Beyond Revenge (The Ransom Series)

by A. T. Douglas

  I lean down to where they’re sitting and kiss Dante over the soft layer of dark hair on his head. “Morning little guy.” I steal a kiss from Morgan before getting started on coffee and breakfast in the kitchen.

  I’m just about to set the coffee maker to brew when the cell phone rings on the counter. I glance at it and see Robert’s cell phone number on the caller ID.

  Morgan looks at me questioningly. I try to give her a reassuring smile as I answer the call. “Hello?”

  “Leo, you have to get out! They’re here. They’re going to break through!” Robert yells something unintelligible, and a crashing sound fills the call.

  Panic surges within me, flooding adrenaline into my veins. “Who’s there? What’s going on?”

  “I’ve been compromised. The fucking FBI. They’re trying to break down the door.” He pauses, breathing heavily into the phone while I’m frozen in fear and silence. “They could have followed me to your house. They may know where you are. You have to get yourselves out of there!” There’s another loud crashing amidst the sounds of Cindy’s relentless sobs.

  My petrified gaze meets Morgan’s worried face, and together we’re instantly thrown back into the chaos that was our lives before settling down in this house. Our months of peace and contentment are over. We’re at risk again, but even more so now with a needy and defenseless baby in tow.

  “I’ll get them to safety. Don’t worry.”

  Robert doesn’t get a chance to respond to me. With one final crash, the call fills with voice upon voice speaking forcefully and yelling in a cacophony of chaotic sound. The moment I hear Cindy’s piercing scream, the call disconnects.

  I drop the phone on the counter and smash it with the handle of a knife. When I look back up, Morgan’s already to standing with Dante in her shaking arms. The look on her face is one that I haven’t seen since the day I got her back. It tells me everything in that one expression. She already knows just how bad our situation is.

  I rush to her and grip her shoulders tightly, forcing her to look me directly in the eyes so I know she understands. “The FBI is raiding your parents’ house. Your dad thinks they may know where we are. We need to go.”

  She nods, just barely, and hurries with Dante down the hall to the bedroom. I quickly collect the emergency bag of weapons, burner phones, and spare cash hidden away behind some boxes in the pantry before I run to the bedroom and throw on some jeans. By the time I’m done stuffing clothes from the dresser into a duffel bag, Morgan emerges from the nursery fully dressed with an overflowing diaper bag and a crying baby in hand. We stare at each other, lost for a moment, before we come out of it enough to make it out of the house and into the Jeep.

  I load up the bags in back while Morgan straps Dante into the car seat. Her hands are shaking so violently that she can’t get the buckle to click correctly.

  Touching her shoulder gently, I ease her back from the car. “It’s okay. I got it.”

  Morgan steps out of the way, and within seconds I have Dante secured in the car seat facing backward in its base in the middle of the back seat. We get in the car and slam the doors, the silence in that moment almost more terrifying than any of the previous ten minutes. I take one last look at the house we’ve called home for almost half a year, the place where we put the broken pieces of ourselves back together, where our love for each other continued to grow, and where our son was born, then I start the engine and drive us away into the unknown.

  With Morgan’s hand held tightly in mine, I constantly check the rear view mirror and scan the horizon ahead for any sign of someone following behind or coming for us. It takes a good ten minutes before I’m sure enough that no one is there, and I feel like I can finally breathe again.

  Then I look at Morgan, and my relief comes crashing down.

  She sits silently in the seat beside me, her eyes reddened with tears streaking down her face. It’s only now that I realize through softening the connection of our hands that the tremor in her body remains. I instantly bring her hand to my mouth and press my lips to it to give her any comfort that I can.

  While I’m trying to transfer that feeling of serenity and love to her, internally I’m so fucking angry with myself. I feel like I’ve failed her again. We finally had a safe place together, somewhere we thought no one would find us, the perfect home for our new family, and it was just ripped away like it never existed. We’re right back where we started but running from a new threat this time.

  “It’ll be okay.” I squeeze her hand tighter. “I won’t let anything happen to you or Dante. We’re going to be fine.”

  “It’s never going to end, is it?” Morgan’s defeated voice absolutely tears me apart inside. “They’re always going to look for us. They’ll watch my parents’ every move now. God, we’ll never see them again.”

  She pulls away and her head falls into her hands as devastation seems to swallow her. I immediately bring the Jeep to a stop along the desert road and pull her into my arms. She grasps at me desperately and sobs into my shoulder, and I let her take the time she needs while I give her what seems like hopeless comfort.

  I wish I could believe my own words that everything will be fine, but right now nothing is right. We had it all, then watched it fall apart within minutes.

  I try to give her the silver lining, small as it may be. “At least we still have each other. We have Dante.”

  Even as the words come out of my mouth, my mind treads on thoughts of what would happen if the authorities found us. They would separate me from Morgan. They would take our baby away from us. We may never see Dante again.

  My throat constricts, and I know I need to push those thoughts from my mind. I need to focus and be strong for my family. Morgan’s going to need me to be her rock again, so I solidify my resolve and my belief that we’ll make it out of this okay. It’s the only reality and only future I can imagine for us right now, because anything else means the end, and I’m not ready for this to end. I won’t lose my family all over again.

