Chapter Fourteen #3
I approach the front window from the side. No one on the porch. No vehicle in the drive. Prospects should be watching the road, but the trees are thick and the day is dimming.
Another soft sound.
Not a knock.
Something shifting in the wind.
I open the door with my body behind it, one hand low near the gun I moved to the side table after the church bulletin.
On the porch sits a box.
Small.
Wrapped in brown paper.
A white bow on top.
My blood goes cold.
I step out and scan the yard.
Nothing.
No movement.
No engine.
No footsteps on gravel.
Whoever left it is gone, or they want me looking away from the house.
I back inside, shut the door, and lock it.
Amelia’s voice is thin. “What is it?”
“Box.”
Her face goes white.
August stands in the fort. “For me?”
No one answers.
That is answer enough.
He starts toward us, and Amelia catches him.
“Stay with me.”
“But it has a bow.”
I set the box on the kitchen table like it might bite.
It’s light. Too light to be a bomb unless somebody got creative, and I have had enough creativity from religious assholes this week.
It’s addressed. Delivered by the mailman.
Fuck. Of course the prospects watching would let the mail come. There is writing on the top.
August Vale.
Amelia makes a sound.
Small.
Broken.
My vision goes red at the edges.
Derby, think.
I pull out my phone and call Wildcat.
He answers on the second ring. “Yeah?”
“Package on my porch. Addressed to August. Brown paper. White bow. No sender.”
His voice changes. “Don’t open it.”
“No shit.”
“I’m two minutes out.”
“Make it one.”
I hang up.
Amelia is holding August so tight he squirms.
“Mama?”
“It’s okay,” she says.
It ain’t.
We all know it.
The kid looks at the box with the awful hope children have when something bears their name.
“Maybe it’s a dinosaur,” he says.
Amelia closes her eyes.
I want to murder someone with my bare hands.
Wildcat arrives in less than two minutes with Oaks behind him, both moving fast and quiet. They check the box outside on the porch while I keep Amelia and August in the kitchen, away from the windows. August is confused now, getting scared because the adults are too still.
Finally, Wildcat comes back in holding the opened box.
His face says enough.
“What?” Amelia whispers.
Wildcat looks at me.
I step forward and take the box before she can.
Inside is a dinosaur.
New. Blue. Plastic. Bigger than Blue Rex.
A kid would love it.
That is the sickest part.
Under it is a folded note.
I open it.
Three words.
Daddy knows best.
Amelia makes a strangled sound.
August pulls away from her enough to see. “Is that for me?”
No one speaks.
His lower lip trembles. “Is it from Daddy?”
Amelia drops to her knees in front of him. “Baby…”
“How did he know I was here?”
There are questions that should never come out of a child’s mouth.
That is one of them.
Amelia’s face crumples, but she fights it because he is watching. “I don’t know.”
I do.
Maybe not the details.
Not yet.
But I know enough.
He reached for the kid.
That changes things.
Something cold and clean settles in me.
Oaks sees it.
Wildcat sees it.
Amelia sees it too.
She stands slowly, August tucked against her side, her eyes on mine. She is terrified. She is angry. She is asking me not to become another man making decisions over her head.
I hear her without words.
I set the note on the table.
Then I crouch in front of August, holding the dinosaur box but not offering it.
“Kid.”
His eyes are wet. “Can I have it?”
Every answer is wrong.
I choose the one that doesn’t lie.
“Not yet. Wildcat’s got to make sure it’s safe.”
“Because Daddy sent it?”
“Because somebody did.”
“Daddy knows dinosaurs.”
Amelia flinches.
I keep my voice steady even though I want to tear the world in half. “Maybe. But you know what Blue Rex says about surprise evidence.”
August sniffles. “Check it before court.”
“That’s right.”
He nods slowly.
Trusting me.
Damn it.
I look up at Amelia.
Her hand is over her mouth.
I stand.
Oaks’s voice is low. “Prez needs to know.”
“Yeah.”
Wildcat holds up his phone. “Already called.”
Good.
Because if I called Legend right now, my voice might start a war before we have a name to shoot.
Amelia whispers, “I left today.”
I turn to her.
“I left, and he found us.”
“No.”
Her eyes fill with tears. “I wanted one errand. One normal thing. I wanted to prove I could come back, and now…”
“No.” I close the distance but stop before touching her. “This ain’t because you left.”
“It feels like it is.”
“That’s what men like him do. They make freedom look like punishment.”
She breaks then.
Not loud.
Her face crumples. One sob gets out before she swallows the next.
I can’t stop myself.
I reach for her, slow enough that she can step back.
She doesn’t.
She steps forward.
Into me.
August between us, pressed to her side, and I wrap one arm around both of them because there is no way to hold her without holding the kid too.
And there it is.
The thing I have been running from since a pair of granny panties hit my face on a dark Kentucky road.
Not fake.
Not pretend.
Not strategy.
A woman shaking against my chest.
A child under my arm.
My house around them.
A threat on the table.
I look at Oaks over her head.
My voice comes out calm.
Too calm.
“Tell Legend I want Vale.”
Amelia stiffens, but I don’t let go.
I lower my mouth near her hair and say what I should have said first.
“Not without you. Not over you. With you knowing every step.”
She pulls back enough to look at me.
Tears on her face.
Fire underneath.
“Good,” she says.
One word.
Not permission.
Not approval.
A warning.
Good.
The woman is still standing.
Outside, Widowmaker waits in the driveway with rain drying on her black tank and a stupid dinosaur keychain hanging from my keys inside.
Inside, my house smells like cereal, fear, and a war starting.
Jeremy Vale has just put his hand inside my home without opening the door.
I’m going to break every finger.