“Come on, Alfred, hurry up,” Turner said.

Herding his hacker through the airport was like trying to herd a goat with an attention deficit disorder. The guy gawked at everyone, stopping to take a better look at anything from a pretty face to fancy luggage. It was like observing someone who’d been just released from jail and was seeing people for the first time in years.

Most hackers didn’t get out much, but Alfred was married with three small kids. There must’ve been trips to the supermarket, and the preschool, and all the other places parents shuffled their kids to and from. Even if he wanted to, Alfred couldn't hide in his cave without surfacing once in a while.

Thanks to the TSA fast pass, they had gone through the security check in no time, but then the guy took forever to get his things organized. Turner watched Alfred fumble with his belt, then look for an appropriately-sized pocket for his wallet, another pocket for his passport, and lastly the miscellaneous shit he’d pulled out of his pockets and had placed in the bin.

“I hate flying,” Alfred said once they were seated.

“You’re not flying yet. Besides, a first class seat is hardly a hardship.” With Sandoval footing the bill, Turner could be magnanimous.

“Are the drinks free?”

Turner nodded.

“Good. I’m going to get shitfaced and sleep until we get there.”

“No, you’re not. I’ll give you a sleeping pill. A hangover is the last thing you need while working on Sandoval’s system. It’s not like you can take a day or two to rest before you start. You sleep on the plane and start working the moment we get there.”

Alfred snorted. “I told you before. I don’t know why you’re dragging me all the way out there when I could’ve done it from home.”

Turner slapped the guy’s back. “Stop complaining. It’ll do you good to get out of the house from time to time.”

Sandoval agreed with Turner’s assessment that the breach in security was on his side. Arturo’s people assured him that his network was as safe as it could be and was protected by the best security protocol money could buy. Wisely, the guy wanted an outsider’s opinion.

Listening to the recording of the message he’d supposedly had left for Turner, Sandoval insisted that it hadn’t been an actor imitating his voice but a piecing together of snippets of his phone conversations.

Turner had never told Sandoval what exactly had happened at the restaurant, leaving the details out so Arturo would think that he’d handled it. First of all, he’d wanted to gauge the guy’s response, and secondly, it wasn’t something he could admit without losing face. An operative like him should have never been caught with his pants down, so to speak.

Unless Sandoval had intel on the incident, which would cast suspicion on his involvement in the ambush, Turner wasn’t going to volunteer the information.

“I don’t like being away from the house overnight.” Alfred hunched his shoulders, looking and sounding like a schoolkid on his way to detention.

“That’s the power of habit, buddy. The longer you succumb to it the harder it is to break. Your comfort zone is sitting in your gaming chair and manipulating data. You’re good at that, but it’s not good for you.”

“It pays the bills.”

Making a career out of a hobby was great, but it had a few downsides. Passion often turned into an obsession to the exclusion of everything else. The intense focus was good for attaining incredible skill, but not for relationships, health, and fitness, which usually got neglected.

He was one to talk.

Achieving the desired results for his clients was so important to Turner that he was sacrificing his health to deliver what he’d promised, maybe even his very life.

In order to restore his mind to the top level machine it used to be, he had stopped the chemotherapy. It had taken several days until the fog had cleared. Now that his brain was back to functioning the way it had before, Turner was adamant about never undergoing treatment again.

The thing was, he hadn’t told Bridget yet, and with each passing day, the lie by omission was getting bigger and heavier. He’d even resorted to faking tiredness.

The old Turner would have kept it a secret, pretending for a few more weeks that he was getting treated while pushing for the transition as soon as he closed all of his open cases.

The new Turner knew that lying to Bridget was wrong. She was too smart and too observant not to figure it out on her own. He had to man up and tell her before that happened. If he told her, the worst that could happen was a bit of a tantrum followed by her trying to convince him to resume treatment.

The woman had a temper and was not afraid to use it.

But if she found out before he told her, she was going to kick him out, lock the door, and never let him in again.

“It’s not about the habit,” Alfred said as the plane started to move on the runway. “Well it is, but that’s not the main reason. You don’t have kids so you don’t know how it feels.”

None of Turner’s associates knew about Douglas. But the truth of the matter was that he wouldn’t know how it felt because he’d never done any actual parenting.

Turner rubbed the back of his neck. “You’re right, I don’t. But I assume parents need a break from a bunch of noisy kids from time to time.”

Alfred chuckled. “I dream of it every day, especially when they fight and the screams are loud enough to bring the house down. But when I’m forced to leave, especially on a plane, I have this fear that something will happen to me, and my children will be left fatherless. Who will take care of them?”

Turner patted the hacker’s shoulder. “These fears are irrational. Statistically, you’re safer on a plane than driving your car. Are you afraid of going to the supermarket?”

“Of course not. I’m looking forward to it.”

“You do?”

“I work from home, and my wife drives the kids to and from wherever they need to go. In the evenings, my time belongs to the family, and after the kids are in bed, I usually put in a few more hours of work. Going to the supermarket is the only break I get.”

Poor guy. Alfred didn’t have much of a life.

On second thought, that wasn’t true.

What was life all about?

Life was about a lot of things, but trips abroad and even work well done were not what defined one’s life as worth living or not.

Turner considered himself lucky.

His work was about rescuing people. He was needed, his services were vital. There weren’t many operators like him in the world, and he was entitled to think of himself as indispensable. So even if he had nothing else in his life, this was enough to fill him with a sense of purpose and pride of achievement.

Except, since he’d met Bridget and Kian had allowed him almost unlimited access to the clan, Turner’s worldview had shifted.

Life was about family first and everything else second.