The clubhouse was just getting started, shit was going to set off soon, and there were going to be far too many fucking sore heads tomorrow morning. Including mine.
I wasn’t ready to be Grandad.
Or Grampa.
Or Pops.
I shuddered and shook my head.
A buzzing in my pocket drew me away from the celebrations, and I pulled out my cell as I headed to somewhere a little quieter. I opened the door to church and closed it behind me, the soundproofing instantly making the room silent. The number on my phone was listed as unknown, and I frowned at it for a couple of seconds before deciding to answer.
I put it to my ear. “Yeah?”
“Huntsman, Judge here.” My brows shot up in surprise. It had probably been close to ten years since I’d heard from Judge. He worked for the FBI, mostly doing undercover shit. He barely ever stuck his head out of the ground.
“What’s up?”
“I have a favor to ask,” he answered, his tone serious and straightforward. “I’ve got a witness who’s been in protection for close to sixteen years. The offender was meant to be serving life. And low and behold, if I don’t get a call from a friend in the penitentiary to say he’s being released next week.”
My fist clenched at my side.
That shit didn’t just happen.
“She can’t come to you?” I asked, knowing just how serious this could be if this asshole had people inside.
“Man, I’m so deep right now I can barely see the end of my nose. If I pull her here, there’s gonna be questions, ones that I can’t answer, ones that could destroy four years of fucking work.” I could practically see the worry on the old man’s face. Judge and I had known each other for a long time. We’d worked together on more than one occasion before we’d both decided to leave the army, and he joined the force while I went… well, the opposite route.
When I didn’t answer right away, he started to push harder, pulling on whatever fucking strings he could. “She’s got a girl with her, single mom, teenage daughter.”
Goddammit.
Something caught my eye through the glass of the door, and I looked out to see Meyah run past with a gun in her hand, heading out the back. I ripped the door open. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I barked, causing her to freeze and turn slowly toward me. I could hear Judge laughing on the end of the phone, but I ignored the asshole and narrowed my eyes on my daughter.
“Drake bet me a hundred dollars that I couldn’t shoot a penny from a hundred feet.” She held up her gun with a devious glint in her eye. She knew she fucking could. Drake knew she could too. He also knew that if he tried to give her or her old man any money to help with the kid, that they would turn it down.
She thought she was winning.
He thought he was fucking winning.
Jesus Christ.
I shook my head and stepped back into the room, and pulled the door shut. “Fine, I’ll do it.”
I heard him release a slow breath of air. Like he was relieved. I wasn’t sure what this case was to him, but it was obviously one which was important enough for him to ask me—the outlaw—for fucking help.
With Meyah having her own babies, I guess you could say doing this was a bit of Karma. If I wasn’t around and she was in trouble or needed help, I’d like to hope someone would say yes, and that they would do whatever was humanly possible to protect her.
“Good, she’ll be there tomorrow.” Judge laughed.
“Say fucking what now?”
“I heard you needed a new interior designer,” he answered casually. “Well, congrats, you just hired one. I think you’ll like her. Her name is Zoey. Kid’s name is Blair.”
“Fucking fantastic,” I drawled, realizing that I’d just stepped into this one. He had no intention of ever letting me say no. “You’re a conniving bastard.”
“I learn from the best.”
Then the line was dead.
“Motherfucker,” I cursed under my breath.
Guess I better get prepared.
The thought of some fucker trying to hurt her had my hands curling into fists.
They’d obviously tried to break her once. But judging by the way she’d basically told me to go fuck myself in not so many words, I’d say she was a fucking fighter.
So God help them if they try and come back around again.
7
Zoey
“Who are you texting?”
Blair’s body jerked, and she juggled her phone in her hands for a few seconds before finally managing to catch it before it hit the floor. “No one!”
“The high-pitched tone of your voice seems to scream differently,” I teased, leaning my hip into the kitchen counter. “Is this a boy?”
“Mom!”
“What’s his name?”
She pointed her finger at me across the living room, the stern look on her face doing nothing to change the way her cheeks flushed a deep crimson color. “We aren’t having this conversation.”
“Party pooper.” I sighed, crinkling my nose and sticking my tongue out at her like a spoiled child before tucking my towel around me and making for the door.
“Real mature,” Blair called after me, a smile in her voice that I couldn’t help but feel warm my chest. It’d been a long time since I’d seen her this comfortable and this happy. She’d found a group of friends, I had a job she could be proud to tell them all about, and now a boy?
The pieces of our puzzle were falling into place finally.
Things hadn’t been easy for us.
I was put into witness protection before she was born. A teenage girl, alone, scared, and hiding from a world of people who I knew had the money, the resources, and the reason to hunt me down. It meant I couldn’t get a real job because the government refused to give me a new social security number, and the little bit of money they gave us was nowhere near enough to survive.
I managed to get a part-time job at a strip club, waiting tables and working only for tips, but it meant Blair slept out the back in the dressing room the girls used to change in. They all adored her, taking turns watching her between sets.
It wasn’t the life I wanted for her.
And the risks I took to get where we are today could have backfired time and time again.
So seeing the way she was blooming reminded me that the choices I made were right. I couldn’t help but smile as I dropped my towel beside the pool, my heart already beating excitedly at the idea of breaking through the surface and submerging myself beneath. It was a different world down there, the chaos of the world above me seeming like it disappeared the moment I took that deep breath.
The water was my safe place.
My solace.
It was the place I went to escape an abusive father.
The place I felt like he couldn’t touch me.
Like nothing could touch me.
I sucked in a sharp breath as I launched myself from the edge and into the water, my hands pushing through the liquid to make way for my body. I needed every part of a second I could get, so breaking the water was important. The rest came naturally—the way my lungs conserved air, how I turned my head to catch a breath.
Time melted away the moment I got into the water. I could swim for hours without realizing but my body wasn’t quite what it used to be. My lungs began to burn, the work out they were getting was pushing them to a limit they hadn’t reached for years. One more lap and I knew the finish line was only a few seconds away. So I pushed a little harder, a little further, trying to fight my body’s natural urge to fight for breath.