by S. M. Shade
Chuckling, I pull her close. “I’ll make sure you’re in junk food heaven.”
We both sleep through the night despite the uncomfortable hospital bed. The moment they come to deliver her discharge papers the next morning is bittersweet. No mother wants to leave the hospital empty handed after their child’s birth, but it could be so much worse.
Baby Cal is doing great, surprising the doctors with his progress. They’ve even been able to turn down the breathing machine so he’s breathing a little more on his own. They’ll keep decreasing it until he can come off it completely.
Tears run down Mel’s face as she changes her shirt, then grimaces as she gets to her feet. Considering she still has a row of staples from one hip to the other, I’m not surprised she’s in pain.
“Let me help, babe,” I tell her when she picks up her clean sweatpants.
She sits back down and lets me slide them over her feet. When she stands back up, I move behind her to pull them up and my heart stops cold.
On her right ass cheek is a tiny tattoo.
A very familiar tattoo.
An ornate T and L overlapping each other.
All the pieces fall into place. How could I not have seen it before? She was missing, completely off the grid for years. And now I know where she was living.
She was one of them.
A True Life cult member.
She glances back when she feels me freeze up. “Jeremy? What is it?”
I trace the tattoo with my finger. “You have a tattoo. I didn’t notice it before.” My voice is husky.
“It was dark the last time you were down there,” she teases.
“What is it?”
“Nothing. A teenage mistake. It’s a long story I don’t want to get into now, okay?”
“Okay.” My head is bursting with the new information. After she’s dressed and packed up, Leah and Zoe walk in, all smiles.
“You’re out of here, girl! The nurse will be here with the wheelchair any time.”
They start chatting about the baby and the nursery while I excuse myself. I step out into the hallway and right into Tucker.
“Whoa, what the fuck, dude? You look like you’re going to rip someone open.”
“She lived there. They had her. True Life. Fuck.”
I’m not making any sense. Tucker pulls me into the men’s restroom, which is empty. “Calm down. Tell me what you’re talking about.”
“Melissa has their mark, the tattoo they brand the True Life followers with. It’s tiny and hidden on her ass, but it’s there. She was there. If they hurt her, I swear, I’ll fucking slaughter them.”
“Fuck,” Tucker breathes.
“She doesn’t know I know. She’s still weak and—”
“Yeah, you can’t hit her with this right now. She’s just had major surgery and her son’s life is hanging in the balance.”
At the mention of the baby, another devastating realization strikes me. She said the father was dead. That may be true, or she could be lying to protect Calvin from an abusive biological father who still belongs to the cult. I have to make sure Calvin is safe, and the best way to do that is to make sure there’s no doubt he belongs to me.
“I have to do something,” I announce and head toward the door, only to be stopped by a solid wall of ex-soldier.
“What are you doing, Jeremy? You can’t do anything crazy.”
“I’m just going to sign the birth certificate. I wasn’t here when she named him.” Tucker studies me for a second, and I know he sees the truth, that Calvin isn’t mine.
He’ll be the only one who knows. Calvin will grow up as my son. I never want him to doubt my love for him.
Finally, he slaps me on the back. “Let’s go make it official then.”
It doesn’t take long for me to hunt down the nurse, who hands over the paperwork. All it takes is a signature, and I’m legally the father of Calvin—holy shit. My chest swells to bursting when I read the name.
Calvin Jeremy Sanders.
She gave him her last name, but named him after me all the same.
Tucker grins down at me. “Come on. Let’s get C.J.’s mother home.”
#
“I’m fine, Jeremy. Leah is taking me to the hospital to sit with Calvin, then we’re going to go have dinner. Go do your thing.”
Melissa waves me off, and I drop a kiss on her forehead. “Okay. I’ll be back tonight. I don’t know how late. Kiss C.J. for me.”
She smiles and smacks my ass as I walk away. She’s been out of the hospital for three weeks and she’s feeling much better. Every day we go to the hospital to stay with our son until the nurses chase us out.
