” Reina moaned. “I’ve only just gotten settled in here and it’s the only place Lilly knows as home.”
“Give us a minute, will you?” Wilson said to Lambchop.
Lambchop nodded. “I’ll call our boss and request you be named as Lilly’s guardian.” He went into the other bedroom and closed the door.
“It’s not safe for you and Lilly to stay in Cedar Rapids. Her mom can’t find you. And Blake Henning absolutely cannot find you,” he said, his tone serious. “And you know that.”
“So, I start over again?” Reina said.
“You and Lilly start over again. Watching you with that little girl, I know you’re the perfect guardian for her.” He beamed her a supportive smile. “Come back to the Chicago area with us, with me,” he said. “I’ll help you get settled in a new life with Lilly there, with me.”
“With you?” Reina asked. “Don’t feel you have to.”
He interrupted her. “I want to. I told you I want you in my life, my life in Chicago, not Cedar Rapids or anywhere else. It’ll be different this time for you, having Lilly with you. I want to help you, Rae.”
“You’ll help me find Lilly and me a place to stay until the Marshals can place us somewhere? I doubt they’ll have a place available near you right away,” she said, not sure she understood the arrangements he was suggesting. She didn’t want to make assumptions, but she saw the raw emotion in his face, in his eyes, and she heard it in his voice. It pulled her heart into a hopeful place. “Last time, it took the Marshals two months to get me settled in Cedar Rapids. That’s going to be so disruptive for Lilly. Her life’s just been turned upside down.”
“My place is a tiny one-bedroom condo, not ideal for a kid for any length of time. We’ll have to work that out,” he answered. “I’m not in town that often, work, though I’ll see what kind of accommodation I can get. The guys with families get more time at home. We all live near our headquarters; many have wives or girlfriends. We’re a tight group. You’ll have a good support system even when I’m away for work.”
He hadn’t thought this through yet, wasn’t sure exactly what he was offering her. All he knew was that he wanted her close, not only to protect her and Lilly, but for them to spend time together. He hadn’t been lying when he told her he wanted a relationship with her. Would it seem too fast, too much pressure if he suggested living together? Was he even considering that as a possible arrangement?
“Could we stay at your place until the Marshals find somewhere for Lilly and me? I mean, if you’re not home much,” she asked tentatively. He’d voiced opposition to his place based solely on thinking it wasn’t good for Lilly.
“It won’t work. Lilly needs her own room. Need at least two bedrooms, maybe three,” he thought out loud. “And I’d like to find a permanent place near my teammates with kids. Several of the teams live in the same townhouse communities near each other. It works well for them. Their places have small back yards. Lilly needs a back yard.”
“Lilly needs stability and to know she’s safe. She needs to know she can count on the adults in her life. That’s more important than the sleeping arrangements.”
“And I have no doubt you will provide her with all of that,” Wilson said. “I have no experience with kids, but I want to try to help Rae.”
Reina’s heart pounded in her chest. Help how? She didn’t want to ask, didn’t want to put him on the spot. He’d said he wanted a relationship with her, but that was before she volunteered to take Lilly on. She couldn’t assume he wanted to be an instant dad. She knew how she felt about him. And that was before that kiss, that incredible kiss. “I want you to help. I, I,” she stammered. “Lilly will be lucky to have you in her life.”
“Just Lilly?” he asked. “This is where I call you out for not telling me how you feel, for not telling me what you want. This is a really big life decision for us both. We just went from knowing we wanted some sort of relationship, where we explore these feelings between us, to planning our lives with the stability a four-year-old needs. If I’m in her life, I’m going to be a father figure. If we’re in a relationship, I’m there helping you be the best mom you can be to her, and to help you pursue all your personal goals, whatever that looks like. My number one job would be to support you and provide for our family. When I’m in town, I’ll want to spend every second with you and Lilly defining and solidifying this relationship. If we’re not ready to live together, maybe we should be roommates living in a three-bedroom place, so we each have our own room, so there’s no pressure. That’s what I was thinking.”
If she hadn’t already thought he was a great guy, she certainly would now. As a matter of fact, she was pretty sure she had just fallen in love with him. He gazed at her expectantly.
“I’ve always gotten into these really fast relationships. In that past life, it was how it went. You hooked up with a guy and he became your old man, your protection, so you lived with him. Sometimes it was a matter of convenience just to have a place to lay your head. But everyone knew it was never going to last long,” she paused and shrugged. “Of course, I didn’t have much in the way of belongings, just what would fit in a backpack and a duffle bag, so it’s not like I was moving a lot of stuff from place to place. I don’t know now if I was really living with them or just staying at their places. But I know with you it’s going to be very different, and not just because Lilly will be there.”
