by Matt Rogers
Fathers
The King & Slater Series Book Nine
Matt Rogers
Copyright © 2021 by Matt Rogers
All rights reserved.
Cover design by Onur Aksoy.
www.onegraphica.com
Contents
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Books by Matt Rogers
Preface
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Afterword
Afterword
Books by Matt Rogers
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Meet Ruby Nazarian, a government operative for a clandestine initiative known only as Lynx. She’s in Monaco to infiltrate the entourage of Aaron Wayne, a real estate tycoon on the precipice of dipping his hands into blood money. She charms her way aboard the magnate’s superyacht, but everyone seems suspicious of her, and as the party ebbs onward she prepares for war…
Maybe she’s paranoid.
Maybe not.
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Books by Matt Rogers
THE JASON KING SERIES
Isolated (Book 1)
Imprisoned (Book 2)
Reloaded (Book 3)
Betrayed (Book 4)
Corrupted (Book 5)
Hunted (Book 6)
THE JASON KING FILES
Cartel (Book 1)
Warrior (Book 2)
Savages (Book 3)
THE WILL SLATER SERIES
Wolf (Book 1)
Lion (Book 2)
Bear (Book 3)
Lynx (Book 4)
Bull (Book 5)
Hawk (Book 6)
THE KING & SLATER SERIES
Weapons (Book 1)
Contracts (Book 2)
Ciphers (Book 3)
Outlaws (Book 4)
Ghosts (Book 5)
Sharks (Book 6)
Messiahs (Book 7)
Hunters (Book 8)
Fathers (Book 9)
LYNX SHORTS
Blood Money (Book 1)
BLACK FORCE SHORTS
The Victor (Book 1)
The Chimera (Book 2)
The Tribe (Book 3)
The Hidden (Book 4)
The Coast (Book 5)
The Storm (Book 6)
The Wicked (Book 7)
The King (Book 8)
The Joker (Book 9)
The Ruins (Book 10)
“The sight of an unworthy father involuntarily suggests tormenting questions to a young creature ... Why am I bound to love him simply for begetting me when he has cared nothing for me all my life after?”
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
1
Boston
Myles Vaughan washed the anaesthetising bourbon over his nerves.
They felt taut as steel.
He ended up downing half the flask without realising, and later he would swear to himself it was something subconscious. He couldn’t understand how he relinquished all control to the drink. He was so strong in so many areas of his life, he knew it, but when it came to this vice…
This damn vice.
He sat in the driver’s seat of his personal vehicle — a heavy Ford sedan, old school, from the early 2000s — but he wore the uniform. Long sleeved dark navy shirt tucked into black slacks, the name badge on the right breast pocket reading M.A. VAUGHAN, the shield on the opposite pocket with BOSTON POLICE inscribed up top and POLICE OFFICER underneath.
He was parked in south Roxbury, near the Boston Housing Authority, in those grimy dreary streets that the surrounding residents knew to avoid. He tucked the flask away, wiped the corners of his mouth with his unbuttoned cuff, and belched. The whiskey tasted like shit and made him feel like shit. A fiery glob of heartburn seized his throat and he had to beat his chest with a closed fist so he didn’t vomit in his mouth.
Not a great start.
Then the guy he was looking for fell right into his hands.
So it wasn’t all bad.
The man just strolled right past, not noticing the anonymous Ford or Myles behind the wheel. It wouldn’t have mattered if he did. Myles had never met the guy, but he knew his name was Duante, he was Nigerian, he was twenty-six years old, and he was on just about the last shit list you ever wanted to end up on.
Myles flashed the light bars built into the front grille of the Ford, and they strobed blue and red over Duante’s skinny frame. The man nearly jumped out of his skin, twisting to face the parked car with eyes wide as saucers.
Myles already had his window down, so he leant one elbow on the sill and stuck his head out of the car. ‘Get in.’
