by S. Ann Cole
A quick glance at the night clock tells me it’s 2:09 AM.
Drowsy and confounded, I stumble out of bed and plod out of my room, wondering who on earth could be banging our door down at this hour and why.
An equally groggy and confused Eloise collides with me when I step out into the hallway. Dad is already several feet ahead of us.
“Are you expecting someone?” I ask her, rubbing my eyes.
“No,” she answers through a wide yawn. “But at this hour, I imagine it has something to do with that restless mother of yours.”
Well...true, Mom is known for showing up at odd and random times, but I doubt she’d be making such a ruckus. She would have at least phoned me.
We sluggishly pad down the stairs together, while Dad power-walks ahead to the foyer, then swings open the door.
At the sight of flashing red and blue lights outside, I ground to a halt.
OhGodOhGodOhGod. Please let Mom be okay. Please let Mom be okay. Please let Mom be okay.
Across the threshold are two agents in FBI vests.
“Mitch Henderson?” one of them asks.
“Yes?” Dad answers.
“You are under arrest for harboring Russian fugitives Irina Popov and Yuri Popov, who were smuggled illegally into the United States.”
“I don’t understand,” Dad says. “I don’t know anyone by those names.”
“You have the right to remain silent,” the agent replies as he twists Dad’s hands behind his back and starts cuffing him. “Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed to you.”
“No!” I shriek, rushing forward. “This has to be a mistake. This is our home, and we don’t know anyone by those names.”
The second agent stares pointedly beyond me. I whip around to follow his line of vision, which leads right to Eloise, who’s rooted at the foot of the stairs, wide-eyed and stricken, all the blood drained from her face.
Only then does it all start to make sense.
It’s her.
It’s fucking her.
Dad’s unusual behavior for the past two weeks? It’s because he’d known.
He’d known and was waiting.
Waiting for this.
Oh my god.
As the agent brushes past me and toward her, she begins backing up, shaking her head wildly. “Miss Irina Popov, you are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”
“No!” she cries when the agent seizes her by her upper arm. “You have the wrong person. This is a mistake!” As the agent forces her hands behind her and cuffs her, she looks at Dad with pleading eyes, “Sweetie, I promise you, I am not who they are saying I am. This is all just a misunderstanding.”
Dad nods. “I believe you, love. We’ll get this sorted.” He shifts his attention to me. “Lyly, call our lawyer. Get him down to the station as soon as possible.”
Although I nod, I search his expression for a hint if that’s truly what he wants me to do or that it’s part of the act. But the only thing I find is desolation, and my heart breaks for him.
The agents usher both him and Eloise out the door, and I follow them.
“I love you, Daddy!”
For the first time ever, he doesn’t return the sentiment.
As they’re guided into separate squad cars, two other agents emerge from the side of the house with a handcuffed Patrick.
A gasp catches in my throat.
He’s Yuri Popov?
What is even happening right now? It feels like I’m in a dream. Them? Eloise and Patrick? These people who’ve been embedded in our lives for almost three years? Russian fugitives?
None of it even makes sense.
Feeling so, so cold all of a sudden, I wrap my arms around myself and watch numbly as the squad cars speed out one by one.
“Go put some clothes on and call the lawyer. I’ll take you to the station.”
Damn near leaping out of my skin, I whip around to find motherfreaking Reuben standing in my foyer.
“Where the hell did you come from?” I ask, hand over my racing heart.
“Through the portal from the otherworld.”
With a weighted sigh, I pad inside and close the door. “Where is he?”
“Tracking the others who got tipped off and are on the run.”
I shake my head. “I don’t know what any of those words mean.”
“Go on.” He jerks his chin to the stairs. “Go change out of that ridiculous onesie and let’s go. I’ll fill you in on the way.”
~
CON ARTISTS.
It’s one thing to swindle people out of their hard-earned money, but another thing entirely to sell someone into human trafficking then put a fucking hit on them.
What kind of heartless, soulless creatures were we living with? How could we have misjudged them for so long? That they’ve even been able to pass themselves off as Russians with nary a slip-up? How easily we’d believed their “Amish” cover story for their stilted dialog.
Just when I thought the world couldn’t surprise me anymore than it already has.
How can I ever, ever trust another soul again after this?
By the time we arrive at the station, our lawyer, O’neil Partridge, is already there. Turns out Dad had already told him about this and he’d just been waiting for the call.
He assures me that Dad won’t be charged with anything. Apparently, we’re being helped by the FBI, but the usual protocols had to be carried out so it all appears legit.
Reuben sits with me in the waiting area, his arm around my shoulders.
Keri—who we believed to be Patrick’s girlfriend but is actually a member of the Six-Six Hook crew—had gotten tipped off that the FBI was onto them and tried to warn Patrick, but he told her she was being paranoid. He must’ve gotten convinced at some point, however, because Reuben said he was packing frantically when the feds arrived.
The bastard wasn’t even a nurse! He spent his days with the other members of the crew, pulling small cons as a “side hustle.” Yeah, his real full-time job? It was us. The Hendersons.
What suckers we were.
