Phoenix Legacy

by Corrina Lawson

  “I’m…grateful that you forgive me.” He paused. “So, no college for you?”

  “A community college, and some paralegal courses. But…I hated being in an office. It felt confining.”

  “I understand.”

  He would, she thought. “I got a job as a bartender to pay the bills for my community college courses and found out I liked it. I was good at it.”

  “You can multitask.”

  “Not just that. If you work in a crowded bar, you have to recognize the mood of the crowd and how to keep it fun. I was good at spotting ways to do that, good at keeping things lively without getting behind on the drink orders. And I was good with deflecting troublemakers.”

  “You were always good at that. You knew how to avoid my stepfather, or when you couldn’t, you were the best of us at deflecting his rage. So that’s what led you to own Bar & Grill?”

  “Eventually. I worked in some great clubs in Manhattan and saved a ton of money. Like I said, I knew how to work the crowds for tips. I thought I’d open up my own place there. But I found Bar & Grill while just driving around one day. I started by going there once a month. Then it was once a week. When it came up for sale, it seemed like fate. I’ve owned it five years now. I’ll never get rich that way but…”

  “It’s home.”

  “Yeah. Now you’ve got to tell me something.”

  “What?”

  “How did you end up with a daughter? Alec said you rescued her?”

  He smiled—no, it was more of a grin. Alec had said that Hawk adored Beth. That was easy to see.

  “My work with the CIA went well for a while. I started with information gathering, watching people and trying to guess what they’d do next. Like you, I was good at that. And then I was promoted to undercover work. I was excellent at pretending to be someone else.”

  “Is that how you ended up as Philip Drake?”

  “The CIA gave me a new identity when I first went undercover. They needed a default ‘real’ one. So I went with that name.”

  “It suits you.”

  “Any identity apparently suits me. And when I was pretending to be someone else, it was easier to go over the line to stay in character.” He sighed. “Sometimes there was no line. It turned out my handlers cared as little about how they got things done as my stepfather. So long as it got done.”

  She put her hand on his chest. He pushed a strand of hair out of her face and his fingertips brushed her cheek. She blushed.

  “I was already sorting this out when the job came up to rescue Beth. She’d been identified as a telepath and her mother was contacted by the CIA about helping to train her.” He scowled. “She was only eight years old and already people wanted to use her. But then another group grabbed her and killed her mother in the process. My job was to get Beth out and turn her over to CIA handlers, which meant, in the end, turning her over to Richard Lansing. He had a contract with them to raise her.”

  “Alec says you hated Lansing.”

  “Alec certainly talked a lot about me,” he snapped.

  “He’s trying to get to know you better. You confuse him.”

  Hawk grunted. “Getting Beth out of that facility took weeks. I was able to go undercover as one of her guards but getting in is always easier than getting out. Plus, I had to gain her trust or else she would’ve been as scared of me as she was of them.”

  He rolled to his back again. Del put her head on his shoulder. He let his arm rest around her waist.

  “Beth was so little and so brave,” he said, his voice far more animated than before. “We had to work as a team to get her out. I needed her telepathic ability to read minds to get the alarm codes. But we did it.”

  She raised her head to look at his face. He was grinning.

  “And Alec said that you faked her death so you didn’t have to turn her over to Lansing as ordered?”

  His grin grew wider. “She needed a home and a family, not to be turned over to him, not to be trained as a weapon.” He frowned. “I didn’t know he had Alec at the time. In any case, faking Beth’s death worked, though Lansing always suspected I’d hidden her. But he had no proof. I should’ve faded away from Beth’s life, as it was dangerous for me to visit her. Contact between us might have led to her discovery. But she made me promise to come back each time I visited. I couldn’t refuse her.”

  “She loves you.”

  “Yes.” His voice softened. “She’s the one completely good thing I’ve ever done.”

  “You saved my life. So that’s two.”

  He said nothing.

  “So how did Alec enter the picture?”