Duante stood ramrod straight like his feet were concreted to the sidewalk. Myles could see the cogs turning in his head. ‘I’m, uh, under arrest…?’
‘No,’ Myles said. ‘Just get in.’
Still leaning out the window, he reached blindly forward with his opposite hand and killed the undercover lights in
the grille. Minimising the attention the scene would draw.
Now Duante was confused. ‘Huh? Why?’
Myles said, ‘You’re not in trouble.’
‘Then I’ll stay right here. Thanks, though.’
‘Duante, you’re making this harder than it needs to be.’
‘How you know my name?’
‘I know more than that. I know you owe thirty-eight grand to Dwayne Griggs. I know he’s looking for you right now, and closing in.’
Duante’s eyes went even wider, and he looked around like every criminal in Boston was listening in. When he turned back to Myles, he hissed through his teeth at a loud whisper. ‘Man, keep it down. Fuck’s sake…’
Then he paused as certain things became obvious.
He said, ‘Why aren’t I under arrest, man?’
‘Get in the car.’
‘You with Dwayne? He giving you envelopes to do shit like this?’
‘No,’ Myles said, and he must have sounded convincing, because Duante rounded the hood to the passenger side and got in. He reeked of stale cigarette smoke and barely suppressed body odour. Myles was about to judge him for it, then realised he likely smelled similar.
Myles faced forward, didn’t look at his new passenger as he said, ‘You gonna ask me how I know all that?’
Duante shrugged. ‘It don’t matter. Either way I’m screwed. You arrest me, you don’t… it don’t matter.’
‘I’m not going to arrest you,’ Myles said. ‘I’m going to protect you.’
Duante perked up a touch. ‘Don’t play with me.’
‘I’m not playing. I got a confidential tip that Dwayne’s boys are after you. I can put you up in a safe house. No one will have to know. It’ll be our little secret. You crash there until the heat dies down and Dwayne forgets you exist.’
‘Why would you do that?’
‘Because you’ll split the thirty-eight k worth of product with me at the end of all this.’
Duante thought hard. He didn’t have a choice either way, but Myles guessed the skinny thief was trying to get it to make sense. ‘That’s not much money, man. For the risk you’re taking.’
‘You know what cops get paid?’
‘Not really.’
‘For me it’s a lot.’
‘Alright.’
Myles put the Ford in gear and peeled south, first down Route 28 then onto Blue Hill Avenue. It was winter in Boston — cold, grey, bleak, miserable. Franklin Park stretched out to their right, the trees twisting toward the heavens and draping darker shadows across the grounds. Raindrops lashed the windshield like stinging nettles.
Duante asked, ‘How you gonna justify me crashing this safe house?’
Myles said, ‘I’ll figure something out.’
‘Where is it?’
‘South.’
‘Why you being all suspicious?’
‘Because you’re not supposed to know where it is,’ Myles said. ‘I’ll bring you supplies. You’re not going to step foot outside, and then later, if I get busted and you get grilled by my superiors about this, you can say you don’t know where the safe house is without failing a polygraph.’
Duante paused. ‘You smart.’
‘Yeah. Now close your eyes.’
‘What?’
‘Close your eyes. And put your hands over them, too. We’re close.’
‘Man, the shit you think of… I could never.’
‘That’s why you’re thirty-eight grand in debt and I’m not.’
‘You got a mortgage?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Then—’
‘I get your point. My bank’s not going to rip my limbs off, though, are they?’
‘You don’t know that.’
Myles smirked, then scolded himself for showing emotion. He twisted the smirk into a grimace as he looked over to check that Duante’s eyes were shut. He spotted the cargo van parked out the front of the laundromat on their left, and he slowed and pulled the Ford into the deserted lot.
He let the sedan roll hard into the adjacent parking space and stamped on the brakes so the passenger door came to rest only a few feet from the van’s sliding door.
Duante’s eyes flew open, sensing something was up.
