“Yeah,” John Paul said. He glanced down at his tea bottle and began to peel the label from the glass. “He was a favorite, I guess, like the guy’s kid.”
“Were they related?”
“I don’t think so,” John Paul said, “but you know how some of these guys are. Sometimes what they do for each other goes deeper than blood.”
I swallowed and nodded. I knew exactly what he meant. The desire to both think and talk about Evan Arden was a dangerous one, so I changed the subject.
“Are you going to tell me where Landon is?”
John Paul shrugged.
“I don’t know for sure,” he said. “He was going back and forth between Seattle, New York, and Chicago, but I couldn’t tell you where he is right now.”
“What’s his game?” I pressed. “Is he going to lay off me now?”
John Paul looked at me, and his expression turned serious. He thought for a moment before answering.
“For now.”
“Bullshit,” I muttered.
We didn’t discuss the topic any longer, but I knew what I had to do.
“I don’t like this,” Raine said.
Her eyes were still red from crying. I hated to do things this way, but I didn’t have much of a choice. It’s not like I could tell her I was jaunting off to kill my father figure.
“I know, babe,” I said. “I’m sorry. Hopefully, I won’t be gone long.”
“Landon is making you do something, isn’t he?” she insisted—again.
“He’s not,” I said. “I’m not saying any more about it. It’s just something I have to do.”
“What about Alex?”
I reached over and touched the side of her face.
“I know he’s in good hands.” I bent down and pressed my lips against hers. They were warm and soft, and even if she was mad at me, she didn’t push me away. She ran her hand down my arm and held onto my fingers as our lips separated. I stepped backwards slowly, keeping my eyes on hers, until our hands slipped apart.
I wasn’t going to say goodbye.
With my backpack secured over my shoulders, I headed down the stairs to the parking garage. The bike was gassed up and ready to go. It was going to be a long ride, but I needed the time to keep my head clear and focused.
The motorcycle roared in the enclosed space, and I pulled out and onto the road. The highway loomed in front of me, and I took one last look back at the condo building before I kicked it up a notch and merged into traffic.
The research took a lot longer than I had hoped. Landon was a man on the move, and tracking him down hadn’t been easy. I used disposable phones to talk to Raine and Alex every day but still kept the calls short and ditched the phones right after we were done. She continued to ask me where I was and what I was doing, but I wouldn’t tell her.
She just didn’t need to know this shit.
I ended my evening call with Raine and got up from the hotel bed. Pushing the curtain aside, I looked out the window with a pair of binoculars. There was another hotel directly opposite mine, and I focused on the window of an eighth floor room. The sheer curtains were drawn but not the blackout curtains. I could still see a figure inside. I’d spent more than enough time in my life watching Landon move, and I had no doubt he was the one on the other side.
If I were a sniper, I could take him out from here.
If I ever saw him again, maybe Evan Arden would teach me. I smirked to myself and shook my head a little. Raine would love that idea.
Focusing the binoculars on Landon’s silhouette, I saw him sit down at the desk inside the hotel room. Now was as good a time as any, so I set the binoculars down on the table beside me and pulled a Beretta out of my backpack.
I bought it along the way through a contact I remembered from the games I was in years ago. He was a meth-head, and I was pretty certain he wouldn’t remember our encounter five minutes after I left. As far as he was concerned, selling a gun meant more money for drugs, which was all he cared about.
Leaning away from the hotel window, I checked over the weapon, made sure there was a bullet in the chamber, and tucked it away inside a shoulder holster. I took the stairs down to the ground floor and made my way across the street. I waited until the valets were all occupied with customers before slipping inside the building and heading to the front desk.
“Can I help you?”
“Yeah, sorry,” I told the clerk at the desk, “I’m an idiot. I lost my key.”
“No problem at all, sir,” she said. “Your name?”
“Landon Stark.”
“Can I see a picture ID, please?”
I handed her a false driver’s license that was far more perfectly forged than would ever be needed for a hotel clerk. She checked it briefly before handing me a new key card.
I smiled and thanked her before heading to the stairway. Once I arrived at his floor, I easily found Landon’s room in the corner of the building. I took a deep breath, centered myself as much as I could, took the gun out of its holster, and swiped the card. It made a slight beeping sound, and Landon looked up as the door swung open.
Our eyes met, and there was no question in my mind that he knew exactly what I was there to do. He didn’t even need to look at the weapon in my hand to understand. The door swung closed behind me, and Landon quickly stood up, reaching toward one of the drawers in the dresser.
“Don’t even think about it,” I said.
Landon paused and then slowly raised his hands up in the air.
“Whatever’s going on in your head,” he said, “we can work it out.”
“I’ve already got it worked out,” I responded.
“I don’t think you’ve considered the consequences.” Landon’s voice was calm, and his face was expressionless. He was likely thinking I was acting on impulse as opposed to how much time I’d been thinking about how all this had to end.
