by Vivian Ward
Fearful that they might go off at a moment’s notice, I froze and looked at my dad. I pictured Bentley and what he looked like that morning as I handed him off to my mom before leaving for work.
He had already fallen back to sleep by the time I kissed his chubby cheek, and his bottom lip hung open, allowing a small puddle of drool to trickle from the corner of his mouth.
My heart leapt into my throat, forming a hard knot and all the blood drained from my face. Every sound echoed around me and faded to a dull background noise. I no longer heard the birds chirping or the stream of the creek moving along.
What the hell was I supposed to do if the damned thing went off? I wanted to get a closer look but was afraid that getting too close to it might set it off. The last thing that I wanted it to do was to blow my face off if I leaned over it.
Dad was busy studying everything, surveying what we were looking at. His hand cupped his chin, and he crossed his arms. After a moment, he arched his eyebrows and shook his head as though he was trying to unsee our grisly discovery.
“Let’s go,” my dad said, carefully drifting sideways.
It was like we were sitting on the world’s biggest secret and he must have had the same thoughts as I did: nothing seemed real anymore. I had never heard of anything like it, and there was no way anyone would believe us. Who would we even tell? How were we going to get help?
Skirting along the perimeter of the disturbed soil, we took special care not to step on anything that looked like it had been freshly dredged up. There was no telling what else was buried on our property, and I was too scared to find out.
It was already too dangerous knowing the little information that we had, and I feared for my life what might happen to my family if the person or people, responsible for it found out that it had been discovered.
Sure, we lived close to the military base, but they wouldn’t be using our private, family-owned land to bury things. And they sure as hell wouldn’t bury old cell phones or explosives where a civilian would have access to them, or might get hurt by them. Who would do something like this?
We remained quiet our whole walk back to the house; partly out of fear of being overheard if we were being watched or listened to and partly out of shock as we tried to gather our thoughts. I couldn’t make sense of anything because it was like I had taken a route to Strangeville with a one-way ticket and no bus stop in sight to get back home.
Even though I wasn’t sure what we had bumped into, one thing was for certain: it wasn’t going away and whoever put it there was going to come back for it.
Whatever it was, it was bigger than us, and we needed help. The problem was, if we went to the authorities, they’d have every inch of our property marked off with police tape which could ruin business—the business that my father worked so hard to build—and it would mean the people responsible for putting it there would know that we discovered it.
What if there were even more dangerous things buried on the property that we didn’t know about? They might assume we knew about that too—and they could kill us!
I could see them killing us for shedding light on the situation to local law enforcement or for thinking we knew more than we actually did. It was a no-brainer that we couldn’t tell a soul about it. I’d keep my mouth shut; Bentley was my main concern. They could bury whatever the hell they wanted as long as my baby was safe.
I wished that I would have moved out before I’d gotten pregnant with Bentley, but being a single mom, I couldn’t afford to live on my own. It also helped that I had the support of both of my parents by living with them. If I didn’t live at home, I wouldn’t have had as much of a concern. Mom and dad could have come to stay with me, but that wasn’t the case.
We were all sitting ducks living in the house next to the car lot. Poor mom had arthritis so bad that she could no longer work. It was hard on her even to watch Bentley, but I made sure that I always had him dressed in outfits that were easy for her and made his bottles up before work, so all she had to do was take them out of the fridge and warm them up.
But what if they’d kill us anyway? With that amount of explosives—and we had only found the one pile—they were already bound to take out lives. What would a few more mean to them? Nothing.
“Julie,” my dad said as I slipped my hoodie off and draped it across the back of my office chair. “We’ve got to do something about what we saw today.”
I shook my head. “No, we can’t do that. We don’t know who’s behind it. What if they’re killers? Are you crazy?”
“Exactly. What if they are killers? Who is the most defenseless?”
He studied my reaction. I knew what he was getting at and what he was trying to do.
“Bentley, and your mother. They’re the most defenseless, so we have to protect them. We’ve got to figure out something fast.”
“Dad, who are we going to tell? If we go to the cops, they’ll have so much crime scene tape wrapped around the place that it will kill business. All these invoices?” I pushed them across my desk. “Will be history. We won’t have to worry about anyone buying cars and we sure as hell wouldn’t be able to get jobs once all the rumors and gossip start about our property.”
My dad stared at me, “Who do you think put that stuff there?”
I had been asking myself the same thing our entire walk back home. “It’s not the military base; I can tell you that. But who would want to bury stuff on our property? We’ve never had any enemies.”
“Whoever buried it out there wants it to be secret, and if they’ve got bombs, they’re not going to be shy about killing anyone.” He rubbed his head, “That’s probably their intentions and my guess,” he paused for a moment, “they’d do anything to keep their plans secret.”
Oh God.
I could picture it. One night after coming home late from the car lot, I’d cuddle Bentley to sleep like usual and fall asleep with him in my arms only to be awakened by someone ripping him away from me and holding a knife or a gun to me while he cried out for help.