  “When I found out Lansing had Alec, I knew I had to tell Beth because she’d want to help him.”

  “You gave her the freedom to choose that we didn’t get.” Maybe Hawk hadn’t had a good example to use as a parent but he’d certainly learned what not to do.

  “I tried. And then she chose all this, to walk into this world that I never wanted her in. For Alec.”

  Thinking of Alec, Del could hardly blame Beth. The young man was smart, charismatic and kind. She knew plenty of people who only pretended to be kind. You couldn’t fake that, at least no one could fake that to her. She’d doubted her instincts when she found out Philip was Hawk. Now she knew they’d been right all along.

  “Beth’s still your daughter whether she’s with Alec or not.”

  She felt a vibration from Hawk’s waist. He shifted. “Phone,” he explained. He pulled it from his pocket and checked the display. “Speak of the devil.” He answered. “Yes?”

  “Dad, what the hell is going on with you?”

  Del nearly laughed.

  “What do you mean?” Hawk said.

  “I want to know why your blood ended up all over that room. Alec says it soaked the carpet.”

  Del flushed. She wondered if she should move away and give Hawk some privacy. But he grasped her hand tight.

  “That’s not strictly true,” he said to his daughter. “Much of the blood ended up soaked into my shirt.”

  A pause. “That’s not funny.”

  “But true.” He took a breath. “Delilah Sefton and I had things to work out from years ago. So we did.”

  “Alec said that you and she grew up together.”

  “Yes.”

  A pause. “It wouldn’t kill you to actually tell me stuff instead of evading the question.”

  “I’m not evading. I’m refusing to elaborate. There’s a difference. What I had to work out with Del is private.”

  “Alec said she was a danger to you. He said he didn’t know what was going on when you made him promise to take care of Delilah Sefton and her child, no matter what happened to you. He didn’t realize you made him promise because you thought she might kill you. He only put that together after all the blood. Dad, she hurt you.”

  Alec, Del thought, was no dummy. And Hawk had made him promise to take care of her? He really had thought she might kill him. Her fist clenched as she recalled what it had been like to hold the gun on him. The waist holster dug into her hips. Hawk had walked into that room thinking she would kill him, and he had planned to let her.

  Oh, Hawk.

  “I’m in no danger from Delilah Sefton,” he said into the phone.

  No, not any longer, Del thought.

  “You’re sure?” Beth asked.

  “Certain.”

  “Dad, you make this hard sometimes.”

  “Only sometimes? Tell you what, we can talk it out when you get back.”

  “And you’ll really talk to me?”

  “I’ll try.”

  Del closed her eyes. Beth loved him. They obviously had a good relationship. Hawk could be a good father. Was it even possible, that they’d have even a semblance of a real family after all these years?

  “How is it going in Charlton City with your client?” he asked.

  Del closed her eyes and settled back to cuddling Hawk. She heard Beth say something about her client not trust
ing anyone and being skittish, especially about a telepath.

  “You have to let her decide that she wants help. Back off and work the case instead. Let her see you do that, let her see who you are. She’ll come around.”

  “It’s damn frustrating. She makes me feel like a freak.”

  “If that wasn’t such a sensitive issue for you, Beth, you’d realize that she’s projecting. From what you’ve said, she’s the one who feels like a freak.”

  A pause. “Oh. Right.”

  “There you go. I’ll talk to you when you get back.”

  “I want to meet Delilah Sefton first thing when I get back.”

  Hawk stroked her shoulder. “If she wants.”

  “I don’t care what she wants. I need to talk to her,” Beth said.

  “I’ll let her know.”

  “And try not to bleed all over the carpets again, okay?”

  “No promises.”

  She heard Beth laugh on the other end. Hawk cut off the call.

  “She’s pissed at me on your behalf,” Del said.

  “I’d no idea that would happen. She wants to meet you to read your mind and make sure you’re not going to hurt me.”

