Chaos Remains: Greenstone Security #4

by Malcom, Anne

  I nodded. “So in about thirteen years?”

  It was then she laughed.

  And somehow, despite everything, I laughed right along with her.

  Lance

  “You need to rein your shit in.”

  Lance stared at Keltan, his boss, his friend, a man he respected. For those reasons, he didn’t plow his fist through his face. And because that was against the rules.

  He was trying to remind himself of those rules, as he had been all morning.

  The morning that started with a small human being shaking him awake and asking him where his shield was.

  “I can’t find it in the closet,” Nathan said. “Or under the bed.” His eyes lit up with a kind of energy only kids could have at this time of the morning. “Do you have a secret safe?” he asked, voice lowering from the near shout it had been before. “I promise I won’t tell. Even my mom.”

  Lance moved upward in his bed, fully awake, pain radiating from an area in his chest. “Don’t have a safe,” he said. “Or a shield.”

  Nathan screwed up his face in confusion for a beat, but then it cleared and he nodded. “You don’t need one,” he said, like it was obvious.

  “I do,” Lance admitted.

  Nathan continued to stare at him in that probing and uncomfortable way that kids had. Like they could see everything you were trying to hide from the rest of the world.

  “I’m hungry,” he said finally.

  Lance restrained a laugh.

  “Do you know how to make oatmeal?” Nathan continued.

  “Yeah,” Lance said.

  So he got up. Made the kid oatmeal. Even gave him the barbeque sauce to put on it, interested, impressed and disgusted at watching him eat the whole thing. Eliza arrived in the middle of it, seemingly surprised to see Lance feeding Nathan, but decidedly more shocked at what he was feeding him.

  She offered to take over, take him to school, both of them not needing to say that they were letting Elena sleep.

  “I got it,” he said.

  The woman looked at him, really fucking looked in a way that made him uncomfortable before she smiled, big and bright. “Yeah, you do,” she agreed.

  Then she left. He got Nathan ready for school.

  Took him there, dropped him off, promised that he’d be there to pick him up, another punch to the gut with the look on the kid’s face when he made him that promise.

  He’d driven to Greenstone. After making sure someone was sitting outside the house. He didn’t want to leave Elena. No fucking way. Not with what they knew about the fire.

  But he trusted his team, even if he didn’t like the way that fuck Duke looked at Elena.

  He had shit to do.

  People to kill.

  Keltan sensed that. Saw that.

  Hence his order.

  “Rein it in?” Lance repeated. “First time I see her in a week, after a week of tryin’ to scrape her off my bones, I’m seein’ her unconscious in her burnin’ house,” he bit out.

  He was pacing.

  That was against the rules.

  A clear sign of lack of control. A sign to the world, and most importantly, himself, that he could not keep his shit locked.

  The fists clenched at his sides, another one. The edge of panic to his voice, the way it shook, the fact he was admitting to his fucking boss he had a connection to Elena that was beyond professional, yeah that was bad.

  And he couldn’t control it.

  Because. Elena. Almost. Died.

  His vision blurred with that thought.

  He stopped pacing, looked into the clear and steady gaze of the man in front of him. “Saw the kid, cryin’ in the middle of the yard, covered in smoke, tears, pointing at a house that was little more than inferno telling me to go and save his mother.”

  That memory shook him. The reality of the moment fucking broke him, took him back to another time, another life, where he couldn’t save anyone.

  Standing here, in the cool, air-conditioned offices at Greenstone, his skin was melting from his fucking bones. He was ready to tear it from them, his hold on his shit was that far gone. He was about to choke on it. All of it.

  Then he calmed.

  Instantly.

  Most likely disturbing Keltan, the change from feral to empty. Lance sure as fuck felt disturbed at how instant the change was. How he hadn’t even tried to do it. Fuck, he didn’t think he could change back to what he was before.

  But it was simple. He was thinking about how helpless he was in that other life. And he was remembering who he was now.

  The man that was far from helpless.

  “He’s dead,” he said, voice calm, familiar. Comfortable. “Don’t give a fuck about what Elena says about this shit anymore. What her morals tell her. Straight up, I’m ending him, and you can fire me, try to stop me, though I really wouldn’t consider the latter, since I respect you, like your wife, wouldn’t want to offend her by fucking you up.”

  Keltan raised a skeptical brow at this but Lance kept going.

  “You know me. Hired me ‘cause of what you know I can do. I’m the best at the worst. And I’m pointin’ all of my worst at that fucker. You’re with me, against me, I don’t give a fuck. Just don’t get in my way.”

  * * *

  Keltan hadn’t stopped him.

  He wasn’t that stupid.

  Likely he was making arrangements for some kind of damage control when Lance did what he said he was going to do.

  Because Lance always did what he said he was going to do.

  Especially when it pertained to killing.

  Which was why he was sitting down the street from the fuck’s house.

  Watching.

  Waiting.

  He knew he was home.

  Saw him pull in.

  Stupid enough to still be at the place where Lance had beaten the shit out of him before.

  Or arrogant enough.

