Page 11 of Maximus

“We will. But first, we need to have a plan.”

“I can’t go on vacation. My job.”

My eyes drifted closed, I sounded like a nitwit, I knew it. But I’d just gotten my life back on track. Liam and Elijah were finally starting to trust me again, they were relaxed, the nightmares were subsiding—now this.

On the run once more.

“Call your boss and tell her that one of the boys is sick. You’ll need to come up with something that will keep you out of work awhile. Tonsillitis. Chicken pox.”

Do kids even get chicken pox these days?

“Great. Back to lying,” I huffed. “Deceiving the people around me who trust me. Of course. That’s what I do, right? What I’m good at. Lying and running. Putting my kids in danger. Making stupid decisions.”

“Eva, you can stand here feeling sorry for yourself or you can help come up with a way to introduce me to your kids in a way that won’t hurt them when this is over and I disappear. I’m guessing you don’t want to tell them the truth, which means we need a plan. Lying to your boss is necessary if you want to keep the job. Or you can call her and quit. That choice is yours.”

Pain sliced like a thousand tiny blades. Was that what I was doing, feeling sorry for myself? Being the selfish bitch I’ve always been?

I just wanted to be a good person. My whole life had been a series of uncontrollable events. I left home at fifteen thinking I was saving myself and instead I found how naïve I really was. When I was free of that nightmare, I learned how one wrong choice could snowball until you were so buried you couldn’t dig your way out.

Nothing had ever been in my control.

“I’d prefer to quit,” I told Max.

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. I’ll call my boss and tell her I have an emergency and I need a week off. She’ll either approve the time or I’ll quit. I’m not lying and saying my kid’s sick. Lulu has been kind to me. She knows I’m a single mom and she’s worked my schedule around daycare. I’m not repaying that with lies. After what happened… never mind, it doesn’t matter. But I’m telling Lulu as much of the truth as I can. I have an emergency and I need time off.”

Max’s brow pinched and cold eyes took me in.

“Whatever you feel you need to do. What about your boys?”

“I don’t want them to see you.”

“Impossible. I need to be close.”

“They’ve—”

“Tonight I’ll stay in my car, out front. I’ll be able to keep an eye on you and they won’t see me. You can tell them you’re going on vacation. Tomorrow we leave, I’ll follow you, and when we stop for the night, I’ll get the room next to yours. But then we need to find a way to introduce me to them.”

My frustration mounted. I’d have to lie to my kids again. Introduce Liam to another man, and have my son wonder if I’d brought another asshole criminal into our lives. If he’d be hurt again.

“And who should I say you are?”

“Fuck, Eva. I don’t know. Tell them I’m your friend. I get it, you’re trying to atone and make up for the past to your kids. But you don’t have a choice. Either you tell your boys you’re going on vacation and I’m a friend that you happened to run into and you let me into their lives, or you make my job harder running the risk of a fucking hitman taking you out. Then what? Where do your kids go then? Who will protect them if you’re dead?”

“I never have a fucking choice,” I whispered as my insides twisted. “Where are we going on vacation?”

Max picked up his phone. “What do Liam and Elijah like?”

“I don’t get it.”

“Do they like the beach? Amusement parks? Airplanes?”

“Liam is obsessed with trains, so Elijah is, too. But I still don’t understand why you’re asking.”

“You don’t want to lie to them but you cannot tell them the truth. So you are going on vacation, just with a bodyguard.”

Max started tapping on his phone and tears pricked my eyes.