Page 5 of Danger Close
“The best,” Trinity shrugged. “I was really happy when we lived with Dad."
“Then what happened?” I pried, trying to seem unaffected even as the rock in my throat went down to my gut. She called someone elseDad.
“One night, Mom packed us up in a car, and we drove off.” Trinity shook her head. “We’d do that every few years after that. Just pack up and disappear. New town. New faces. New school.”
“Do you know why she left your…” I hated saying this word, as envy burned my throat. “Your stepdad?”
“Because she got moody and restless. She got tired of having a good thing,” Trinity scoffed. “Anytime things got too comfortable, she packed us up and left. Who the hell knows?”
Trinity crossed her muscular arms that threatened to bulge out of her black leather riding jacket. Our jackets were almost identical now. I'd gotten rid of the patch-riddled one I’d wornwhile I was spying on The Frontline, the radical right wing piece-of-shit group I was more than happy to blow to hell with a few well-placed missiles.
“Christ, that time sucked.” Trinity’s tight-lipped smile bothered me. “All I wanted to do was go back to Florida and ask my stepdad to adopt me. But since they were never married, and technically he wasn’t blood…”
I couldn’t reconcile the rolling stone that Trinity described with the woman I had known in Paris. Teresa was the most stable, level-headed person I knew. But maybe things had changed. “Moving around can be tough as a kid.”
I guess this was something else my kid and I had in common.
“I moved quite a bit, too, growing up. It wasn’t pleasant.” I understood that as well as anyone.
“Did you?” The hopefulness in her eyes shot through me like a sabot round to the chest.
She was reaching out to me the same as I was to her. I smiled, knowing that given enough time, she and I would be buying father-daughter motorcycles, complete with matching jackets… maybe next Father’s Day if I was lucky.
“Yeah, well,” I rubbed my palm against the nape of my neck, coming to my feet. “You know, your Uncle Jericho’s part of the New York Bratva, yeah?”
Not the greatest way to introduce her to the family business, but here we go…
“Yeah, you guys set up a spy agency called Paradigm, and infiltrated criminal organizations to combat Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations.” She smirked at me, raising her brow, as if saying,duh, Dad, of course I know that. I’m not a kid.
I chuckled to myself. I might have missed the teen years, but the little warrior in front of me sassed me with a childish petulance I hadn’t seen her use on anyone else. Not even to her First Sergeant, or his wife, Charlotte, who’d taken her under their wing like second parents.
This attitude was for me, and me alone. I liked that.
“Right.” I said, taking out the oil filter. “Well, Jericho and I have the same dad—your grandpa Anton, I guess. Dead now. But that’s… a story for another time. Especially when we talk about your other uncle, Anton Junior. He’s dead too. Anyway…”
There’s a whole lot of death in my past. No need to discuss our family history of fratricide.
“My mom, your grandma Maeve, and I moved around a lot to keep me out of my father’s clutches. Otherwise, I would have been his eldest son, and sucked into that life.”
“Grandma Maeve?” Trinity’s eyes lit up. She’d been curious about her family, but she had no cousins to speak of, and my siblings…
“Aw, shucks. She passed away twelve years ago now. Sorry, kiddo.” God, I wish I had more family to introduce her to. Thekind that would fill up a dining room at Christmas. “But you do have an aunt, Yuliya. I think you’d like her.”
I thought about it for a minute, wondering if I should arrange for that meeting anytime soon. “She’ll come to your wedding.”
I wasn’t sure if that was possible, but when Trinity smiled, I knew that I had tomake ithappen. “I’ll add her to the guest list. And… also Uncle Jericho?”
“Do that,” I said with a nod. “If you don’t invite your uncle, he’ll crash anyway. The prick watched you get your Green Beret. Did you know that?”
She smiled, pleased.
“He also watched you get pinned with your Combat Infantry Badge in Afghanistan.”
Her brows knit together, as she tilted her head. “Was he… was he one of the contractors on the base?”
“Probably flew in for a day or two, then flew back out. He was out there working for the CIA at the time. You remember seeing him?”
She pursed her lips, thought for a moment. “Oh my God, I think I do. He was going by the name Brett Bradley!”
