by Sybil Bartel
“Head back to the house. I need you to make a deposit.”
That was the deal I’d struck with Nathan after Mav was born. I continued to make deposits for him, he didn’t ask me to do anything else, and he didn’t turn me in. It wasn’t much of a deal for me, I was still trapped, but it was the only way I knew how to keep Mav safe. I had plausible deniability if I was caught because the “deposits” were never to a bank, and hopefully Mav wouldn’t be taken away from me.
But none of that mattered right now. I couldn’t go back to the house, not with a tail. “It’s not happening.” I wasn’t going to lead Garrett, or his friend, into an ambush.
“Oh really?” I could practically see the sinister smile spread across his face. “You’re denying me?”
“I’ll do it later.” Usually I could get away with a few hours with Nathan. As long as I made the run the same day, he wouldn’t give me too much shit.
“Yeah?” he asked too casually. “Why’s that?”
Gunning it, I changed lanes, and a split second later another car did the same, forcing me to slam on the brakes. The huge truck lurched, the brakes locked and all four tires burned pavement this time. “Fuck.” The curse came out before I could stop it.
“Okay, why are you in South Beach?”
I cranked the wheel and changed lanes, cutting off another car before gunning it again. The black SUV was only two cars back now. “How do you know where I am?”
“Brookelyn, Brookelyn, Brookelyn,” Nathan tsked. “You think I don’t track your cell and that ridiculous truck you refuse to give up? Which, by the way, you still owe me for letting you keep it. That cost me a mint getting the title scrubbed and reissued.”
I scanned the bottom of the truck daily when Nathan wasn’t watching to look for tracking devices. I’d never found one. “It didn’t cost you a dime.” Nathan didn’t pay for things. Ever. He schemed, bartered, threatened, stole, blackmailed, or coerced. But he didn’t buy anything. “The title’s as fake as the name on the registration.”
“Then maybe you should slow down before you get pulled over and drive home sensibly,” he retorted with his own special brand of smugness.
And maybe he should fuck off. “I’ll be there when I get there.” I never called his house home, because it wasn’t. It was my prison. “I’m hanging up now.”
“You have five minutes.”
I was in a dangerous mood. “Or what?”
“You have to sleep sometime, Brookey.”
White knuckling the steering wheel, adrenaline pounding, heat and nerves already sticking my shirt to my back, a chill ran up my spine. I knew what his threat meant. It was the same one I’d been hearing since I’d pushed my son out of my body on the bathroom floor in the pool house of Nathan’s estate because I was too terrified to go to the hospital.
The same terror I felt now. “You so much as touch my son, you’re dead.”
Nathan laughed. “You always were a handful.” His tone sobered and his voice turned smooth as glass. “What makes you think I would ever touch our son? Children disappear every day. Especially ones with rich parents, wife.”
I hated him. I hated him more than I hated myself. “I’m no more your wife than Maverick is your son,” I bit out, only adding fuel to the fire.
“Five minutes,” he warned, with steel coldness. “Take your next right. I’ll be waiting in the driveway.” He hung up.
My nostrils flared, and God mocked me.
Traffic cleared out of the right lane at the next intersection.
A hundred scenarios went through my head, but there was only one choice.
I prayed Garrett could handle himself.
Jerking the steering wheel to the right, I turned.
“JESUS FUCK.” I YANKED the steering wheel to the right. “She drives like a goddamn race car driver.”
“That’s because you’re chasing her,” Sawyer calmly retorted. “Ease back. She has a minor in the vehicle.”
A minor. I wanted to fucking throat punch him. “I know who she has in my truck.” He was my kid, and it wasn’t just any goddamn vehicle she was recklessly driving.
“All I’m saying is that if you give her some distance, she won’t be compelled to run every light.”
“Let her run them.” Where the fuck were the cops when you needed them? I was keeping up with her, that wasn’t the problem, but Miami PD would go a long way in slowing her ass down.
“It’s counterproductive, is all I’m saying,” Sawyer added.
