“You know I’ll do whatever I can, mamita. Tell me what brought you here. What do you need from me?”
Carmen sighed so heavily, he started to worry.
“Oh, Alexander, I don’t know what to do.”
He got up and went to her. “Come on, let’s sit on the sofa, and you can tell me about what you don’t know.”
There was a pile of shit on the sofa that he quickly dumped in a corner. Carmen made a face when he finally sat beside her.
“How did you survive the military?” She scoffed. “It’s a wonder you found the sofa at all.” Her waving hand and the piles of office crap helped make her point.
He grinned and made a joke. “Are you kidding? Back in those days, with Draegyn and Cam vying for top dog, it was too easy. I could take a dump in the mess tent and those two would compete to clean it up.”
She slapped his thigh and snickered. “So much like your papa.”
He slung an arm about her shoulders and drew his second mother in close for a supportive hug. “Now tell me why you came to me and not my old man.”
Carmen’s face wore a pained scowl. “Alex, Duke has a ten-year-old grandson. He needs a home.”
“What?” He wasn’t sure if the astonishment shook him as much as the visceral concern.
After a long sigh, she told him a story that made his heart ache. Duke and his son endured a long estrangement during the boy’s childhood. But things changed as he grew up. In college, the boy, Michael, reached out to his father. They had a real relationship after that and would get together a few times a year. When Michael left college, he took his degree and turned it into a military career.”
“He followed Duke’s footsteps?”
“Yes,” she murmured. “Yes.”
A bad feeling crept up his spine. He urged her to continue with a hesitant nudge.
“He was killed in Afghanistan. 2012. Left behind a four-year-old son. At some point, the boy’s mother passes after a car accident. He’s been with Duke’s ex-wife, but she has an aging parent and needs to make some changes.”
“Carmen,” he muttered—too upset for words.
“We planned to vacation in Washington. Go to the memorial together. When he contacted the ex-wife, hoping to see the boy while we were on the East Coast, she unloaded. She wants Duke to take custody of the boy.”
His jaw dropped.
“There’s more,” she murmured with a thick voice.
Too stunned for speech, he merely blinked and waited.
“Duke is an honorable man, Alexander. We weren’t going to have a vacation frolic. He’s asked me to be his wife. There was no way he would be okay with us traveling together without a commitment.”
“You’re going to marry Duke?”
She blushed and looked away. “Well, once he does the proper thing and asks permission, we’ll see.”
“Permission?”
“Yes.” She nodded “Cristián, and you, of course. And Eduardo. We do nothing without his blessing.”
Sometimes, he forgot about Carmen’s long generational history with the Valleja-Marquez family.
Alex waved his hands in the air. “Okay, hold on. Let me see if I have this. You’re asking for vacation time to go east. Duke is averse to you guys shacking up, so he wants to make an honorable woman out of you. Me, Dad, and Ed have to give consent.”
She nodded to all of it.
“And when you come back, you’ll have a kid? Do I have this right?”
“Yesss.” Her reply was hesitant, and his antennae went up. “Here’s the thing.” Carmen cleared her throat and sighed dramatically. “Is it okay if we live in my quarters?”
Alex frowned. Why wouldn’t they live in her quarters? What was the real question?
“It’s your home, Carmen.”
He wasn’t sure why she hesitated, and in a couple of heartbeats, he didn’t care. He saw something to do and grabbed on with both hands.
“So what we need right away is a second bedroom. For the boy. What’s his name?”
“Paul. Paul Winston.”
“Right. So Paul needs a room suitable for a dude. With his own bathroom.”
“Alex, slow down.”
He chuckled. “Why? I thought you had a thing for Duke.”
“I do,” she quickly assured him, “but you’re talking about changing the Villa, and I don’t …”
He jostled her playfully. “Relax. I have some ideas for Caleb Merrill to look over. His company did a fantastic job with the chapel and what he made happen for Stephanie and Calder is inspiring. Need some changes in the family wing.” He shrugged. “I figure if he’s going to be working at the Villa, we might as well get a couple of things done. You need a second bedroom and maybe an office for Duke.”
