Colson (The Henchmen MC 20)

"Your mom?" Colson asked, brows drawing together.

"Yeah. She has dementia. I try not to leave her alone, but I have a sneaking suspicion that my son is screwing around over on Third Street. I need to drag his ass back here."

"I'll sit right here and keep an eye. Go get your kid."

"I really, really appreci—"

"Go," he demanded, giving me a nod.

"Thank you," I told him, ducking into my car, peeling off.

Maybe I should have felt fear as I parked on the street where my brother and his friends were hanging out. And by 'hanging out,' I meant dealing drugs. These guys were notoriously ruthless, distrusting of everyone, intolerant of any interference from outsiders.

And if this was just about me, I would have been peeing myself worried about what I was doing as I reached into my backseat for the bat I had been keeping there for years and then slammed my door, making my way toward the crowd.

But this was about my kid.

And things like fear just didn't really exist when it came to rescuing them from a fate you knew they weren't prepared for.

Jacob might have been misguided, but he wasn't a kid meant for the streets. He was too kind, too sweet, too soft for that kind of life. They would eat him up and spit him out.

I'd be damned if I let that happen.

"The fuck is this?" one of the guys gathered there asked, jerking his chin toward me and my determined gait, my bat swinging with me as I walked.

There was a group of ten or twelve guys there. All different ages. All different races. Third Street didn't discriminate, they would take everyone who was willing down a bad path that would likely have them in a cell or an early grave.

"Christ," Miguel hissed, breaching through the crowd, shaking his head. "Get out of here with that. What the fuck are you doing?"

"What's best for my kid. Unlike you. What the hell is the matter with you?" I snapped.

"That boy needs a father figure."

"That boy has a father figure. And what he needs is a future. Which you can't give him. Now where the fuck is my son?"

"You need to—"

"I swear to God, Miguel," I snapped, raising the bat, resting it on my shoulder. "I don't give a shit if we used to watch cartoons together and sneak sweets from the kitchen together. I will crack open your skull right now if you don't tell me where my goddamn son is."

"Watch how you talk to me, Eva," Miguel snapped, voice low, lethal, a sound I'd never heard from him before, but one I knew meant business as he stepped away from the crowd, moving toward me.

"Where is Jacob?" I asked, fingers gripping the bat tighter as I tried to ignore the pounding of my heart.

"This is not the place," Miguel warned, aware of the eyes of his friends on the scene I was making. He probably thought I was embarrassing him. And, quite frankly, he should be embarrassed. Who in their right mind dragged a kid into this kind of lifestyle? One that was related to them, no less.

"It's fine. It's fine," Jacob's voice called through the crowd, making a surge of relief move through me. He was there. He was safe. "Uncle Miguel, I'll just go home. It's fine," he said, pushing through the sea of bodies, moving to position himself half between me and his uncle.

"Yeah, you know, you should go home. Got homework and shit," Miguel said, trying to save face with his friends.

"I'll text you later," Jacob told him, giving him a small smile.

Oh, like hell he would. That phone was mine now.

"Eva," Miguel hissed as I turned to walk away. "Do shit like this again, we're goin to have a problem."

"Wake up, Miguel," I told him in a matching whisper. "We already have a problem. Stay the fuck away from my son."

"Working mom. No man. How the fuck you going to stop him from coming to see me?"

That was the question of the day, wasn't it?

I had no answers.

But I planned to figure it out.

"Stay out of our lives, Miguel," I warned him, turning and following my son back to the car, tossing my bat into the back before getting into my seat, reaching for my belt.

"Mom..."

"Don't even," I warned him, hearing a quiver in my voice as I often did when I got too angry. Tears were usually not too far behind.

"I didn't mean—"

"To put me in a dangerous situation?" I snapped, backing out of my spot, wanting to get out of this part of town as quickly as possible. "You've already made it clear you don't care about your own safety, bud, but you made me risk myself coming here to get you. And if you don't feel a little bit of guilt about that, then I have really failed you as a parent. You know what those men are capable of? You know how many of them probably beat those working girls? Who force themselves on them? And you make me come into their territory with a bat?"