Hard Time

by Chloe Fischer

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Epilogue

  HARD TIME

  By

  Chloe Fischer

  Copyright © 2018 Chloe Fischer

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written consent of the publisher.

  Resemblance to actual persons, things, living or dead, locales or events is entirely coincidental.

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  HARD TIME

  Prologue

  New Haven, Connecticut

  It was the first supper Drake Conway had eaten at home in over two months and he smiled lovingly at his wife, wanting to treasure every second of the idyllic moment. Who knew when he would be granted such an opportunity again? He was already taking a major risk being there that night.

  No one knew where he was; he had violated protocol to see his family and the consequences of such a blatant disregard for the rules could be devastating.

  Drake shoved the dark thoughts from his mind, turning his attention back to Shirley and the boys.

  I deserve to be a normal man for one night, he reasoned. I have earned it.

  “Darling, these potatoes are divine,” Drake announced and Shirley smiled beguilingly, placing her elbows on the table as she eyed her husband.

  “I put in a special ingredient,” she confessed, winking a light blue eye at him. “It’s like I sensed you coming home today and knew I needed to make them extra special.”

  Drake grinned, a surreal quality overtaking him as he looked around the mahogany table. It was difficult to reconcile Major Drake Conway, Department of Defense Special Forces with Drake Conway, husband, father and fantasy football player.

  They are two completely different people. I don’t even know if they would like one another if they were to meet, Drake thought wryly. He wondered if Bob next door would even recognize him in his other persona.

  “I no like potatoes!” Three-year-old Xavier declared, pushing his fork about the plate in disgust and the twins babbled in agreement. They smashed their tiny fists against the plastic trays of their high chairs, sending a spray of mashed vegetables all about the elegant dining room.

  Shirley sighed but before she could answer, Ryder, the oldest boy, interjected.

  “I don’t like potatoes,” he corrected his younger brother. Xavier shook his head.

  “No,” he insisted. “I no like them!”

  Drake grimaced slightly and turned to his middle son.

  “Your mother worked very hard on this dinner, Xavy,” he chided. “You should be thanking her, not criticizing her cooking.”

  “Drake,” Shirley laughed, rising to take the three-year-old’s plate from him. “He doesn’t know what that word means. Sometimes I think you forget how small they are.”

  Drake glanced at Xavier and they exchanged a private smile.

  “I don’t know, honey,” he replied, winking at the boy. “I don’t think you give them enough credit sometimes. Children are like sponges.”

  Shirley chuckled as she stepped into the kitchen, looking back over her shoulder.

  “I wish they were like mops,” she joked, disappearing with the dishes. “This house is in a perpetual state of chaos with all the testosterone coursing through it.”

  Drake laughed merrily at her assessment.

  “I suppose we will need to try for a girl then,” he called back to her. “Even out the hormones in here.”

  Shirley scoffed but didn’t answer, leaving Drake alone with his gaggle of children.

  As if he had issued a silent command, all four boys turned their attention on Drake in unison, their fussing forgotten.

  The twins, Zander and Aiden stared up at him from their elevated spots with pale green eyes, an identical pair of infant innocence.

  Xavier pressed his face into his folded hands, mushing his chubby cheeks as he studied his father inquisitively while Ryder seemed content in watching Drake through his peripheral vision.

  My sons, Drake thought, his heart filled with the proud beat which only a father could understand. I hope you know how storey

  much you mean to me. I will always protect you.

  As if comprehending his silent tribute, they nodded almost imperceivably and returned to their supper as Shirley re-entered the room.

  The bond they shared was beyond that of simply father and sons; it was ethereal. Drake knew it would be years before the boys understood why, however. He would explain to each boy as they became of age, why they were vitally important to more than just Drake, but to the world as a whole.

  “Dessert!” the lovely redhead announced, placing a cherry pie on the center of the table.

  “I no like dessert!” Xavier exclaimed and his parents laughed.

  “Perfect!” Drake declared. “More for us!”

  Shirley pulled a knife out and began to cut the pie in pieces when Drake was suddenly overcome with a sense that something wasn’t right, that he had been there before.

  Oh no, he thought, his heart beginning to thud dangerously in his chest.

  A strange feeling began to course through Drake and time slowed as he watched the scene unfolding before him.

  Deja vu.

  Fear gripped his heart and he pushed backed the chair, rising to his feet just as the doorbell rang.

  “Who could that be?” Shirley asked, glancing at the grandfather clock in the corner.

  Drake opened his mouth to respond, panic sweeping over his body as he reached for the twins, snatching them from their chairs. Instantly they began to wail in protest as their father kicked over the table.