His mind was clicking incredibly fast.
“Oh hey, wait a minute. After the Marquez-Dane men give their permission, when’s the wedding?”
She beamed. “As soon as we return. Duke will coordinate with Eduardo. With your permission, I would like to be married in the chapel.”
“Well, I don’t know,” he critically drawled—earning him her shocked attention. “Kid before the wedding? You naughty girl!”
Carmen rocked with laughter and wiped away a few tears. “Duke said something similar. I think he’s worried about my reputation.” She dryly snickered.
Her snarky humor turned into five minutes of fist bumps, awful jokes, and inappropriate humor—all reasons why he loved this woman to death.
It was funny as shit to watch her try to pull it together. For a host of reasons, Alex enjoyed her struggle—once in a while, it was good for Carmen to let her hair down and get silly. She was the true rock of the family, and for anyone who imagined that honor belonged to him, he had a few truths to throw down for blowing that theory straight to hell.
Without Carmen Delgado in his corner all these years, fuck only knows what might have happened. And not just to him. There was Cam and Drae as well. She took over big time when three fucked-up, surly, battle-hardened warriors appeared on the Villa’s doorstep, and it was by her hand that all of them eventually rejoined the human race.
She stood and had her usual game face on within a few seconds. He secretly chuckled. Once upon a time, he thought only his mom and Carmen had that face, but marriage and being forced to be ‘woke’ by an ever-growing crew of seriously kickass females showed him that ‘the look’ was something all women had—especially moms or anyone in a position of having to deal with men.
“You’ll tell the meesus?”
He laughed. There just wasn’t any other option. The woman turned her accent off and on like a spigot. Meghan was the one to point out that Carmen had them all snowed with her slightly confused act. Not only did she understand every goddamn word of English, she spoke it perfectly—when it suited her.
“Oh, sure.” He sniggered. “No problem. But you do realize, of course, that with you ditching us to go off on vacation, my wife will have the run of your kitchen.”
Alex didn’t bother to pretend that the Villa’s enormous kitchen was anything except Carmen’s exclusive domain. Meghan rattling around with one of her amusing attempts at faking domesticity was sure to drive their housekeeper nuts.
“Balls.”
He gasped, and his eyes went wide. “Did you just say balls?”
Bright pink spots of embarrassment lit up her cheeks. She sniffed—the sound of mock indignation—and doubled down on ‘the look.’ “It is Duke’s favorite word. Blame him.”
And with that, she half smirked and marched out of the study.
Standing in the silence, Alex rewound the conversation, decided that Meghan needed to hear every word, and went off in search of his wife.
Chapter 9
Pacing was a much more effective tension reliever than he expected. Probably explained why he’d walked a groove into the carpet as he waited for Alex to show up.
Brody ran a hand through his hair. Fuck. Something wasn’t right, and though he had no
idea where that thought was leading, he was sure of one thing—it wasn’t an everyday occurrence for an obvious tradecraft drone to do a Justice flyover and then blow the fuck up after being shot out of the sky. Recreational and business drones did not come with self-destruct mechanisms.
Remington Bisset, looking every inch a formidable kicker of asses, stood immobile next to the door. She was wearing a ferocious scowl that verged on a sneer and despite being a female who was slightly on the short side, her physical presence filled the room. He was impressed with her fast actions today and had no qualms about relying on her to be on point—gun drawn—while he investigated the drone issue.
Alex appeared in a burst of frenetic energy and began barking questions. It was an understatement to say the guy seemed pissed off. Not for the first or last time, Brody thanked his lucky stars that he was on the Major’s team cause this dude was a serious force. Crossing him wasn’t a smart idea.
“This better be real fucking good, you two. I was enjoying some family time and the last thing I needed was an annoyed wife who glared at me when I said something was up.”
