I blink back a prickle of tears that take me by serious surprise. “Yes, Ma’am. Thank you.”
“You really can’t tell him no, can you?”
It takes me a moment to finally shake my head and admit it to her. “No, Ma’am. I don’t think I can now.”
“Oh, Declan.” Her thumb strokes my cheek. I press my face into her warm hand, nuzzling her. “He isn’t stable right now. You realize that, right?”
I do, but I don’t care. “I think I’m helping him.”
“I think you are, too, but answer my fucking question, counselor.”
“He’s…not. But he’s getting better. He’s already better than he was.”
“He’s got PTSD. A bad case, which has been untreated and is finally catching up with him.”
She’s not wrong. I nod. “Yes, Ma’am. I believe you’re right.”
“With the stress of the election coming up, he’s only going to get worse if we don’t wrestle him under control. Are you really all-in on this? Because without saying too much, he’s part of the long-term plan. You know this. In fact, without him, I have to start over from scratch with the plan.”
I suppress a shiver because I know what she means. “Yes, Ma’am.”
“Okay. Here’s a new rule for you. If I say no to something, even if he says yes, I’m still your final authority. You have to trust me when I say this intervention is needed. I also have to lay down some new laws and guardrails for the man before he fucks up beyond redemption, personally or professionally. That means a united front from us. Can you do that? Be loyal to me?”
I nod.
“I need to hear you say it, Declan. Pick a side. Now.”
It almost physically scrapes my soul that here, in private, she’s calling me by my name instead of boy.
“Yes, Ma’am. I am loyal to you.”
“I need leverage against him to keep him moving forward and on course. You are now that leverage, since I no longer have Ellen to guide him.”
Fuck. I hate myself, but I still say it. “Yes, Ma’am.”
“Therefore, think about your loyalties for a moment, Dec. Think long and hard. Think about the long game, the promises I’ve made you. Promises I will absolutely keep when the time and opportunity present themselves.” She arches an eyebrow. “We tracking?”
This above all else means I will honor my loyalties to her. “Yes, Ma’am. I am tracking.”
“If I tell you we’re resigning and George is on his own, you walk with me. There is no negotiation about this. I can’t have you undercutting my position with him.”
I have to suck in a breath at that thought, and it’s painful, aching. “Yes, Ma’am.”
“Say it, Declan.”
My breath hitches. “If you say we’re resigning, I resign with you, Ma’am.”
Her gaze softens. She’s still cupping my cheek. “In exchange,” she says, “I’m going to give you to him.”
From despair to hope in the blink of an eye. “Ma’am?”
“You’re still mine, don’t get me wrong. You’re my responsibility. And I’m going to want time with you, obviously. But depending on how my little chat with the man goes this morning…”
She sighs again, and it sounds weary, resigned. “Unless it contradicts something I’ve already ruled on, you’ll be his, at his beck and call, his schedule. I’ll tell you when and how I need you and work around that. If anything skirts the edges of what I have already told you is a no, assume it’s a no until you clarify it with me. If you’re feeling any doubts about something, assume it’s a no until I okay it. Are we clear, boy?”
My pulse races, excitement coursing through me. “Yes, Ma’am.”
She pats my cheek before releasing me. It feels like an eternity before she eventually speaks again. “Get dressed,” she quietly says. “Go home, get your stuff done, and go back to George’s this evening like we originally planned. Do not contact him before you return, unless I tell you otherwise. If he contacts you, forward it to me. Keep your personal phone on and handy in case I need to talk to you. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, Ma’am.” I’d hoped that, at the very least, she’d let me take a shower with her this morning.
But I know better than to argue, or to question her.
I start to lean over and grab my clothes, but she speaks again. “Hey.”
I look up.
She motions with her finger, and I straighten. She leans in and brushes a kiss across my lips. “You’re my very good boy,” she says. “And I love you very much.”
Joy rolls through me. “I love you, too, Ma’am.”
“You already love him, don’t you?”
I start to protest…except I’m not allowed to lie.
And it hits me that admitting it to someone else makes it…real.
“Yes, Ma’am. I do.”
“That’s all right.” She sadly smiles. “I never would’ve done this if I thought it’d harm you, or you wouldn’t want to. I will always protect you, as long as you’re mine. You understand that, right?”
I nod. “Yes, Ma’am.”
“I didn’t arrange all of this just for sadistic kicks, either.”
“I’m starting to see that, Ma’am.”
She even sounds sad. “I honestly think we were close to losing him for good. I don’t think he would’ve survived the election. I don’t mean that metaphorically, either. I mean it literally. I’ve been worried ever since Aussie left for school.”
Shit. Well, that confirms it. It wasn’t just me. “I don’t think you’re wrong, Ma’am.”
“I’m not asking you to tell me everything he says to you, but if you have any hint he might be about to hurt himself—”
“I tell you immediately.”
She nods. “Exactly. Well, you take steps to keep him safe first, and then call me when you can do so without leaving him alone.”