  He almost kills his ex-wife and son, and he comes home with his fucking dry cleaning, not a care in the world.

  Soon he wouldn’t have a care in the world.

  Because he wouldn’t exist in this world.

  Wouldn’t be able to harm Elena or Nathan again.

  So why the fuck was he still in the car?

  Because of the kid that woke him at six in the morning asking him where his superhero shield was.

  Because of the woman who had cried herself to sleep in his arms last night.

  Because she had felt so right in his arms when even breathing had felt wrong for the past ten years.

  He knew, he fucking knew if he walked into that house, did what his blackened soul was urging him to do, he’d never feel that rightness again. He’d be crossing a line that he’d crossed many times before. But one that would make it sure that he could never have the thing he wanted.

  The life he wanted.

  He had a choice.

  Kill the man who posed a threat to Elena and Nathan, kill the prospect of maybe having a life.

  Or drive away. Leave it to chance. Leave a threat out there in the world so he could be selfish, have something he didn’t deserve.

  Life or death.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Elena

  Three Days Later

  “What’s this?” I asked when I walked into the living room, going to throw my keys on the side table and catching myself just before I threw them onto the floor as I had for the past three days straight.

  I knew this wasn’t my house.

  I had to drive past my burned-out shell of a home in order to get here. The front door was different. There were no flowerpots outside it.

  Nothing of mine or Nathan’s decorated the walls.

  In fact, nothing decorated the walls.

  It was a stark and utter contrast to our cluttered, warm home that was charred wood and black ash.

  Despite the fact that I had all this evidence that I wasn’t walking into the front door of my home, I still had to catch myself from throwing my ke
ys on the side table I’d restored myself.

  Lance watched me do this, because he was Lance and he watched me do everything. Before the fire, I thought it was just his intense way, something he did with everyone. I could almost believe myself when I thought it. But after the fire, it was unmistakable that it was something he only did with me. And Nathan. But it was different with Nathan.

  Every time we were in the same room I felt it. That mixture of fire and ice in my bones. His stare that imprinted itself into my skin. It was like he expected me to burst into flames just like my house. He barely left mine and Nathan’s side now, the week-long absence never mentioned. I itched to know the reasoning behind the absence. Why he left. Why he came back. But I was a coward. I was fragile. My first few layers burned off in that fire. I was exposed to the nerve. I didn’t want him to tell me why he left or why he came back. I wasn’t strong enough for answers I might not like. And I didn’t want to tempt fate either. I didn’t want to point out the obvious to him about him being well and truly back in our lives, scare him off.

  Not that he seemed like he was going anywhere. He was always there with me to drop Nathan off at school. Pick him up with me. Have dinner with us, though he barely grunted responses to Nathan’s chattering, not that he really noticed.

  And he was there, in the room right next to mine, sleeping. Or I presumed he had to sleep at some point. Because even though my son thought he was some kind of superhero—and I was inclined to agree since he pulled me out of a burning building—he still needed some shut-eye. So did I. Because I was most definitely not a superhero.

  Yet I snatched a mere few hours for the nights we had been here. Not because I was afraid I’d wake up in a burning house again. No, I didn’t have fears with Lance under the same roof.

  It was the fact that I was under the same roof as Lance, so close to him I could smell him in the air, that was the big reason I couldn’t sleep. I tortured myself in the nights when the sheets felt too heavy, the air felt too stifling and my body was overcome with an animal kind of hunger. I managed to chase away that want, that need for Lance in the daylight. It was much easier in the daylight, when all the reasons why I couldn’t give in were illuminated, stark, clear. But as the sun set, it obscured all those very good and very practical reasons.

  And now, those very good and practical reasons were disappearing in the daylight too, walking into the house that wasn’t my house and seeing my son wearing clothes I hadn’t bought him and holding a fishing rod that was taller than he was.

  Lance was wearing clothes I didn’t recognize either, the man version of Nathan’s little boy outfit.

  Where Nathan’s little pants, boots, and shirt were absolutely adorable, Lance’s were straight up scorching.

  I wasn’t exactly familiar with most sportswear, but before this moment, I would’ve been confident to go in blindly and say that any kind of fishing attire would not be sexy.

  Like at all.

  Right now, I was being proved very, very wrong.

  “We’re goin’ fishin’,” Lance said in reply to my earlier question, the one I’d almost forgotten I’d uttered before I started taking all of this in.

  “Lance is taking me to his church!” Nathan all but screamed at me, his grin threatening to split open his face it was that wide. “And he got me my very own rod and special fishing clothes.”

  I smiled back at him, his happiness infectious and welcome. This past week had been tough for my little man, to say the least. Heck, this month. Although Nathan was one of the best five-year-olds to ever exist, he was still a kid.

  There was only so much he could handle.

  So the smile hit my heart.

  Reality hit it a second later.

  “We’re gonna go in a sec, but we have to go and find worms in the garden,” Nathan declared.

  I wrinkled my nose up at the thought of digging up slimy creatures and handling them. Though I definitely didn’t mind getting my hands dirty in most ways—I was a mother and a waitress after all—worms and any kind of insects was where I drew the line.

