HUNTER (The Corbin Brothers Book 1) (103 page)

“Is this everything?” Mr. Paxton demanded, leafing through the folder. “All of it?”

“No,” Tyler said. “Shimmy, give him the camera.”

My eyes widened. Nobody had known about the camera but Tyler and me. Why had he given it up? It still could’ve been our ace in the hole.

“Let’s have it,” Mr. Paxton said, snapping his fingers and walking over to me.

Grudgingly, I removed the camera from my pocket and handed it to Ben’s father, who turned it on. I heard my hissed whisper from the speakers as he played the video I’d taken.

“Nail in the coffin,” the recording crowed, and I hated myself. It was obvious that I couldn’t trust Tyler. He seemed to be playing a game that I didn’t know the rules to. And the Paxton’s? Forget about it. Ben had already threatened to kill me once before and that was before I knew about the drug smuggling portion of the family business.

I was done for. I’d tried and tried to do the right thing, risking everything to try to find the evidence necessary to get my son, but this was it. There was no way out, now.

Giving up. I thought I’d never see the day when I threw in the towel, but this was too much for me to deal. I felt strangely light, as if all of my goals and responsibilities and thinking about my son had been all that was keeping me on the ground.

Then, with a shattering jolt, I came back to myself.

“Ben?” The voice carried down from the top of the stairs. “Come say goodnight to your son.”

My insides twisted at the thought of the monster in front of me kissing my son goodnight. No. This wasn’t over. This couldn’t be over. I was a fucking grizzly bear mama and I could count a few people standing between me and my baby.

“Why don’t you bring Trevor down here?” Ben called up. “I’m a little busy.”

“You know I don’t like him around that shit,” Mrs. Paxton snapped. “Now get your ass up here.”

“Bring the kid down here now, bitch!” Ben roared, making all of us jump. The top of the stairs was silent for a long minute until we all heard soft footsteps.

“I don’t know why you were so insistent on us coming down here,” Mrs. Paxton said, carrying my son, before she looked up and realized what kind of mess she walked in to. Her eyes narrowed at me.

“Mom, you remember Shimmy, of course,” Ben said, holding his hand out at me.

“Trash,” she sneered.

“Mind your manners,” Tyler warned, spitting again, but I didn’t understand why he was trying. Didn’t we establish that he wasn’t on my side anymore? Wasn’t that alliance or dalliance or whatever it was over once he’d turned over the evidence?

“Hi, baby,” I said, holding my arms out and smiling at my son, refusing to let him see how terrified and desperate I was. “Hi, Trevor. Are you going night-night?”

He looked at me with my very own eyes and smiled sleepily, nodding. It squeezed my heart.

“What are they doing here?” Mrs. Paxton demanded.

              “Blackmail, they said,” Mr. Paxton said, taking the memory card from the camera and then crushing the device underneath his heel.

“Really?” she scoffed.

“They have a lot of evidence,” Mr. Paxton said, handing her the folder of all our painstaking research and horrifying experiences.

Mrs. Paxton set her jaw as she turned through the folder, her frown deepening with every page she turned.

“Out of curiosity,” she said, not looking up, “what were you intending on getting out of this? Money? Drugs? What?”

“This woman’s son,” Tyler said, and Trevor shifted in Mrs. Paxton’s arms to see who was talking.

“I don’t understand,” Mr. Paxton said. “You said this was blackmail.”

“Right,” Tyler said. “But circumstances shifted a little bit out of our control.”

“As an understatement,” Ben muttered.

              “We were going to offer up the evidence we’d collected in exchange for Trevor,” Tyler said.

“Why?” Mrs. Paxton asked, clearly aghast that more precious things weren’t being demanded.

“Because he’s my baby,” I said, a tear slipping down my cheek. “Because I love him. Because everything I do is for him. Please, please give me my baby.”

“All of the evidence we’ve been gathering is here,” Tyler said. “We can end this right now. Let us leave with the baby, and you can have all proof of your various misdeeds.”

“You’re not seriously considering this,” Ramirez said. “These people know who we are and what we do. Who’s to say they’re not going to come back for another shakedown sometime in the future? The stakes will probably be higher next time than one little brat. I say we kill them all, and be done with it.”

Ben’s parents exchanged a horrified glance, but Ben simply accepted whatever plan Ramirez had. He was too far gone to be human.