“Fuck you.”
“Drop back and test my theory if you don’t believe me. If she thinks she’s lost us, she’ll slow down.”
I wasn’t dropping shit, least of all my tail on her. “You choose now to get chatty?” He never fucking talked, unless it was work related. “Why are you even here?”
“You needed backup.”
“Translation, Luna made you.”
“This isn’t work.”
Defying the laws of physics, I cut across two lanes in afternoon South Beach traffic. “Since when do you get involved in anything personal?” The fucker was an island.
“Since I saw the same thing you did.”
I didn’t have time to comment. She turned off the main drag and headed into the residential neighborhood of Bal Harbour. Three years ago, every house here would’ve been out of her price range by at least a few million.
“Fall back,” Sawyer warned, leaning forward. “She’s turning into that driveway.”
I saw. I fucking saw.
A gate slid open on a fucking McMansion on the water, but that wasn’t what I was staring at. I was looking at a prick in a suit who was standing in the driveway.
A prick who looked familiar.
The gate slid shut as quickly as it’d opened, and she pulled the Raptor up to the asshole.
I pulled to the curb ten yards back from the gate.
The asshole stared at us, but he couldn’t see shit through the limo-tinted windows.
“Who the fuck is that?” I muttered, pulling out my cell to take a picture.
“Shit,” Sawyer drew the curse out, leaning back in his seat.
Sawyer never cursed. “You know him?”
“Drive away,” he warned.
What the fuck? “Why?”
“Now,” he snapped.
Startled, I glanced at him. “Who the fuck is that?”
For the first time since I’d known him, Sawyer looked alarmed. “Nathaniel Xavier Lewis,” he said, enunciating each word.
“Who the fuck is that?”
Sawyer looked at me like he fucking pitied me. “Better known as X.”
“Who the fuck is X?” I yelled, out of patience.
“The cartel’s biggest and best money launderer.”
My heart stopped.
The cartel.
Time stopped.
Money launderer.
Everything went dead quiet and I stared. I stared at the man who’d waited outside my condo three years ago. I stared at my truck. I stared at armed guards patrolling the grounds behind the gate. I stared at the man who was opening the back door of the truck where my son was.
And I got enraged.
Stupid enraged.
I threw open the driver door and I was out of the Escalade before Sawyer could say, “Stop.”
“Nathan Lewis,” I yelled, striding toward the gate.
A half a dozen assault rifles immediately trained on me, and one of the guards called out a warning. “Private property!”
I didn’t stop till I was two feet in front of the gate. “Nathan Lewis,” I yelled again.
Pausing at the open door to the truck, he said something to Brookelyn, then he rounded the back of the bed and stopped there. Fitted suit pants, a custom-made dress shirt and loafers that cost more than I made in a week—the fuck dripped money.
Cocking his head, he put on a fake smile. “Do we know each other?”
Sawyer walked up next to me.
“Come talk t
o me and find out.” Fucker needed to see me up close.
Without hesitation or fear, he closed half the distance between the truck and the gate with two guards on his six. “And you are?” he asked once he got closer, sparing Sawyer a cursory glance.
Eyeing the asshole, I leveled him with a look. “You know exactly who I am.”
Lewis chuckled as the guards moved to either side of him, but stayed a foot back. “I’m afraid I don’t.” Without taking his eyes off me, he nodded toward my truck. “Perhaps you know my wife?” His smile went wide. “She’s much more familiar with the neighbors than I am.”
Wife?
Wife?
Was she fucking married to him when she crawled into my bed? Was she thinking about him when I fucked her on my kitchen counter? Was she carrying his last name when I came inside her and gave her my son?
A new level of rage seeped into every fiber of my being.
Fuck Brookelyn. This was about my son now.
“Take a good look,” I warned, low and controlled.
“I’m sorry, what am I supposed to be looking at?” He glanced up and down the street like this was all some joke as the two guards flanking him stared me down.