  When Morgan finally pulls back from me, she looks just as much of a mess as I feel inside. I wipe away her remaining tears with my thumb before grasping the side of her face and bringing her mouth to mine in a brief but soothing kiss. “I’ll call Jack. We can find somewhere temporary to go, but he can help us get back on our feet permanently.”

  Morgan nods at my suggestion, but that’s all the reaction I can get out of her. I can see her attempts to steel her expression and her nerves. She’s trying to be strong as she has been so many times before even though I’m trying to be strong for the three of us.

  I quickly get out and go to the back of the Jeep. I grab one of the phones from our emergency bag and pull the scrap of paper with Jack’s number out of my wallet.

  It rings and rings, but he doesn’t answer. I get his voicemail and quickly debate leaving a message. I know I need to focus on things other than calling him back constantly, so I opt for the message but keep it brief. I slip back into the driver’s seat and steal a glance at Morgan before getting us back on the road.

  She stares out the window aimlessly for the next two hours as we drive away from everything we’ve known for the last six months to find a place of refuge, somewhere random and new. I stop at a diner just off the main road. It’s mid-morning, past the breakfast rush and before the lunchtime crowd, so the parking lot outside is practically empty.

  Morgan looks at me nervously as I put the Jeep in park and shut off the engine.

  “It’ll be fine,” I reassure her. “You need to eat something, and we need to take care of Dante.”

  With a reluctant nod, she gets out of the Jeep and pulls our sleeping baby in his car seat out of the back while I grab the diaper bag.

  As if we’re right back in the acting days of our time with Mark, we put our game faces on the moment we enter the diner, warm smiles on our lips and well-mannered responses coming from our mouths as the waitress seats us in a booth by the window and takes our orders.

 
; We spend most of our time eating in silence, our bodies taking in the nourishment we know we need while our minds are completely elsewhere. Morgan constantly looks at Dante in the car seat lodged between the table and the back of the booth, concern written all over her face as if he might disappear at any moment.

  He starts to stir by the time our plates are almost clean, and he is full-on crying when she takes him in the car seat to the restroom to feed him and change his diaper.

  With the baby’s cries no longer filling the space around me, the diner suddenly seems overly quiet other than the occasional clinking of plates and the hum of the small TV behind the counter. The minutes I’m sitting here are almost calming given the chaos of the last few hours.

  I’m fishing out cash from my wallet to pay the bill when something catches my eye. It’s a news broadcast, a breaking story. The volume on the TV is too low for me to hear what the reporter is saying, but I see the words displayed clearly on the bottom of the screen: “Decorated detective arrested on suspicion of conspiring with criminals.” They show a mug shot of Robert’s stern face, and my heart instantly drops into my stomach.

  I’m beyond grateful that Morgan isn’t out here seeing this. I’m already planning how quickly I can get her out of the diner when I see something else on the TV, the worst possible thing that could appear there.

  It’s a picture of the three of us: Morgan, the glowing mother, and me, the proud father, sitting on the bed at our house with Dante held between us on the day he was born. They must have taken the picture from Cindy’s cell phone.

  I know we were caught up in the exciting moment of Dante’s birth, but how could we have been so stupid to let her take our picture?

  I scan the room around me as if at any second someone will recognize me and realize we’re here. I look for anyone on the phone, people who could be calling the police at this very moment. Everything still seems normal around me, but I know our situation has just become even more precarious.

  This diner is no longer safe. A hotel is out of the question. Any public place is now a risk, and I don’t know what to do about it. We have nowhere to go and only one person we can turn to.

  We need Jack. He can help. He’d do anything for us. He always finds a way.

  I quickly check my phone, but there are still no missed calls. I try dialing Jack’s number again, but it keeps ringing until it goes to voicemail just like it has every other time I’ve called since we got on the road.

  When Morgan emerges from the restroom with the diaper bag and car seat in hand, I’m immediately up and out of the booth, leaving cash on the table and leading Morgan toward the door. The waitress says goodbye to us, and rather than giving in to my instinct to cringe at the attention, I give her a brief smile instead. We otherwise manage to slink out of the diner without drawing the gazes of anyone else.

  “You okay?” Morgan asks as we work together from each side of the back seat to get the car seat secured in its base.

  When it finally clicks in, I look Morgan in the eyes and debate for a full and painful five seconds whether I should tell her the truth now or wait. “I need to tell you something, but let’s get on the road first.”

  We jump into the front seats, and I pull us back on the main road.

  Morgan keeps looking at me expectantly. I know I need to tell her the news, but I almost can’t bring myself to say it. I don’t want to devastate her any more than she already has been over the last year.

  “They’ve arrested your dad,” I blurt out. “They have a picture of the three of us on the news.”

  Morgan turns her attention to the road in front of us, nodding silently. No tears fall down her face. No cries emerge from her throat. Her chest rises and falls with her steady breathing, but no sobs rack her body.

  She’s numb to it. She’s beyond devastation.

  She’s losing hope.