  Del sat up. “She could do that?”

  “She can, but normally she doesn’t without permission. I didn’t know she’d be so worried. You don’t have to meet her if you don’t want to.”

  “I want to.” Beth. The older sister of her son. Had that part occurred to Beth yet or was she too busy worrying about her father?

  “How do you feel about trying fatherhood again?”

  His face blanked. “Do you want me to?”

  Answer a question with a question. He feared rejection that much. “I asked first.”

  “I told you, whatever you want.”

  “Then tell me what you want, Hawk. No futzing around. Flat-out tell me what you want.”

  “You kept referring to the child as your son in the conference room. Unconsciously or not, it’s clear how you think of him.”

  “I didn’t—” Yes, she did. “Today’s been a hell of a day. I’m having a hard time adjusting to all these changes.”

  “Then don’t decide anything now. There’s no reason to rush or to have this discussion. We have months. Whatever you want, Lily, that’s what I’ll give to you, for you and the child. I failed once to protect you. I won’t do that again.”

  “You didn’t fail me, you saved my life.” She kissed him lightly on the lips. “I’m pregnant from a medical rape, I’ve been thrown in with a bunch of would-be superheroes, been chased by minions of some villain, and we’ve just had a hell of a reintroduction. I know very little of what I want.” She laid her head on his shoulder.

  “But please don’t vanish, Hawk. Please don’t vanish. I don’t think I could stand to say goodbye to you again.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  It took some time but Del fell asleep. Philip waited until she was breathing peacefully before slipping out of the bed. He couldn’t sleep. He was far too restless for that.

  The door to the apartment opened. Philip drew his gun.

  Alec stopped in his tracks. “That’s the third time you’ve pulled a gun on me. It could make a person paranoid.”

  “Next time, knock.”

  “There’s no one here who’d hurt you or Del, Drake.”

  “No one that I know of.” Philip holstered his weapon. “What do you want?”

  “We found something.”

  Good. He nodded.

  “The address Genet gave to the DMV looks good as a target location. It’s a small office building out in an industrial park in Elizabeth. Looks like a perfect headquarters.”

  “What’s the plan?”

  “I want to go in, now, today. The sooner we get to these people, the sooner Del and her child are safe.”

  Philip nodded again. “Not going alone, are you?” Though Alec was certainly capable of taking on an army.

  “I called in F-Team, but I’m hoping they won’t be needed. We surround and ask for surrender. I’m just waiting on our Homeland Security contact to get the clearance to go in.”

  “Going through these channels could tip them off, if Genet and his people are as well-connected as they seem to be.”

  Alec frowned. “So what would you do?”

  Reduce the building to rubble? No, that would be a bad idea—there could be records inside that could help them track whoever was backing Genet. And it was always possible there were innocents inside the building. Del wasn’t bloodthirsty. In fact, after realizing how close she’d come to killing him, she seemed to have decided against it as a way of solving problems. What she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

  “I’d slip in and take them out, one by one,” he told Alec.

  “You mean, you’d go in and murder anyone who might be a threat to her.”

  “Yes.”

  “And sneaking up on people and murdering them doesn’t bother you?”

  He shrugged. What was more blood on his hands? At least these kills would be for a tangible reason. What had Del said? She wished he didn’t have to kill any longer. But that was preferable to letting anyone harm her or the child.

  “What you’ve done never bothers you?” Alec asked.

  “What do you know about my life, boy?” Philip growled.

  “Nothing. I know nothing about your life except that you’re CIA black ops, that you protected Beth and you’ve got some sort of connection to Del that left you bleeding and bloody in one of my rooms. It adds up to a damn cipher. I want to help, but I can’t begin to figure out how.”

  “I don’t need your help.”

  Philip felt the heat rise in the room.

  “You want a fight, Farley?” he said in a low voice.