“It’s the only choice you guys left me with,” I said. “I’m done with this—all of it. I want to move on. I want a different life. As long as you hold the past over my head, I can’t do that, and you’re always going to want me under your thumb. There’s only one solution.”
I slid my finger up against the trigger and held the Beretta level with Landon’s head.
“You don’t want to do that.”
“The fuck I don’t.”
Landon’s eyes didn’t change but remained filled with their usual clear and focused determination. His chest rose and fell once with his breath.
“You want to kill me, yes, sure,” he agreed, “but if you do, you’ll never figure it out.”
“Figure what out?”
“How to do it,” he replied.
I raised an eyebrow and pulled the hammer back with a click. Landon responded with a smirk.
“You can’t live like this. You want to go back to that deserted little island and play native, but she can’t live like that. You have no fucking clue what to do about it, but I do.”
I stared at him until I was sure he wasn’t giving me a line of bullshit. It didn’t take long—Landon wasn’t one to make shit up just to save his life. Whatever he had in mind, it was something he’d thought about, weighed all of the pros and cons, and determined the best possible course.
“Spill it,” I said. “If it makes sense, maybe I don’t need to pull the trigger.”
“I’m not stupid, Sebastian.”
“But you are on the wrong end of the barrel this time.”
For a moment, I saw a flash in his eyes. I wasn’t sure if it was anger or fear, but it was a show of emotion. Weakness.
“Time’s up,” I told him.
“The Everglades,” he said bluntly.
“What about them?” I asked as I narrowed my eyes.
“Lots of little hammocks where you could build a decent shelter,” he responded with a shrug. “Plenty of birds and fish, lots of edible plants around. You gotta watch out for gators, but I think you can manage that. Twenty minutes to Miami, so she’s got
her civilization. Even if she doesn’t want to live in a fucking tiki hut, I bet she’d be willing to stay there on the weekends. The rest of the time, she can hang out in that condo of yours.”
As he talked, I could see it all forming in my head: a little shelter with a grass roof, a fire pit off to one side to cook and boil water, and Raine curled up next to me while the spring rain falls around us. I could teach Alex all about the plants and animals, and Raine would make sure he learned about conservation of the ecosystem. I could use a kayak or even an airboat to get to a place where a car could be parked, ready to take them both back to Miami any time they wanted to go there. I could even go with her as long as it wasn’t for too long or anything. I could wait in the fucking car for all I cared.
Part of me wanted that. A lot.
Landon’s vision made sense for the man he knew, for the man I used to be. This was just the sort of thing I would have desired. It would keep me away from people, which I didn’t care for, but still let me have access to Raine and Alex whenever I wanted to see them.
But it wasn’t about me. Not anymore.
Alex needed a father—someone who was there with him all the time—and not the shit kind of relationships I’d had as a kid with part-time foster parents and counselors in group homes. He needed me to be there for him every day.
Raine did, too.
I didn’t need to isolate myself from the rest of the world. I just needed to be Alex’s father and Raine’s…Raine’s…
Shit.
I knew what I needed to do.
It all clicked inside my head. The flash in my mind was as brilliant as the flash from the gun would have been had I decided to pull the trigger, but I didn’t need to. Franks and Landon were completely irrelevant.
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “I know what to do now.”
“And I can keep everyone else away from you,” Landon said.
I looked back to him. There was nervous sweat covering his forehead—something I’d never seen before.
“Don’t bother,” I said as I lowered the gun. “I don’t need you to. I’m done with you and Franks. You’re never going to contact me again—either of you. This isn’t a request or a threat; it’s simply the way it’s going to be. Do we understand each other?”
Landon nodded as he lowered his hands.
“The two of you forget I ever existed,” I said. “No one else gives a shit about me or what I do.”
We stared at each other for a long time. He looked like he was going to say something else but just nodded again instead. As he did, I saw the one thing I never expected to see on his face—defeat.
It was…satisfying.
I kept the gun in my hand and my eyes on Landon as I backed up to the door and opened it. There was always the possibility he would shoot me in the back as I left though I didn’t think he would. Not at this point.
He spoke just before I maneuvered myself into the hallway.
“I still give a shit about you,” Landon said in a gruff voice. “I always did.”
I stared at him, refusing to alter my expression even though it felt like his words were ripping me up inside. I’d always known it, but he’d never said it before. It was too late now. I was no longer the lonely, fucked up, futureless kid he’d found in the streets and trained to be a killer. I had moved on.
“Goodbye, Landon.”
He nodded once, and I walked out of the hotel room.
I never saw him again.
Staring at a computer screen aggravated the hell out of my headache. I was actually considering getting some fucking reading glasses or something. I wasn’t sure how Raine managed to do it all the time for school.
I glanced down at the list Raine and I had made with a little input from Alex of all the things we wanted in a house. I was anxious to get the whole process over and done with before I lost my fucking mind.
I needed everything to be just right before I did what I had to do next.
Focus.
