Retribution (The Protectors 3)

“Daddy?”

“He’s okay, Matty. He’s just missing you,” Hawke said quietly.

“Daddy,” Matty called to me, his voice low and sweet.

“Yeah, buddy,” I said as I pulled back from Hawke’s chest and wiped at my eyes.

“Love you lots.”

I let out a watery laugh. “Forever and ever,” I finished.

“Hey, Matty’s nurse is here to check his central line. We’ll talk to you guys later, okay?” Ronan said.

I nodded. “Thanks, Ronan,” I whispered as my eyes connected with the other man’s. I hoped he heard what I couldn’t put into words and when he nodded a moment later, I knew he had.

“Bye, Daddy!”

“Bye, Matty. I’ll be home soon, okay. Love you.”

“I love you too. Bye, Hawke.”

“Bye, Matty,” Hawke said quietly.

The screen went dark a second later and I instantly lost it and began crying. Hawke gathered me in his arms and lay down on the bed, taking me with him. I curled against his side and sobbed as he held me tight. It was several minutes before I quieted enough to say, “Thank you, Michael.”

Hawke’s arms tightened around me even more when I said his name.

“For what?” he asked.

“For everything,” I said simply.

Hawke was silent for a moment and then he was rolling me onto my back as he hovered above me. His hand came up to cup my face. “I wish I could give you more, Tate. I wish I could be everything you needed.”

And then he sealed his mouth over mine.

Chapter Twenty-One

Hawke

“Here.”

I put down the towel I’d been using to dry my hair and took the picture Tate handed me.

After kissing Tate last night, I’d pulled him back into my arms and held him until we’d fallen asleep. I’d woken up with him in almost the same exact position and had lain there for nearly an hour before I’d forced myself to release him and get out of bed. For the first time since we’d left my house three days ago, I wasn’t eager to start the day. Because by the end of it, Tate would be on his way home and I’d be alone again.

I looked at the picture and stilled when I saw the two men kneeling on the ground, rifles in hand as they held up the head of a dead deer with huge antlers. Both men were dressed in camouflage outfits, but it was their faces that I focused on. “Buck and Denny?” I asked.

Tate nodded. “I was just looking through the photos I had developed yesterday. They made me take this picture a couple of months before I left. I’d forgotten all about it.”

I glanced up at Tate and shook my head in disbelief. He’d made it clear that he didn’t want me going after Buck and Denny in Laredo, but he’d still given me the one thing I really needed to help me find them. “Thank you,” I said.

Tate nodded and I could see that he wanted to say more, but he didn’t. Instead, he turned and left the bathroom and I turned my attention back to the picture. Pain slashed through my belly as I took in the faces of the men who’d brutalized my wife and murdered her and my son. Buck looked nothing like what I’d imagined in my head. He was remarkably clean cut and good looking for his fifty odd years. He was a large man, but clearly took care of himself. But his eyes were cold and empty and my gaze fell to his big hands. Hands that had rained down on Tate’s body over and over again. Hands that had held my wife down…

I shook myself loose from my thoughts and focused on Denny. He looked nothing like Tate as I would have expected. His grimy blond hair was long and stringy and his pockmarked skin was drawn tight over the sharp bones of his face. Like Reggie, the years of drug addiction had taken their toll on Denny and he almost looked as old as his father. And like his father, there was nothing in his dull eyes.

I put the picture down on the counter and lifted my eyes to look at myself in the mirror. My gaze fell to Revay’s words and I let my finger trail over each sentence as I read them to myself. But it wasn’t her voice I heard in my head. Not Tate’s either. It was my own. And it wasn’t Revay I was thinking of when I finally reached the last word.

* * *

“Yeah, thanks Daisy. Let me know what you find.”

I hung up the phone and reached for my bag when I noticed Tate standing near the entrance to the bathroom. I hadn’t heard him come out as I’d been speaking to Daisy about seeing what she could find on Ricardo Davos. But I could tell from Tate’s worried look that he’d heard me talking to her.