by Malcom, Anne
Lance noted that she didn’t feed her son a lie about falling over or walking into something. She didn’t tell him the specifics, but she didn’t lie.
That was important to him somehow, and he wasn’t even sure how.
“Do you want me to butterfly kiss it better?” the kid asked.
Elena’s eyes lit up.
It was a gut punch.
“I thought you’d never ask,” she said, tickling her son.
He let out a giggle that seemed so separate from this whole environment. Kids were really resilient as fuck.
Though he should have walked out a thousand times before this, and despite the fact he knew he was making a huge fucking mistake, he got to watch the small boy press his face up against his mother’s and brush her angry bruise with his eyelashes.
It was then, and only then that he turned and walked out.
Elena
Nathan grinned as he pulled back, eyes lit with happiness that was so simple and so precious because it had meant someone survived these past hours.
“Better?” he asked.
I nodded, choking on my happiness. “Better,” I croaked out.
Better was not a word for what I was. I knew that these hours had broken something in me, and I would have to deal with it for life. I was worse in that respect. Knowing that Robert was obviously intent on getting back into our lives. That terrified me. It also strengthened me. The little boy who’d just used his eyelashes to fix the bruise on my face his father created had fixed a little part of my soul. Solidified it. Turned it into armor, ready for a battle.
I remembered in that moment, someone who had fought in this battle for us. Someone, by the looks of it, had fought in countless battles, someone who seemed like a human who was war.
Who had walked in holding my son’s hand and been dubbed ‘Captain America.’
My eyes were loath to leave my son, but I managed to move them to the doorway.
But it was empty.
He was gone.
* * *
“I have no words for how grateful I am to all of you,” I said, addressing the table.
At the table sat five men, all different forms of hot as balls. All muscled. All manly in every sense of the word. My friend Marie would be drooling right now. And then trying to hit on them, though not the three out of the five wearing wedding rings.
And not the one who had once held my son’s hand.
No. She would not hit on him because the thought of it made my fingers curl. I didn’t know why. He wasn’t my property. I didn’t know him. I was pretty sure he hated me, because he’d been glaring at me since I’d sat down at the table with the whole Greenstone Security team.
It was a meeting I’d requested, despite the thought of leaving Nathan so soon made me sick. But it had to be done.
Polly had promised not to let him out of her sight. I trusted her.
I’d also showered, because my son was right, I was ripe—but Nathan had been sitting on the toilet seat beside the shower, swinging his legs and chattering on about how weird the food had been at his ‘dad’s.’
“There was nothing colorful,” he said. “And it was cold. They made me wear different clothes. And there was a room that he said was my bedroom but I didn’t like it one bit and he yelled at me when I drew on the walls.”
I had paused, shampoo bottle poised above my palm.
My hand shook.
He had yelled.
Yelled at my son.
I squeezed the bottle tight, fury coursing through my veins. Had I made the wrong choice in telling Lance not to kill him? Because the thought of Nathan having to breathe his air ever again had me wishing I’d killed him myself.
But the thought washed away with the shampoo I’d squirted everywhere.
“Do I have to go back there, Mom?” Nathan asked. “Because he said it was my house, I told him I already had a house with you that I liked much better.” A pause. “I don’t think I liked him. Is that bad? All my other friends love their daddies but...”
He trailed off and the hurt and confusion in his voice speared me.
I yanked the shower curtain aside.
Nathan didn’t blink at my nakedness, he’d seen it all before, since living with a child meant your time, your privacy and your body was never your own. He was pounding on the door if I took longer than two seconds in the bathroom.
“You are not meant to love anyone you don’t want to love,” I told him over the trickle of the shower. Well, not trickle, but amazing pressure that was like nirvana compared to the either scorching hot or freezing cold dribble at our place. It was a waterfall shower. I wanted to live in there. Also because you didn’t have to face reality in showers.
“Your daddy is a complicated man who is not ready to be a daddy,” I said, striving to be as honest as I could be with a kid who couldn’t comprehend the truth. “He has troubles that he needs to fix. And maybe he won’t ever fix them. Some people aren’t born to be daddies and that’s not your fault. So maybe you might not ever see him again.” I paused, trying to read my son’s face. “Is that okay with you? Are you happy for it just to be you and your momma?”
He considered the question, as he always did. My boy was a thinker, he never responded straight away on instinct. “I’m okay with that. Sugarbear and Honeybun forever.”
I smiled, glad the shower could mask my tears. “Forever and ever, kiddo.”
Polly had provided me with some clothes from a closet that they had for clients. I’d expected a scratchy tracksuit... not a pair of cashmere sweatpants, the thinnest and softest fabric I’d ever touched or put on my body, and a crisp white tee.
I’d never understood people paying hundreds of dollars for clothing, didn’t get how something as simple as a tee shirt could be worth hundreds. It was a tee for goodness sakes.
But this. I got it. It felt like hundreds of dollars on my skin.
I’d braided my damp hair and then asked Keltan if it was possible to speak to everyone involved in getting Nathan back to me.