We had a little scare the day after they took him off the ventilator. His breathing slowed, and his oxygen numbers dropped. We were afraid he’d have to go back on the machine, but he pulled through and has been improving ever since.
She’ll be fine for the day with Leah and Zoe. Plus, the guys will all be at my place if they do need anything. Still, I hate that I have to leave them to deal with this cult bullshit. I called Anthony and told him I was out of town dealing with an emergency, that a friend had gotten himself into trouble and needed my help. He didn’t sound suspicious when he told me not to worry, and to come back when I could, but until I talk to him face to face, I’m going to be on my guard.
If there was ever a time they’d be watching me, it’s now, since I texted him I was coming back home today, so my first stop is the decoy apartment. I park out front and get out with a suitcase I packed at home. I let my shoulders slump like I’m tired and make my way inside.
Once I’m out of the public view, I walk around, peeking out different windows until I see the same car they used to follow me before, parked one space over from last time. They really aren’t very subtle about this. Tucker would lose his shit at this kind of sloppy surveillance.
I take a shower and change into different clothes before heading back to my car for the drive to True Life. My stalker falls in behind me, staying one lane over and two cars back the entire trip. Hopefully, they saw what I wanted them to. A guy returning from a trip, getting cleaned up, and heading to them, like I claimed.
Anthony greets me when I walk into True Life, and leads me back outside. We take a seat on the steps.
“Glad you’re back. Did you get everything straightened out with your emergency?”
“Yeah, I owed the guy a favor. He helped me out a while back. And he was in deep shit.” I look around to make sure no one else is listening. “Some chick he was fucking got smart, and he popped her one. She fell and cracked her head open on the cement. It wasn’t his fault. He didn’t mean to hurt her, but they’d have locked him up anyway.”
“Damn straight they would have.” He studies me. “So, you know how to help in those…situations? Might come in handy someday.”
“I do.”
“Want to explain how you’d handle it?”
I lean my elbows on my knees and drop my voice as if I’m afraid of being heard. “Okay, let’s say, hypothetically, you have a package to hide. There are two ways to guarantee that package is never found, that no pieces or scraps get you in trouble later.”
Anthony nods at me to continue. “The first is tricky and takes some planning ahead. You need a private place where a wood chipper wouldn’t draw unwanted attention. A farm or an isolated field. You run the package through the chipper, and catch the scraps in a bag on the other side.” I grin at him. “A water proof one.”
“Then you need to find a place where pigs are being raised. If you go out in the counties, it isn’t hard to find a farmer raising pigs. Even a few are enough. Dump the bags into the trough. The pigs will lick that shit clean. They don’t leave a chip or anything behind. I don’t know of another animal that will do that.”
I swipe across my forehead. “But that takes some planning, machinery, and the location of a pig farm. It’s not the most convenient option. Not how I’d do it.”
“So, how wo
uld you hypothetically dispose of an unwanted package?”
“People make the mistake of trying to burn it, you know, which is understandable, but it takes one hell of a hot fire and a long time to do that successfully. Fortunately, crematorium workers don’t make much money and tend to fall on the morbid side. Most have no problem chucking an extra package in the oven. Nothing left but ashes. That’s more my style.”
Anthony stares at me for a moment, then throws back his head, laughing loud enough to scare a flock of birds out of the yard. “You know, sometimes my instincts are damn near supernatural. I knew when I met you that you’d be an asset.” He gets to his feet. “Come on. I want to show you something.”
Yeah, we’re just a couple of murder buddies as far as he’s concerned. He walks slightly in front of me, and I can’t help but wonder if he’s the one. Someone from this group fathered Mel’s baby. Someone hurt her. She said she’s known monsters, but she has no idea I’m about to slaughter the monsters for her. She’ll never have to be afraid of them again.
