I watched Joanna walk towards the hotel, my body leaning heavily into the car. What a stubborn fucking woman. What did she think she was going to do? Keep living her life and touring while she was pregnant? She couldn’t do that. Not only was her health in jeopardy, but I was in the picture. And whether she wanted it or not, I wasn’t going anywhere. She had made the decision to bear my child and I had made the decision to stick by her while she was doing it.

She wasn’t alone anymore, so she couldn’t live her life as if she was any longer.

Gritting my teeth, I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. I pulled it from it confines and looked down at it as the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I had a message from an unknown number and all of my senses went on alert.

But it wasn’t any old message.

It was a picture message.

I unlocked my phone and opened the message as red dripped into my vision. It was a picture of Joanna, walking with her head down into the hotel. The exact scenario I had just watched unfold in front of the same damn hotel I was looking at.

I looked up in time to see Joanna walk safely back into the hotel. I dialed the number and held my phone to my ear as I started for the door. I had no idea how I was going to make her understand, but her coming with me was her best chance at staying safe. So long as she was at my side, I could fight both battles and come out victorious.

I’d done it before, and I could do it again.

“Hello, Boulder.”

I froze in my tracks as Slate’s voice wafted through my phone. I stood in the middle of the busy sidewalk, my eyes darting around everywhere. I knew he was close. He was close enough to taunt me with a picture of Joanna to let me know he was there. He was playing mind games with me and I didn’t like that. He was baiting me, but for what I had no idea.

But I intended on figuring it out.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“It’s time for you to pay up,” Slate said.

“I owe you nothing.”

“Not how I remember it,” he said.

“Then enlighten me as to what you know.”

“I know you took an oath and abandoned your post. I know you committed yourself to a family before leaving them for something greater. Does it really shock you that Joanna won’t go with you back to New York? After leaving one family to strike out on your own? Maybe she senses that in you. That you’ll leave her bleeding like you did us.”

“You wouldn’t be doing this if you didn’t have money,” I said. “Who are you working for?”

“It’s interesting that you think it takes money to get near money. Just because you’re rich doesn’t mean you aren’t an easy target. Your life has never been subtle,” he said.

“Whatever you’re doing, this is between you and I. Joanna has nothing to do with this.”

“She has everything to do with it!”

I could hear Slate panting on the other end of the line.

“You don’t get to leave family behind then play the victim card when you end up alone, Boulder. We gave you everything and you spat in our face. Killed your own in some vain attempt to reconcile things you thought you were guilty of,” he said.

“What we did back then was illegal, Slate. It would’ve gotten us arrested. Thrown in jail. We would’ve never seen the light of day again,” I said.

“So you killed your own family to get out? You thought spilling innocent blood would somehow push you into a better life?”

“None of us were innocent and you know it. I have no family. I haven’t since the day my house went up in flames.”

“We took you in when no one else would! A whining, pathetic little boy sniffling for his mother and we took you in like you were one of us. Fed you. Clothed you. Trained you and made you the man you are today.”

“I made me the man I am today. You have no stake in that claim,” I said with a growl.

“Will Joanna see it that way? When she finds out the kind of man you are? When she finds out she’s having a murderer’s child?”

“What the hell do you want?” I asked.

“I want justice,” he said.

“For me leaving?”

“For the people you killed in the wake of your leave.”

“It was their choice to shoot at me. I was only defending myself.”

“You don’t shoot at family!”

“You were never my family!” I said. “You and the rest of those guys were a bunch of gang bangers who preyed on the fragile mind of a teenage boy who wanted his mother.”

“I’ve got friends in high places. Just like you,” he said. “I’m willing to make you a deal to save your own skin if that’s what you really want.”

“My skin doesn’t need saving. It’s yours once I figure out where you are you miserable piece of shit.”

“The two of you looked very happy coming out of that doctor’s office this morning.”

My eyes were darting around, trying to figure out where the fuck that man was standing. But he could’ve been anywhere. On the roof of a building. Down a dark alleyway with binoculars. In any other of the hotels that looked down onto the corner I was standing. Through the scope of a sniper rifle.

It had been over a decade since I’d seen Slate. He could’ve developed any set of skills.

“What deal?” I asked. “What deal would you be willing to make to ‘save my skin’ as you so delicately put it?”

“Horizon Technologies is trying to get a technological security department off the ground. I’m interested in a bit of protection for my business. At a reasonable price, of course.”

“If you’re so well connected, why do you need my protection? Seems like I’m still on top in this little bargain of yours.”

“Because blood is thicker than water,” he said. “You had a life before you became rich and famous, Boulder. I think the media would enjoy knowing about that life. There are debts from your past life you need to pay up on. People you cheated and robbed and promises you made that were broken. You can pay with the company you’ve created, or you can pay an equal penance for the lives you took.”

“You’ll never get what you really want out of all of this,” I said. “He’s dead.”

“And I wonder whose fault that is?”

“My lawyers will chase you down. They’ll leave no stone unturned. I’ll hire a security team to protect myself and surround my business with the nastiest people in the business. I’ll involve the federal authorities if I have to. You claim to be my family, yet you stood by and forced me to do unspeakable things as a teenager. Things I still see when I close my eyes at night.”

“A price to pay for the family you took on,” he said.

“I didn’t have a choice.”

“You always have a choice, Boulder. Besides, I know you won’t involve the authorities. You’re much too prideful for that. It’s always been your downfall, you know. Your pride.”

“I’ve got no issues involving them if it keeps Joanna safe,” I said.

“From destroyer to protector. Do you think keeping her and that unborn child of yours safe somehow erases the red from your ledger? That thing is five miles long and dripping with red ink. It’ll take a little more than protecting some opera singer from harm to reconcile what you’ve done.”

“I’ll find you,” I said. “And when I do, your blood will spill, too.”

“Is that before or after you involve the police?” he asked.

“You said it yourself. I’m too prideful anyway.”

That and I wanted to choke the life out of this fucker with my bare hands.

“Can’t even set it aside to protect your unborn child?” Slate asked.

“If you lay a hand on Joanna, I’ll take every single one of you out. If you thought I had to spill blood to get away, you wait and see the hell that reigns down on you if she’s harmed in any way,” I said.

Slate’s laughter poured through the phone as I balled my fist up at my side. He thought I was joking. He thought I wouldn’t come after him. That I wouldn’t drain my accounts to make sure I could wipe them off the face of the fucking earth. He was nothing but a pathetic gang member when I dug myself out of that world. What the fuck was he suddenly capable of now?

His laughter filled my ear, causing my stomach to flip over on itself. I turned back towards the hotel, eyeing where Joanna had walked in. I started for the door as the call went silent. Slate’s voice could no longer be heard as my legs carried me as fast as they could into the hotel. I didn’t care how Joanna felt about me right now and I didn’t care that she thought I was trying to control her. She was in danger and I was determined to protect her. I couldn't leave her. I couldn't go back to New York when I knew Slate was in Chicago. Watching Joanna like a hungry lion in the bushes.

I couldn’t leave her exposed like this.

Not when it was because of me.

She didn’t ask for this. She didn’t ask for my shadows. And she wasn’t going to pay any price for it.

I would die to keep her safe if that was what it took.