Possessive Daddy Next Door

“I’ll keep you updated.”

“Good.”

“See you later.”

I hang up the phone and toss it aside. I don’t know what I expected from that. Nothing, not really. I just wanted to hear my friend’s voice again if I’m honest with myself.

I’ve missed him. Missed my whole life back in the city. I had a lot going for me, until things went wrong.

“Okay, honey,” I say to Tab. “Bedtime. You want to read some stories?”

She whines but rests her head on my shoulder when I pick her up and hug her tight.There’s a knock at our door at three in the afternoon the next day. Tab is at daycare. I slip the gun from my waistband, make sure it’s loaded, and walk to the door. I open it a crack.

“Hey,” Delia says.

I let out a breath. “Hey.”

“Look, can we talk? Things were weird the other day. Are you okay?”

I nod and slip the gun into my waistband again, down the center of my back. I adjust my shirt over top of it and let her in.

She steps through and glances around. “You cleaned up.”

“Figured all the broken glass would be bad for Tab.”

“Oh, I mean, I’d just let her play in it. Can’t hurt, right?”

I laugh and shut the door behind her. She lingers near it and bites her lip.

“Are you okay?” she asks.

“I’m fine.” I look away. “Come on in.”

“Did you, uh, ever call the cops?”

“No,” I say. “But I’m thinking about it.”

“Good. Yeah, that’s good. I think… my family knows them. I mean. We like…”

“You guys own this town.”

She hesitates then nods. “Yeah. We do.”

“I know. Everyone knows it.” I sit on the couch. I shoved most of the stuffing back in and stitched it shut but it’s lumpy and uncomfortable now. I’ll have to get a new one.

She hovers for a second then sits on a chair. I watch her carefully. She’s wearing light jeans and hiking boots and a dark navy shirt unbuttoned down the front. A gold necklace hangs down between her perfect, perky breasts. I feel myself stir and can’t help it, even if this is far from the fucking time for that.

“So we can help, you know? I can ask around if anyone knows about what happened.”

He watches me for a long moment. “I don’t want you involved.”

“Not me then,” she says, talking fast. “Patricks. Or anyone else you want. But we can help. We have resources. I mean, I don’t know what’s going on here or why this happened, but if I can help… I want to help.” She leans toward me and I’m tempted to reach out to her.

But I hold myself back.

“Look, I appreciate that. But what happened here is my problem.”

“I know. I know. You don’t want me involved.”

“No, it’s more than that.” I stare into her gorgeous eyes. She looks hurt, like she thinks I’m trying to get rid of her, which is the furthest thing from the truth possible. I want to stay in this town, despite the danger, because of her. Or at least in part, because of her. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I won’t.”

“You have no clue if that’s true.” I close my eyes for a moment and shake my head. “I feel like I owe you an explanation.”

“You don’t have to. We can just… move on. If you want. And I can help.”

I look at her then stand up. “Come here.”

She stands and walks over to me. I take her hand and lead her back through the kitchen. She glances around at all the work I’ve done to get it back together, at least into workable shape. We head through the back door and I take her to a couple of chairs I have set up around a fire pit. We sit down outside and I pull my chair up close next to hers.

She looks at me and I shift toward her. “I told you that my wife died,” I say.

“Yeah, you did.”

“But I didn’t tell you how.”

She frowns. “No, you didn’t. I guess I didn’t think to ask.”

“My wife died because of me.”

I let that hang in the air.

I know it’s dramatic. But it’s the truth. I need her to understand that if she’s going to try to stay involved in all this.

“I don’t understand,” she says.

I lean back in my chair and stare at the empty fire pit. Ashes from the last time I burned leaves coat the bottom and I breathe the crisp air deep into my lungs.

“I was an undercover agent,” I say. “I got assigned to some low-level drug dealer at first. Just a simple drug bust, nothing special. But I got lucky, fixed a mistake he made, and his bosses noticed.

“Turns out, he worked for the mafia. Just a low-level guy slinging drugs on the side, but his bosses were full-on made men. Even they weren’t important in the grand scheme of things, but their bosses were. And so I fell in with them and my superiors let it happen.