She motions for me to lean in and give her another kiss, so I do. “Let yourself out, sweetie.” She heads for the stairs. “I’m going to take my shower and get some work done before I go talk to George. Text me before you head back to George’s. You don’t have to wait for a reply from me.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
She ascends the stairs, leaving me standing there and full of thoughts that make little sense in some ways. Plausible deniability rules everything she says and does with me and George, especially since he became Governor.
I know she and Ellen were extremely close as friends, and likely had something between them even before Ellen met George. I know Casey used Ellen to help convince George to run for office, to nudge him the direction Casey wanted or needed him to vote or act. Ellen was his political muse, fed intel by Casey.
But now, as the governor’s chief of staff, Casey’s had to be extremely careful how and what she says to him without that extra buffer of Ellen to help feed things to George. She’s walked a treacherous tightrope between best friend and trusted advisor.
I wonder how far she’s willing to take this.
As I start to get dressed, I realize the question isn’t how far she’s willing to take this, but how far am I?
The answer to that, of course, is as far as I need to.
Chapter Three
Then
I was three weeks shy of fifteen years old when Casey-Marie Blaine first walked into my life. Mom and I were living at a homeless shelter in Nashville, where we’d been staying for the past two weeks.
Both of us were still shell-shocked, I think.
This day, we occupied a small conference room in the administration building of the Catholic church that ran the shelter. I remember sitting there and watching Ms. Blaine as she talked with Mom, going over things with her, listening to her as she described Mom’s options.
We had…well, nothing.
Literally, the sum of our belongings was the clothes we had packed into two suitcases in the tiny room the two of us shared.
And a photo album.
Not that we had a l
ot to start with in the decrepit, one-bedroom single-wide just outside Murfreesboro that we’d lived in all my life. Mom and Emma had shared the bedroom, while I slept on the ancient couch in the living room.
I remember feeling impressed that Ms. Blaine spoke Spanish fluently, meaning I didn’t need to translate for Mom. Mom could do okay for work, usually. She didn’t have to know a lot of English while working as a housekeeper at a local hotel, which was what she’d done for as long as I could remember.
For something like this, legal issues, it went beyond Mom’s limited English. She also couldn’t read much English, other than price tags, menus, or street signs.
I also remember feeling vaguely relieved that we might not be forced to flee to Mexico after all, a place I’d never visited despite Mom being from there and still having family there. I honestly didn’t understand why Mom had floated that option a few days ago. She had her green card but had never become a citizen. Emma and I were both born here, in Tennessee, and our father was an American citizen.
We were, however, Terrance Ronald, Sr.’s dirty secret. which was a fact Mom and Emma both managed to keep from me for most of my life.
Until two weeks earlier, when our world disintegrated.
Ms. Blaine’s voice sounded low, soothing, gentle, her Spanish flawless and unhesitating, as if she grew up speaking it natively. I could tell Mom liked her.
Mom had spent most of the last two weeks crying and practically paralyzed with grief and fear.
Which was something I didn’t understand, at first—her fear. I thought Emma was simply another victim of a random crime, murdered after she returned home from work. She’d quit school four months before, after she turned eighteen and Mom couldn’t stop her, and went to work full-time to help pay the bills. I was a sophomore in high school. Emma told me she’d get her GED later, but she wanted me to go to college because I had the grades to possibly get a scholarship.
I wasn’t home that afternoon. After school, I went to my friend Corbin’s house, to help him study for his Spanish test. Otherwise, I might have been dead, too. Corbin was one of few friends I had in school. I tended to get snubbed because we were poor and Hispanic. I had to file paperwork for free lunches every year, which always led to nasty comments being slung at me in the halls.
It meant I spent a lot of time studying, because if I wasn’t going to be popular, at least I’d show all those fuckers I was smart. Some of them knew Emma had dropped out. That led them to sneer at me, tell me they thought she’d probably gotten pregnant, told me I was a worthless wetback, that I wouldn’t amount to anything.
You name the slur, I heard it.
But not Corbin. He wasn’t one of the popular kids. He was, however, wicked good in math and helped me with my algebra homework in exchange for Spanish tutoring.
That’s why, on that day, Corbin’s dad drove me home after they fed me an early dinner. Fortunately, the man hadn’t pulled away yet when he heard me scream after opening the trailer’s door. He came running, gun in hand, just to reholster it. Then he grabbed me by the arm and dragged me outside while he called the cops from his cell phone.
There was no doubt Emma was dead. Even I could tell that from the brief look I got. Between all the blood, and the fact that she was lying there with her eyes wide open…yeah.
He kept me outside, held on to me, refused to let me go back in there to her. He talked to the police when they arrived, still holding on to me.
Hell, thank god he was there, and could vouch for my whereabouts all afternoon, or the cops might have tried to blame me for her murder.
Later, while the cops followed us, he drove me to the hotel where Mom worked so the cops could break the news to her.
Because Mom didn’t have a car, the man then drove both of us back to the trailer. Mom made me sit out in the car with him while she packed for us, grabbed the photo album and paperwork, and we never went back. We couldn’t now, even if we’d wanted to.
Later that night, someone burned the trailer down.
