Gramps didn’t reply, as there was nothing really to say. He was thinking about Cassidy.
“She’s the one who got away, isn’t she?” Eagle asked.
Gramps sighed. “She can’t be the one who got away if she was never mine in the first place.”
“Regrets are a bitch,” Eagle said. “I regret taking that damn scenic route to Bloomington every damn day. But . . . things have a way of working out how they’re supposed to.”
Gramps knew what his friend was saying. The serial killer who’d set his sights on Taylor had forced Eagle to crash on that scenic route before chasing her through the woods. Eagle had found them and killed the man, preventing him from hurting Taylor or anyone else. But Gramps wasn’t sure his situation with Cassidy would have a happy ending. They really didn’t even know each other. Not as adults.
“I need you to promise me something,” Gramps told Eagle.
“Anything.”
“Promise me that if the shit hits the fan, you won’t do anything stupid. I can handle Michael Coke and his cronies, get Cassidy and her son, and get the hell out of there. But if anything goes wrong . . . I need to know that you, Smoke, and Bull will be safe, that you’ll get home to your wives.”
“If you’re asking us to just leave you there to die, you’re fucking insane,” Eagle told him, his voice lowering in his ire. “We’re a team, and nothing will ever change that.”
“You’ve got a kid, man,” Gramps said. “You want Kevin to grow up without a dad? I sure as hell don’t. And Taylor needs you. You’re perfect for each other.”
“What I’m not going to do is sacrifice one of my best friends,” Eagle growled. “We talked about this when we decided that you’d be going in undercover. Just because you’re the one on the front line doesn’t mean you’re expendable.”
Gramps sighed and looked down at the tile under his feet.
“What’s wrong? Talk to me,” Eagle ordered.
“I’ve just got a bad feeling. I can’t put my finger on why. Our plan is solid. I’ll go in and try to broker a deal to get shipments directly to my ‘organization’ in Dallas. We already know Coke is desperate to get his finger into more pies in the States. He was practically falling over himself to agree to the meet. But despite you guys posing as my lieutenants, he’s not going to want you tromping all over his estate, so I’m almost certainly going to have to go in alone. And there’re so many fucking unknowns. More so than we usually have, and that’s making me very nervous.”
Eagle put his hand on Gramps’s shoulder, and Gramps looked into the eyes of one of the three men he trusted with his life. “You’ve got this. Do you think Smoke, Bull, and I would’ve agreed to let you go in alone if we didn’t think you could handle it? You know Cassidy. You have a connection, you’ve said it yourself. She’s smart. Smart enough to be able to figure out a way to smuggle letters to the fucking FBI right under a drug kingpin’s nose. She’s not going to blow your cover, I know it.”
“She’s got a kid,” Gramps said.
“She does,” Eagle agreed. “And?”
Gramps didn’t know what his point was. No, that was a lie. He did know, he just wasn’t ready to admit it out loud.
He was terrified for Cassidy’s son.
In the past, it had always been his own life on the line. He’d never been personally involved with anyone in a mission. But he knew Cassidy, knew how much she loved her child, and he couldn’t help but think about all the ways this mission could go wrong. The last thing he wanted was to do something that might get Mario, her boy, hurt or killed.
“If you’re having second thoughts—”
“I’m not,” Gramps said. “I just . . . on previous missions, it was just the four of us. Now it’s so much more than that. There’s Skylar, and Taylor and Kevin, and Molly and her unborn child. And everyone here at Silverstone Towing. Now Cassidy and Mario. There’s so much more at stake now.”
“Agreed. And if you think you’re the only one who’s feeling this way, you’re wrong,” Eagle said quietly. “After Jamaica, we need to sit down and reassess.”
“You think Willis is gonna be all right with us . . . reassessing?” Gramps asked.
“Don’t give a shit what the government thinks. They aren’t the ones putting their assess on the line. They go home to their families every night and aren’t sneaking into foreign countries and coming face to face with evil.”
That was very true.
“Silverstone Towing makes enough money for us to live on,” Eagle said. “We can find other ways to keep the world safe if we want to. We weren’t going to be able to do this forever,” Eagle argued.
Gramps looked at his friend. They’d been through hell together, and Eagle was more like a brother than simply a friend. “I just don’t want you to do anything that will get you killed. Or Smoke. Or Bull. I won’t be able to face any of your wives to tell them that you aren’t coming back. If this is truly our last mission, that would be the ultimate kick in the teeth.”
“We’re all coming back,” Eagle vowed. “I don’t give a shit that we’re married and you aren’t. That doesn’t make our lives more important than yours, Gramps.”
Gramps didn’t agree, but he didn’t argue the point. “All I’m asking is that you don’t do anything crazy.”
“We won’t,” Eagle said after a moment.
“Won’t what?” Taylor asked, sidling up to her husband. She had their son bundled up in her arms, and the huge smile she turned her husband’s way made Gramps all the more determined to do everything in his power to make sure Eagle returned to her.
“Won’t be gone too long,” Eagle said smoothly, without missing a beat. “How’s Kev doing?”
“Good,” Taylor said. “I was afraid all the excitement would be too much for him, but he’s slept through most of it.”
“Which means he’ll be up all night,” Eagle said with a grimace.
Taylor chuckled. “He’s getting better at sleeping at night,” she protested. “And he knows he’s got his daddy wrapped around his little finger. I swear half the time when he wakes up, it’s not because he’s hungry, but because he wants to reassure himself that you’re still there.”
Gramps had been just as relieved as his friends when it seemed their son hadn’t inherited his mother’s prosopagnosia condition. He clearly recognized his mom’s and dad’s faces.
Eagle looked at his watch, then asked his wife, “You about ready to go?”
“Only if you are,” she said.
In response, Eagle turned to Gramps. “We got this,” he said, then gave him a chin lift and, with his arm around Taylor’s shoulders, walked toward the door.
Gramps stayed at the party for a while longer, not wanting to go home to his small empty house and stew about the upcoming mission. But eventually the families went home, and Gramps had no choice but to do the same. He knew he needed some sleep because he suspected he’d never be able to relax while in Jamaica. He’d need to be on his toes every minute of every day.