Remy reacted first. What she said got all of Alex’s attention—and then some. “We need extra security in the family zone.” She held up her phone. “Duke is coming down now. He’ll be here in a few minutes.”
The Major’s shrewd, assessing demeanor brought a hush to the room. Remy stood her ground. Brody waited to see where this went. To his utter astonishment, she added a demand that got Brody’s head swinging in her direction as a pained grunt rumbled from his chest.
“And security at all the satellite locations. Jensen’s home. The Sullivan’s. Rafe. Finn. Everyone. No exceptions.”
Duke came bursting into the room followed by one of his security team with a canine from Brody’s program on a tether. The dog performed beautifully. So did the handler. A surge of satisfaction raced through him.
“Permission to initiate Cover-Net, sir,” he roughly grunted.
Brody’s gaze swung to Alex. He had no idea what Cover-Net meant but the Major certainly did. His slight flinch told Brody they weren’t in Kansas any more. Something big was up.
With a look as dark as a moonless night, Alex scowled and gave Duke a slight nod. “Remy was just making the case. Initiate. Level One, Duke. Everybody. Including parents. Understand?”
Chief Winston appeared to hesitate. He felt Remy’s eyes and looked at her. She had a holy shitballs expression. Duke asked for clarification and what he got set Brody instantly to high alert.
“Boston, sir?”
Alex’s angry growl was a sound Brody had not heard before.
“Yes, but tell Paddy. He’s a detective and I’m sure he’ll figure out in no time that he’s being followed.”
“Jesus Christ, Alex,” Brody muttered. “What the fuck is going on?”
“Where is it?” Alex asked.
Remy snapped to attention. “It’s under a tarp in the garage. One of my team is guarding the door. Nobody in or out.”
“It’s going to attract attention if we all go storming into the garage at the same time.” Duke pointed this out while giving Alex a weird look.
A pall fell over the room. Brody noticed the dog’s ears twitch. He was picking up the tension.
“Well, fuck, Duke,” Alex growled. “That is so not what I wanted to hear. Exactly what are you suggesting?”
“I think you know,” the grizzled security chief answered.
“Word of the day,” the Major barked with a menacing bite. “Write it the fuck down and memorize for future reference. Obtuse. Look it up and then don’t do it. Not if you want to be Justice.”
Brody bit back his groan. One of the first things he learned about Alex was his distaste for vague. Being unclear or imprecise got people killed. Where the agency was concerned, he did not tolerate wishy-washy and he wasn’t one to play word games. What the hell was Duke thinking?
Duke took fast action to correct the misstep. “Do over,” he grunted.
Alex nodded with a terse jerk of his head. “Proceed carefully.”
From the corner of his eye he caught Remy quietly smirking. After a great deal of elaboration from Heather, he came to understand the affect Alex Marquez had on women. In a nutshell, he was the Alpha Alpha. It took a lot to stand out and rise above the rest in a group of fellow top dog personalities. When it came to ultimate authority, the man was the undisputed winner.
Duke crossed his beefy arms over his barrel chest and gave off the impression that he wasn’t thrilled to be discussing any of this.
“Look,” he grunted. “We can’t discount the possibility that whatever steps we take now will be subject to an umbrella affect. It takes no genius at this point to acknowledge that somebody is deliberately fucking with us.”
Oh, Jesus, Brody thought. He knew what an umbrella affect was. No matter how much training and effort goes into what you’re doing, there’s always the possibility that your opponent got there first. It was a sniper concept. Something he’d ignored—at his own peril. While they were busy setting up a kill shot, someone else had them in their sight. One mistake that day cost the life of his tracker.
“So,” Alex muttered. “Whatever we send out is likely being monitored.”
Duke nodded. Remy cracked her knuckles.
Major Alexander Valleja-Marquez straightened and growled in a voice that scared Brody shitless, “Just to be clear—someone is going to die.”
He looked straight at him and also at Remy. “If you want out, leave now.”
Leave? He was joking, right? Some asshole was fucking with Justice and Brody was so not down with that.