My poor mom would be cowered down in the corner of the room with a man towering over her, threatening her with our lives if she didn’t obey his every command.
I couldn’t let that happen. Not any of it.
“What are we going to do?” I asked, hopeful he’d have the perfect solution.
“Let’s think about our options for a minute,” he sat across from me at my metal desk.
My slate gray metal desk was old and weathered; it had seen better days. The paint was peeling—in the areas where paint still existed—and there was a worn, dark gray circle in the center of my desk where folders and clipboards had passed over a few thousand times.
I remember always wanting to sit at this very desk when I was a young girl because it was the first thing you saw when you walked into the office, so I always viewed it as the most important spot to be in. Now I realize that the person who sits at this desk does all the tedious grunt work; that person was me.
Staring at my dad’s hands as he folded them on top of my desk, I realized how much older he had become. As a girl, I used to hold his oversized hands everywhere we went and loved how they swallowed my petite hands right up. I always knew I was safe with him.
His once smooth, strong hands were now old and wrinkly. I remember thinking how he was invincible, but as a grown woman, I realized that nobody is truly invincible. Looking at my own hands, they were smooth and more in line with the size of my dad’s hands; we’d both aged over the years.
I wish I knew—or even understood—what our options were. Searching his honey-brown eyes, he seemed to already know the answer, which relieved me because I was drawing a blank.
“What do you think we should do?”
He licked his lips and leaned in, whispering. “What about your…connections? Could you make it work?”
Connections? Was he insane?
“What do you mean?”
With our car detailer in the next room, he kept his voi
ce low. “It’s no secret that he’s back in town; been here for almost three days.”
My eyes grew wide, and my jaw went slack. How in the hell did he know? I had barely seen him myself at the store.
No, no. No!
“What? I mean,” my voice trailed off as I tried to find the words.
“Julie, come on,” he leaned back in his chair and folded his arms, eyeing me down. “Don’t tell me that you didn’t know that Damon was back in town. As madly in love with him as you are, I don’t—”
“No,” I snapped. “You’ve got it wrong. I used to love him. Used to is the key phrase there; I’m over him now.”
Yeah, I said it. Did I mean it? I couldn’t honestly say. When I saw him, all of those warm, tingling feelings hit me right in the gut, and I remembered how much fun we had together. I remember how good it felt to have his body wrapped around mine like a glove, and I never forgot how good he felt inside of me.
But, I also remember how hurt I was that he just up and left. He never bothered to call or communicate with me once he was gone.
What would one phone call have hurt? I wasn’t an old shirt that he could discard and pick back up whenever he wanted. It burned my ass to know that he could walk out of my life at a moment’s notice and not give me a second thought.
“The thing is, we can’t get the police involved. Not until we figure out what’s going on. You made a really good point about this killing the business,” he stopped. T.J., our car detailer, walked in to pour himself a cup of coffee.
“Morning boss,” he tipped his hat to my dad.
“Good morning, T.J.,” he smiled at him. “Ready for a busy day?”
“Always.” He turned to me, “Morning, Ms. Julie.”
“Hello, T.J.”
After he had walked back out to the garage, we picked up where we left off. “Dad, we can’t get him involved. What if he starts snooping around and finds out about Bentley? I don’t even want to know what he’ll do if he finds out about him.”
All this time I had been so strong and suppressed all of these emotions and feelings, but now they demanded my attention. Damon Miller being back in town meant dealing with everything that I had tried to forget. It wasn’t my fault that my birth control pills had failed me; I did everything that I was supposed to do—except tell the father.
It terrified me to think about his reaction to Bentley. If he found out, I could always deny it and not admit anything. It’s not like his birth certificate listed Damon as the father.
On the other hand, he had his daddy’s eyes; there was almost no denying that they were biologically connected. Fuck me. What was I supposed to do?
“Okay, I’ll do it. Tell me what you want me to do,” I sighed at my father, slumping back into my chair. I could already feel myself sinking. That heavy pressure in your chest right before you drown? That was all that was keeping me weighted down in my chair.
“Cheyenne, the girl who works the front desk at the hotel?” my dad started.
I nodded, knowing exactly who he was talking about. She was a year below me in high school and had only lived here since her junior year.
Cheyenne was a military brat and that her daddy spoiled her rotten; if she wasn’t bragging about it, her attitude showed it. I was surprised to hear that she was working to tell you the truth.
This was getting worse by the minute.
“Don’t tell me that I have to go talk to her,” I rolled my eyes.
“Maybe. Her mom came up to the lot yesterday with her, looking for a good car, and she was talking about her job and how Damon was staying there. She said he was with some guy, and they didn’t know how long they were staying. She might be able to tell you which room he’s in before he leaves.”
“And why do you want Damon to have anything to do with this?”
“Julie, he’s always been able to take care of things and get things done—off the books. I know he’s got a past, but he knows what he’s doing.”
“Why are you so sure of him? He always said himself that all he ever did was get into trouble. What if bringing him in is a mistake?”
