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I’m coming, baby. We’re coming.
14
ADAM
The McDonald’s was dirty and run-down, one of several fast-food places on the outskirts of town, where the dingier parts of the city gave way to suburbs with narrow one-story houses sporting peeling paint and cracked concrete sidewalks.
He stood in line, his attention half on Olivia as she wandered away to look at one of the cardboard signs advertising a new burger, her lips moving silently as she tried to sound out the words.
He’d thought it was cute once, the way she tried to read the words on signs and menus, flyers and tickets. Now, like so many things about his little daughter, he found it inexplicably annoying.
There were a lot of annoying things about her actually. The way she woke up before him and turned cartoons on in their shared motel room. Her whining when she got tired. The way her eyes got big when she was scared of him, which was stupid in and of itself because he was herdad. Why the fuck would she be scared of him?
Worst of all, he hated the judgment in her eyes — Ruby’s eyes — when she looked at him. Olivia was only five years old, but she’d obviously inherited Ruby’s self-righteousness. Adam saw it every time she handed him a beer, every time he left her alone in the motel room to resupply or buy cigarettes (he’d quit years ago, when Ruby was pregnant, but if ever there was a time to start up again, this was it).
It infuriated him, those shades of Ruby, and more and more he had to fight to suppress the urge to wipe the judgment off Olivia’s little face.
The woman in front of him — a harried-looking mom clutching the hand of a little boy about Olivia’s age wearing a baseball cap — paid for her order and moved out of the way.
Adam stepped up and placed the order for him and Olivia, then slid to the end of the counter.
He stared at the receipt. When the fuck had everything gotten so expensive? He’d felt as rich as a king when he’d left New York City, a tidy savings account offering a buffer against his unknown future.
But the money was going fast. The motel room, going on two weeks now. Food. Toiletries. The bills he still had to pay back home until he figured out what he was going to do.
It had seemed simple when he’d made the decision to take leave from work, to take Olivia and get out of the city. Then, the only thing that had mattered was staying alive, getting away from the shit storm Ruby had stepped into — the one she’d pulled Adam into — with Roman Kalashnik.
Fucking Ruby. She hadn’t always been a pain in his ass. She’d been so sweet in the beginning, soeasy. She’d been looking for a safe harbor in the storm of her life and he’d been more than happy to be that harbor.
And then, she suddenly hadn’t wanted it anymore. She’d bristled against his rules, against the thingsheneeded in order to continue providing her refuge.
The injustice of it all raised his annoyance all over again and he looked for Olivia, still working on the sign. “Olivia!” She startled at the sound of his voice. “Get over here.”
The little boy in the baseball cap peeked out from behind his mother’s leg and the woman — fucking bitch — looked at him with disapproval, probably because he’d spoken firmly to Olivia. She probably let her kid run wild. The little boy would grow up to be one of those simpering dipshits who needed a woman to tell him what to do.
Olivia joined him next to the counter reluctantly. He took her hand on principle. He wasn’t a fucking monster. He was agooddad. Agreatdad.
Spare the rod, spoil the child.
His dad’s voice in his head.Harsh but true.
He looked down at the receipt again, the total staring up at him like an accusation. He’d planned to lay low until the war in the bratva came to an end, hopefully with Roman — the man who had dared to fuck Adam’swife— dead.
But it had been two weeks, and according to news reports, the whole thing was messier than ever, the city on fire with violence from all three warring factions — Igor, Roman, Russia.
Adam's money wouldn’t last forever. He still had some in his savings account, and he had another week of paid leave before his paychecks would be cut off from the department, but he had to figure out what was next.
It wasn’t like he didn’t have options. He could apply for a transfer to one of the NOLA departments, but that seemed like a bad idea. If he wanted to stay under the radar with Roman Kalashnik, he would have to change his name, really disappear.
That meant building a new identity here or somewhere else, moving on to another city, or maybe even another country.
The idea had seemed exhilarating when he’d first left New York. Now it exhausted him. He would have to deal with Olivia, getting her enrolled in school, locating her immunization records, finding a place to live that wasn’t a motel room. And his experience on the force, everything he’d worked for, wouldn’t be useful if he changed his name.
And what about his parents? He didn’t care if he never saw his old man again, but what about his mother? Adam would be leaving her to deal with his father alone, would be taking her only grandchild, one of her few sources of enjoyment.
He thought about Roman Kalashnik, the way he’d thrown Adam across the alley when he’d interfered in Adam’s fight with Ruby, the way his hand had felt closing around Adam’s throat when he’d ordered Adam to let Ruby talk to Olivia.
Fear was new for Adam — thanks to his uniform, he was usually the one who inspired fear — but he’d been scared as fuck the second time, when the blond thug that followed Roman around had calmly watched Roman choke Adam out like it was an everyday occurrence.