“All hands,” Brody muttered.
“Word,” Remy agreed.
“Let’s do this,” Alex commanded as he strode from the room. “Split up. No straight lines. Everyone be in the motor pool in half an hour.”
Killing a bit of time wouldn’t be a problem. He had a backlog of emails to weed through and Calder was up his ass about installing a management assistant in the canine program. Brody thought the idea was overkill—he hated the idea of an assistant—Richie was bad enough but Calder was obnoxious on overdrive right now and all because he wasn’t thrilled with his wife working. Calder’s clever solution was for everyone and his cousin’s brother’s mailman to have an assistant. Problem solved—meaning Brody had a pool of applicants to consider.
He mumbled some crap to Remy and by force of habit, tested the guard dog with some sudden but unthreatening movements. The black and gold shepherd eyed him carefully and dug in—ready to rip his arm off if he sensed danger. But he didn’t lunge or break protocol.
Nodding to the handler, he gave an eyeball thumbs up to Duke—letting him know the canine team by his side was top-notch.
Alex was already gone—having disappeared in a puff of angry smoke. The man’s words came back to him. Somebody was gonna’ die. Should it concern him that he didn’t balk for a second? Maybe—but Brody didn’t care what that said about him. Justice was capable of taking care of itself. Throwing the family into the mix changed everything. Some lines in the sand were absolute. To a man, they were all capable of murder if the women and kids were in any sort of danger.
He thought about Bella and what he’d gone through to find her. And Heather. Shit. His girls were everything.
As he exited the room, he overheard Duke in his gruff, no-nonsense Bayou infused patois, laying out a series of directives to his man. Holy cow. He didn’t need a diagram to know this was some serious shit.
“He’s getting his ducks lined up for the fall term.” Meghan loosed an amused chuckle-snort. “Not even gonna’ tell you how funny it is from my perspective that Da is going to teach at the police academy. He’s taking after me! Not the other way around. How funny!”
Lacey saw her light-hearted point. Paddy O’Brien was the quintessential Irish cop. And like most cops with a long career, the man did not suffer fools or idiots. Throwing him into a classroom full of academy newbs had to
be the universal answer to the question, ‘How stupid can stupid get?’
“I love your folks,” she told the vivacious redhead. “They’re so funny together although I think your mom gave Cameron a heart attack when they were here after your wedding. Something about a wet T-shirt challenge. The elders are a naughty bunch and he had no idea how to react to their hijinks.”
“Hijinks?” Meghan laughed. “God, Lacey. This is why I love you.” She pulled out her phone and got busy.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
Meghan smirked and gave off some eyeshade. “I’m adding ‘hijinks’ to my Ponytail Notes. Great stuff for the book I’m going to write one day.”
They were strolling along the walkway that would take them toward the stable. Beneath a protective sun canopy, Lily was enjoying the scenery from her fancy stroller. Just like everything else their daughter touched, it was pink. Cameron had procured a special all-terrain carriage with shock absorbers and pneumatic wheels. Nothing but the coolest and most practical stuff when it came to his family.
She smiled to herself. In a reversal of traditional gender roles, it was her husband who spent money like water pouring from a faucet while she scoured the local sales and clipped coupons. Not that she had to. Not at all. After Lily was born and Parker sat them down for a serious conversation about wills, estates and investments she had been flabbergasted to discover just how much money they had.
With her husband having no interest in any of that stuff she took over—balancing the checkbook and making a halfhearted attempt to keep them on a reasonable budget. What a joke! She glanced at Red who was rambling on about Paddy, and snickered. All it took was one afternoon with Meghan, Carmen and Stephanie for Lacey to set her credit card on fire. An embarrassing number of packages were still arriving from a recent afternoon QVC freak-out involving David in the kitchen and shoe shopping with Jane.
The path curved around a clump of bushes and a cluster of twisted juniper trees as they made their way to the barn for a meet-up with Stephanie.
Enduring (Family Justice Book 8) Page 15
