The guys are exchanging glances, seeming to communicate with just that. I suppose being trapped together for years will give you that.
Do they realize what my father is giving up? If he turns on his own kind, his livelihood is gone. It’s not much compared to what Stone and his guys lost, of course. But it’s a sacrifice from a man who’s poured everything into his work.
“How do you know that’ll even work?” Stone asks. “The man’s a judge. A friend and ally to every officer on the FCPD. You think they’ll want to bring him down?”
“The honest ones will,” Dad says. “Rivera will.”
“How do we know Rivera’s honest?”
Dad watches him, eyes bleak. “You’ve got to give me some credit here…” He trails off. “I’m more careful now. You’re gonna have to trust me. And…they’re children.”
Stone stills, seems to contain himself with great effort.
He and his guys were children, too.
Everyone watches him.
Stone turns his gaze to me. It’s a silent question—do I believe my father? Do I think Rivera’s one of the good guys? I told him he has to trust somebody sometime. He’s trusting me.
“I think Rivera’s a good cop,” I say. “He’ll want to do the right thing.”
Stone’s still not convinced. “So what? We wait for you to meet with these assholes? For Rivera to get a search warrant? And who does he get it from? One of Fossey’s bench buddies?”
“You want them put away?” my dad asks. “This is how it happens.”
“I don’t like those boys in there one second longer than they have to be,” Knox growls. “You seriously considering leaving it up to rich white guys to punish each other?”
Stone looks around at the guys. “How many people went through that place when we were there? Hundreds?”
I feel sick. I can’t look at my father now. I won’t.
Stone’s next words are low and hard. “We could get them all. All their names. All the names of the men visiting that strip mall. So they can’t victimize anyone again.”
My heart swells. Justice instead of vengeance. Preventing future crimes instead of retaliating. It feels huge.
“What about when Fossey makes his plea bargain?” Grayson barks. “What if he gets away with it? What if he builds up a new fucking organization and does it again?”
“We’ll kill him ourselves, then,” Stone says. Like that’s obvious. “Slow.”
Okay, but it’s still a step. A big one.
Knox doesn’t look convinced. “What did the system ever do for us?”
“Nothing,” Stone says, getting in his face. “Will a killing spree fix it?”
Knox looks away.
“We could bring down half of the city,” Abby says. “Half the elites, anyway. I agree. This is important. This is better.”
Better than killing my father. Better than vengeance.
There’s a tense silence. Knox is the first to nod.
Cruz nods. The others agree in grunts and head gestures.
Stone goes over and nudges my father with his foot. “The address.”
“No reason you can’t get something for yourselves,” my dad says. “I understand you’re all in some degree of trouble.” He’s looking at Stone and Grayson, but it’s all of them. He must know that. “I want to see you get some kind of immunity for helping to put these guys away. I’ll go to bat for you. Rivera, too.”
They just stare at him, wary. Has anybody ever gone to bat for them?
“The address,” Stone says. “Give it up. Now.”
Dad doesn’t have the address memorized, but he gives Stone the name and the cross streets.
Stone sends Grayson and a few other guys to watch it, to make sure the boys don’t get moved. “And you see anyone driving up to visit? You got my permission to abduct them and beat the shit out of them. Just don’t tip anyone off. Good chance to practice those stealth skills.”
The guys move out.
He makes my father call Rivera after that—on speaker—to set up a meet. Dad insists they meet tonight. As soon as possible.
Tonight. It seems like forever since I got that text message in class, but it’s only just past dinnertime.
Mom’ll be there, waiting, probably sitting alone at the dining room table. It’ll be perfectly set, salad forks exactly one-eighth of an inch to the left of the dinner forks. The roast in a covered pan, ready for serving on the elaborately carved warmer that I bought her last Christmas.
The salad will be tossed, a bright green against the festive blue tablecloth she bought in town. She’ll be wondering where we are, why we’re not answering our phones. Staring at hers. Worried out of her mind.
I swallow hard. What will she do when she learns the truth about Innkeeper?
Rivera agrees to a meet at the Old Steer Steakhouse.
Stone orders the blond—Calder—to go along with Dad. Apparently Calder isn’t known to the authorities like the rest of Stone’s guys are. Calder grabs my father’s arm and practically drags my father out, allowing him to slow just long enough to give me one last backward glance. Grief. Worry.
“I’ll be fine,” I say.
“Get him the fuck out,” Stone grates.
They disappear, leaving the two of us alone.
Without warning, Stone spins around and punches the wall.
I jolt to attention. The speed and violence of the act shocks me. Was that what he was bottling up? Is that what he had in store for my father?
Dust suffuses the air. When it clears, there are exposed beams where drywall had been.
He stares at the ruined wall, trembling with fury, not looking at me. “I wanted to kill him,” he whispers.
The barely leashed violence. Both power and terrible pain.
“But you didn’t kill him.”
He says nothing. I can’t see his face, but I feel him like I never felt anybody. I go to him. I wrap my arms around him from the back and hold him.
His breath is ragged, and I think I’ve never met anybody stronger. This beautiful, brave, desperately wounded man struggling to do the right thing—and succeeding.
Men with every opportunity in the world did the wrong things to him over and over. Men who should have been helping a kid like him.
And here, he did the right thing.
Putting this situation in the hands of the law. More or less. My heart swells with so much love, I don’t think my body can contain it.
Chapter 28
Stone
My hand blazes with pain. Did I fracture it? I kind of hope I did. I need something to balance out the churning hell in my mind.
I can’t believe I let him go. But with Brooke’s hopeful eyes on me, it’s all I could do. It’s more than just the fact that he’s her father. She watched me kill someone the first night we met. I can’t do that to her again.
I feel her behind me. She shouldn’t even be near me right now. There’s too much violence inside me still. All of it unspent. I may have spared his life, but that doesn’t make me a good man.
She moves nearer. I’m not fit for her right now.
And my mind is still reeling with doubt. What if they get away with it? They’ve gotten away with it for years; why should things change now? What if the dirty cops just kill her old man? What if they send in a SWAT team and move the boys?