He looked out his window just as the door rolled open, exposing three men crouched in the darkened belly of the beast. They were all huge, heavyset. The men on either side wore balaclavas, but the one in the middle didn’t. His angular face was sharp beneath the cornrows braided tight to his skull.
Duante collapsed in on himself, his shoulders slumping. When he turned to look back at Myles his eyes were dark pits of fear. ‘Man…’
‘Sorry,’ Myles said, looking down. He didn’t have the nerve to meet Duante’s gaze. ‘Had to be sure you wouldn’t run.’
The henchmen in balaclavas yanked the passenger door open and hauled the thin man out. Dwayne Griggs grinned maniacally from within the van. The two helpers had to drag Duante between the two vehicles because his limbs had locked with terror. They threw him in and Dwayne pinned him down with a boot against his throat as he ushered his men in and slid the door shut.
The van reversed and peeled away, leaving the sedan the only vehicle in the laundromat lot.
Myles sat for a moment in the silent car, then reached for the gearstick.
But his hands wouldn’t stop shaking, so after a pause of acceptance he went for the flask of bourbon instead.
2
In routine, time gains momentum on an invisible wheel.
Will Slater guessed he always knew that, but he’d never stayed in one place long enough to experience it for himself. He’d lived nearly forty years, but the way he’d lived them, they felt like centuries. He had a never-ending Rolodex of memories, and if he sat down and pondered them he’d die of old age before he fully comprehended what he’d been through.
And now…
Well, now it was different.
He had routine. Every day had become a mirror image of the last as he nailed down a consistent schedule. His surroundings hadn’t changed in more than six months. So he was on that invisible wheel, and it was starting to speed up, each beautiful morning and evening blurring into the next. He didn’t mind. If there was anything wrong with the routine, he’d change it.
So far, he couldn’t find a single flaw.
He kissed Alexis on the cheek as he woke, but she didn’t stir. It wasn’t yet six a.m. so he let her lie there. There were porte-fenêtre French doors all around their green two-storey house, including in the master bedroom, and the predawn light leeched inside, covering Slater’s silhouette with murky grey-blue as he swung naked out of bed and crossed the room to the walk-in closet. He dressed and walked down the hall into the kitchen. Flicked the Rancilio coffee machine on and soaked in the morning quiet before the water started to boil.
The kitchen had white oak hardwood floors, and exposed beams framed the ceiling above. The house effortlessly carried a rich smell that seeped from the natural woodwork. Slater knew he had a couple of minutes to kill before the espresso machine was ready, so he instinctually dropped into the push-up position and hammered out fifty with clean form, just to get the blood circulating. His chest and triceps steadily inflated over the course of the set until, by the time he got up and tamped the ground coffee beans in the metal portafilter, the veins in his forearms were throbbing.
Who needs central heating? he thought, feeling the warmth creep up his shoulders into his neck. It was close to summer but still cold this time of year in Winthrop, Massachusetts.
In the end they’d never left Winthrop.
It had been an impulse to flee north toward Boston after the chaos in New York, and another subconscious urge had sent them further east into the small coastal city. They’d done a couple of weeks in an Airbnb rental before they realised they’d be happy anywhere, so long as they weren’t hunted.
Half a year later, there hadn’t been so much as a hint of pursuit.
As far as they coul
d tell, the shadow faction of the government was dormant. Slater firmly believed they were only licking their wounds, and soon they’d be out for vengeance, but Alonzo Romero begged to differ. He was more a part of the shadow world than Slater had ever been. Slater had been a solo operative, always kept at arm’s length from the inner workings because of deniability, but Alonzo had designed most of those inner workings himself. It was why Slater was convinced the government would soon come after them with renewed aggression. However important it was to silence him or Jason King, the state secrets that resided in Alonzo’s head were infinitely more dangerous. But Alonzo had been protecting their location with every trick in the book, and they had a largely uneventful six months to show for it.