“We both know what you’re looking at.” The fuck. “And it’s not blond hair and blue eyes.”
He frowned like he was confused, but it did nothing to hide the ruthlessness behind his gaze. “You’re referring to my hair and eye color, why?”
I fucking threw down. “He’s not your kid.”
His laugh was practiced, cunning and fake. His head fell back like armed guards weren’t a part of his everyday life, and his hands went to his hips. “Well, whoever you are, you’ve had your fun.” His eyes turned to stone. “But rest assured, these men’s guns are as real as the bullets in them, and I take trespassing very seriously. Including the private property outside my gate.” He turned to walk back toward my truck.
“You have half a dozen armed guards, but you let Brookelyn and Maverick go out unescorted?” The selfish fuck.
The fuck laughed again and looked over my shoulder at me. “Clearly you don’t know my wife.” Half his mouth tipped up as he turned to face me. “She always has been a handful.” His half smile turned into a grin, and he held his hand up, palm out, fingers in the shape of a cup. “Albeit a small handful.”
I transcended rage.
But the son of a bitch wasn’t finished. “I suggest you find your way back to wherever you came from.”
Fuck him. “Or?” I challenged.
“Or I will personally make sure you never lay eyes on my wife or son again.”
Bigger than what I fought for downrange, bigger than coming home in one piece, I had a new mission. I didn’t know how. I didn’t know when. But it was gonna happen.
I was getting my son away from that asshole.
With or without Brookelyn’s consent.
“He’s not your son,” I ground out before walking back to the SUV.
NATHAN STALKED BACK TO THE truck and roughly took Mav from his car seat. Glaring at me, he took Mav in his arms. “You couldn’t have fucked the bartender? You had to spread your legs for a fucking jarhead?”
“Watch. Your language,” I seethed.
Mav looked between me and Nathan and shoved his thumb in his mouth. Two years old, and he already knew when to keep his mouth shut around Nathan. My heart broke with the inexcusable situation I’d put him in.
Still holding Mav, Nathan grabbed his laundry bag from one of his guards and tossed it in the truck. “Do your run.”
I panicked. “Give me back my son.”
“Again.” Nathan’s voice turned to steel. “Do. Your. Run.” He fake smiled at Mav. “If Mommy listens, she can have you back.”
Dread crawled up my spine and I fought for leverage. “You’re a day early. You’re getting sloppy.”
“I don’t give a goddamn fuck if I’m a week early. If I tell you to do your run, you do it. Period.”
Mav pulled his arms closer to his body.
I glanced at my boy. “It’s okay, sweet boy. Mommy is going to run an errand, and I’ll be home before you know it. Go inside with Nathan, and when I get back, I’ll make you some macaroni and cheese.” I smiled at him.
“Roni,” Mav whispered around his thumb in his mouth.
“You feed him like shit,” Nathan clipped. “I’ll feed him.”
Anxiety raced through my veins and wrapped around my heart. “You never feed him.”
The smile that spread across his face made my blood run cold. “Never say never.”
Using the only leverage I had, I pulled the laundry bag into the front passenger seat. “You do anything, anything to him, and your deposit won’t make it.”
“You fuck me, I’ll fuck you back, sweet cheeks.” Nathan grinned. “But remember, I fuck harder.” He slammed the truck’s door shut.
I put the window down. “I go now, you’re as good as guaranteed I’ll be followed by him.” I didn’t say Garrett’s name out loud to Nathan. He knew who I was talking about, and just in case he didn’t already know his name, I wasn’t going to be the one to give it to him, because giving Nathan any information was as good as giving him ammunition.
“Well, then you’re going to have to be extra careful.” He gripped the back of Mav’s head and pulled him close. When he was cheek to cheek with him, he smiled. “Isn’t she, Maverick? Tell Mommy she needs to be careful and lose the Marine so she can come home to you.”
Mav’s eyes filled with tears. “Mama.”
