As far as The TEAM went, Mark was still managing assignments and doling out his brand of leadership. The man was a natural. Didn’t hurt that Harley was now fully engaged and more single-minded than he’d been in years. Which was saying a lot for a man as beset by post-traumatic stress as he’d been when he’d come home from war. But he’d stepped up as Mark’s right hand man now, and didn’t that beat all? Alex had two strong leaders on the job, holding The TEAM fort down.
With all well at home for the moment, he planned to go back to work in a couple days. Where he’d once considered ending The TEAM he’d built from the ground up, he knew now that he’d over-reacted. He had an appointment with Jameson Tenney first thing Monday morning. He still needed to have that chat with Mother. But he’d never been more sure. He’d built a damned solid company of snipers, and ended up with the best family a man could ask for. Life was son of a bitchin’ good.
“Hey, son. Alex?” Mel interrupted from his cozy seat with Lexie.
As usual, his timing was impeccable. Alex jolted out of his first half-pleasant reverie in days, annoyed. “Yes?”
“You do know Pops was my only sibling, don’t you?”
Thank God. “So?”
“Well, err, so… Lucy was his only kid, and you’re my only kid, and—”
“And your point is?”
“They’re, umm…” Mel placed both hands over Lexie’s ears and whispered, “They’re both dead. Him and her.”
“What are you trying to tell me? Spit it out.”
Lexie shook her head, dislodging Mel’s hands with a crabby, “Stop it, Grampa. I reading.”
“Well, Pops had a will,” he told Alex. “Last time I seen it, he left everything to Lucy first. Wanna know who else he named as beneficiary in case something happened to her?”
A pregnant pause filled the lovely stone home, before he begrudgingly muttered, “Not really.”
“What’s a bena-fishery, Daddy?” Lexie asked, her brows furrowed, and her bottom lip stuck forward in a studious pout.
“It’s someone who’s related to a person who dies, sweetheart. Like a wife or child,” Alex explained. “They inherit whatever that person left behind.”
“Is I your bena-fishery?”
“Mama, you, and Bradley,” he told his darling daughter.
Her big brown eyes welled with tears. “But I don’t want you to die. Neither does baby Bradley or Mommy or... Wah!”
He waved for his strong-willed, soft-hearted daughter to come sit with him. Lexie tossed her book aside and traded Mel for her father’s arms. “I’m not going anywhere,” Alex promised as he snuggled her in where she belonged. “We’ve still got to go birthday present shopping for Mommy, remember?”
She nodded, her curly head bumping under his chin as she wiped her face and settled onto his lap. “I love you, Daddy.”
He pressed a kiss to the crown of her perfect head. “I love you too, baby girl,” he said as he looked over her to his dad. “Mel, explain.”
The golden sunset spilling through that huge picture window casting an unearthly, almost heavenly glow on the old codger’s craggy features. “You, son. You were always his second beneficiary. Not me. I can almost guarantee his Irish lawyer’s gonna be calling you one of these days, just wait and see. I got his card somewhere. When I find it, I’ll give it to you. Maybe you oughta call him. Pops never trusted Lucy. Can’t tell you how many times he wrote her out of his will, added her back in, then wrote her out again. Might even explain why she left Ireland in a snit and came to New York. She mighta found out she wasn’t getting anything. Always was a hateful little thing.”
Alex refused to care. It’d be a cold day in hell before he accepted a cent of ill-gotten gains from an uncle he’d never met, much less from an underworld crime boss. A lowlife who hadn’t had the balls to stand by his own father, who’d disappointed Patrick Bradley Stewart so deeply, he’d never told his only grandson about that uncle or cousin.
The notoriety of those associations hadn’t hit American media outlets yet, thank God. Alex could hardly wait for that shitstorm to reach Alexandria. But it would. Reporters would be climbing all over him, once they knew he’d been related to Pops and Lucy Delaney. Probably other mob bosses, too. They might think he should take over whatever was left of Pops’ empire. Like hell. Alex refused to be bullied or coerced by the legacy of any damned thug. He’d deal with the mess his uncle and cousin left, later.
Want to bet Tucker Chase already knew? Alex shook his head at the trouble that ending the Delaney empire might cause him and his TEAM. His family. He might just have to work closely with the FBI before this thing was over. Damn.
“You seen my big bag?” Mel asked suddenly, his blue eyes gone blank, searching the room for some unknown bag he never mentioned when he was lucid. “Says NAVY on it. I was a SEAL, you know.”
And here we go again.
“Have you looked in your bedroom?” Alex asked his father tiredly. Didn’t matter what he said. Just answering seemed enough to calm his father’s angst.
Lexie burrowed deeper inside the crook of her father’s arms. “Grampa’s not feeling good anymore, Daddy,” she murmured. She knew the signs. Also knew story time with Grampa was done for a while.
“He’ll be back,” Alex assured her quietly. “Grampa forgets things when he’s tired, doesn’t he?”
“Ah huh and sometimes he’s stinky,” she whispered behind her fingers.
Alex smiled. Yes, for sure, Mel was now certifiably old and losing his mind. But he was off the streets and safe, and that mattered. Even to Alex. Because, like it or not, want to admit it or not, Mel Stewart was his dad. Just like Patrick Bradley had been Mel’s and Pops Delaney’s father. Made a