I started to believe that the Paxton’s were in over their heads. They had probably agreed to transport drugs in exchange for some serious cash, but now the cartel was trying to assert its own values over the operation and how it was run.

“Nobody’s going to be killed here,” Mr. Paxton said. “And none of this evidence will ever see the light of day. I’m going to destroy it immediately.”

“And my son?” I asked, only vaguely aware of the tears that just wouldn’t stop falling.

“We’ll send him to you after you and your boyfriend leave town,” Mr. Paxton said.

Both Mrs. Paxton and me gave tortured gasps.

“Are you really thinking about sending Trevor away?” she demanded.

“Send him with us now,” I demanded.

“I want you all out of the country before you can change your mind about giving any of this information to the police,” Mr. Paxton said. “With both of their testimony, the police would have a reason to come snooping around here. You remember how badly it held up distribution when CPS came to investigate.”

“You’re preaching to the choir,” Ramirez said. “I hated that shit. But just waste these assholes and let’s get back to business. Eliminate the doubt.”

“No,” Mr. Paxton said, his voice strong. “This is a family company and we won’t have blood on our hands.”

“So if we leave, you promise to send us the baby,” Tyler said slowly.

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Please. Let us take him with us. Please. You’ll never hear from us again, I swear it. I swear it.”

              “Then we’d have no guarantee that you’d hold up to your end of the bargain if I didn’t have my bargaining chip,” Mr. Paxton said.

“I can’t leave him again,” I sobbed. “I won’t.”

Trevor began to bawl, big tears rolling down his chubby little cheeks. I wanted to wrap him up in my arms and take him far away from this place. Why wouldn’t anyone let me?

“We’ll go,” Tyler said. “We’ll send word to you whenever we reach our destination.”

I was crying too hard to see him walk over and take my hand.

“If you’re not gone in an hour, the cartel will handle you,” Ramirez sneered.

“We said no killing,” Mr. Paxton protested.

“This isn’t a Paxton affair,” Ramirez said. “This is cartel business.”

“We’re leaving,” Tyler said quickly, putting an arm around my shoulder. “You’ll hear from us soon.”

Trevor’s wails followed us up the stairs as the security guard hustled us along. I could see to walk. I’d lost my baby again. I knew it. I knew it. I shouldn’t have left him. I should’ve fought or tried to do something. Why was I so weak? What was wrong with me? Where was fucking grizzly bear mama I thought I was?

Somehow, we were back at the car. I had no memory of the blocks we’d had to have traversed to get there. I sat in the passenger seat, weeping, and Tyler jumped into the driver’s seat, checking his mirrors again and again.

“We have to hurry,” he said, starting the car and peeling out of the parking spot. “Everything’s going to be okay, Shimmy.”

Nothing was okay. My baby was still in that terrible house and I was running away. I would rather face the cartel’s bullets than do this to Trevor. I began to cry even harder, slapping my forehead with the heel of my hand.

“Calm down,” Tyler chanted. “Calm down, calm down, everything’s going to be fine.”

I ripped off my seatbelt, and it was only Tyler’s strong arm that kept me from flinging myself out of his racing car.

“Shimmy, listen to me,” he said. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

“If I’m not holding my son in my arms, nothing’s fine,” I said. “Turn around. Turn this fucking car around.”

“Baby, please listen,” Tyler said. “We didn’t have a choice. We have to leave now. The Paxton’s will send Trevor. They gave their word.”

“Their word isn’t worth shit,” I raged. “They kept me from him for four years. It’ll be another forty until I see him again. Go back. Go back, Tyler, please.”

“We can’t, baby,” Tyler said. “The cartel is there. They’ll kill us on sight. We only have an hour to get out of the city. Only an hour. We have to go now. Please don’t worry. I have a plan. Listen to me, Shimmy. I have a plan.”

“I don’t give a fuck who’s there,” I said, single-minded in my determination. “My son’s there. Go back.”

I fought him hard, making him swerve the car a little. Other drivers honked at us, but I didn’t care. The only thing I cared about was back in that house. My son. We’d left him. We’d left him to preserve our own lives.

“I can’t,” I sobbed. “Take me back. I’d rather be dead.”

“Listen to me,” Tyler repeated, but I was beyond listening. “I have a plan, Shimmy. I have a plan.”