He’d smiled, squeezed my arm and said he’d take care of it.
I got the idea that when Keltan said he’d ‘take care’ of something, it would happen, immediately and in some kind of magical badass type way.
Like somehow getting my son back to me unscathed and unhurt, still smiling.
Yeah, that was some badass magic right there.
I knew that it wasn’t just him.
Hence me sitting at the table with five badass men and one arguably more badass woman.
Rosie was pretty much who I wanted to be when I grew up. When I had a different life. She was beautiful, swore like a sailor and gave me a hug when she first met me that did the same as Keltan’s “I’ll take care of it”—it gave me faith.
“I can’t express in words what you’ve done for me,” I continued, addressing the table and everyone sitting in it apart from one person. One person who I physically couldn’t make eye contact with.
I wasn’t sure if it was because I was afraid of him or... something else.
I couldn’t think about either of those things right now.
“Thank you seems hollow, but thank you,” I continued, my voice breaking.
Rosie’s hand found mine under the table. “Babe, you’re the one we should be thanking,” she said, eyes shimmering. “I got to spend time with your kick-ass little dude and it’s given me faith that not all small children are simmering wusses, there’s hope for mine yet.” She paused. “He cries too much.”
Her husband, Luke, an ex-police officer and a serious hot guy scowled at her. “He’s a baby, Rosie.”
She rolled her eyes. “He’s our baby, honey. Therefore both of our awesome badass genes should’ve meshed and made a superbaby who didn’t wail just because he was hungry. You don’t see me doing that, do you?”
“You cried yesterday over a taco,” Luke shot back.
She narrowed her beautifully sculpted brows at him. “It was a fucking great taco a
nd you’re a traitor, outing me like that. I’m gonna have to divorce you.”
Luke smiled at her in a way that made my whole heart hurt.
There was so much in that simple smile, in their bickering, in their energy with one another. With the obvious love and respect for one another. I longed for something like that, someone like that.
I mentally shook myself.
Who was I longing for something when I had already been given the greatest gift? My child, safe, unharmed, smiling.
It was selfish of me to want more.
I met Keltan’s eyes. “This is a debt that cannot ever be repaid, but I promise you I’ll pay everything I have.”
Keltan’s eyes hardened. “We don’t have to think about that now. You just need to think about your boy.”
I nodded once, already mentally doing the numbers in my head, feeling vaguely nauseous about the prospect of how I was going to afford this.
It would be okay.
I’d take extra shifts.
Maybe even work at a bar a couple of nights a week. Karen and Eliza would have Nathan.
I’d work it out, I always did.
“We need to talk about Hudson,” Keltan continued.
My blood ran cold. I’d almost forgotten about Robert. As if that were possible, to forget about the husband that abused me, that tortured me, and who kidnapped my child. But I had, with the joy and the emotions surrounding me, with Nathan surrounding me, I momentarily forgot the man that gave him his eyes and almost took him from me.
My hands were clammy and suddenly my butt felt hot and sweaty in these damn cashmere pants.
I steeled myself to be strong, straighten my back and deal with this.
“I’ll move first, I guess,” I said, thinking about how sad it would be to pack up our home, to leave our neighbors who had become family. I wouldn’t leave town, but it would just be too risky to be somewhere Robert knew about. Though I was sure he’d be able to find any new place I rented in a couple of clicks.
I suddenly felt hopeless.
“You’re not movin’.” This did not come from Keltan. It was not spoken in a kind and gentle tone.
It was almost a snarl.
I steeled myself to look in his eyes, and the eye contact was akin to stepping my bare feet into snow. A chill shocked me, traveled upward, turned me numb and electrified at the same time.
He didn’t say anything else.
Neither did I.
I was struck dumb. And I looked pretty frickin’ dumb, sitting there staring at Hades himself while a table full of badasses watched.
“What Lance means,” Keltan said after a beat, amusement in his voice. “Is that we’re not gonna let him drive you from your home or Nathan from his school.” He paused. “We feel like we’ve shown Robert it’s in his best interests to stay away from you and Nathan indefinitely, and men like this are driven by what’s in their best interests. I am fairly confident you won’t see or hear from him ever again. But I’m not going to stake your or your son’s safety on ‘fairly confident.’ We’re going to put a security detail on you, for a few weeks at least, check in on Hudson and install a state of the art security system in your house.”
He looked to Luke, who I assumed was the security system guy.
He nodded once. “Already on it.”
“Wait,” I interrupted when it looked like Keltan was going to keep speaking. “I can’t—” I cut myself off from saying I couldn’t afford the security system, even though it was blatantly true. “I don’t need a security system, or the security. I’ve already taken up enough of your time. You’ve already done enough.”
Keltan’s eyes were hard and soft at the same time. “All due respect, sweetheart, I’m gonna be the judge of when enough is enough. Enough for me is you and that kid livin’ a life where you’re not looking over your shoulder constantly, expecting a threat from a weak man trying to be strong by hurting you. I won’t be able to sleep at night if I don’t make sure that doesn’t happen. And not just because I’ll be sleeping on my couch after my wife kicks me out of bed for not helping you in every way I can. Because that’s just who I am.” He looked around the table. “That’s just who we are. And I know I don’t know you, but you seem to be the woman who doesn’t ask for help ever, mostly ‘cause the world hasn’t given it to her. And for the most part, you haven’t needed it. Now, Elena, you need our help. It doesn’t make you weak for accepting it or needing it.”
