Chaos Remains (Greenstone Security 4)

Tears bit the backs of my eyes. I gritted my teeth against them. I was not allowed to cry now. I could cry after I had Nathan in my arms. After I smelled his hair. After he smiled at me. After I cataloged every inch of his body to make sure it was the same as it was before. After I fed him as much boxed macaroni and cheese as his little body could handle. Then, when I put him to bed, watched him fall asleep into a slumber without nightmares, then I could cry. I could sob.

But only then.

For now, and until then, I had to hold it the hell together.

“Now, we have alternate methods of doin’ things, want to make sure that you’re—”

“I’m okay with it,” I interrupted Keltan. “Any and all ways to get my boy back unharmed, you do whatever you have to do. Whatever you’re willing to do.”

Keltan nodded, the corner of his mouth turning up only slightly. Not a full smile. Because there was no place for smiles right now. I didn’t feel like I’d ever smile again. I was empty, hollow. At the same time, I was full, bursting with fear, despair, rage, worry.

“The piece of shit, you want us to take care of him?” Lance spoke finally.

I jerked at his voice, so different than Keltan’s. Rougher. More violent. He wasn’t softening himself for me as I suspected Keltan was. Wasn’t trying to make himself less threatening, make me more comfortable.

Then again, all the soft-spoken men in the world in sleek offices couldn’t make me feel calm, so I weirdly appreciated it. The honesty of it.

“Excuse me?” I said, blinking.

“The husband,” he elaborated, or his version of elaborating. I suspected he wasn’t as articulate as Keltan. Keltan had explained he was the owner of the business and therefore had all the people skills. With a business like this, I knew there was a call for a different kind of people skills. A violent, dark kind.

This man excelled in the dark. You need only look at him to know that.

“Take care of him?” I repeated.

I thought I got what he was saying, but surely I must have been mistaken, my thoughts clouded by my own panic and feelings toward Robert.

Though the fact that Lance referred to him as a ‘piece of shit’ had me thinking he didn’t exactly have warm feelings toward him either.

But still, this was a reputable security company that had nice offices, celebrity clients, a location in a respectable neighborhood in a seriously nice part of LA. Surely he couldn’t be offering what I thought of it.

“You mean, like…” I trailed off, not sure if I was actually meant to speak about such things out loud. I didn’t know the etiquette.

If you’d told me this morning as I was chopping up bananas for Nathan’s oatmeal with him singing about giraffes in the background that I’d be sitting in a fancy office in LA with two attractive badasses potentially talking about putting a hit out on my husband I would have laughed my butt off.

But that was life.

So instead of verbalizing what I was going to say, I brought my thumb across my throat in an unmistakable gesture.

Keltan raised his brows, looking almost amused, but Lance merely nodded once.

I gaped and waited for Keltan, the more reasonable and kind of the men to correct him. He didn’t. He just stared at me in expectation.

Were these two men really waiting for me to confirm that I wanted Robert dead? Was this some kind of trap? I didn’t see how it could be, so it really seemed like if I responded in the way my evil heart wanted me to, they would do it.

“No,” I said finally.

Keltan raised his brow again, not in amusement. I wasn’t sure if it was disappointment or respect.

“A very big and dark part of me wants him to never breathe air again. Wants to make sure he does not walk on the same earth as my son. Wants to make sure that we never have to worry about him again,” I said, even as I verbalized it, I was tempted to change my answer. “But that would be letting his vile and deplorable actions change who I am as a person. Change my beliefs. I’ve given him a lot of power over me in the past. I will no longer give him permission to take anything else from me.”

Now I was sure I saw some kind of respect on Keltan’s face.

The other man’s, I wasn’t sure, because there was still that blank menace that masked any kind of human emotion.

But I noticed the veins in his arms protruding from his muscular arms and saw his fists were clenched at his sides. I couldn’t be sure that they weren’t like that the whole time.