by Sybil Bartel
If anger had a physical form outside the body, it would have been a thousand storm clouds and they would have been fighting for purchase around Garrett.
I jumped to correct the director’s assumption before Garrett said anything. “He’s not—”
“I’m not staying.” Garrett interrupted me, shaking her hand. “I’m working today, but which preschool did you say it was, Mrs. Oberlin?” A smile I didn’t know he was capable of transformed his face.
Mrs. Oberlin’s smile dropped. “I’m sorry. I think….” A kid ran in front of us toward the street. Mrs. Oberlin glanced at Garrett then gave me a look that said she was sorry. “My apologies, I have to run.” She dashed after the kid who’d already been captured by one of the chaperones.
Garrett’s smile disappeared as fast as it’d appeared. “I’m not imagining it, Brookelyn. He’s my spitting image.”
“I’m sorry, my name isn’t Brookelyn, and I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.” My arms started to shake with the weight of my lies. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, we need to leave.”
“How old?” he asked again as I took a step.
My next step faltered, and I stumbled. With Maverick in my arms, my center of gravity was in front of me, and I couldn’t stop the momentum.
I started to fall.
Impossibly huge hands grasped my shoulders, and as if the two of us weighed nothing, Garrett caught us in his arms.
I gasped, and Maverick looked up at his biological father.
In a million years, I never would’ve thought I’d see what I saw next, but I also never should’ve underestimated the man who’d given me the best thing in my life.
Maverick’s and Garrett’s eyes met and it was as if the earth shifted.
The lines between Garrett’s eyebrows smoothed out, the tightness in his jaw disappeared, and the hard edge to his expression dropped in a nanosecond.
His voice turned quiet, and he looked at Maverick as a father looks at his son. “Hey, little man.”
“Hi,” Maverick whispered before shoving his thumb in his mouth.
The corner of Garrett’s mouth twitched. “You taking good care of your mama?”
Maverick’s thumb popped out, his shoulders straightened and he sat up in my arms. “I care good,” he said proudly.
Garrett held his fist up, knuckles first. “Good man. Always take care of your mama.”
Maverick stared at his hand.
“You know how to fist bump?” Garrett asked patiently.
Maverick shook his head.
I wanted to cry.
“Let me show you.” Garrett reached for his hand, and I flinched.
Maverick tucked his head back against my chest and his thumb went back into his mouth. “Go home now,” he mumbled.
“We’re going, baby.” The light changed and the crowd of kids and parents started to move forward. I wanted to move with them, but a giant, muscled Marine was holding my upper arm and standing in my direct line of escape.
His eyes cut to mine, and for a split second, a devastated looked clouded his expression before he quickly masked it. He dropped his voice and his hold on me. “Brookelyn.”
“I’m sorry.” I stepped back. Knowing it was pointless to keep up the charade, knowing I was doing everything wrong for my son, I still couldn’t bring myself to be selfless. A better person would have handed her son over to the one man who could protect him, but I wasn’t a better person.
I was weak.
And Maverick was my only joy.
“W-we have to go,” I stuttered.
“Wait.”
His single word, issued as a command, snapped my spine taut like a rubber band.
I shouldn’t have paused. Pausing was as good as admission, and I couldn’t afford that. Not for me, not for Maverick.
But I was weak. “What?” I stupidly asked.
His mask slipped again and his eyes burned with an emotion I could only begin to grasp, as if the very sight of me both pained and angered him beyond words.
“Why?” he demanded.
Why did I steal from him? Why did I get pregnant? Why didn’t I look for him? I didn’t know what exactly he was asking, some of it, all of it? It didn’t matter. I didn’t have an answer. I couldn’t have an answer.
I needed to survive, and survival only had one play.
With my son in my arms, I turned and ran.
WITH THE BOY IN HER arms, she turned and ran. Literally ran.
Like a fucking pussy, I hesitated.
The light changed and downtown Miami traffic flooded the intersection.
Fuck.
Fuck.
He wasn’t the boy. He was my son. I knew it like I knew my own damn name. His eyes, his hair, his face—it was me as a kid. Exactly me.
She disappeared into the parking structure across the street.
God-fucking-damn it.
I whipped my cell out and called Luna.
He answered on the first ring. “What happened?”
I stepped into the street, not giving a fuck about traffic. “I got a situation.”
“I heard. Sawyer called.”
Horns honked as I dodged cars. My head fucked, adrenaline pounding, only two cryptic words came out. “It’s her.”
Silence.
“Luna,” I barked.
“Amigo,” he stated. “It’s been three years.”
I knew exactly how fucking long it’d been. Three years, four months, and one goddamn week. Luna knew how long it’d been too. I’d made him look for her when I’d gone back downrange. And I’d made looking for her a condition of my employment with him when I got out of the Marines three months later. I’d made him promise to look for her for one year. I never fucking thought he wouldn’t find her. André Luna found everyone. It’s what he did. He wasn’t the best in the personal protection and hostage recovery business because he sat on his ass. He worked for it. Just like he would’ve with any paying client, he’d looked for her. I’d looked for her.
But she was the fucking wind.
