Chapter 19

The day a man makes me happier than chips and queso is the day I’ll get married.

-Janie, Age 11

Rafe

“Uhhhh,” Janie’s hesitant voice said into my ear. “Could you do us a favor?”

I looked at my watch. I had exactly an hour and a half before I needed to meet my sister for lunch. “It depends on whether it’ll take less than an hour.”

“It should,” came her instant reply. “It’s pretty easy.”

“Hit me,” I said, my eyes scanning what was flowing over my computer screen.

I was looking over communications between Layton and one of his associates. They were talking in code, but eventually, I’d be able to break whatever it was they were discussing. Then I’d take them down.

“My dad needs a ride from the hospital. Shiloh and I are in sort of a situation,” she said.

My heart started to race. “What kind of situation is it that it would keep both of you from picking your father up?”

“The kind where we’re currently ankle deep in spa waters,” she hesitated. “And my dad asked us to ask you. Apparently, you don’t treat him like an invalid.”

The doctors had decided to go ahead and remove James’ gallbladder. It was discovered that he had hundreds of gallstones, and it was a miracle he hadn’t had an attack before then.

“I guess I can. If he takes too long to get in my truck, I’ll force him to go to lunch with me.” I chuckled.

Janie snickered. “Your sister will be fine with that. She feels bad.”

“How do you know that?” I questioned.

I knew she and Raven had been in close contact since we’d made this official—Janie and I. Raven wanted to make a good impression at first, and now I think it was that Raven genuinely cared about Janie.

Though, neither one had actually told me that they were talking to each other. I was just observant.

“Uhhh,” Janie hesitated. “I gotta go. My dad needs to be picked up at one.”

I shook my head in laughter. Janie was trying to mend bridges. Raven was trying to work through her inner demons. Though, she still blamed me for leaving her. And probably always would.

And, since I still felt bad about not being able to fight for her, I took her shit and hung on.

Because, despite my angry words when I found out Raven didn’t tell me about Janie, I loved my sister. I loved her despite how she’d treated me for the last ten years.

Forty-five minutes later I was pulling into a spot that was as close as I could get to the hospital doors.

He wouldn’t appreciate me pulling around, but I could finagle a closer parking spot without it looking like I was catering to his weakness.

Minutes later I walked into his hospital room and nearly laughed.

“Don’t just stand there and watch me, fucker. Come and help me,” James ordered.

I walked up to him and pulled his IV out. He’d already started it halfway, so I wasn’t really doing anything that he hadn’t already started.

Technically.

“You got a Band-Aid?” he asked.

I raised a brow at him and snorted. “Do you think I just carry Band-Aids around with me like dollar bills?”

He gestured with his head for me to go get one, and, rolling my eyes, I did.

I threw a handful at him and turned to survey his room.

“I’m early. But what the fuck? What’s with all the flowers?” I asked. “I don’t have enough room in my truck for all these.”

James snorted. “I have the nurses picking them up and taking them to a few other patients that don’t have the number of concerned visitors who think it’s appropriate for a grown male to have so many goddamn flowers that I do.”

I snorted.

“I swear to God. I tell them to stop sending flowers up here, and they send more. They think it’s fuckin’ funny.”

“And who are these offenders?” I questioned, amusement lacing my voice.

“The fucking SWAT team, mainly the Spurlock brothers, Benny Bear, Nico, Luke and the god-awful Red-Headed Bastard.”

My lips twitched. “Isn’t that the entire SWAT team you just named off?”

He shrugged. “We’re getting older. We have a few younger guys, but they’re not at the others’ level just yet.”

“They gotta learn sometime. Y’all aren’t always going to be able to do what you do,” I told him. “Hell, even I can’t do what I used to do. Twenty years ago, hikes with my gear over twenty miles was nothing. This last time I was there and had to do that, I thought I was going to die. Then there are all these little boys at my side, holding fucking conversations while I can barely fucking breathe. I gotta admit, it’s a young man’s game now.”

James grunted in reply. “Don’t fucking remind me. And don’t think that I like that some old man is dating my daughter.”

So, we were going to do this now? I guess I could get down with that.

“No warnings?” I waited for the inevitable ‘hurt her and I’ll kill you.’

James looked over at me, grinned widely, and then shook his head.

“I’m not going to give you a warning,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest.

“You’re not?”

I was kind of surprised by this. I would’ve expected more from the man who is the father of the daughter that I was about to cross that line with. Only, he didn’t offer me anything of the sort, instead, he shrugged his shoulders.

“No,” he repeated. “I’m not.”

“Why?”

