The Lyon's Cub Caitlin (Lyon The Next Generation 1)

He held my gaze as he explained the security measures in the place and I congratulated myself on keeping my cool while this kid explained to me pretty much the fact that he and my daughter would be living together.

I didn’t say anything after he got through trying to sell me on the place. This shit was moving too fast I thought. But then I had to remind myself that it wasn’t that it had been four years in the making. And then I recalled the words he’d said to his mom. Was that only yesterday that I’d overheard him?

“Kid, did my wife send you up to the attic to get the slow cooker yesterday?” Everyone looked at me like my cheese had fallen off my cracker.

“Yes she did but…” He looked confused as hell. I shook my head with a laugh. “It’s nothing!” Well-played Kat!

“I don’t know which one of your women did it, but my wife has been compromised.” I looked around the table at Law, Creed and Mancini.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean she’s sneakier than she ever was.”

That only got the conversation going in a whole other direction as the men each shared some story or another about the shit their women have been getting up to lately. It was then I realized that the inmates were now running the asylum. The women were upping their game. Game on.

If Katarina Lyon and her kids think they’re gonna run game on me they’re in for a rude awakening. Mengele came walking into the kitchen rubbing her eyes with that damn dog traipsing behind her.

“Daddy!”

“Yes baby.”

“I can’t get back to sleep.” She crawled into my lap and snuggled in. She was out in less than a minute.

TODD

I can’t believe he said it, he actually said it. He’d just made my life so much easier. I’d spent the last part of the evening convincing my girl that I was going to talk him into letting her come with me at the end of summer. Even though I suspected what her mother was up to, seeing the look on her face after that stunt with the car had triggered me.

No way am I going to watch her look like that all summer when it’s not even necessary. I knew the danger, had sat in on the meet as my father in law calls it, so I know there are ways and means of getting around it.

It’s not like I’d put her life in danger, something her dad should already know by now. He’s gonna have to meet me halfway. I’d been laying in bed wide-awake thinking of my approach when I heard Catalina scream. Mancini beat me to the door by a second.

It ripped my guts out to see that little girl like that and the thought of Caitie suffering through anything like it only strengthened my resolve. Now we were sitting in the kitchen talking. I made sure sis was asleep before broaching the subject again.

“I know a way that we’ve overlooked, a way that we can get Caitlin to college without these people even knowing that she’s gone.”

“How’s that?”

“You have tight security here, so you know that they’re not watching the house, they came at her through the computer.”

“Go on!”

“It’s simple. We move out under cover of night, we set a false trail, transcripts, everything. They have no idea that she’s graduating early, but let’s say they do. We set it up like she’s going to Harvard, your alma mater. We spread the word around town, after she’s gone and people notice that she’s no longer here. Even the school won’t know which school she chooses. You can set that up Mancini right.”

“Of course.” I looked at Mr. Lyon to see what he thought because the shit sounded too simple even to my own ears, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work.

“We wouldn’t go directly to school, we’d leave a few weeks early, go away somewhere just her and I.” This is the hard part. I could already see him bracing himself.

“I’ll take her to Europe, go to a few places. We can lose them.”

“What if they know where you go to school?”

“Why would they? They don’t know me.” I relaxed when I realized that he wasn’t just shooting me down, that he was actually giving it some thought.

“What do you think?” He looked around the table at the others.

“I hate to say it, but the kid’s got a point. We’ve been so busy ducking these fucks and trying to outmaneuver them that we lost sight of the bigger picture.”

“I’ll still have to see this place that you’re moving to. As for the trip to Europe… let me work on that.” I breathed out all the air from my lungs and dropped back in my seat. Oh shit! It worked, all my patience and hard work is about to pay off.