Chapter 17 #2
“Me. I can’t let her see me during the day, so I’m watching tonight. I’m going to go over there and shift after dark, watch from the woods closest to the tiny houses,” Ronan said.
“They’re still a fair distance away,” Daniel said.
“True, and after everybody settles down for the night, I’m going to make a few rounds and just watch over them until dawn, then I’ll go back to the woods and stay there, with eyes on their house until people start arriving for work and I see Giada the boys go into the building.”
“You can’t do that. You’ll be late for class,” Bam said.
“No, I scheduled my first class at 10:00 A. M. just in case we ever had fog or something on the bridge so I wouldn’t be late.”
Bam grinned at Maverik. “Always planning.”
“One of us will be there to keep watch with you tonight and at least one of us every night of every week. We’ll come up with excuses to be around on the weekends, too. We got this,” Kaid said.
“Thank you all so much. I don’t know how to thank you.”
“You just did,” Kaid said.
Daniel looked around at everyone. “So, you gonna play the last of this hand or what?”
“I got two pairs,” Kaid said, tossing his cards down proudly.
“I got a straight,” Bam said.
“Read ‘em and weep,” Maverik said, proudly laying out his full house.
“I got a four of a kind,” Bane said.
“Damn it, Bane! Can you ever let me win at anything?” Maverik snapped.
“Apparently not,” Bane said with a smirk, reaching for the pot of about a hundred dollars in the middle of the table.
“Hang on, that ain’t yours,” Daniel said.
“Oh, you’re going to tell me you can beat four of a kind?” Bane said.
Daniel smiled at him coldly and laid out his cards face up for all to see. “I have a royal flush. And that money is mine.”
“Sonofabitch!” Bane exclaimed.
“Yes, he thinks he’s a card shark or something,” Maverik grumbled.
“Sorry to cut my losses and run, boys, but I have to get to the shelter. I’m on duty until tonight when Ronan gets there, keeping an eye on his family. I can pull it off by just saying I have some work to do this afternoon.” He winked at Ronan who smiled and offered his hand to Daniel to shake.
Daniel finished gathering up his winnings and stuffed them in his pocket before he shook Ronan’s hand. “Don’t worry about a thing. We got your woman and your kids.”
“Thank you.”
“Welcome,” Kaid said. “Now, sit your ass down and tell us all about your mate and your boys.”
Ronan’s face lit up as he thought about them, and his words just poured from his mouth without fault as he talked about how sweet, smart and loving Giada was, and how excited and curious Leo and Matteo were.
“Leo and Matteo. I got me two more grand-babies,” Maverik said. “Poppy’s gonna teach them how to hunt and how to track animals and how to shoot a gun and how to do everything!”
“Daddy, you can’t let on that you know anything until Giada and I work things out between us.”
“I got you. I know that,” Maverik said.
“Don’t fix anything,” Kaid said.
“What? What would I possibly do? All I’m doing is helping protect my daughter-in-law and my grand kids when it’s my turn.”
“Thank you,” Ronan said.
“Thank you for letting me be a part of it after me being as much of an ass as I was,” Maverik said.
~~~
“What?” a gruff voice asked when he answered his phone.
“We found her.”
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely.”
“The brats with her, too?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Very good.”
“There’s more.”
“Don’t play games with me! Just spit it out!”
“She went on a date.”
“With who?!” the man demanded, sitting up out of his hot tub as he gripped the phone so hard it made cracking sounds.
“Some fucking kid. We followed him for a while. He’s a fucking student.”
“So she leaves me— ME! — and gets with a damn kid?”
“Yeah. Think it was just a one time thing. He was around a few times, but he ain't been back.”
“She make you yet?”
“No. I’m not there. We got little Stevie pretending to be a bum,” he said chuckling. “He’s living in the shelter she’s working in and she ain't ever met him. She even smiled and talked to him. She ain’t got no clue.”
“Kill them and bring the bitch to me.”
“I gotta find the right time. That place is always crawling with people. I don’t know why anybody’d want to be here.”
“It’s not always crawling with people! They gotta sleep sometime. Wait ‘til the night and kill ‘em.”
“You sure? They’re your kids.”
“What did I send you down there for?!”
“To kill them.”
“Then fucking kill them. And send me pictures! And bring her fucking ass back here so I can take care of her personally. I want her to know it’s her own fucking fault! No fucking body leaves me. Fucking bitch!”
“Consider it done.”
“I already do. Where’s my fucking pictures?”
“You’ll get them as soon as we get a chance to take them out. Might be a few days, they’re not usually alone. And they got wild fucking animals in the woods, Johnnie says. We gotta be careful out here. Some kind of dogs or something.”
“Stop talking to me. Do what the fuck I told you to do.”
“On, it, Boss. I’ll send you pictures and bring her back. Bye.”