But there hadn’t been any justice for Ronan and his partner, so he’d gotten that justice for himself.
Then he’d gone on to get it for others and slowly his team had grown. And while Ronan had returned to his roots and was once again practicing medicine as he raised a family along with his husband, Seth, he kept a finger on the pulse of the group he’d created.
Even before Cruz and I had agreed to the deal, Ronan had provided the information I’d been looking for when it came to Bishop’s location. I’d missed the fucker by a matter of minutes in Prague.
It had been game on ever since.
While I didn’t make use of Ronan’s tech guy—or girl, rather—since I still preferred to keep my movements while hunting under wraps, I’d learned enough about the dark web to track Bishop and some of his haunts. No matter where I was or what I was doing, if I got any kind of lead on the man, I dropped everything to check it out. Since I worked jobs with Cruz, it meant my brother was often left holding the bag when I took off, but he’d given up on trying to talk me out of it.
Until today.
I sighed because there was no reason to stay. The ramshackle bar in New Orleans had been a long shot.
But I wasn’t quite ready to leave just yet.
“I’ll meet you there,” I murmured to Cruz as I stepped past him.
“Where are you going?” he asked on a sigh, indicating he pretty much already knew the answer to that.
As I crossed the street and headed for the bar’s front door, I simply said, “To leave Bishop a message.”
I was glad when Cruz didn’t follow me. There was no reason for him to see proof of what he already knew.
That I was no longer his hero.
I wasn’t anybody’s hero.
Chapter 8
Sam
“He’s finally asleep,” Elliot said as soon as he entered the kitchen.
I breathed a sigh of relief. “Thanks,” I responded as I dried off another dinner dish. “Let’s hope he has a better night than last night.”
Elliot stepped to my side and put his arms around me. “Let’s hope you have a better night,” he said softly.
I leaned into him a little before catching myself. I needed to be strong for my sons.
Both my sons.
“How are you and Cruz holding up?” I asked as I gave Elliot a pat on his lower back. The soft smile that graced my son’s mouth along with the color that stained his cheeks was answer enough.
My Elliot had definitely found his soulmate.
“Good,” he murmured.
I nudged him a little before handing him a dish to dry off. Elliot was a lot like me when it came to needing to keep busy. I feared it was a habit he’d picked up from me. I hated to think that he struggled with any kind of anxiety, but I’d seen enough as he’d been growing up to know that confidence had never been one of his strong suits. Like me, he’d been good at faking it. My hope was that it was something Cruz wouldn’t take advantage of like some of Elliot’s previous boyfriends had.
I didn’t think so because everything I’d seen of Cruz so far had proven he was a good man. While I wasn’t thrilled that he’d lied to Elliot when initially meeting him just so he could protect my son from an unseen threat, I could see every time Cruz looked at my son that his feelings were genuine.
Thoughts of my son’s boyfriend inevitably led to the one thing I’d been trying not to think about for three days now. I hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Matias, which was how it should have been.
But that hadn’t mattered when I’d spent hour after hour the last few nights staring out my bedroom window in the hopes that a boring gray sedan would magically appear in front of my house. When I hadn’t been watching for the one man I shouldn’t have had any desire to ever see again, I’d been running back and forth to Ryan’s room to comfort him as one nightmare after another had befallen him. I was physically and emotionally drained and yet my brain never failed to cling to every detail of the man who’d become my silent torment.
“He’s on his way back home,” Elliot said.
“What?” I asked. “Who is?”
“Cruz,” Elliot responded. His eyes automatically filled with worry. “Are you sure you’re all right, Dad? The thing with Blake—”
“I’m fine,” I said with a wave of my hand. I turned my back to him so I could collect myself as I rewashed a dish that was already spotlessly clean. “Sorry, you did tell me Cruz was out of town on business,” I added. “So he’ll be back tonight?”
“Yeah,” Elliot responded. The subject of his boyfriend proved to be enough of a distraction because he didn’t press me further on the Blake thing. Not that I would have told him that the run-in with my deranged former personal assistant had left me with nightmares of my own. I hadn’t even had a clue that the man had been infatuated with me until he’d shown up in my living room with a gun pressed against my youngest son’s head. Blake had insisted that we should leave together; that he had enough money for us to run away from everything. I’d been more than willing to play along with his fantasy but then all hell had broken loose and Blake had started shooting.
Then Matias had shown up…
I cursed myself for thinking of Matias yet again and tried to focus on Elliot’s words instead.
“He and Matias are on their way back from New Orleans.”
“Matias?” I blurted before I could stop myself. Thankfully, Elliot was too busy drying dishes to notice that I’d stopped washing the one in my hands.
“Yeah, you remember him, right? Cruz’s older brother.”
“Uh-huh,” I said as casually as I could.
“I guess Matias went down to New Orleans for a job or something. Cruz went to meet him and I guess they finished up early because they’re already on their way back home.”
My gut clenched in excitement.
Jesus, what was wrong with me? I should be dreading the news that the man was on his way back to town.
“What kind of work are they in?” I asked. I wanted to believe it was because I was interested in learning more about my son’s boyfriend, but deep down I knew that wasn’t the full truth.
“Um, security,” Elliot murmured.
I knew when my son was lying and he was most definitely being less than truthful. But I didn’t call him on it. Part of me didn’t really want to know. Since Cruz and Matias had some kind of connection to Declan Barretti, it was information I just wasn’t ready to hear. The whole thing with Declan being part of the reason Mac was gone but also having saved Elliot’s life was too much to process at once, and right now my focus had to be on my children.
I was about to change the topic to something safer like the weather when Elliot’s phone rang. He looked at his phone and smiled that same goofy smile that I would never tire of seeing on his face. “Hey,” he said softly when he answered the phone.
Elliot took a few steps away from me, presumably for some privacy, so I focused on cleaning up the dish in my hand. My eyes shifted to the shed in the backyard.
Specifically, to the broken window on the shed.
Matias had been out of town on business. If he hadn’t been, would he have tried to contact me? Did I even want him to?