Why couldn’t I figure out how to keep my fuckin’ mouth shut?

But seriously, why the hell wasn’t he warning me off? He had to know what I wanted from his daughter. He, as well as a lot of the other people in this organization, didn’t really like me much.

I was lucky ‘Uniball’ was one of the only things they called me in front of others. It could be worse.

“Because I don’t have to warn you. If you hurt Janie, she’ll take care of you. I won’t have to lift a finger.”

I found my first smile since I’d walked through the hospital’s doors.

She really could take care of herself. I didn’t have any doubt in my mind that she could.

“I guess that’s true.”

“It is,” he assured me. “I taught that girl everything she may need to know. She knows how to shoot. How to hunt. And,” he paused, looking over at me. “How to call for help.”

I didn’t miss that threat.

He would be there if his daughter wanted him there, and there wasn’t a damn thing in this world I could do about it.

“Well, I’ll just go ahead and tell you what I have to say, then.”

James sat on the side of the bed, crossed his arms over his chest, and waited.

“When I met her, I knew she was someone special.”

James scowled.

“And over the years, as we came into contact, I stayed away, but that feeling never left,” I continued.

James’ scowl became fierce.

Now came the moment of truth.

“This job—my last one that I ever wanted to do—my coup de grace, if you will, I was never meant to survive,” I said. “Whatever Layton is involved in, it’s big. So big, in fact, that I’ve been working for years to get to this moment. Little jobs, here and there. And last month, with Dante’s case, I think it was pure accident that I was able to stumble on a single one of Layton’s toes. He thinks he’s hidden well enough, but he’s gotten sloppy. He thinks he’s untouchable, and I want to prove that he isn’t.”

“You’re not going to do this alone,” he said. “My daughter loves you. Has loved you since the day she saw your broken self enter our compound.”

My lips twitched. “I don’t have that plan any longer. I’m backing off. I’m leaving this particular ball of snakes to someone else for them to handle.”

James’ face went slack with relief. “Maybe your problem is that you’re trying to do it legal. Sometimes, legal isn’t always the way to go.”

“If it’s not done legal, if the root system isn’t dug up completely, then that leaves other people planted to continue with the work. And a new fucking tree takes root,” I pointed out.

James shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. But what you need to realize is that sometimes, the bad guy wins. Sometimes, what you need is another bad guy to fight for you.”

“And you have one of those bad guys?” I drawled.

James stood up and pulled his phone from the pocket of his jeans. “Let me text Jack to see where ol’ Joker is today. When I get his number, I’ll let you know.”

Joker was also known as Lynn, who happened to be a jack of all trades, and a man of many faces—or names, for that matter.

While we were on that subject. “You do know, correct, that your daughter has surpassed the master, right?”

James frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Janie learned everything that she knows from Jack and Winter…but she’s better than they’ll ever be. She has everything y’all need, yet you all aren’t utilizing her full potential. You set her to meaningless tasks involving paperwork, yet you don’t even know that she could do a whole lot fucking more than what you’re giving her,” I said.

James blinked. “She’s never said…”

“She’s never said because she knows that y’all won’t let her do it anyway.” I paused. “Which is stupid. She’s going to do what she wants, and then act like she’s coloring between the lines. But, I think it’s time y’all let her use what you gave her the power to use. Plus, she can get it done in about half the time as Jack—who, from what I have observed, would rather be doing stuff in the shop more anyway.”

James opened his mouth, then closed it. “Why wouldn’t she say something?”

“Would it have helped?” I asked. “Because from where I’m standing, watching through y’all’s windows, there’s no way in hell you’d let your own daughter get mixed up in what you work on—at least if you thought she wasn’t as good as she is. But honestly, James…she’s good.”

“Then why’d you kick her off of your stuff?”

I grinned. “Because I don’t want to lose her. I’m guilty of treating her exactly like you do…which is part of our problem, now isn’t it?”

James sighed. “I’ll try to figure out a way to let go of those strings a little.”

The nurse came in moments later, and we were out the door moments after that, James riding in a wheelchair since it was ‘hospital policy.’

I tried not to laugh the entire way.

The drive to his place wasn’t bad. After the specifics of me dating his daughter were over, they turned to the case that I was working on with Trace, and what we were doing to uncover Layton’s criminal workings.

I told him everything, not leaving a single thing out, and when I was done, I realized a few things.

I should’ve done this earlier.

Trace hadn’t been enough, and we both knew it. But since I had nobody I could trust to work this case—that I was willing to put in jeopardy with me—I hadn’t reached out for help. Having someone else know what was going on was quite comforting.

At least from a security standpoint.