  “If that’s what’s needed. Del’s under my protection. I felt that baby with my TK. I’m not about to trust her welfare with a…”

  “Murderer?” Philip said, voice very low. “Sociopath? Insane killer? C’mon, Farley, surely you can think of the words for it.” He felt the quiet stillness descend over him, as it did whenever he faced a mortal threat.

  “How the hell do I know what you’d do with her?” Alec raised his arm, as he did when marshalling his TK and his fire.

  “You don’t.” Philip idly wondered if Alec could kill him. The firestarter had the raw power, but he had a tendency to pull his punches one on one. It’d likely be a draw or they’d kill each other. “Either trust me or get rid of me, if you can. But stop wasting my time.”

  “Why the fuck is telling me what’s going on so hard for you?” Alec backed up, putting space between them. “You got beat on as a kid, Del said.”

  “So what?”

  “That’s all you have to say?”

  “There’s nothing else to say. Now tell me about the Genet operation.”

  “Not before you give me answers.”

  “You’ll get none.”

  Alec took a deep breath. “You don’t have to make this so damn difficult. I’d like to help you and I promised to protect Del. You want me to trust you? Then trust me. Tell me what’s going on.”

  “You owe your life to me,” Philip snapped. “I’m the one who sent Beth in to get you away from Lansing. I’m the one who helped you break free from Lansing. I’m the one who stepped aside when you dragged my daughter into this damned idea of helping people like yourselves.” He rolled his shoulders and drew himself up straight. “Words are nothing. It’s actions that count.”

  “I see your point. Maybe.” Alec paced the room, something he did when he was frustrated. “And the actions that resulted in blood being shed earlier?”

  “My blood, not Del’s. That should tell you all you need to know.”

  The heat in the room ebbed. Alec was powering down. “I didn’t…I don’t understand you.”

  “So you’ve said. Well, you don’t need to. Now back to Genet. What’s your estimated time of departure?”

  They glared at each other for a long moment unt
il Alec finally spoke. “Our ETA is about two hours. I assume you’re coming with us?”

  He’d like nothing better than to confront those who’d wrecked Del’s life. But…

  “What arrangements have you made for Del?”

  “She can’t come on the op, obviously. She’ll be perfectly safe and secure here while we’re gone.”

  Philip blinked. Triggered by Alec’s words, she’ll be perfectly safe, a long-ago scene played out in his mind.

  Lily clung to him, screaming. “No, let me stay with Hawk! I wanna stay with Hawk.”

  “I want you out of the line of fire!” Lily’s father insisted. “There are men with guns surrounding us. You’ll be perfectly safe in the bathroom. C’mon, Lily.”

  She still clung to him. He couldn’t stand to let her go. But he knew they were surrounded. They all might be killed. This was it, this was the end, he knew.

  “Hawk, it’ll be better for her in there,” Lily’s mother said softly. “She’ll be perfectly safe.”

  He nodded, unable to speak. He peeled Lily’s arms away from his waist. She started crying. “I wanna be with you, Hawk.”

  “It’ll be safer there,” he whispered. “Trust me, Lily.”

  She blinked away the tears and followed her mother to the bathroom.

  If he’d kept Lily with him that day, he could’ve protected them both. He could’ve grabbed her and run out to surrender to the Feds. He could have spared her the sight of him standing over her murdered parents. He could’ve started a new life without being a killer.

  Please don’t vanish, Hawk.

  His place was here, with her, now and for as long as Delilah Sefton wanted him to be with her.

  “I’ll stay here with Del.”

  The firestarter’s eyes widened. “You’re kidding.”

  “I won’t leave Lily alone.”

  “Lily?”

  “Del, I mean.”

  “You called her Lily when you were kids together?”

  Philip nodded. “I promised to help her then. I didn’t do it right. I will now.”

  “But there’s the regular guards, and she’s on the secure level, and—” Alec stared at him for a long moment. “You don’t want to leave her side.”

  “No.”

  “Okay.” Alec turned to leave then hesitated. “Beth called me after she spoke to you.”