All we had was that security footage from the early hours of that morning after I’d fucked her. We’d never even gotten a shot of the asshole’s face she’d kissed, not even when they’d left in my truck.
Six months later, Orlando PD found the burned hull of my truck near a known chop shop. The only recognizable part of it was the VIN tag from the dash.
But there’d been no signs of her anywhere.
She’d never gone back to Dax’s bar, and nine months after I’d gotten out of the Marines, on the one-year anniversary of her walking out on me and stealing my truck, Luna’d taken me out to get drunk as fuck, then told me to move on.
I didn’t tell him I didn’t know how.
So I worked.
Because women were fucking trouble. Two kinds of trouble. The kind that bled your checkbook dry and the kind of trouble with a capital T. The kind like Brookelyn fucking Dodger. Dodger wasn’t her last name. I didn’t even know what the fuck her last name was. Turned out, neither did Dax, so I’d made up a last name for her.
Dodger.
For the only woman I’d ever offered shit to.
Fuck her.
“You sure you wanna do this?” Luna asked.
Holding my hand up, I stopped a fucking car and crossed the last lane as I ran toward the parking structure. “She has my kid.” I was fucking doing this. “I need eyes on the south parking structure. Now.”
Luna swore in Spanish. “Dios mio. All right, all right.”
I barely heard his hands fly across his keyboard over the sound of traffic.
“I’m out of time,” I warned. “She’s got a few seconds’ lead on me.”
“I’m in,” Luna reassured. “What am I looking for? Same description?”
I didn’t bother telling him her eyes were more haunted and her shoulders were hunched against a weight heavier than my son in her arms. Or that she was so fucking beautiful, she stole my goddamn breath.
/> I ran up the exit ramp. “Exactly the same. Brown curly hair everywhere, long-sleeved white T-shirt, jeans, and a kid in her arms. He’s about two.” It wasn’t lost on me that the boy had a buzz cut like mine. Or that she was still wearing long-sleeved shirts to hide the scars on her wrists.
“Okay, I’m scanning the security camera feeds for the parking structure now. First and second floor clear.” He paused. “Third floor clear.”
Jogging toward the stairs, I barked out an order. “Hurry, she’s gonna—”
“Got her,” Luna interrupted. “Fourth floor.”
My heart fucking pounded. “Vehicle description?”
“Madre de dios.” Luna whistled low. “You’re not gonna believe this.”
“What?” I snapped, adrenaline pumping like a motherfucker.
“Ford Raptor.” Luna paused, then he dropped the bomb. “Matte black.”
My hand on the stairwell door, I paused. “What?” Ford Raptors didn’t come in matte black. It wasn’t a factory color.
“Bro.” Luna exhaled.
Matte black was a custom color. The custom color I’d had my truck painted.
“Looks like she has your truck, amigo.”
Rage. Singular and consuming. I shoved the stairwell door open.
“You’re not gonna make it,” Luna warned. “She’s already behind the wheel.”
Half up the first flight already, I pivoted and jumped down six steps. Kicking the door open, I ran toward the exit ramp. “How long,” I demanded.
“Thirty seconds,” Luna answered. “Minute tops. Sawyer’s on his way for backup. Turn your comm back on.”
“I don’t need fucking backup.”
“Jesucristo, Collins. You’re halfway between the stairs and the exit. I see you on the feeds, and she’s rounding the last turn toward the exit, seconds from being a ghost again. Turn your fucking comm on and use Sawyer as backup. He’s in his SUV double-parked street side.”
I hung up and ran.
Pocketing my phone, I turned my comm back on and sprinted toward the exit ramp. Running parallel but two aisles over, I watched her pull down the ramp in my fucking truck.
I wasn’t going to make it.
“Sawyer,” I barked. “I’m not going to be able to stop her.”
“On it,” he replied calmly.
I mentally calculated the distance to the exit, and like a long-range shot, I took in speed and trajectory. “I’m fifteen seconds out.” But she was already at the exit. If the gate lifted in the next five seconds, I wasn’t gonna make it. “Don’t let her leave.”
“Copy that,” Sawyer answered in his monotone voice that gave nothing away.
“I’m fucking serious,” I warned. “She doesn’t make it onto the street.”
“Copy” was all he said.
I flew across the aisle, cut past a row of parked cars and hit the exit just as the gate arm went up.
She gunned it.
“Motherfucker!” Sprinting full speed, I reached for the door, but my hand only skimmed the side of the bed.
Oversized tires I’d installed myself carried the heavy truck down the end of the ramp, and just as she hit the final stretch to the street, Sawyer pulled up, blocking the exit.
“Engage?” Sawyer calmly asked through the comm as he slammed on the brakes.
“Stand down,” I barked. Rounding the rear of the truck, I came up on the driver side and pounded my fist against the driver window. “Open up, Brookelyn!”
The Raptor didn’t move and the window didn’t come down.
“Two ways we can do this.” I couldn’t see her through the tinted window, but I glared anyway.
“She’s got a kid in that vehicle,” Sawyer quietly warned.
I didn’t answer him. I knew exactly who the fuck was in my truck. And it was my truck. “You wanna play hardball?” I asked through the closed window. I knew she could fucking hear me. “Let’s start with the stolen truck you’re driving.”