Janie knew. Trace knew. And now James knew.

If something happened…

“What. The. Fuck.”

I looked up to focus on the man that was waiting in the driveway.

Tegan.

I narrowed my eyes.

“Remember, he’s a cop and we can’t kill him,” James said. “I might lose my job, and I like it. I get to retire in a few years.”

My lips twitched.

“Now’s probably a good time to go ahead and ask for…”

“You have my permission to marry my daughter.” He paused. “But just sayin’, you can pay for it. Right?”

I started to laugh. “Yeah.”

“Good, because she did all that bullshit with him to get you to pay attention to her, and by doing that, she used a lot of my savings. It seems only fair that you pay for it since she did it because of you.”

I could get down with that. “I have more money than God.”

He looked over at me. “You’re a prick.”

Then I stopped my truck and got out, waiting beside it while James made his way around to the front.

“Can I help you?”

I left the door in between me and Tegan. Maybe with it there, I would be able to control myself. A barrier for stupidity, so to speak.

“Your dogs have gotten disturbing the peace complaints,” Tegan said, gesturing to Glock and Kimber who were sitting quietly at the gate, looking for all they were worth like well-behaved pups that they weren’t. “I was in the neighborhood, so I chose to run the warning by.”

Tegan held out a white piece of paper.

“And who might this complaint be from?” I asked as James took the paper. “There are no ‘neighbors’ out here to complain.”

Tegan bared his teeth at me. “It was a runner passing by. She felt that her life was in danger of the dogs jumping over.”

“The dogs won’t jump over a razor wire fence,” I told him bluntly. “You can start handing out bogus complaints all you want, but it’s not going to bring Janie back to you. You were just a filler for me…FYI.”

Tegan’s jaw tightened. “That’s not what she said.”

I snorted.

“I’m sure she wouldn’t tell you that you were filler,” I pointed out.

“Janie told me everything,” Tegan countered. “Everything.”

My brows rose.

“She told me that your father was a piece of shit, and ruined multiple families’ lives with his Ponzi schemes. How you were on a vendetta to right the wrongs of your father. How you were misunderstood, and that you were trying to become someone that your father would never be. She also told me that you were her childhood crush…but I just didn’t know that that childhood crush was an adult crush, too.” He laughed. “I guess I should have, though.”

I wasn’t sure how Tegan had found this information out—though it wasn’t hard if you asked the right people—but I knew Janie would never tell him anything.

I confirmed that moments later when James started to laugh. “I told you that, numbnuts. You didn’t even know Janie had dogs.”

The dogs wagged their tails.

“Don’t come around here handing me bullshit.” He handed the warning back, but Tegan refused to take it. “I know you’re hurt. I know that you feel slighted. But let me tell you something, don’t mess with my girl or my family.”

Tegan turned to go. “Rafe isn’t family yet, though, is he?”

I think that Tegan was expecting a different answer than the one James gave him. Hell, we both were.

“Rafe’s been family for a while now.” James paused. “You just didn’t know it. Like everything else you were kept in the dark about.”

Tegan got to his car and turned his eyes to me. “Don’t think that I forgot that you assaulted a police officer the other day in that hotel.”

I grinned. “I’m unsure of what you’re speaking of, officer.”

I wasn’t stupid.

I knew that the dash cam was running—as well as the body cam that Kilgore required all of their officers to wear when they were on duty—and I knew that admitting that I hit him wasn’t something that I should be doing on camera.

But I couldn’t help but mention a few things to him that he did.

“Do you remember calling Janie a slut?” I asked.

Tegan paused getting into his car.

“What about calling her trash?” I asked.

“I was drunk. I can’t remember what I said,” he lied.

“Then if what you’re saying is true, then maybe you can’t remember what happened, exactly, either.” I paused. “From my recollection, you fell and hit your face on your own knee.”

“The camera at the hotel…”

“Isn’t on the particular floor we were on due to it having four rooms on it. All of which are honeymoon suites,” I pointed out. “Everything in that particular portion of the hotel is very circumspect due to the high probability of honeymooners getting a little frisky in the hallway. And honeymooners paying out the ass to keep themselves safe.”

Tegan got into his car and drove away.

Moments later, I turned to find James staring at me.

“There are cameras in that hotel hallway.”

I snorted. “I know. Or there were, anyway.”

James shook his head, then went to the gate and typed in the code.

Moments later the gate opened, and he got back into the truck.

I did, too.

“I feel like I’m the winner here,” James said, breaking the silence. “Maybe I’ll pay for the wedding after all.”

I snorted out a laugh.

“You can try,” I taunted.