Sean wanted to tell him about Carson Spade’s selfish ultimatum. He wanted to tell Jesse that he could live with him. He wanted it … but in the back of his mind, he knew that wasn’t the right call. There were too many things going on, too many people involved, too many dangers.
“You have to want into the program, follow it, or it doesn’t work.”
“I hate Carson.”
“You don’t.”
“Don’t tell me what I think. You know what he said? He said he talked to my mom all week. But he didn’t. And then he said the phones weren’t working so I couldn’t call her. He just didn’t want me to talk to her at all. To ask about you or tell her what was going on. And now I know he’s a criminal, that he was working with those people. And that they do really bad things.”
“He’s going to risk his life to testify against them.”
“Only because he was caught. Why should he go free?”
Good question.
“Jesse, I’m not going to defend what your stepfather did.”
“Carson. He’s not my stepfather. I refuse to call him anything. It’s not fair.”
“Life isn’t fair, Jess. It’s not. It sucks sometimes.” He didn’t know how to get through to him. “Look, Carson did some shitty things. But there are worse people out there, and what Carson knows will help catch them. Put them in prison.”
“But why do I have to go? Why can’t my mom and I just leave him?”
Because Carson is an asshole.
“You and your mom will always be in danger.” Sean paused, assessed his son. When he was growing up, he hated when people talked around the real issues. Like the overdose of his older sister, Molly. Or why Kane left the Marines to become a mercenary. Things Sean may have been too young to know, but that he should have been told. “Did anyone tell you the danger you are in?”
“Because of Carson.”
“Because of what you know. You, Jesse. You witnessed things … saw people you probably should not have seen. Heard things. We don’t know the fallout from what happened at the Flores compound, but we do know from past experience that there is always someone to fill the void. Carson put you in a dangerous situation, but you’re a smart kid, and you know too much. Things that could put you and your mother in danger. I don’t know that I can protect you.”
Jesse’s lip quivered. “I … I don’t want to never see you again.”
“It won’t be like that.”
He slammed his fist on the table. “Yes it will!”
“We’ll work something out. I have friends in high places.” Sean couldn’t bear the thought of losing Jesse. He’d just found him.
“My mom said I can’t see anyone I know, that we’ll be moving someplace, a different city, different names, different everything—and I would never see you again.”
Sean wanted to throttle Madison, and not for the first time.
“Jesse, I won’t let that happen.”
“You won’t have a choice. Only I have a choice. I … I … I want to see you again. I mean, I guess it sounds weird, but I feel like, I don’t know, I don’t really know myself because I never knew my real dad.”
Sean’s heart was breaking. He had to be strong. “It doesn’t sound weird.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
Sean put his hand on Jesse’s arm, and then he said, “Can I hug you?”
Jesse put his arms around Sean’s neck and Sean squeezed him tight. Tears burned, and he didn’t know how he was going to fix anything. He didn’t even know if he could promise Jesse anything. But dammit, something had to go right for once. Something had to work.
Sean took a deep breath and settled Jesse back in his chair. “I can’t promise anything, but if this is important to you, as important to you as it is to me, I’ll move heaven and earth for visitation. The US Marshals must have dealt with something like this before.”
Jesse sniffed and wiped his eyes.
“You’d do that for me?”
“Yes—I’m doing it for me and you. I just found you, Jess, and I don’t want to lose you.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“I’ll go. I’ll do the stupid program—on one condition. I get to talk to you. I get to visit.”
“I think that sounds reasonable. And fair.”
“You said life wasn’t fair.”
“It’s not. That’s why you always have to work to make things right.”
*
It was nearly midnight before Sean got home. He hadn’t heard from Lucy, hadn’t talked to her or seen her; he didn’t know where she was going or who she was staying with.
Her car was in the garage. For a split second he had hope … but what if she had a taxi pick her up? Or a friend? Who would do that?
Anyone in her office. Or Brad Donnelly, the DEA agent she worked closely with.
That twinge of jealousy hit him again—the same kind of jealousy he had with Noah. Two federal agents who had more in common with Lucy, who liked her, who would move right in if Sean walked out.
But Sean wasn’t walking out. Lucy was.
But her car was there.
Please, God—I haven’t talked to you since I was a kid, but please, I need her.
The lights were off downstairs. He walked to his bedroom—their bedroom—and Lucy wasn’t there.
But a dim light came from the small room off their bedroom, the sitting room that Lucy liked to use as her office.