Vengeance (The Protectors 5)

I hadn’t been invisible.

I forced myself to forget the events of this morning and focused my attention on the scum kneeling before me. At some point Cain had forced the newly fingerless man to his knees again. I wanted to put bullets in both of them and end this whole thing, but despite what they’d done to Tristan, my research hadn’t proven them to be anything more than thugs with criminal records that included a few petty crimes that didn’t warrant a death sentence. I couldn’t allow my personal desire for vengeance to color how I handled this whole thing. I could keep Tristan safe and not sacrifice the few scraps of morality I’d somehow managed to hang on to.

I pulled my phone from my pocket and focused on the first man I’d shot.

“Your name is Albert Dilliano,” I said and waited until his eyes shifted to mine. I showed him the picture on my phone and said, “Your wife’s name is Helen and you have two kids, Gia and Al Jr. Gia is twelve, Al Jr. is nine and they both attend Green Hill Academy in Long Island.”

I scrolled through the pictures of the man’s family as I spoke and I saw his eyes go wider with fear and he began shaking his head. “No, please,” he said, but he instantly snapped his mouth shut when I put my finger to my lips to indicate he should be silent.

I turned to the other man and did the same thing with showing him his family and sharing what I knew about them. He paled, but was smart enough not to speak.

I tucked my phone back in my pocket and said, “I know where you live, where you eat, even where you shit. I know what gyms your wives go to, what sports your kids play, who their friends are…”

I let that hang there for a moment before I crouched down so I was eye level with both of them. “I will see everything you do from this moment forward. You can try to take your families and run, ditch your phones, close out your bank accounts…but I found you once, I will find you again. Do you understand me?”

Both men were shaking violently and I suspected the fingerless man was struggling not to pass out from the blood loss. “You go near him again, I will end you. But next time it won’t be just your fingers I take,” I said calmly.

I got another set of nods without even needing to ask. “Where’s the money?”

“My bag,” Albert said shakily as he motioned to a black bag on the end of the bed. Cain searched the bag and pulled out several stacks of money. He tucked them into his jacket pocket.

“Where’s his father?” was my next question.

“Fucker ran back to New York,” the man spat out.

I eyed the man for a moment and then simply said, “He’s not off limits.”

With that, I stood and tucked the gun in the waistband of my pants at my back and then left the room with Cain right behind me.

“You want me to go to New York and take care of the father?” Cain asked.

“No,” I said coldly. “He’s all mine.”

* * *

I wasn’t the kind guy who was often surprised or caught off guard. I also wasn’t the kind of guy who spent a lot of useless time hoping for things I couldn’t have.

Yet all those things happened in the two seconds it took me to get my hotel room door opened.

Surprised to find my hotel room wasn’t empty like I expected.

Caught off guard to see Brennan and Tristan on the couch watching TV with Brennan sitting on one end of it and Tristan lying on his side, his head resting on Brennan’s thigh while Brennan played with his hair.

And the hoping…well that came when the feeling of rightness came over me when they both looked up from what they were watching and smiled at me.

“You’re still here,” I said dumbly as I tried to collect myself. I was innately glad I’d decided to change my bloody shirt in Cain’s truck while he’d driven us back to the city.

Tristan flipped so that he was lying flat on his back so he could see me better. “Is that okay?” he asked.

It was better than okay, but I didn’t say that. I nodded and then reached into my jacket. The second I pulled Tristan’s watch from my pocket, he sat up, his eyes wide. “You got it back?” he asked.

I went to the couch and handed it to him.

“How?” he asked.

“I figured you probably took it to a pawn shop near your apartment so I called around. Not a lot of Rolexes get pawned and since your dads had it inscribed…”

I didn’t get anything else out because Tristan suddenly scrambled to his feet so he was standing on the couch. The move made him taller than me and when he threw his arms around my neck and kissed me, I automatically put my arms around his waist. When Tristan pulled back, he whispered, “Thank you,” against my lips and then kissed me lightly before settling back down on the couch.