She cocked her head. ‘You did it for more than a decade.’
‘Because that’s what I was told to do. It took until I started working with King to realise how much better it is when someone has your back. It kills the doubt. Well, most of it, at least…’
She breathed out. ‘Let’s go home.’
Slater met her eyes. ‘To our son.’
She paused, then her head slowly lowered into a single nod. ‘Yeah. To our son.’
77
The next day, at sunrise, Violetta jolted upright on the sofa as a knock sounded at the door.
She’d been awake most of the night, anticipating King’s return since the early hours of the morning. She ran to the door and threw it open, eager for a first look. He’d only told her he was coming home. Nothing about his physical condition or the success of the mission, which was uncharacteristic. On the phone he’d sounded dejected, disconnected from reality. It had sounded like he was half-asleep, which somehow concerned her more than if he’d told her he was grievously wounded.
She got her first look at him, backlit by the orange dawn sky.
He looked awful.
Physically untouched, but in the eyes there was something worse. Loss. Sorrow. Pain. His face was gaunt, drawn, and there were deep bags under his eyes from stress and sleeplessness.
Violetta remained frozen for a moment, then her hands flew to her face. She gasped in a way she didn’t think she ever had. ‘Is Will…?’
King’s face registered surprise, then he quickly shook his head. ‘No. God, Violetta, no. Slater’s fine. So is Alexis. I’m sorry, I should’ve explained more…’
‘It’s okay,’ she said, unable to hold back her sigh. ‘If you’re all fine, then it’s okay. Whatever it is.’
She reached out and pulled him over the threshold and hugged him. He held her tighter than he had in a long time, finding strength in her touch. Then he walked past her, making straight for the hallway that led to, among other rooms, Junior’s. She watched him move, so strong and purposeful, the way he beelined for his son.
She wondered what he’d seen over there.
She gave him some time. Recognised that he hadn’t asked her to come with him. He’d got what he needed from her hug, and now his priority was laying eyes on his boy. She didn’t blame him. She loitered in the entranceway for a couple of minutes after she closed the front door, then followed in his footsteps down to the nursery.
She found him standing over the crib, hands on the railing, watching Junior with an unblinking stare.
Tears in his eyes.
That was far from normal.
She went to his side, put an arm around his torso. ‘What happened?’
He took a breath. ‘Christ, it’s been a day.’
She checked her watch. ‘Today? As in, on the flight?’
He pinched his eyes shut, shook his head. ‘The last twenty-four hours. Sorry. Haven’t slept.’
‘What happened?’ she said again.
‘I tried to help a young man,’ King said. ‘His name was Danny. Turned out he was beyond helping. He’d done something…unforgivable.’
She grimaced. ‘So you did what you had to?’
‘I made him turn himself in.’
‘That was the right thing to do.’
‘Yeah,’ King said. ‘But far from easy.’
‘Did he mean to do whatever he did? Or was it an accident?’
She could see him thinking, and just in that she caught the gist of what had happened. Someone else had made Danny do something. A figure of authority. King was probably thinking about coercion, and intimidation, and mental slavery.
King said, ‘I have no idea.’
A long period of quiet in which King watched his son.
Then, ‘I can’t even figure out whether he was a bad person or not.’
‘It’s never black and white.’
‘I know. That’s what I always say. But this…was a new level.’
‘Maybe he wasn’t good and he wasn’t bad,’ Violetta said. ‘Maybe he spent so long surrounded by real monsters that he lost whoever he was in the first place. And sometimes that’s impossible to get back. Just the way of the world.’
King sighed. ‘Well, the real monsters are dead. All of them.’
Violetta swallowed.
In a pained tone King said, ‘If I hadn’t waited for Slater to recover from Mexico…if I’d got there earlier…I could have got to him before he did the things he did. I could have put him on the right path. He would’ve had his whole life ahead of him.’
‘You can’t be everywhere. You can’t do everything.’
‘He was some kid from a trailer park. He didn’t know who to listen to. He listened to the wrong person and he paid with what’s going to be the next fifteen, twenty years of his life.’
She feared the worst from his tone. Feared he would throw himself permanently back into the fray, save as many lost souls as he could. She could see it eating away at him. The fact that every day he spent living a normal life was a day another scared young man threw his life away by following the wrong crowd.
But, eyes still locked on Junior, he said, ‘I’m going to be in my son’s life. Whatever it takes. I’m not going to be the absent father, off waging some war, too busy to show him the way. I’ll be the right person for him to listen to.’
She hugged him tighter. ‘I know.’
Determination blazed in his eyes like nothing she’d ever seen before.
He said, ‘I’ll keep the monsters at bay.’
KING AND SLATER WILL RETURN…
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Books by Matt Rogers
THE JASON KING SERIES
Isolated (Book 1)
Imprisoned (Book 2)
Reloaded (Book 3)
Betrayed (Book 4)
Corrupted (Book 5)
Hunted (Book 6)
THE JASON KING FILES
Cartel (Book 1)
Warrior (Book 2)
Savages (Book 3)
THE WILL SLATER SERIES
Wolf (Book 1)
Lion (Book 2)
Bear (Book