Anthony leads me to an outbuilding behind the big house. While he fumbles with the keys to unlock the two padlocks on the door, I study it. Whoever taught him how to protect his shit didn’t know much. It’d be easy to take the hinges off and get in here.
We walk inside, and he pulls a cord, illuminating the room and the stockpile of weapons. Assault rifles, ammo, protective armor, gas masks. The place is a damned armory. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. None of this stuff would be hard to buy. Hell, any eighteen-year-old can walk into a superstore or pawn shop and walk out with most of this stuff.
After I fail to react to his pile of weapons, he pulls a chest out from under a workbench, grinning up at me when he opens it. “We finally found a legitimate seller.”
Fuck. Wrapped packages of C4, enough to bring down a damned building, share the trunk with blasting caps and a detonator.
“I got to be honest with you, Anthony. I don’t know anything about explosives. Playing with fireworks is the closest I’ve come.”
He laughs and closes the box, shoving it back under the bench. “No worries. I don’t need you for that part.” He gets to his feet and leans against the wall. “It’s actually really easy. We’ve got a guy who can rig it up. This is the exciting part.”
I’m holding my breath, hoping he’s going to reveal their target. I’m going to have to take these guys out quicker than I thought if they’re already planning. I can’t let them kill more innocent people.
He pulls out a geological map. “Are those mines?” I ask.
“Coal mines.” He grins at me. “We both know all that clean coal talk is bullshit. It’s one of the main pollutants dumped into our air every day. These three mines.” He taps the paper. “All converge here. Our guy thinks he can get down there, plant the C4 in a few strategic places and bring them all down. There’s not an overnight shift, and we’ll have to take out a couple security guards, but it shouldn’t be a problem.” He chuckles, nodding toward the assault rifles.
“Right.” I force a laugh. “Won’t take two seconds. How do we know we won’t get blown sky high though? It could go off early.”
“No threat of that. It’ll be triggered by cell phone. It won’t go off until I call the number and trigger it.”
I stare at the paper. “Will it be enough to permanently shut them down?”
“I don’t know, but it will definitely make anyone think twice about working for them. Don’t you remember when those Chilean miners got trapped? It was front and center on every news channel for months.”
Fuck. He plans to trap the miners.
“Yeah, I remember that. Fuck, this could work.” I try to sound impressed and awed, and apparently, I pull it off.
He slaps me on the back. “Yeah, it can. I’ll need a few guys to take care of the guards. Can you handle one of those rifles?” he asks as we leave, and he locks the place back up.
“Absolutely. Just make sure I‘m clear before you make that call,” I joke, and he laughs.
“We’ll be miles away, getting drunk off our asses.”
“So, do you have a date in mind?”
“The tech guy who is modifying the cell phone and planting the C4 has another job before ours. So, it’ll be a month at least. You’ll know as soon as I know.” We stop walking and he looks me in the eye. “This stays inside our circle. Shaun and Jose are the only other people who know the plan, other than the tech guy.”
“I don’t run my mouth.” I force a smile. “I’m a little excited though.”
Anthony laughs, and we head back for the house. “I’d be disappointed if you weren’t.”
Chapter Fifteen
Melissa
He’s so tiny and helpless my heart shatters every time I see him. Calvin is four weeks old, and while he’s made amazing leaps forward, he won’t be out of the hospital anytime soon. He has to weigh four pounds at the least and have no trouble breathing on his own to be able to go home.
In the last week, they’ve been able to remove the ventilator in lieu of a machine that puffs oxygen into his nose, and so far he’s doing well with it. They’ve also started giving him my breast milk through the tummy tube and he’s gaining weight steadily.
I’m so grateful he isn’t struggling like a lot of other preemies do. Another little girl born at twenty-six weeks is in the NICU and her alarms and monitors always seem to be screaming. She’s been through multiple surgeries and her poor parents are exhausted and devastated.
I’ve been so lucky to have the support system I do, especially since I expected to be handling my pregnancy and raising my baby alone. Now, I’m surrounded by wonderful people who care for him almost as much as I do.