Using an online app, I poked around at the houses brought up with the search criteria I had entered. There were a lot of nice ones, but nothing seemed exactly right. There was always something major missing from our list of “must haves” that made me pass over the listings.
I glanced up at Alex. He was kneeling next to the coffee table with crayons all over the place, drawing another picture of a house. It was always the same—a little cottage with two windows and a door in the front, and rolling hills behind it. This time, he was adding a bunch of trees to the picture and had even included a big, red bird sitting on a branch.
I looked back at the list of criteria I’d added to the paper and then to the computer screen.
Selfish bastard.
I deleted one of the items from the list, and a whole new group of houses popped up on the screen. Even though I felt like I was starting over, I did it with vigor. My mind was made up, and I wasn’t going to let my own neuroses stop us from finding a place to live. I flipped through a couple dozen places that still didn’t seem quite right, but I kept going. I was as determined as I had been to get down that frozen mountainside.
Then I saw it.
It was fucking perfect.
Rolling hills and everything.
It wasn’t exactly like Alex’s picture, of course, but the outside of the house I was staring at still had a cottage-like feel to it. The picture must have been taken in the spring because there were flowering trees in the front and daffodils all around in the flower beds. The website said it had four bedrooms and three bathrooms, which was more than enough for us. There was even a finished basement and a swing set in the back.
“Hey, Alex,” I said.
“Hmm?” He didn’t even look up from his picture.
“Take a look at this, and tell me what you think.
He let out a dramatic sigh but placed his crayon down and hauled himself up from the floor. He walked around the coffee table three times before I told him to cut it out, and he plopped down in my lap to look at the computer.
“What do you think of this house?” I asked.
Alex studied it for a minute and had me go through some of the pictures of the house’s interior.
“That one,” he said as the website displayed a picture of one of the bedrooms. It was painted light green and had a wide strip of wallpaper full of spaceships running around the top of the wall.
“That one what?” I asked.
“That’s my room.”
“It is?”
“Yep.”
I smiled.
“Okay, then.”
Alex rolled off my lap and went back to his crayons. He picked up a brown one and started adding a swing set to the drawing.
Raine returned an hour later with carry-out in her hands.
“I didn’t feel like cooking,” she said as she walked in.
“I could have made dinner,” I said. The vast majority of what we could get for carry-out around here was full of fat and carbs. There were very few cuisines I would put up with except for…
“It’s Thai,” she replied with a wide grin and raised eyebrows.
“Did you get me a tofu tower?” Alex piped up.
“I did.”
“With peanut sauce?”
“Yep.”
“Sweet!” He jumped up from his spot on the floor and raced to the table.
“Hey, Raine?”
“Yes?” she asked as she started taking red and white containers out of a plastic bag. She arranged them on the table as Alex grabbed each box to open and sniff at it.
“This one’s Dad’s!” he announced as he wrinkled his nose and shoved the container to the other side of the table.
“Could you come take a look at something?” I asked.
“Just a sec,” she replied. She grabbed some juice out of the refrigerator and poured Alex a glass before joining me on the couch.
Nervously, I handed the laptop over to Raine. She peered down at the screen, and creases appeared on her forehead. br />
“What do you think?” I asked. I didn’t know why I was so nervous.
Raine flipped through the online pictures one at a time. I could practically hear her checking off little boxes in her head as she went through the details of the listing.
“What school district?” she asked.
I pointed to the screen where it was listed, and Raine nodded.
“That was my top choice for Alex.”
“I know.”
“What about public transportation?” she asked.
“There really isn’t any,” I said. “It’s a small community—you can practically walk anywhere you want to go. The elementary school is just four blocks away. I figured I could walk Alex to and from school, and when he gets older, there’s the school bus for the middle school and high school.”
Raine nodded again and turned her eyes to me.
“But it’s nowhere near a beach.”
I swallowed.
“Yeah,” I said, “I know.”
“That is your number one item,” she reminded me.
“No,” I said softly, “it’s not. You and Alex are number one.”
Raine looked at me, set the laptop down on the coffee table next to Alex’s drawing, and reached over to hug me.
“I love you,” she whispered into my ear.
The choice was made. At least for now, we knew our direction.
“Did you hear?” John Paul said as he sat down. Before he could explain any further, the server asked him for his drink order.
“Hear what?” I asked after the server jotted down his request on her notepad and walked away.
“About Franks.” John Paul shoved a handful of my chips into his mouth.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“He’s dead,” he said as bits of tortilla chips crumbled into his beard. He wiped them away and swallowed. “Somebody put a hit out on him, and he was taken out last night. Single bullet to the head.”
“No shit?”
“No shit.”
I looked down at the iced tea in my hand and tried to keep my expression blank. If there was anyone I could have confided in, it probably would have been John Paul, but I wasn’t going to risk it. He would never say anything to the organization about me, but that wouldn’t stop him from ratting out Evan, and I wasn’t about to risk anyone finding out he was still alive.