As of this day, no one had been arrested for any of it. Emma’s body was still at the Davidson County Medical Examiner’s office, because we didn’t have the money for a funeral. We spent that first night at my friend’s house, but when we learned about the fire, the detectives working the case suggested we might want to leave the area until they made an arrest. Mom pulled me out of school, even though there were still six weeks left in the school year, and someone from her church drove us to Nashville.
Where we now lived in limbo without any money to our name. I’d been attending the small private school attached to the church, which I hated compared to public school. I missed my friends, I missed my teachers. I’d loved school.
I missed Emma. I didn’t know what I was going to do without my big sister.
I finally tuned back into the conversation when Mom burst into tears again. When Ms. Blaine’s gaze met mine, I felt something spark within me.
Which I assumed meant I was a horrible person. Hello, my sister had been brutally murdered, we were now homeless, and I was sitting there trying to corral my fourteen-year-old libido.
Ms. Blaine switched to English, which I didn’t understand why, at first. It wasn’t until weeks later that I realized it was because she didn’t want Mom to understand what she was saying.
“Have you ever met your father?”
I shrugged. “A couple of times, when I was really little. I barely remember him. I haven’t seen him in years.” I shoved a bitter flood of anger aside. I didn’t even have any pictures of me with him, or of him with Emma. “He moved away for work and never got in touch with us again.”
That’s what Mom and Emma had told me.
Ms. Blaine shuffled through some papers she’d brought with her, then consulted her laptop. “You’ll be fifteen in two months?”
“Next month,” I said. “Three weeks.”
“We need to change your last name.” She leveled a serious gaze at me, practically ignoring Mom now, who sat there crying.
Her observation didn’t make sense. “Why?”
Her gaze cut to Mom, then back to me, while a shiver of the not-so-good kind washed down my spine. “I think it would be safest if we changed your last name.”
“To Gutierrez?” It was what Mom used, even though her full last name was Espinoza Gutierrez. Emma and I both had Ronald as our last name, because it was our father’s last name. Hell, I had no idea where the guy lived to tell him Emma was dead, not that he’d probably give a flying fuck.
Ms. Blaine smiled, but I could see it was for Mom’s benefit, not mine. “No. To something completely different. Under the circumstances, I can get it pushed through tomorrow, unless I can see him in chambers today. I have a judge who will be sympathetic. We need it done now.”
“Why? Before school’s over?”
“Sure, let’s go with that.”
That was something else I liked about her the more I got to know her, that she didn’t treat me like a kid. She was honest with me.
Like recognizes like, I guess. Even back then.
It also immediately clicked why she wanted to push this point. “You think Emma was targeted? That they might come after me, too?”
Her gaze never left mine, but when she next spoke, it was in Spanish to Mom, suggesting she take a few minutes to go wash her face and blow her nose. Mom excused herself, leaving the door standing open behind her.
Ms. Blaine glanced at me and didn’t even have to speak. The look and slight head tip she gave me had me standing and hurrying to the door to close it, then back to my seat.
She leaned in and dropped her voice, speaking in English again. “You’re in danger, Declan. I can’t tell you everything because it could expose me and you and your mom to stuff I can’t protect either of you from, much less myself.”
A chill washed through me. “We don’t have the money to pay you. Father Benjamin put in the request for an attorney to talk to her. We…” I choked back tears. “We can’t eve
n bury Emma.”
She sighed. “That’s going to be taken care of.”
“How?”
“Don’t worry about it. Pick a new last name. Something not your mom’s last name. We’ll add it to your name.”
“Why not a full new name?”
“Your mom doesn’t fully understand how much danger the two of you are in right now, and it’s far better for her if she doesn’t. You’re a smart kid, and you need to know this.”
“Why don’t you want to change her name, too?”
“Because she’s got a green card, and it’s twenty kinds of complicated. Besides, it’s not your mom they’ll be after. Pick a new last name.”
I remember sitting back and struggling to process what she’d just told me. My gaze fell on a poster on the wall, advertising a summer fair they were going to have in a few weeks. St. Howard’s Catholic Church.
“Howard,” I numbly said, meeting her gaze.
She nodded and tapped something into her computer. “We’ll drop your middle name, Terrance, and make it Ronald. That way, if there are any problems with the school records at some point, hopefully that’ll be enough to smooth it over.”
“Won’t someone be able to find me, though? Through my mom’s name on the papers?”
“No. The name change will be sealed by the judge. I’ll have them amend your mom’s name on the new birth certificate. Drop the Renata and Gutierrez, so she’s listed as Elena Espinoza. You’ll get a new birth certificate, new social security number—everything. Then we’ll get you enrolled in school here in Nashville. Declan Terrance Ronald will cease to exist. Hopefully, it’ll be enough. It’s the best I can do, for now.”
I struggled to process all of this. “You’ll enroll me in public school?”
“Yeah. But I need your help with something.”
“What?”
“I need your mom to sign a power of attorney for me to handle things for her. I don’t want to upset her any more than she already is, and we need to do this fast and quietly. The less information she knows, the better off she’ll be. I need you to tell her to sign it. Say it’s paperwork I need to represent her, and to help make the arrangements for Emma, which isn’t a lie.”
Solace (Devastation Trilogy Book 2) Page 3