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Tight.
• • •
We were at Trouper’s favorite place in the world to eat—Taco Bell.
I had no clue why he liked it so much, but I figured I’d take the gut punch—literally because my stomach hated me when I ate Taco Bell—and take him to his favorite restaurant the moment that he was released from prison.
He’d just finished off his eighth taco when he leaned back and stared at me.
“I can practically hear the wheels turning,” he teased.
I gave him a roll of my eyes.
“It’s been killing me,” I told him. “I have no clue why you’re out. I mean, I’m not complaining in the least. I’m just curious as hell right now, and I have no clue as to how this happened.”
It was a freakin’ miracle is what it was.
Trouper had literally served barely one tenth of his prison sentence for nearly killing a man.
I needed to know why.
Trouper gestured toward the front door with his head, and I stood up, gathering our trash.
Trouper picked Hiro and his car seat up and walked toward the door, waiting for me.
When I got to him, I immediately locked my arm on to his free one and held on tight, scared that if I let him go, he’d disappear.
It felt like a dream, having him here with me.
When we got to his car, he held my car door open for me, then struggled through getting Hiro’s car seat attached to the base.
It was only as he was getting into the car, and got his seat belt buckled in, that he started to talk.
“I got this really weird phone call while I was in prison back in Montana. It was a man who asked me a bunch of questions. About you. About my life. Why I went into prison. Things like that. Then, when I got to Bear Bottom, a man met with me and five other men that were in the same position as me,” he said. “Basically, he told me that he was going to get me out of prison. That he had connections, and that he was having the president pardon me. He gave this big spiel about us living our lives, but also helping him fix a few things that he didn’t like happening in the community. According to him, he chose people that were willing to do bad things for the right reasons.”
“Meaning, someone that would nearly kill someone because they hurt his wife?” I asked softly.
He turned to look at me.
“I was going to have more answers for you when I came home,” he told me. “Basically, I know that this guy got me out of prison. I asked around about him. I know that he’s a good guy. At least, as good as a good guy that does bad things can get. I know that this guy is hell bent on cleaning up East Texas. He’s also not very forgiving about how he does it.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“It means that he’ll take down someone that’s bad, and not give a fuck how he does it, as long as that guy is gone,” he said. “Lynn’s a…” He paused. “I don’t know. When he came into that room, for the first time since I was young, I had a feeling that I wasn’t the baddest motherfucker in the room. That maybe I couldn’t handle what that man was trying to offer me.”
“And what was he offering you?” I asked, still confused.
“A lifeline,” he hesitated. “A way to spend my life with you, while also cleaning up messes that only a man like me would be able to handle.”
“I’m still confused,” I shook my head. “What exactly does he want you to be doing?”
“That was why I was going to go talk to him first,” he explained. “I was actually supposed to meet him almost immediately after getting out. I wanted to have some answers for all those questions before I came home.”
My breath hitched, and I looked over at him with my heart in my throat.
“You were going to come home?” I breathed, hoping that he would say what I wanted to hear all over again.
“I was going to come home,” he promised. “Even though I don’t know where you—we—live. I figured Lynn could help me out with that.”
I started to laugh.
“Do you think that it’ll be okay if I’m in on this meeting?” I asked.
He started up the car.
“There’s only one way to find out.”
CHAPTER 22
Don’t make me act like my daddy.
-Text from Beckham to Trouper
TROUPER
I pulled up to a fucking mansion in the middle of goddamn nowhere.
“This is it according to Google Maps,” my wife hummed from beside me.
Hiro gurgled, and I looked in my rearview mirror at the seat that contained a mirror that then reflected my son’s image back at me.
I’d glanced in the rearview mirror at him no less than thirty times during our trip.