I fought him, and the car swerved again. I was blind with rage, sobbing, my tears threatening to strangle me.

“Calm down, Shimmy.”

I couldn’t. I couldn’t even if I wanted to, and all I wanted to do was scream and scream and scream.

“I’m sorry about this,” Tyler said, his voice full of sadness. “I’m so sorry.”

There was pressure on my neck and I slipped into blissful nothingness.

              It was hard to be miserable in such nice weather.

I wished that out of town could’ve been some dreary, foggy, nasty place, or some featureless desert.

Blank. That’s how I wanted to feel. Blank.

Instead, the crashing waves against the sugar-white sands of the beach filled me with an aching longing.

I would rather be anywhere than here—Indonesia, of all places. More specifically, I would rather be in New York City, waging war against the Paxton’s.

Even more specifically, I would rather be fighting for my son.

Tyler kept his distance. That was for the best. He’d tried to approach me after I woke up in the hotel room, tried to explain, but I’d slapped him on the face. I saw him constantly, and he was always there, but he lingered hundreds of yards away.

              How had everything gone so wrong? I’d been so confident going into the Paxton’s basement, so sure of what I needed to do. Then, Tyler had thrown away all of our evidence, everything, and swallowed the word of criminals in order to save me. That wasn’t the way it was supposed to go. We were supposed to go in there, guns blazing, save my son, and take down the Paxton’s while we were at it. That was the plan, but we’d never seen it to fruition.

I blamed Tyler a lot, but I blamed myself. I should’ve done other things. I should’ve tried harder with the courts. I should’ve gone in there by myself and simply walked out with Trevor. Each scenario seemed more preposterous than the next, but I had to believe that there could’ve been something that I could’ve done.

I couldn’t imagine spending the rest of my life in this prison of a paradise without any hope of seeing my son again, but that’s what I was faced with.

I watched the waves crash against the shore over and over again, realizing that they were like my grief—never ending.

Then, one morning, Tyler kissed me awake. It had been a long time since we’d made love—back in New York had been the last time—and I melted into his embrace. It felt so right, so comforting, until I woke up fully and remembered that this man had failed to help me get my child when the opportunity had been its most ripe.

I tried to recoil, but he wouldn’t let me.

“Enough of this, Shimmy,” he said, frowning. “You’ve had enough time to wallow.”

Wallow? I almost spat at him.

“Listen to me,” he urged. “I had a plan. The plan is working.”

The only plan he should’ve had was to get my son to safety. I wasn’t interested.

Tyler was visibly frustrated. Good. That’s how I felt.

“If you won’t listen to me, you’ll just have to be surprised. We have a plane to meet in about an hour. Get ready.”

“What plane?”

I found my voice, and it was raspy. I hadn’t spoken in weeks—however long we’d been here. I’d been too devastated, too angry.

“It’s all a part of the plan,” Tyler said lightly. “You’d know if you listened. Too bad. It’ll be a surprise, then.”

I ground my teeth and got ready. He was trying to provoke me, trying to draw me out of the shell I’d crawled into. Let him try. I wouldn’t rise to the bait.

On the drive to the airport, Tyler was in an unreasonably good mood. He whistled with the windows down, the sweet island air ruffling my curls and threatening to lift my mood. I refused to let it. I’d never smile again, if I had my way.

At the airport, Jasmine was whom I saw first, waiting at the baggage carousel. What was she doing here, all the way in Indonesia? Seeing my friend opened a wound, and the tears coursed over my cheeks.

“No, no,” Tyler said softly, taking me in his arms and thumbing the tears away. “This is a happy day, baby. Look. Look again.”

Holding Jasmine’s hand was my little baby. My treasure.

“Trevor!” I screamed, not caring about being in public or being stared at. The only thing I cared about was right in front of me. “My baby! Trevor!”

Holding him was sweeter than anything I’d ever experienced, his fresh scent filling my nose as I inhaled again and again. He clung to me, his face saying that he knew me from somewhere but couldn’t quite place it. That was all right. We’d work on that.

“Do you remember your mommy, baby?” I asked. “Can you say mommy?”

“Mommy,” he said confidently. He’d had this lesson before.

“Good boy,” I said. “That’s right. I’m your mommy.”