  “How about you go get started and I’ll talk to Lance,” I said to Nathan, my smile still in place, but a little more forced than before.

  Nathan didn’t need to be told twice. In his excitement to go and dig up worms, he forgot he was still holding the rod, and just let it go before running toward the back door. Luckily Lance’s badass instincts extended to the aftermath of an overly excited five-year-old.

  I waited until the sound of the back-door closing echoed through the small living room. Then I stepped forward, dropped my purse and keys on the sofa that had appeared yesterday.

  Along with another bottle of wine and a note from Rosie:

  Not as kick-ass as your previous one, but it’ll do for now.

  It was one hundred percent more kick-ass than my previous one, considering my previous one had been found at a flea market and restored with random patches of fabric. This was pure velvet, a deep purple, long and luxurious. And expensive. I knew that just by touching it. It was like you could sink into it. Sitting in it was like sitting in a cloud.

  I couldn’t even resist stroking it as I dumped my bag and keys.

  “Didn’t think you’d mind. Kid doesn’t have shit on today, his homework is done. Figured you could have an afternoon where you can do whatever shit you want. Take a break. Read a book. Whatever.”

  Lance spoke before I could. It was an incredibly long sentence for him. I savored every word, even though they were uttered in that same deep, flat tone. That tone I felt everywhere in my body, more specifically right between my legs.

  I took a deep breath and forced myself not to stare at the way his army green tee clung to his muscled biceps. Then I focused on the words, not just the tone, not just the fact that Lance offered up the first sentence as somewhat of an explanation.

  He knew that Nathan had homework. That he’d finished it. He knew that he didn’t have a playdate scheduled, or anything else.

  And he wanted me to have time to myself, to maybe read the book that was sitting on the coffee table, the one that I’d only managed the first chapter of.

  All of this hit me in different places than his masculine and commanding voice. Because though the words were spoken in a cold and indifferent tone, the words themselves were far from cold and indifferent.

  The fishing rod, the fishing gear, my son’s beautiful smile, all very, very far from cold and indifferent.

  Which was the problem.

  “You made Nathan smile,” I said as response. His face stayed blank, but the hand holding the rod twitched. I noticed it because I was training myself to notice every tiny movement, change of expression, tightening of muscles. They were all Lance’s almost invisible expressions.

  They were what I clung to in the darkness.

  And his overall hotness, obviously. But that was more for when I quietly put my hand into my panties late at night, imagining his body on mine, instead of in the bedroom next door.

  The invisible expressions were used for much more dangerous fantasies, ones that the fishing rod and Nathan’s smile were adding to.

  “He looks up to you,” I continued. “He thinks you’re a hero. He’s getting attached. He’s getting used to your presence.”

  I paused, biting my lip, looking out the window that backed onto the yard, watching Nathan digging in the dirt with his hands.

  “I think he’s falling a little bit in love with you,” I whispered, eyes still on the window because I was a coward. A coward who would never ever admit that I was falling a little bit in love with him too. I may not have protected myself against a man who hit me, bruised me and scarred me. But I had to protect myself against this man.

  He’d hurt me worse than Robert ever had.

  I knew that. I might have been willing to be brave and admit my feelings to Lance, or to creep into his room at night had it not been for the little boy with fists full of worms and a gentle soul.

  I had to be br
ave in a different way. For my son. To protect him.

  My eyes found Lance’s. They were not hard. Indifferent. It took the breath from my lungs, that miniscule amount of emotion lurking in his irises.

  “Nathan’s been through so much,” I said. “Too much. Far too much. I’m going to have to live with the fact that it’s because of decisions I’ve made. It’s because I didn’t protect him as a mother should.”

  My breath hitched at the same time Lance’s brows narrowed.

  “I’ll live with it,” I continued before Lance could protest, and it looked like he was going to. “He smiles and it makes the world go away.”

  I smiled out the window again before I locked eyes with Lance. “And you’ve made him smile. You, his Captain America. The man who drops him off at school, the man who he’s expecting to pick him up from school and who he’s getting used to waking up in the same house as. The man who’s gonna take him fishing.” I sucked in a breath. “No matter what you say, I know that’s not just you doing your job. That’s something more than that. As much as I want that to continue, as much as I want my son to have someone who isn’t afraid of worms and knows how to use a fishing rod take him on a boat and show him how to reel or hook or whatever, I can’t have that. Not if he’s going to expect you to take him next weekend and the weekend after.”

  I swallowed my want for that. My visceral want for my son to go fishing with Lance every weekend for the rest of forever.

  “This is going to be over,” I said. “I don’t know when, but I know that somehow, it’s going to be over. The job will be done and you will be gone. And my son won’t have anyone to take him fishing and be there to show him how to replicate a badass glare. And it’ll break his heart. I can’t have anyone breaking my son’s heart.”

  I swallowed the tears that were creeping up my throat, choking me. “I won’t let anyone break my son’s heart. I need to protect him. And not just from men who mean him harm, but from men, good men. Like you.”