If I had a gun in my hands in that moment, I would’ve shot Nathan between the eyes. No hesitation, no regret, no remorse, I would’ve killed him in cold blood.
“You’re lucky I’m not armed,” I warned.
Nathan dropped the fake smile and his expression turned ruthless. “Remember who you’re dealing with.” Holding my only reason for being, he pivoted and carried Maverick into the house.
One of Nathan’s guards, the only one I’d ever thought was even remotely human, the one who I’d thought for sure would be on my side if push ever came to shove, stood outside the truck for a heartbeat while the other guards returned to their posts. I thought he was going to give me a quick nod, or an acknowledgement, or something to indicate that he saw what had gone down and that he’d keep an eye on Mav while I was gone.
But no.
He glared at me through the open window of my stolen truck.
“Ty?” I asked, dread sinking in.
His nostrils flared. “Get the fuck out of here. Do your run.”
The last of my composure snapped.
Panic flooded my system with adrenaline, and for a split second I thought about grabbing Ty’s handgun from the holster on his waist and running inside after Nathan. I knew I wouldn’t make it five feet. I knew I was no match for half a dozen guards and another half a dozen men posing as business associates, but who were always armed. I knew I had less than a one percent chance of killing of Nathan, but I still thought about it.
God, I thought about it.
I wanted everyone on the property dead except me and my son.
Everyone.
But I was trapped and there was nothing I could do.
Except make my drop.
Hands shaking, tears of rage threatening, I put the window up and stepped on the gas. One of the guards glared at me as he had to jump out of my way, but I didn’t care.
I was already thinking.
I knew what was in the laundry bag.
Six stacks of a hundred one-hundred dollar bills in seven pairs of pants. Forty-two stacks. Four-hundred and twenty thousand dollars.
It wasn’t enough.
I’d been down this road. I’d contemplated a thousand times taking the money from one of my weekly drops and running with Mav. But four hundred thousand dollars and change wasn’t enough money to hide from a cartel money launderer, and I didn’t have Mav with me right now.
That left three options.
Drive
to the nearest police station and demand to speak to the FBI. Drive to Luna and Associates. Or make the drop.
The first option, assuming I lived long enough for Miami PD to make a phone call and get a local FBI or ATF agent on scene, Maverick would be a statistic and Nathan would be gone before I could even tell them who I was or what I’d been doing.
The second option would result in the same fate for Maverick.
The third option—I make my drop.
Then I go home and get Mav, and the first chance I get, I leave. I had a few thousand dollars I’d saved from the pocket change Nathan occasionally threw me. I wouldn’t get far, but I wouldn’t be stealing cartel money, and I had one option I hadn’t had an hour ago.
I knew where Garrett worked.
I never forgot where Garrett lived, but I never knew if he’d made it home from his deployment alive, or if he’d gotten out like he’d said or if he was still in Miami. I’d never looked for him because it was too risky. I didn’t want Nathan knowing that I’d looked for him.
But Garrett was home and he wasn’t alone, and while a few bodyguards wouldn’t have a chance at taking down Nathan, they may be able to get Mav somewhere safe.
So that was my plan. Make the drop, get Mav back, then plan my escape.
Determined, I drove out of the gate.
SAWYER WAS SILENT UNTIL I pulled into a parking lot of a condo complex that had a view of the only road in and out of the Bal Harbour neighborhood.
“We need to call Luna.”
“We don’t need to do anything.” Looking over my shoulder, I backed into a spot. “Call him if you want a pickup.”
“You can’t do this alone.”
I threw the SUV in park, but kept the engine running. “What exactly do you think I’m doing?” I was sitting in the fucking Escalade. I didn’t need help to do that.
“You can’t take on Nathan Lewis on your own,” Sawyer warned.
I checked the review mirrors. “What makes you think I’m taking him on?” I was going after the bitch who’d had my kid and didn’t tell me about it.
“I’m not the enemy here, Collins.”
“I didn’t say you were, Sawyer.”
He looked out the window. “Do you even know anything about X?”