I held him close and squeezed my eyes shut, not opening them until I felt a light peck on my cheek.

I opened my eyes to see Jasmine, and hugged her to me, crushing my baby between us. He squawked a little and giggled in protest.

“How is this possible?” I asked, staring at her as she took a few steps to the side and melted back against Nate. He looked good—lots of color, and well rested.

“Tyler offered us a free vacation,” she said, shrugging. “How could we say no? Plus, we needed a little time off.”

I laughed and shook my head. “No, I mean this.” I lifted my son in my arms, wanting to hear his sweet little chortle. He didn’t disappoint me, laughing for all he was worth.

“Why don’t you ask Tyler?” Jasmine suggested. “I think he’s been dying to tell you.”

I hung my head. “I haven’t been very nice to Tyler,” I said, glancing over to where he stood, still at a distance.

“You just didn’t understand before,” Jasmine said. “Now you do. He explained what happened. Said you were in a little bit of shock.”

The message was clear. Now that you get it, girl, you better go make good with the man who made this all possible.

Still carrying Trevor—and promising myself that I wouldn’t let him out of my arms until I was too physically tired to carry him—I approached Tyler.

“This was all the plan?” I asked. “All of this?”

“I tried to tell you,” he said.

“I’m sorry, Tyler. Please tell me. I’m listening now.”

So he did. Me getting caught at the house wasn’t a part of the plan. But the tickets to Indonesia had been—several months prior, when Tyler discovered the cartel was involved with the Paxton’s. He knew that he might have to get me out at a moment’s notice if things turned south, and get me to safety far beyond the reach of the cartel.

He’d turned over all of the evidence to Ben, but Tyler had been sending pieces of evidence to Fitch, the police officer who’d taken me from Mama’s nightclub, at the NYPD throughout his investigation.

“I knew it was too big just for me,” he said. “I knew that we’d probably need the help of something with a little more clout than a private investigator.”

And Fitch had waited, sat on each piece of salacious evidence, until he’d gotten the final pieces of the puzzle. The camera I was using to snap photos automatically sent the pictures to an online program that Fitch had access to. Fitch had taken the whole wealth of evidence—our bomb—and set it off.

As Tyler and I fled the cartels, Chuck Bloom swooped in with Child Protective Services, taking conservatorship of my son until the investigation was complete. At the same time that Jasmine arrived to hold my son, NYPD investigators were hauling one of the biggest cocaine seizures the city had seen in recent history from the Paxton’s basement. They had cartel members in handcuffs right alongside all three of the Paxton’s. There was hardly an investigation. Ben was declared unfit, and sole guardianship over Trevor was granted to me.

“From that point, it was just the logistics of getting him here,” Tyler said, giving my son a high five as Trevor giggled and offered his tiny palm again. “Jasmine and Nate graciously agreed, and that’s where we are.”

“I’m sorry I ever doubted you,” I said, tears stinging my eyes. “You’ve given me everything I ever wanted, everything I’ve been working toward all these years. Name your price for helping me in this case, Tyler, but I can never repay you.”

“There was one price I had in mind,” he said, kissing me softly and running his fingers through my curls.

I smiled against his lips. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed them.

“My body’s not for sale anymore,” I joked. “Sorry. But you’ve had my heart from the beginning.”

“And you’ve had mine,” he said. “Shimmy, I love you. It just scared me to death and if we’re being perfectly honest, it still does.”

“I think it’s okay to be a little scared,” I said.

“And I’m sorry that I knocked you out in the car,” he said, making me wince at that dark and desperate memory. “You wouldn’t calm down and we had to board a plane in a hurry.”

“Just don’t let it happen again, Mr. Marlowe,” I said, only half teasing.

“I would never hurt you willingly,” he said. “And I want to protect you and Trevor for the rest of your lives.”

              It was strange to think of the fact that everything I’d been working for up until now was mine. I was successful and well-adjusted and I was going to raise my baby from here on out. It was all I ever wanted, but now that I had it, I didn’t know what to work toward anymore.

              The answer came to me as I watched Tyler playing peekaboo with Trevor—serious, ex-FBI Tyler, the Tyler who I’d seen brandish a gun and punch a man and seethe, monkeying around to get a smile out of my son.

Maybe, now, I’d work toward a family. Yes, a family sounded nice.

~ END ~