Jesus.
“You’l never find answers to your questions, Kai,” she said softly and it hit him, not for the first time in the last few days, how fucking much he also missed her voice. She could soothe with that too. Effortlessly. “So please, sweetie, please, right now, with me and Chloe, let them go. He did what he did and it’s done. Your beautiful girl is upstairs sleeping. You caught that Carter man and even if he wasn’t going down before, you caught him with his rifle so he’l go down for what he did to your father. It’s done. Your father is gone but his death is avenged. Life goes on. Live it. Enjoy every minute of it and let this go.”
The minute his father shouted “sniper”, Mace knew just how desperate Carter was, not for freedom, for vengeance.
Sidney Carter was a trained sniper. The first Iraq war. It wasn’t something they didn’t know, he’d just stopped doing his own dirty work a decade before.
But instead of going down like a man, he decided to do his own dirty work, the stupid, sick, demented fucking fuck.
But what his mother said was true. Carter was already going down but now there was no way Carter wouldn’t stay down.
down.
Mace thought his thoughts, drew in breath and stared into his mother’s eyes and, not for the first time in the last few days or in the last seven years, he realized how much he missed them and as he did this, he felt his hand taken in Chloe’s.
Lana’s hand dropped to his shoulder as he looked to Chloe.
“We love her,” Chloe whispered, changing the subject and changing it to Stel a. “She’s perfect for you.” She was not wrong.
“Total y,” Lana muttered and Mace looked back up at his Mom.
“She’s beautiful, she’s talented,” Chloe went on and Mace turned his gaze to her to see her face soft. “And she looks at you like you turn on the sun in the morning and switch it off at night.”
“Total y,” Lana repeated on another mutter and Mace felt his lips twitch.
“Tiny would absolutely adore her,” Chloe went on, Mace’s lips stopped twitching and Mace saw her turn to Lana. “Wouldn’t she, honey?”
“Oh yeah, heck yeah,” Lana answered and Mace’s eyes went back to his Mom just in time to watch her say, “Tiny thought you turned on the sun in the morning and switched it off at night too. She’d definitely adore Stel a. Two peas in a pod, the way they love you. Two peas in a pod.” Mace sucked in breath. He did this to fight the burn that threatened to consume his chest.
He could control it, had been for years. It was only recently when he started to believe he could beat it, move past it and maybe find a life where his memories focused more on his sister’s grace, her smile, her giggles, her easy affection and less on watching her life end way too fucking soon.
And that was because only recently he’d final y come to understand that he wouldn’t be able to accomplish that alone.
Luckily, he’d also recently come to understand he was far from alone.
Then he stood and both women disengaged from him, Lana taking a step back.
Then he muttered, “Wiped,” and moved to his mother.
He wrapped his hand around the back of her head and pul ed her to him as he bent to touch his lips to her forehead. There he whispered, “Missed your voice, your eyes, your touch, even your smel .”
Mace heard her draw in a sharp breath, her hands went to his waist, fingers digging in but she didn’t say a word and he said no more. He also didn’t move. Not for awhile.
He breathed her in, felt her touch and let it heal.
He should have remembered.
He didn’t.
Now he did.
Thank Christ.
Then he kissed her forehead and pul ed away. She let him go. Feeling his mother’s gaze soft on him, he turned to Chloe, ignoring the tears shimmering in her eyes, he bent and did the same but saying nothing, just touching his lips to her forehead and pul ing back.
She sniffled.
He looked between them and muttered, “See you in the morning. We’l al go out and have breakfast,” he paused then finished, “If Daisy lets us.”
“Right,” Lana agreed, her voice husky.
“Oh… okay,” Chloe stammered, her voice trembling.
Mace started to move from the room but stopped at the door and looked back. Then he smiled at his “Moms”.
They smiled back.
He walked out of the room and back up the stairs.
In the darkened room he was sharing with Stel a, he silently accepted Juno’s soft, welcome back woof, took off his clothes, stood by the side of the bed and repeated the actions he’d done once that day. He lifted his arms, undid the chain at his neck, brought it down, upended it and Tiny’s ring Indy had returned to him with a kiss to his cheek before getting into Lee’s Crossfire dropped into his hand. He set the chain on the nightstand, pul ed back the covers and slid in behind Stel a.