  “Don’t answer it!” he cried out as his wife hurried toward the front door. She turned to stare at him in stunned surprise.

  But it was too late.

  The door flew inward and they drew in, like a swarm of buzzards converging on a corpse. Their leader smiled coldly at Drake, raising his weapon to fire once between his wife’s eyes, ending her scream before it had a chance to start.

  Drake had no chance to think, only react, throwing the twins into Ryder’s arms as he scooped Xavier from his chair.

  Their wailing filled his ears as he reached into his ankle holster and began firing at the half dozen men dressed only in black.

  His bullets did not slow them and they drew closer as the children took cover beneath the buffet, quaking in fear.

  When the first round hit him, Drake’s only thought was that it was his fault. He had brought a plague on his house when he had been warned time and again about the consequences.

  His shoulder was on fire but he did not stop pulling the trigger again and again, hoping to take out as many of them as he could.

  One less o
f them is one less threat, he told himself as more ammunition riddled his body but he knew he was outnumbered and sadly, ultimately outsmarted.

  He had lied to his sons.

  He could not protect them. He had unwittingly brought danger directly to their doorstep.

  Oculus had finally found them.

  And the children would never be safe again.

  Sacramento, California 28 years later

  He stared at the two boys prancing around the front yard of the sprawling estate, temporarily frozen in awe.

  Both dark haired boys, and while Drake could not see the color of their eyes, they reminded him so much of his own children when they were that age, sparring with sticks at the house in New Haven.

  Those boys are barely older than Ryder and Xavier were…before they were taken from me.

  “Chief Supervisor?”

  Drake snapped out of his reverie and looked at Goetz.

  “Let’s go.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Special Agent Goetz stepped from the driver’s seat, peering about the vehicle before hurrying around to open his superior’s car door.

  Drake pushed himself from the leather interior, slipping on his mirrored sunglasses despite the cloudy afternoon. They were a mark of his status, not an instrument of necessity in that instance.

  “Stay here,” he barked at Goetz as he strode up the sidewalk toward the incline and steps leading to the house. He did not look back to ensure that his subordinate obliged. It went without saying that he would.

  Drake Conway was not a man with whom to be trifled.

  The children abruptly stopped playing as he approached and Drake tried to smile but it had been so long since his face had made such a motion.

  He was sure the expression looked as pained as he felt observing the two children before him.

  “Who are you?” the smaller boy asked and again Drake was seized by the sensation that he was staring at Xavier, a set of defiant brown eyes staring at him almost petulantly.

  They could be my boys in some parallel world, he thought, a heavy lead in his chest. If my boys were not lost forever.

  “I am a friend of your grandmother’s,” he told them. “Is she home?”

  “We don’t talk to strangers, Alex,” the older boy urged, his own black eyes darting about cautiously. “Don’t tell him anything!”

  He is Vance’s grandson. There is no doubt about that. He will grow up to be as strapping and suspicious as Vance once was.

  Another pang of agony twisted inside Drake’s gut but he held his rigid composure.

  “Boys! Come inside!”

  All eyes turned toward the front door where a stylishly dressed older woman waved her hands toward them as she approached through the pillars.

  She is as beautiful as she’s ever been, Drake thought, his heart catching slightly in his throat as she rushed toward the trio. A dozen memories of her flittered through his mind as he watched her approach quickly.

  Obediently, the children turned to meet her.

  “We didn’t talk to him, Gran,” the older boy assured her. “We don’t talk to strangers.”

  “Good boy, Evan,” she breathed, her face growing waxen as she recognized the man on her lawn. “Go inside. Tamara is making cookies and she needs you to lick the spoon.”

  “Yay!” Alex cried, breaking into a run. Evan cast Drake another wary look before darting after his brother.

  “What are you doing here, Drake?” she hissed when she was satisfied the boys had disappeared into the huge beach house. “Haven’t you done enough damage to our family?”

  A pang of guilt coursed through him but he maintained the stoicism on his face.

  “Hello, Elise. It has been a long time,” he offered gently.

  “The least you can do is take off your sunglasses so I can see if you feel an iota of remorse for the disaster you have personally created,” she snapped, folding her arms about her slender chest. “Or are you too important to look me in the eye after you murdered my husband?”

  Drake’s shame was immediately replaced by anger.

  “I did not murder Vance, Elise. That was – “

  “Yes, I know. ‘A terrible tragedy of unforeseen proportions.’ I have that line emblazoned in my psyche as if you and your cronies had it seared in with a soldering iron. Did you? Did you do some mind control on me after Vance died to keep me quiet?”