The window came down.
Her phone in her hand, she stared straight ahead. “I’m calling the police.”
A car pulled up behind us and honked.
“Mama, Mama,” the boy cried from the back seat.
Shit stabbed at my heart. “Go ahead,” I taunted. “Call them. Let’s see what they say when I tell them to check the VIN number on my truck.”
The hand she had gripping the steering wheel tightened. “You’re blocking traffic.”
“You had my kid.”
She didn’t flinch, she didn’t even fucking blink. “Tell your friend to move his SUV.”
“Get out of my truck.” Fucking acknowledge me. Tell me why the hell you did this.
“I’ll tell the police you’re threatening me,” she warned.
“I’ll tell them you stole my kid.”
The car behind us laid on the horn again.
She stared straight ahead. The air conditioning from the vents blew her curls back from her face. Her expression stoic, three years had been kind to her looks, but not her eyes. Her eyes said everything, while telling me nothing.
The boy sucked his thumb.
She kept silent.
And I fucking stood my ground.
“On your right. Three o’clock,” Sawyer warned through the comm a second before the driver door on the car behind us opened.
“Hey,” an old man shouted, waving his hand as he held his cell phone. “You’re blocking the exit, and if you don’t let that lady pass, I’m calling the police!”
“Stand down,” Sawyer quietly warned.
NOTHING ABOUT HIM HAD CHANGED, but everything was more.
More muscles, more hair, more presence, he even exuded more alpha dominance. And anger. I could feel it all the way to my toes, and it crushed my soul, but I couldn’t blame him.
He had every right to be angry.
There just wasn’t anything I could do about it. Not if I wanted to keep Maverick safe.
The truck I’d stolen from him three years ago had a huge bull bar in the front, and I was considering my options when the old man behind us got out of his car and saved me from having to make a decision.
“Hey,” the old man yelled. “You’re blocking the exit, and if you don’t let that lady pass, I’m calling the police!”
I didn’t look at Garrett, but I could feel his indecision.
“I’m not messing around,” the old man yelled.
The blond-haired man wearing a shirt exactly like Garrett’s got back in the black Escalade and started to back the SUV up.
Garrett’s hand closed over the open window and he bit out a warning. “This isn’t over.”
It was over before it’d started, but I didn’t say anything. The second his hand left, I put the window up. The blond man backed the black Escalade all the way up and I floored it.
The truck’s huge engine kicked in and we shot forward. I didn’t take my foot off the gas, and I bounced in the driver seat as we went over the curb and hit the street. I didn’t even look for traffic. I floored it in the lane that led out of the parking structure.
Glancing behind me, I saw the blond man get out of the driver side and Garrett get in as the blond man jogged to the passenger side of the black SUV. Still gunning it, ignoring the yellow light ahead, I blew through the intersection and took the first two turns I could.
I wasn’t a stranger to driving a getaway car, but I hadn’t done it in years, and I’d never done it with my son in the car.
“Hold on, Mav. Mommy’s going to drive fast, okay?” I glanced in the rearview mirror as I took another turn. The SUV was five cars back.
Maverick pumped his little fist and kicked his feet. “Go fast!”
I didn’t have time to think about how much he looked like his father, or how every day I was reminded of my choices. I could’ve run back into Garrett’s condo that early morning, three years ago, but I hadn’t known I was pregnant. And I’d never wanted to get Garrett involved with my problems. He didn’t deserve that.<
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But now he was here, and he was chasing me.
Looking in my review mirror, waiting to see a black Escalade come around the corner at any minute, but hoping it wouldn’t, I changed lanes.
“You holding on, Mav?” It was a rhetorical question because he was strapped into his car seat, but I needed something to distract me from my thoughts.
“Mama, hold on.” Maverick made a car engine noise. “Go fast!”
I stepped on it.
The Raptor flew through another intersection, then I cut across two more lanes and headed toward South Beach. The streets were crowded, and it’d be harder to maneuver through traffic, but that was exactly why I chose it. More traffic gave me more opportunities to lose him.
I was taking another turn down a busy street when my cell phone rang.
Torn, I thought about not answering it. There was only one person who called me, and Nathan only called when he wanted something.
If I didn’t answer, I would pay for it later.
If I answered and he found out what was happening, Garrett would pay for it.
There wasn’t a choice.
I answered.
“Where are you?” Nathan’s voice came through the truck’s speaker.
“Nathan!” Mav yelled from the back seat before I could answer.
“Hey, kid.” Nathan chuckled like he actually liked Mav. “Where’s your mommy?”
“I’m here. What do you want?”
Nathan dropped the fake nice voice for Mav. “In a hurry to get me off the phone?” In direct correlation to the amount of crime he committed, Nathan’s paranoia had only gotten worse over the years.
“I’m driving.” I took the next corner too fast and the tires screeched across the hot midday pavement.
“So I can hear,” he said dryly. “What’s the rush?”
The black SUV barreled around the last corner, closing the distance. “Just giving Mav a fun ride.”
“Go fast!” Mav yelled, making the car noise again.
I fought to keep my voice calm. “What’s up?”