  I grasp her hand in mind and hold on to her with everything I have left. “I’ll keep you and Dante safe. We’ll be okay.”

  Morgan looks at me with empty eyes, but then we both jump at the sudden ringing of the cell phone in my pocket. I reluctantly let go of her hand to retrieve the phone and answer the call.

  “Jack?”

  “Thank God,” he says with a sigh. “Did you get out? Where are you?”

  “We’re on the road, just over the border in northern New Mexico. We stopped at a diner. I saw Robert’s arrest and our picture on the news there.”

  “I’m afraid it’s worse than that,” Jack says gravely. “The picture is going viral on social media. Your faces are everywhere.”

  I’m speechless for a moment. I can’t even process this information. “Why? I don’t understand.”

  “The world is outraged about the baby. No one likes the idea of a newborn in the hands of two known criminals.”

  Fiery rage burns beneath my chest. The thought of anyone believing for even a second that I would do something to harm or endanger Dante makes me absolutely sick. He is everything to me and one of the happiest things to come into my life. Why should my past automatically define me as a threat to my child?

  “He’s our son,” I plead with Jack through clenched teeth. I know Jack is well-aware that we would never hurt our baby, but I need to vent. I need to know that someone understands.

  “You’ll keep him safe. I know you’d do anything to protect that boy.”

  My temper is flaring, my breathing escalating to rapid draws of breath. I need to calm the fuck down and form a plan. “I was going to drive a few more hours and take them to a hotel,” I say, “but of course that’s out of the question now.”

  If only I could will all of this away. We could be back in our house relaxing and enjoying our time together instead of being on the road and running for our lives.

  I feel lost and defeated. I hate the anxiety pulsing through me and my complete lack of control of the situation. I’m losing the strength I’ve tried to muster to get us through this.

  “I don’t know where else to go,” I whisper.

  Jack interjects before I can say anything more. “Leo, I want you to listen to me. Use the GPS. There’s an address in Crownpoint already programmed into it. When you get to that address, keep going south and follow the road all the way to the end.”

  “To where?”

  “You’re coming to my house.”

  25

  His Persistence

  ∞

  Once you’ve seen it all,

  little can surprise.

  But life still has its ways of testing you.

  Setting you up to fail.

  Putting the world against you.

  Obstacles and awful things.

  Hell on Earth.

  We endure and persist.

  We continue on as we always have.

  Striving for that which is both near and far.

  Against all odds.

  It’s there, awaiting discovery.

  He and I will find it.

  Someday.

  ∞

  By the time we pull up to the large modern house tucked away in a valley in the desert terrain, Jack is already outside the front door smoking a cigar. It’s good to know that even in this world of chaos around us, some things don’t change.

  Jack abandons his cigar to approach us as Leo parks in front of the garage. I’ve barely stepped out of the Jeep before Jack pulls me into a hug, and I hug him back fiercely. He may as well be family at this point. He’s done so much to help us and especially to help me: from keeping me company and maintaining my sanity when Mark took me, to providing a home for me and Leo to live in when I was freed from Mark’s grasp, to helping me through hours of labor and delivering my son into this world. After everything he’s done for us, we’re back here yet again, on his own doorstep this time. I feel awful about it but am eternally grateful at the same time.

  “I’m sorry we’re dropping in on you like this,” I say over Jack’s shoulder as we continue our embrace.

  “Don’t
be sorry. I have this big empty house to myself. It could use a little more life in it anyway.” He pulls back and gives me a warm, fatherly smile.

  “Thank you, Jack.” Leo holds his hand out to Jack, who grasps it but pulls him into a hug instead of a handshake.

  “Glad to help you three.” He pulls back from Leo but keeps his hand on Leo’s shoulder. “You know you’re like the son I never had, and now you have a beautiful family. I’ll do whatever I can for you.”

  The lack of moving vehicle and vibrating engine seems to have disrupted the sleeping baby in the back seat of the Jeep. I peek inside to see Dante’s eyes open and the beginnings of a cry in the adorable grimace on his face.

  By the time I have his car seat out and Leo has our bags in hand, Dante’s letting us know just how hungry and upset he is. As his cries echo into the valley around us, I’m suddenly grateful for the seclusion of Jack’s home from the nearby town.

  “The boy still has some power in those lungs, doesn’t he?” Jack observes as he lets us into the house.

  “He’s not shy about what he wants,” I respond with a laugh before my attention switches to the inside of Jack’s home. It’s not quite what I expected given the gray, contemporary-style exterior. The innards of the house are cozy and relaxed with worn furniture in the living room and old paintings on the walls. In a strange way the décor reminds me of Jack’s wardrobe, which is dated but appropriate for a man his age.

  When I take Dante out of the car seat and pull him to my chest, his screams start to settle into general fussiness, and he quiets completely when I take a seat on the couch to let him nurse. Jack offers me and Leo something to drink, which we both decline, before he takes a seat in a large recliner across from me with a cup of tea in hand.

  Leo sits down next me, wrapping his arm around my shoulder before turning his full attention on Jack. “Any news since we last spoke?”