Zoe and Leah have been a godsend. We’ve spent most of the last month together, so we’ve gotten to know each other quickly, but it wasn’t hard to see how amazing and compassionate these girls are. I’d be thrilled to think of them as family.
Jeremy has been busy with work, which makes me a bit nervous now that I know what he does, but talking to the girls has helped. If they live normal lives with their hacker husbands, I don’t see why I can’t too.
Leah sits beside me as the NICU nurse approaches and asks, “Would you like to hold him?”
Has a stupider question ever been asked? I’ve never held my son. It’s all I’ve thought and dreamed about since he was born.
“He’s ready?” My voice wavers.
“Yes, I’ll stay nearby and monitor. We want to try him on a bottle for a bit as well since he’s handling the breast milk well.”
The nurse picks Calvin up, carefully arranging the tubes and wires attached to him, and places him in my arms. He’s so light, a little over three pounds, and I’m terrified of hurting him, but he only snuffles a bit and opens his eyes.
They’re a brilliant blue that makes Leah gasp. “Oh my goodness.”
The nurse smiles down at us. “They’ll probably darken as he gets older.”
“Mine did,” I murmur, running a finger over the short, fine hair on his head. “My sweet boy,” I coo at him. His eyes don’t look for the sound, but his head turns as he searches for it.
“He recognizes your voice,” Leah says softly. Tears spill over, running down her cheeks and she wipes at them. “That’s so beautiful.”
After I cuddle him for a few minutes, the nurse hands me a bottle and cautions me that he may not be interested in it yet. “It may have to be offered many times before he takes it.”
His little mouth opens and closes like a fish, and he latches onto the nipple with no problem. I’ve had trouble with my milk, and now it’s pretty much dried up, but I have some saved up that should last him a couple of months. Once it’s gone, we’ll have to switch to formula. The doctors have assured me that even a few months helps give him the immunity and vitamins that will help him grow.
He doesn’t drink much. His eyes fall closed, and I jump at the sound of his oxygen alarm. The nurse calmly reaches over and removes the bo
ttle, then jostles him a little.
“That’s typical and the main thing we need to watch for now. Preemies have trouble regulating their swallowing and breathing. Whenever that happens, just give him a little rest and try again.”
He ends up eating less than an ounce, but the nurse assures me the first try went really well. “He’ll get better and better at it. Before you know it, he’ll be screaming bloody murder when he’s hungry and you’ll be racing to plug it up with a bottle.”
Leah and I laugh. “I look forward to that day.”
It kills me to leave him a few hours later, as it always does, but I know he’s in good hands. I can’t wait to tell Jeremy that I got to hold Calvin, but I won’t see him until late tonight. Zoe and Leah decide I need a night out now that I’ve recovered. Since I’m not pumping milk anymore, I can actually have a drink.
“Caffeine,” I moan, gulping down a latte, and they laugh at me.
“I think we can do better than that,” Zoe remarks, grinning at Leah.
“Margaritas?” Leah suggests.
“You read my mind.”
#
The bar and grill we end up at must be popular because it’s crowded for a weeknight. “Justus is going to be so pissed when he finds out he missed out on margaritas,” Zoe says with a giggle. She turns to me. “He loves the girly drinks, and the guys always give him shit about it.”
“I know. That’s kind of how I met Jeremy the first time,” I laugh, sipping my drink. Either they make them strong here, or my tolerance is way down after months of abstaining because I feel the warm glow spread through me, and this is only my second drink.
“Oh, we need to hear this story,” Leah exclaims.
We laugh and talk about my early experiences with the In Safe Hands guys, especially Jeremy. When I get to the part where he threw the money at me, Leah’s eyes widen. “He did not.”
“He did. Our next encounter wasn’t much better, but the asshole grew on me.”
Zoe calls the waitress over to order some snacks. When she leaves, Leah says, “He was pretty messed up. You know about Frannie, don’t you?”
