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He sighed while wearing a small smile. “No. I was only curious.”
“And nosy.”
He clenched his jaw almost imperceptibly, swallowing the frustration my words caused. “My daughter is an adult and I will respect her privacy, but one thing will never change. I will always look after her, even when I’m eighty and she’s closing in on fifty. I won’t deny that I want you to walk away from that life. After what happened with Conway, let’s learn from his mistake. The best way to guarantee a peaceful life is to live a peaceful life.”
I didn’t think my occupation would interfere with Vanessa’s safety. We were careful to hide our organization, to never show our faces. Work and pleasure were distinctly different.
“So…are you?”
My eyes narrowed in annoyance before I took a drink. “I’m not worried about something bad happening to Vanessa because of my job. But every time I leave her, it kills me inside. She’s worried about me the entire time, counting down the minutes until I’m safe again. I’ve decided to quit because I can’t put her through that every few weeks. I don’t want my woman staying with her parents every time I’m gone. She feels the safest with me…so I’ll be there every night.” Vanessa and I had discussed having a family. She gave me an ultimatum and said if I wanted to be with her, I had to become a father. I didn’t want to have kids, but since it was a requirement in order to be with her, I caved. And if that was in our future, then I definitely couldn’t have that kind of job anymore. I couldn’t leave my woman and my children unprotected for weeks at a time.
Crow didn’t hide the relief on his face. “I’m glad to hear that.”
“I have to help out with a few more things before I leave, so I have a couple more missions. But once they’re completed, it’ll be over.”
Crow didn’t hide his displeasure, but he also didn’t make an argument about it. “When did you get into that line of work?”
“In my early twenties. I met Max and the rest of the boys on the streets. We needed money, so our operation started small, like stealing cars and robbing houses. It slowly grew into the business it is now.”
Crow nodded but didn’t pass judgment on my career choice. “Is it something you enjoy?”
“Yes.” I wasn’t ashamed to say that. “The men we hit aren’t good men. From sex trafficking to murder, these men are guilty of a lot of terrible things. Men pay us to destroy their enemies, but enemies like that are usually the bad guys.”
Crow swished his drink. “When I was your age, I lived for that sort of thing. Since I wasn’t responsible for anyone else, my life wasn’t valuable. Therefore, it didn’t matter whether I lived or died. There was no risk. I traded arms with all kinds of men, giving them weapons of mass destruction. Knowing full well those guns would kill other people, I sold them for a profit. I was exactly as you are now when I was your age…until I met my wife. At that moment, everything changed. I didn’t like who she turned me into. I didn’t like how she changed my priorities. I didn’t like how she made me feel. Eventually, the changes became so drastic that I couldn’t remember who I used to be.”
That was exactly how I felt about myself. “I know what you mean.”
“My wife told me we’re a lot alike… She was right.” He chuckled before he took a drink. “That woman is always right.”
“So is Vanessa.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. She got her mother’s strength and intelligence. She got my stubbornness.”
“And your punch, your aim, and your reflexes.” Vanessa was a strong woman, born of two remarkable parents. She wasn’t the weak damsel-in-distress I met time after time. Most women I met just wanted someone to tell them what to do, to have someone look after them because they didn’t know how to look after themselves. Vanessa was nothing like that.
Crow smiled slightly. “Yes, she did.”
“I still don’t like you, but I admire you for raising her. I don’t think I would have fallen in love with anyone else but her.” I’d paid whores to fulfill my fantasies, and I’d picked up women at the bar purely for sex. Women were sexual objects. They weren’t people I could actually relate to. But then I’d met a woman who shook the ground underneath my feet.
“Thank you,” he said, showing a hint of pride in his eyes.
“What was she like? Growing up?”
Crow played with the glass between his fingertips as he reflected on her younger years. “Pretty much the same as she is now. She constantly questioned the world around her. If a teacher told her to do an assignment one way, she would question it and do it a different way. When she got a bad mark for the assignment, she wouldn’t get angry about it. She understood marks didn’t really matter, that understanding there were better ways of doing things was what really mattered. She was very wise for her age. But she always had an attitude. She always had sass. And one time, she beat up a kid at school because he lifted her dress.”