  The Chief Supervisor slowly removed the glasses from his face, his aquamarine eyes studying her aristocratic face carefully.

  “Elise, I know you are in pain. I have not come here to open old wounds but I need your help.”

  Elise Berkley scoffed loudly and rolled her blue eyes heavenward.

  “What in God’s name makes you think that I would help you even if I could?” she spat. “You ruined my family! You stole a man from his three children, a son from loving parents. And after all that, after everything that happened, you do not come by, you do not call, you don’t even send a goddamned Christmas card! You show up almost twenty-five years later and ask me for help? You are as selfish as you’ve ever been, Drake.”

  He pursed his lips together, holding her gaze steadily.

  “You didn’t always believe I was selfish,” he told her softly. Elise’s fair, lightly creased face turned crimson.

  “How dare you!” she choked venomously. “How can you bring that up after all this time? Thank God Shirley and Vance went to their graves without ever knowing what happened between us.”

  “You make it sound as if it was a mistake,” Drake said sadly. “Once upon a time we didn’t think so.”

  “Once upon a time I had faith in the things you told me, Drake! Once upon a time, you cared about me enough to call me.”

  Drake could hear the hurt in her voice and again he was consumed with shame.

  “It wasn’t safe, Elise,” he told her quietly, earnestly. “Anyone whom I contacted, anyone whom I communicated with in any form – “

  “Save it, Drake. Your excuses have no bearing on me anymore. Whatever it is you want now, I can’t help you.”

  “You don’t know what I need,” he told her. “At least hear me out before you send me away.”

  “I don’t want to hear you,” she cried, throwing her hands up. “Anything you touch turns to ash! I want no part of it, Drake!”

  “Elise – “

  “No! Get off my property and don’t come back here! You’re like a poison. You infect everything good and pure.”

  “Elise – “

  “Go!” She pointed a long finger toward the black Escalade parked on the curb. “And don’t come back.”

  She spun, indicating that she was done talking but Drake called out one last time.

  “What if it was your daughters?”

  Elise froze in spot but she did not immediately turn around.

  “What if you went thirty years without knowing where they were sent? What if you never got a chance to know Alex or Evan?”

  “I don’t know where they are, Drake,” Elise whispered, turning back to face him. “I truly don’t.”

  He shook his head.

  “I believe you,” he replied. “But he may have said something to you, something you don’t even realize means something.”

  Elise hung her head miserably.

  “This will be a waste of time, Drake,” she told him.

  His heart began to thud as he realized she was relenting.

  “Then let me waste my time,” he begged. “I must find my sons.”

  Chapter One

  Amarillo, Texas

  The house was painted an almost garish green, boasting a lace trim and a charming Appalachian style porch. It was reminiscent of a bad Christmas movie but it did not stop him from pausing to stare at it for a long while, debating whether to enter.

  A black and white sign on the door read “Tarot, Palm, Astrology and Past Life Readings” accompanied by a depiction of an eyeball in the center of a hand, embraced by a pyramid.

&
nbsp; It was not an unusual business in the oil town which was a dusty mix of old money and new immigrants but there was something about this particular building which caught his attention.

  He must have passed the one story structure on South Mirror Street a dozen times over the past weeks but he had yet to see anyone coming or going.

  Each time, he found himself pausing on the sidewalk to stare, as if he could sense someone inside calling out to him.

  He turned and continued across the residential street, his long, black overcoat billowing behind him as he strode away.

  Tomorrow I will go, he told himself, but he had been saying that for weeks. He wondered what it was he was waiting on exactly.

  He wondered why he had the desire to enter such an establishment at all. It was not exactly the type of business he frequented.

  In fact, he considered palm readers and fortune tellers little better than circus side show attractions, nothing to be taken seriously and oftentimes simple hustlers.

  Still, he knew that when the time was right, he would walk through the doors of the small house and the mystery of why he continued to take the long route to work become clear.

  It was a stifling hot day, not at all strange for east Texas in August but he was dressed in his typical black attire from throat to toe.

  He had not broken a sweat as he approached the mirrored storefront of his job but he paused to stare at his reflection, almost as if he was surprised it was still there.

  Staring back at him was the same man he had always known - or at least tried to know.

  His hair was thick and black, and always looked artfully tousled without any effort on his part; as if he had just stepped off the cover of GQ.

  Sea green eyes seemed to glitter against the rays of the sun, accented by dark thick lashes. The effect was unnerving against his aquiline nose and strong chiseled jawline.

  “Are you going to grace us with your presence today or are you going to stand out here admiring yourself all day?” Tristan snapped from the doorway.