“Cheyenne said that he’s here with some guy, and according to the guy he’s with, they’re private security for someone very prominent, and they’re here working on a mission.”
I knew the guy he was talking about. It was a Chinese guy, the one at the store who eyed me as they walked out. This shit was getting stranger by the minute. Trouble-maker, drinking bad boy Damon Miller, the father of my child, was here working on a mission as private security?
Who would he be working for and what mission was he doing? Was he in any danger? And what the hell could be going on in St. Louis that would bring him back here?
“Wait a minute,” I held my hand up. “If he’s working on some mission, and it’s here in St. Louis, have you ever wondered if it has anything to do with the stuff we found that was buried? What if he put it there?”
“Like I said, I think we should at least explore our options,” he shrugged. “If he did put it there, I’d like to know why. If not, it could be someone he’s up against, and it could give him an edge if he’s in any kind of trouble.”
I stared at a crack in the wall behind his head. The fact that I was even debating all of this made me nauseous.
“Despite what you want to think about him, he’s the father of your child. Bentley’s dad. Don’t you think you owe it to Bentley to let him know his father? No matter who or what his father is?”
And there it was; that angel on my shoulder who always in constant turmoil with the devil on my other shoulder. I put my head in my hands and slowly shook it as I let his words echo in my mind. My dad was a smart man, and he always had everyone’s best interest in mind.
“Julie, somebody’s coming back for that stuff, whether it’s Damon or someone worse.”
That was all it took; to be reminded of the dangers that lurked on our private property. The property that our house was on, where Bentley slept.
I looked up at him. “I’ll do it. I’ll go talk to him tonight, after work.”
I could tell I shocked him when he leaned back in his chair, and the whites of his eyes grew large. “What made you come around so fast? Normally, you’re so hard-headed and stubborn, just like your mother,” he added a playful wink.
“Bentley. All I want is my baby to be safe. We can worry about playing house later, but right now I want to make sure he’s safe. Those bombs were no joke, and I’m worried what else is out there that we didn’t find.”
“That’s a good girl,” he walked around my desk and patted my shoulder. “Just don’t make any more babies when you two….reunite.”
Chapter 4
Damon
We’d only been in town for a few days and weren’t any closer to finding Bethany than when we had first arrived. Mask must have been onto us that we were tracking them because Lee wasn’t coming up with any new information at all, and he was the best in the field. It was no secret what he could do behind a keyboard; everyone knew his name because of what he had done.
Our boss hired Lee after he hacked his company’s top-notch security system.
Mr. Turner had the most up-to-date computer software that was available, and it was guaranteed uncrackable from the private I.T. team that had built it specifically for his business model. They were right until Lee stumbled across it.
He’s always loved the challenge of hacking systems that were allegedly unhackable; it was a game for him. When Mr. Turner’s team of experts tracked it back to Lee, he didn’t want to press charges and send him to jail. Instead, he brought him on as his head of cyber security and put him to use—for both business and pleasure.
Sparkles—as I’d taken to calling the woman in the dress from the lobby—was a nice warm hole for me to get my dick wet while I was trying to get Julie out of my head. She didn’t mean anything to me, but damn if she didn’t feel good.
I was surprised by how tight she was given her mind-blowing perf
ormances between the sheets. Anytime she asked me about my past, I grabbed a fistful of hair and shoved my tongue into her mouth while my fingers slipped inside her wet pussy; it usually shut her up for the rest of the night.
But tonight? I needed a drink. With the way boss man was breathing down our necks, I needed to forget about shit for a minute; blow off some steam. I’d barely left the hotel room since I was avoiding Julie; and besides, I had Sparkles to bust a few loads into and didn’t have a reason to leave unless it was for booze.
My biggest problem? Aside from not locating the boss’s daughter? Julie. Even though I had succeeded in avoiding her since I saw her my first night in town, she had me all twisted up inside.
I’ve never been the flowers and hearts kind of guy, so when I left, I wasn’t about to start flirting over the phone hundreds of miles away while I was in Westerville, California. I did what I always do and fucked things up. Maybe I should have called her, or hell, maybe just sent her an email or something.
But I didn’t do either. I walked away with my tail between my legs and fucked the first cunt that I could find, trying to get over it.
The best thing I could do for the both of us was get her out of my head for good. She wanted roses and romance, and I was on the damn hunt for a predator who slung pussy more than he dished out drugs. I’ve always been in trouble my whole life and for once, it felt nice to be on the other side of the fence, especially if it meant not dealing with my feelings.
Then I saw her face and those perfectly thick, delicious curves and remembered how I used to grab onto them while I rode her. Seeing her, but not having her was like a heroin addict looking at his goods and not slamming his veins full of dope. As much as I wanted her, it fucking killed me to walk away from her.
We stepped inside the bar and ordered our drinks while we worked out our next plan of action. With the way Mask moved around and had unlimited access to credit cards and cash, there was no telling where they could be.