The rest of the Six-Six Hook crew somehow managed to slip under the radar and flee, so Red Cage has gone after them.
“I’ve lost all faith in humanity,” I tell Reuben.
“Good.”
“How is that good?”
“Lack of faith in humanity is how I survive,” he says simply. “I expect the worse. Always.”
“That’s no way to live, though.”
“Yet here I am.” He stretches his legs out in front of him and crosses them at the ankles. “I know you think you’ve been to hell and back, but trust me, if you’ve seen some of the things I’ve seen, experienced, endured, you’d understand. Humans are the worst fucking things to ever be created.”
I slide him a side glance, brow arched. “What about your wife?”
“I said humans. My wife is a goddamn celestial angel.”
In spite of everything, I giggle.
WE’RE IN the waiting area for what feels like forever, the activity around us endless—who knew police stations were this busy?— when Reuben mumbles, “That was fast.”
Snapped back from staring off into space, I follow his gaze to the entrance where officers are herding in several handcuffed people. One of those people being Keri.
The rest of the crew.
Tilting my head, I observe them one by one. They all look so...normal. No visible hint of the evil that lives within them. Just the average man or woman one would stand behind in a line at the grocery store or hold the door for at a coffee shop. Outside of this station, I’d never see any of these normal-looking people and think they’d be capable of the heartless things I’ve heard they’ve done. And that is what makes this all so terrifying.
I can never trust again.
Never.
Reuben’s phone rings and he lifts his arm from around me to answer. “Yeah?” … “With me, yeah.” … “A little in shock, looks like. But solid.” … “Ah, cool.”
When he hangs up, I bite out, “I have a phone. He can call me on it if he wants to know how I’m doing. Or he would know if he bothered to answer my freaking calls and texts.”
Reuben watches me with an amused expression as he tucks his phone inside his leather jacket. “He wouldn’t have answered. Your phone wasn’t safe. Wouldn’t have risked it.”
“What?”
“You forgot how those men were able to get to you in Venice? Tracker. Spyware. Your homeboy supplied them your location,” he reminds me. “You might’ve gotten rid of that phone, but we knew once you were back in that house they’d bug it again.”
Oh. I hadn’t thought of that. But then I wouldn’t have known to consider that, seeing as I had no clue what was going on. I’m glad I was in the dark, though, because I would’ve, without a doubt, blown the whole operation. As a terrible liar who possesses zero acting skills, there’s no way in hell I would’ve been able to fake it like Dad had. “So he wasn’t just being an asshole to me then,” I muse.
“Oh, he’s always an asshole,” Reuben says matter-of-factly. “But in this case, no.” He holds out his hand. “Give it to me.”
“What?”
“Your phone.”
When I hand it to him, he drops it to the floor and stomps on it with his shitkicker boot.
As the gadget cracks into pieces, I sigh. Well, isn’t that just a symbol of my life.
Shambles.
BY THE time Dad and O’Neil come out, I’ve chewed my nails down to the cuticles.
Dad looks worn down, but I leap up and launch myself at him anyway. “Daddy, I’m so sorry.”
He hugs me back hard, pressing his face into my hair. His sigh is loud and heavy, like he’s just rolled a boulder up a hill. “What are you sorry about? All of this is on me. I—”
“Let’s take this out of the station,” Reuben mutters, nudging us both. “Some of these badges are more corrupt than you think.”
A passing officer scowls at Reuben, but he just shrugs and tells the officer, “Find the mole who tipped them off and I’ll retract my statement.”
Color me appalled. Is he allowed to speak to officers like that, especially in their domain? By now I know Red Cage has a working relationship with the LX-PD, but just how informal is that relationship?
“You did good, Henderson,” O’Neil tells Dad once we’re out in the parking lot. “You did really good.” He pats Dad’s back, gives my upper arm a reassuring squeeze, then bids us a good night.
Arms around each other, my head on his shoulder, Dad and I follow Reuben back to his jeep.
“I apologize for treating you so coldly all week,” Dad says. “I needed something to hold onto to get me through this, and my anger—at them, at myself, at Garza—was so thick it was almost tangible, so I gripped it like a goddamn baseball bat and prayed I didn’t get the urge to swing it.”
“Maybe that’s why he told you,” I say. “He’s manipulative like that.”
Dad sighs. “I don’t doubt it.”
“This is a nightmare, Daddy. I don’t even know how to wrap my head around any of this. How to process it.”
“All of it is my fault. I brought them into our lives without a deep background check,” he says glumly. “Your mother’s going to kill me.”
“Imagine a world where we have to do ‘deep’ background checks before getting into a relationship,” I muse in disbelief.
“Well, this is where it gets us when we don’t.”
Reuben unlocks the jeep, and Dad and I get in the back, our fingers laced tightly together.
“How come you haven’t told mom yet?” I ask once we’re settled in.
“Because she wouldn’t have been able to keep her cool long enough for the arrest to happen.”
“What do you mean? Mom is the most zen person I know.”
Dad chuckles humorlessly. “That’s the Lysandra you know. She may not have been a conventional mother, but that woman would kill for you.”