I will not cry.
I opened my mouth to protest some more.
“If you don’t say yes now, I’ll just come to your house at two in the morning blasting Miley Cyrus—Hannah Montana era—every single night until you agree,” Rosie cut in.
I glanced at her, and I didn’t doubt the woman was serious. I was pretty sure she was like a tiny bit unhinged.
She was grinning.
I sighed, my muscles were taut and mind wired against doing such a thing, putting my troubles on all these strangers. All these good people with better things to do than get me out of the mess I have gotten myself into by choosing the wrong man.
But no. I could never regret that choice, because I got Nathan.
No matter what I had been through or would have to go through, nothing could make me regret him.
It was Nathan that had me conceding, because Keltan was right, even the slightest chance that my son was still at risk was a chance I was willing to forgo my dignity for. Well, and the fact that I needed my sleep and I knew Hannah Montana Miley would make sure that didn’t happen.
“Okay,” I whispered.
Lance
“First things first, I need to let you all know that this case is gonna be unpaid,” Keltan said after Elena had left.
The fucking room smelled of her again.
She had come fresh-faced, hair wet in a long braid and all he could fucking think about was yanking onto that braid and taking her.
What the fuck was wrong with him?
Thinking that while they were discussing keeping her son safe?
Well, he knew what was wrong with him, everything that could be wrong with someone.
He hated her. For making him hate himself.
Because all the things he’d done, the man he was, he didn’t hate himself for it. He accepted that it was what it was.
But she made him hate everything about what he was, all that hardness, violence, all that inability to handle a proper human conversation.
Because he couldn’t do that, which meant he couldn’t be near her and the kid and he wanted to be.
“Anyone who has a problem with that, no hard feelings, you don’t have to be in on it,” Keltan continued.
Obviously no one left the table.
No one here gave a fuck about the money. Each of them had plenty of it.
“We overcharge rich assholes especially so we can do shit like that,” Duke said, vocalizing what they already knew. “This is the part of the job that actually means shit.”
Nods around the table.
“I also want to bring Rogue around for playdates with Nathan, make him a little more badass like him,” Rosie interjected.
Of course Rosie had named her fucking kid Rogue.
Luke pinched the bridge of his nose.
Heath grinned. “I’m sure Andrew could do with another little buddy too.”
Andrew was the kid him and Polly had recently adopted. The kid who had almost made Lance feel something. Because the world had battered him. At ten years old, he’d seen more hurt than most people would see in a lifetime. Now he was with Polly and Heath, they’d make it their mission to make sure he saw only beauty.
Keltan chuckled. “Right, glad we’re all on the same page.” He glanced to Luke. “You set to install the system tomorrow?”
Luke nodded. “Apparently I’m bringing my child to the installation.”
Rosie grinned.
“She lives outside the city, so I’ve got us a rental down at the end of her street,” Keltan continued. “F
riend of a friend happens to own it and is willing to let us use it as a base.”
Lance was not surprised at this. Despite the fact that Keltan wasn’t even from this country, and he’d only been based in LA for a handful of years, fucker seemed to have contacts and friends everywhere.
Lance only had enemies and ghosts.
Keltan looked to Duke. “You good to follow them home? Take the first shift?”
Duke’s eyes lit up too much at that. Lance saw the way that fucker had looked at Elena. He knew that look.
“I got it,” Lance all but growled.
When Keltan focused on him with a glint in his eye, he knew the fucker had purposefully played him.
“You sure?” he continued. “I know the people part of the job isn’t exactly your favorite.”
“I don’t have to talk to them to keep them safe,” Lance snapped, intending to make sure he didn’t speak with either of them at all if he could help it.
Keltan’s mouth twitched. The fucker was having a great time with this, and Rosie seemed to be enjoying herself too. Of course she was, she loved to torture monsters, and that’s what he was.
He clenched his fists.
Keltan seemed to sense enough was enough. “You good to monitor Hudson then?” he asked Duke.
The man nodded once, eyes taking on a glint. “Wish I could monitor him as he suffocates on his own fucking blood after I’m done with him,” he muttered.
Everyone at the table agreed with the sentiment of Duke’s words.
But everyone was also going to accept the fact that sometimes even assholes got to keep breathing when they shouldn’t.
Except him.
And Rosie. That bitch spent her evenings making sure that rapists and child molesters didn’t keep breathing, she was a wild card. Especially since the Sons of Templar war. That had shaken them all. Only now were they getting over the aftershocks.
Lance didn’t know the club well, but he knew it would be a long time before those wounds scabbed over.
He wasn’t sure Elena’s would.
Which was why he’d be burying Hudson.
“Okay, so we’re good on what we’ve got to do?” Keltan asked the table.