“Yes, it will be,” he said. “I’m suggesting a very long-term relationship, Rae.”
“You just talked about your commitment to us, to me, and called us a family.” She smiled, a big grin on her lips as tears filled her eyes. “I didn’t want to assume you wanted me to live with you, especially now that Lilly is part of the package,” she said. “Not many guys would take on a little girl that isn’t theirs. "
“There’re two of my teammates that are married. We were on a mission in this third-world hellhole. We came across a couple of those containers like they load on the back of semi-truck trailers, the kind that get stacked on boats and shipped all over the world. And inside those containers were hundreds of women and girls, fucking chained like animals in the worst God-awful conditions I’ve ever seen humans held in. We freed them and turned them over to authorities to get them home, to keep them safe. But there was this one little girl, couldn’t have even been four, was a hell of a lot smaller than Lilly. There was no way to find her family. And one member of our team, Madison, she formed an attachment to that little girl. She told her husband she couldn’t leave her, and they were taking her home. He agreed to it because really, what else could he do? She instantly became a mom to that kid, and he instantly became the kid’s dad. I never understood it until I saw you with Lilly and you said you wanted custody. Then I got it. You were going to be Lilly’s mom and because I care about you, I’m going to support you any way I can and I’m going to be the best damn father to that kid I can be. It doesn’t matter if she’s biologically mine or not. This isn’t something a person can do half way. It’s all or nothing.”
Her heart swelled and the admiration and affection, and yes, she was sure, the love she felt for him doubled, maybe tripled. “You’re a unicorn. Men like you don’t exist anywhere but women’s fantasies.”
He leaned into her and kissed her lips. “I’m real, baby, and I mean every word I said.”
“I liked lying in bed with you and won’t want you down the hall in a different bedroom at night. I want us to share a bed. I want to snuggle with you. I want to fall asleep with you holding me and I want to wake up the next morning the same way. I want to go all in on this relationship.”
“Good, me too,” he said. He kissed her again.
“Wait, since when does the DEA have missions in third-world hellholes?” she asked.
“That’s the other conversation we have to have. My job. I carry DEA creds and a badge, and I earned them. But I’m not really a DEA agent, well, not a traditional one, anyway. Some of the guys on my team carry an FBI badge, ATF, CIA, or ICE. Lambchop’s credentials and badge says NSA. The official line is that we’re a special multi-agency task force, but what we really are is a military black ops team operating mostly domestically. Most of us were recruited from the special forces. That’s what you have to know, have to know what getting involved with me means. You’ve already seen the dangerous work we do, but it’s more than that. Our missions are important. There’re not many people who can do what we do, that have the training to do what we do. Often, people’s lives are at stake. We get scrambled at all hours of the day and night if there’s a true emergency. Often plans get interrupted. You have to be okay with it for us to work.”
As Reina listened to his words as he told her what his team really was, what they really did, she shouldn’t have been so surprised. “Razor, Garcia was with the special forces?” Accepting that he was a DEA Agent had been hard enough. Now, knowing he was also a member of the military in the special forces was even harder.
“Yeah, he’d been a highly decorated Army Ranger,” Wilson said.
“Were you a Ranger too?”
“No, I was with Delta,” he said. “I was a sniper.”
This took her by surprise. “A sniper?”
He could see her unasked question all over her face. “Yeah, I took out a lot of really bad terrorists over in the Middle East.” She looked away and he couldn’t read her reaction to his admission. He grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her to face him. “I did my job, Rae, and I did it damn well. And now, I do my job in this unit. We help people. We save people’s lives, and I still do my job damn well.”
She was impressed by how strong and unapologetic his voice was. He was proud of the work he did. He wouldn’t shrink back from it, no matter what she may have thought about it. Now she understood so much about him, about his unit. “I have to believe it takes a very understanding and a self-sufficient woman to be with someone who does your job.”
“Yes,” he agreed.
“It’s a good thing I’m both. I know first-hand, times two, how dangerous your work can be, but also how important it is. Remind me of that if I’m ever less than understanding that you suddenly have to go to work. And I’ve made my own way since I was fifteen, younger really.”
Wilson swallowed her in an embrace. It was all on the table and she was still there, wanting to go all in. And just like that, he was going to have a relationship and be partly responsible for a little girl. And both Rae and Lilly would need to recover from the traumatic events of the past few days. He’d get an appointment with Lassiter ASAP for Rae and get a referral to a child trauma specialist for Lilly. Lassiter would demand a couple of appointments with him too, he was sure. Well, hell.