“I’m not stupid, Sebastian.”
“But you are on the wrong end of the barrel this time.”
For a moment, I saw a flash in his eyes. I wasn’t sure if it was anger or fear, but it was a show of emotion. Weakness.
“Time’s up,” I told him.
“The Everglades,” he said bluntly.
“What about them?” I asked as I narrowed my eyes.
“Lots of little hammocks where you could build a decent shelter,” he responded with a shrug. “Plenty of birds and fish, lots of edible plants around. You gotta watch out for gators, but I think you can manage that. Twenty minutes to Miami, so she’s got her civilization. Even if she doesn’t want to live in a fucking tiki hut, I bet she’d be willing to stay there on the weekends. The rest of the time, she can hang out in that condo of yours.”
As he talked, I could see it all forming in my head: a little shelter with a grass roof, a fire pit off to one side to cook and boil water, and Raine curled up next to me while the spring rain falls around us. I could teach Alex all about the plants and animals, and Raine would make sure he learned about conservation of the ecosystem. I could use a kayak or even an airboat to get to a place where a car could be parked, ready to take them both back to Miami any time they wanted to go there. I could even go with her as long as it wasn’t for too long or anything. I could wait in the fucking car for all I cared.
Part of me wanted that. A lot.
Landon’s vision made sense for the man he knew, for the man I used to be. This was just the sort of thing I would have desired. It would keep me away from people, which I didn’t care for, but still let me have access to Raine and Alex whenever I wanted to see them.
But it wasn’t about me. Not anymore.
Alex needed a father—someone who was there with him all the time—and not the shit kind of relationships I’d had as a kid with part-time foster parents and counselors in group homes. He needed me to be there for him every day.
Raine did, too.
I didn’t need to isolate myself from the rest of the world. I just needed to be Alex’s father and Raine’s…Raine’s…
Shit.
I knew what I needed to do.
It all clicked inside my head. The flash in my mind was as brilliant as the flash from the gun would have been had I decided to pull the trigger, but I didn’t need to. Franks and Landon were completely irrelevant.
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “I know what to do now.”
“And I can keep everyone else away from you,” Landon said.
I looked back to him. There was nervous sweat covering his forehead—something I’d never seen before.
“Don’t bother,” I said as I lowered the gun. “I don’t need you to. I’m done with you and Franks. You’re never going to contact me again—either of you. This isn’t a request or a threat; it’s simply the way it’s going to be. Do we understand each other?”
Landon nodded as he lowered his hands.
“The two of you forget I ever existed,” I said. “No one else gives a shit about me or what I do.”
We stared at each other for a long time. He looked like he was going to say something else but just nodded again instead. As he did, I saw the one thing I never expected to see on his face—defeat.
It was…satisfying.
I kept the gun in my hand and my eyes on Landon as I backed up to the door and opened it. There was always the possibility he would shoot me in the back as I left though I didn’t think he would. Not at this point.
He spoke just before I maneuvered myself into the hallway.
“I still give a shit about you,” Landon said in a gruff voice. “I always did.”
I stared at him, refusing to alter my expression even though it felt like his words were ripping me up inside. I’d always known it, but he’d never said it before. It was too late now. I was no longer the lonely, fucked up, futureless kid he’d found in the streets and trained to be a killer. I had moved on.
“Goodbye, Landon.”
He nodded once, and I walked out of the hotel room.
I never saw him again.
Staring at a computer screen aggravated the hell out of my headache. I was actually considering getting some fucking reading glasses or something. I wasn’t sure how Raine managed to do it all the time for school.
I glanced down at the list Raine and I had made with a little input from Alex of all the things we wanted in a house. I was anxious to get the whole process over and done with before I lost my fucking mind.
I needed everything to be just right before I did what I had to do next.
Focus.
Using an online app, I poked around at the houses brought up with the search criteria I had entered. There were a lot of nice ones, but nothing seemed exactly right. There was always something major missing from our list of “must haves” that made me pass over the listings.
I glanced up at Alex. He was kneeling next to the coffee table with crayons all over the place, drawing another picture of a house. It was always the same—a little cottage with two windows and a door in the front, and rolling hills behind it. This time, he was adding a bunch of trees to the picture and had even included a big, red bird sitting on a branch.
I looked back at the list of criteria I’d added to the paper and then to the computer screen.
Selfish bastard.
I deleted one of the items from the list, and a whole new group of houses popped up on the screen. Even though I felt like I was starting over, I did it with vigor. My mind was made up, and I wasn’t going to let my own neuroses stop us from finding a place to live. I flipped through a couple dozen places that still didn’t seem quite right, but I kept going. I was as determined as I had been to get down that frozen mountainside.
Then I saw it.
It was fucking perfect.
Rolling hills and everything.
It wasn’t exactly like Alex’s picture, of course, but the outside of the house I was staring at still had a cottage-like feel to it. The picture must have been taken in the spring because there were flowering trees in the front and daffodils all around in the flower beds. The website said it had four bedrooms and three bathrooms, which was more than enough for us. There was even a finished basement and a swing set in the back.
“Hey, Alex,” I said.
“Hmm?” He didn’t even look up from his picture.
“Take a look at this, and tell me what you think.
He let out a dramatic sigh but placed his crayon down and hauled himself up from the floor. He walked around the coffee table three times before I told him to cut it out, and he plopped down in my lap to look at the computer.
“What do you think of this house?” I asked.
Alex studied it for a minute and had me go through some of the pictures of the house’s interior.
“That one,” he said as the website displayed a picture of one of the bedrooms. It was painted light green and had a wide strip of wallpaper full of spaceships running around the top of the wall.
“That one what?” I asked.
“That’s my room.”
“It is?”
“Yep.”
I smiled.
“Okay, then.”
Alex rolled off my lap and went back to his crayons. He picked up a brown one and started adding a swing set to the drawing.
Raine returned an hour later with carry-out in her hands.
“I didn’t feel like cooking,” she said as she walked in.
“I could have made dinner,” I said. The vast majority of what we could get for carry-out around here was full of fat and carbs. There were very few cuisines I would put up with except for…
“It’s Thai,” she replied with a wide grin and raised eyebrows.