Back then… my happiness was Ladd.
Today, it can be whatever.
It could be a whoever if I open myself up to it.
Maybe I’ll go to Argentina for a while and try to figure things out.
♦
I’m not sure what wakes me up, but my instincts tell me something isn’t right. I hold my breath and strain my ears listening intently. There it is… voices. Outside. Low and unintelligible.
Rolling to my side, I open the top drawer to the nightstand and pull out my Glock 17. There’s already a round in the chamber, and because it does not have a manual safety, it’s ready to fire the second I have it in hand.
Even though I’ve had the house maintained and have the lights on a rotational schedule, if someone was casing the neighborhood for a few days, they’d never see occupants coming and going. They might see this as an easy target for burglary.
Still, this is a safe, middle-class neighborhood. All the houses have alarms. Anyone who might try to break in would be stupid and—
Glass breaks at the front of the house, and the alarm starts shrieking. Three long, shrill bursts, followed by four seconds of silence, then another three bursts. That alarm is shocking enough to scare away even the bravest of vandals or burglars.
But in the four-second quiet that comes after the siren screams, I hear feet running through the house, and men shouting in Spanish.
Find her.
I don’t hesitate, rolling over my bed and away from the bedroom door. I hit the floor and scramble into the closet, thankful I left it open. I don’t even have time to close it behind me, merely throwing myself to the side as my bedroom door bursts open. In the shadows created by the moonlight filtering through the blinds, I see two large men in the doorway, and they unleash several rounds of bullets into the bed where I was just lying.
From the darkness of the closet, I take careful aim at the intruders, and the minute their guns go silent, I squeeze off four rounds, two into each man.
They fall wordlessly to the floor, and I don’t need the light on to know I got each one close enough to the heart to kill them nearly instantly.
More shouts in Spanish are drowned out by the alarm, but in the quiet among the bursts, I hear footsteps receding… leaving the house. I’m assuming they understood what they just heard: a heavy barrage of bullets from their cohorts, followed by a short silence, then four shots squeezed off in two short bursts each. No more spraying bullets. Their compadres are dead, and if they come back here, they’re next.
I keep my gun trained on the door as I carefully make my way out of the closet and across the room. The alarm would have notified the police as well as the security company. Grabbing my phone, I flip it on and take a quick glance down to see a missed call from the security company. They’ll alert the police to that fact, and I imagine they’ll pick up the pace to get here.
With utter stillness, I listen hard for any sounds between alarm bursts until I’m satisfied no one’s coming down the hall. I’d prefer to close the door, but two bodies are in the way, so I quickly pull up the security app and disable the alarm with my thumb while holding the gun securely pointed at the doorway, all the while listening intently for evidence of more intruders.
When the alarm silences, the quiet is almost overwhelming. My nerves ratchet up, only to calm down when I hear police sirens. When the blue-flashing lights slip through my blinds and bounce off the walls, I feel confident in leaning over and flipping on my bedside light, my eyes going to the dead men on the floor.
There’s a shout from the doorway. “Ramona Police.”
“Back here!” I yell, setting my gun down on the bed where they can see it. “I’m the owner of the house… Greer Hathaway.”
I take a few steps away from the bed, holding my arms out. Even though I’ve identified myself as the homeowner, they’ll come into my room with guns drawn and pointed at me. It will ease tensions for me to appear nonthreatening. I can’t show them my CIA credentials as I don’t have them anymore, but I know they won’t doubt my story that I shot in self-defense once they take in the scene.
If the bullet holes in my bed aren’t enough evidence for them, the fact that the two men dead on my floor have Vecindario 18 tattoos on them will be.
CHAPTER 11
Ladd
“Ethan, let’s go,” I yell up the stairs, checking my watch.
“Coming,” he yells back, and yet it still takes him two more minutes to come stomping down. His hair is wet and he’s shoving the rest of a banana into his mouth.
Backpack over one shoulder, he veers into the kitchen and grabs another. I hold out his lunch as he meets me in the foyer and he takes it with a cute grin, still chewing the banana.
“Your mom called,” I advise him, but he cuts me off.
“Is she in labor?” he exclaims, the banana muffling his words. He’s practically quivering with excitement.
“No,” I reply dryly. “Pretty sure if she’s in labor, she wouldn’t be calling us. That would be Ben.”
“Oh,” he says after swallowing. “Then why did she call?”
“She’s feeling uncomfortable, so she’s worried she could go into labor,” I say, and Ethan whoops. I laugh and open the door. “You’ll be staying with me from here on out until after the birth.”
Britney and I agreed I should take Ethan when it got close to delivery time, and she’s pretty confident she’s close.
“Think she’ll have the baby today?” he asks as I motion him through the door.
“Don’t know, bud. We can only hope.”
We load into the Jeep Wrangler, which is nice and toasty since I’d started it about five minutes ago. The temperature is in the mid-thirties today, and they’re calling for heavy snow tonight. I’m heading into Jameson headquarters, about a twenty-five-minute drive from my home in Upper St. Clair, southwest of Pittsburgh. My few days of “rest” are over—deemed by me, not Kynan—and I’m anxious to get back to work. I’ll do a few hours of paperwork, then cut out early to pick up Ethan from school. We’ll hit the grocery store from there and stock up because if we get the amount of snow they’re predicting, he’s probably not going to have school tomorrow.
Ethan’s school is only about five minutes from our house, but it’s a good twenty minutes in the carpool line. Just before jumping out, he gives me a fist bump and says, “Love you, Dad.”
“Love you, kid,” I reply, and he’s gone. I watch him meet up with two friends, and they walk into the school laughing.
There’s always an enduring love for my son embedded into my very essence, but seeing him happy and carefree like this sends a wave of almost euphoric joy through me. I knew being a father would be the pinnacle of any success I might have in this life, and this roller coaster of parenthood hasn’t disappointed.
The car behind me honks, and I jolt. Glancing in the rearview mirror briefly, I put the Jeep in gear and pull forward.
On the drive into work, I crank up some Korn and think about logistics as far as Britney and the new baby are concerned. Ethan’s going to want to stay with her soon after she comes home, but I’ll need to be at the ready in case he needs to stay with me a few more days per week as his mom adjusts to the new schedule of midnight feedings and extreme exhaustion. I’ll tell Kynan I can’t go on any away missions, which means I’ll be doing analysis as well as operating as a handler for other missions from the comfort of the Pittsburgh office.