Damn. “Really?”
“Your mother chose the ‘zen’ path for a reason,” he informs me. “She had a lot of bottled-up rage and hate on account of things she suffered in her past, and that’s just her way of dealing with it.”
Wow. I had no idea. But I probably should’ve guessed. There’s chill, and then there’s Lysandra Callas chill, which is next-level chill. No one’s that chill unless they’re holding something back.
REUBEN DRIVES US home, and as the jeep pulls to a stop outside our house, it feels as if we’ve arrived at a crime scene. The magic of this home I spent the last decade of my life in is gone. Stolen.
“So, is this it?” I ask Reuben. “Is it all over now?”
“For you two, yes.”
“What’s gonna happen to them? Deportation?”
“Well, although they’re all wanted for numerous charges, only Patrick and Eloise are illegal immigrants,” he says. “But the feds’ main goal is to take down the human trafficking gang in Mexicali, so they’re most likely gonna isolate the ones who’ve got more to lose and offer them deals to turn on each other. Eloise and Patrick are wanted on a series of serious crime charges in Moscow, including homicide, so once the feds get what they want from them, they’ll def have them deported and banned.”
I still can’t believe any of this is real. “Thanks, Reuben,” I murmur on a heaving exhale, then open the door and climb out.
When Dad gets out on the other side, Reuben powers down the windows and informs us, “Oh, heads up, Red Cage’s maintaining security detail on you.”
“Why?” I shake my head, confused. “I thought you said it’s all over.”
“It is.” He slides me a grin. “But you’re the boss’s property now. And the Garzas protect what’s theirs.”
With that, he speeds off.
“Sonofabitch,” I mutter.
Dad chuckles, and the bastard actually sounds pleased.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
“Would you give me up?”
Lyra
THE ENSUING DAYS PASS IN A haze.
For me, after the shock wore off, it was easier to accept, adapt, and refocus, because I’d survived worse and gone through therapy. As a result, I’m more mentally equipped than I’d given myself credit for.
Losing Patrick hurts. A lot. More than I thought it would.
But every time I get the urge to go to the station and inquire about his well-being, I have to remind myself that the “bond” we had was never real. That he’d tried to have me killed. That he wasn’t “Patrick,” but some cruel, heartless bastard named Yuri Popov.
It’s a struggle, but I’m coping.
For Dad, however, not so much.
Following the arrest, he spent three whole days in bed depressed, refusing to eat and shower, curtains drawn. He blames himself for all that’s happened to me, and as much as I tried to convince him of the opposite, assuring him that I don’t blame him and that I love him, it was never enough to pull him out of it.
Only when a livid Lysandra finally arrived, railing at him, both with her words and her fists, did he start showing signs of life again. Almost as if he enjoyed her anger.
Her ire has since abated and she’s been nurturing us both back to normalcy. We’re having meals together, entertaining together, deciding things together…as a family.
It feels so good having her here with us again. And although I know it won’t last, that she’ll be leaving us again soon, the little girl in me is still gleeful.
But even with Mom here, Dad laughing again, and things slowly returning to normal, the house feels different. Tainted. No longer like home.
So, this morning at breakfast, we all agreed to put the house on the market.
“I’ve been thinking about getting my own place anyway,” I’d said. “And maybe tr
avel with you for a little while, Mom.”
Mom had clapped her hands excitably at the prospect. “Oh, sweetie, I would love that!”
Dad didn’t like either idea. If he could keep me under his roof until I’m fifty, he would.
LATER, I’M out in the front yard feeding the birds by the fountain, when he comes up beside me.
“I don’t approve of Torin Garza for you.”
I snort at that. “There’s nothing to ‘approve’ of, Daddy. It was a fun fling. It’s over now.”
This time, it’s him who snorts. “Sure, that’s why we can’t leave this property without being tailed by his men.”
“Uh, yeah, I’ll be having a word with him about that.” If he ever bothers to pick up the damn phone when I call.
“Lyly, I believe he’s a good man, I do,” Dad goes on as if he didn’t hear me tell him it was a freaking fling, “but I just don’t think he can give you a normal life. The life he lives, his line of work it’s...risky. You never know when... I guess, after everything you’ve been through, I just want you to have a happily ever after.”
Maybe I don’t want a normal life or a happily ever after. At this point, I’m convinced there’s no such thing. It’s a chimeric notion we all aspire for but never attain because it doesn’t exist. “I gave up on a happily ever after a long time ago, Daddy.”
“And that’s the most tragic thing of all,” he mutters through a sigh and wraps his arm around my shoulders. “You can’t imagine how much I blame myself for all that’s happened to you. And since I’ve proved to be a terrible judge of character, I’ve decided I have no right telling you what to do anymore.
“So, from here on out, I’m letting you choose your own path without interference. I might not like that man for you, but I know that he’ll do anything to keep you safe. I can only hope he’s able—and willing—to give you the life you deserve.”
“Again, Daddy,” I stress as I sprinkle seeds into the fountain, “it was just a fling.”
He plants a kiss to my temple. “Oh, Lyly, you have a lot to learn about men.”
