Page 44 of Quiet Protector
“I’m not playing anything.” I am, but since it has nothing to do with him, I’ll keep him out of it. “My mom often gets the wrong idea.”
Hugo scoffs, calling me out as a liar without words. “She wouldn’t have gotten the wrong idea if you hadn’t led her astray.” When I drag one of Isabelle’s suitcases out of the trunk, he snatches it out of my hand, shoves it back where it was, grabs mine, then tosses it onto the porch like he’s taking out the trash. After slamming down my trunk with enough force my teeth feel the impact, he growls, “I don’t need to unpack. We won’t be here long.”
Seconds after he traces the steps Isabelle and my mom took five minutes ago, Madden’s car rockets out of the awning attached to the garage. The dust of a dry ground soon hides his flee, but no amount of mooing can conceal the thrashing he gives his engine. Madden doesn’t respect anything, not even his pricy ride, because he doesn’t know the meaning of the word.
After roaming my eyes over the Gregg family ranch for the quickest second, I follow Hugo’s hasty retreat. I find him in the kitchen, towering over Isabelle like a tactical response strike is imminent, and his body is her shield.
When the scent of freshly baked cookies become too much for me to bear, I attempt to snag one off the cooling rack. I pout like a child when my mom slaps my hand away. “You’ll spoil your dinner.” Her tone reveals she’s annoyed about something more than childish exploits. I’m given time to look into what is bothering her when Hugo requests to have a word with Isabelle in the hallway.
I wait for them to be out of earshot before saying, “Spill the beans, Ma. I haven’t seen you this worked up since…” I stop just before I remind her of the time she walked in on her husband fucking his secretary. Like my father could get any more cliché, he took it to the max the year he won office.
After coating her hands with flour so the dough won’t stick, Mom commences rolling the remaining cookie dough into balls. “Madden—”
“Just left,” I interrupt, knowing her well enough to know she won’t speak unfavorably about someone if they’re close by. That’s why my interests are too piqued to bookmark this as it seems more about Madden than an additional weekend guest she wasn’t prepared for. I didn’t know Hugo was coming with us until I arrived to collect Isabelle this morning. “Is Madden staying here?”
Mom shakes her head. “He came to collect some things for your father.”
As anger trickles through my veins, I work my jaw side to side. “Ishethe reason you’re worked up?” The way I snarl ‘he’ ensures she knows who I’m talking about—my father. He’s always the cause of my mother’s dismay lately.
My annoyance takes a back seat when she says, “No. I haven’t seen your father in months.” Acting ignorant to the dough on her palm, she pats my hand, doubling the assurance in her eyes. When she spots my grimace from the tacky residue coating my hand, she pinches a dash of flour before sprinkling the tip of my nose like she did when I was a kid. It’s supposed to help me grow. “It’s good to have you back here, BJ. I know it’s hard without Joey, but there are as many good memories here as there are bad.”
“I know,” I reply, stepping closer to her. “It’s our home. It always has been. It always will be.” When she nods, agreeing with me, I slant my head, so our eyes are better aligned. “Just like you’ll always be my caring, kindhearted mother. Time and distance will never change that… and neither could anything you’d ever tell me. I’ll always love you, Ma.”As I hope you will me when I tell you Joey’s death is my fault.
“Mom…” I push out breathlessly when a single tear rolls down her cheek. “What’s going on?”
“It’s nothing. I just—” She stops talking when the vibration of my cell phone overtakes the brittle crackle of her fragile voice. “Are you going to get that?” she asks when I dig my phone out of my pocket to silence Grayson’s second call in a row.
“No. It can wait. You’re more important.”
She cups my cheek in a nurturing, loving way only a mother can. “Take your call, BJ. I’m not going anywhere, and neither is my news.”
I don’t want to hold-off a conversation years in the making, but my phone is hard to ignore when it immediately commences ringing again. Grayson agreed to adhere to strict radio silence while I was in Saugerties, so he wouldn’t be reaching out unless it was urgent.
“Are you sure you don’t mind?” Unease highlights my tone. I use to get so angry when my dad pushed my mother aside for work, yet I’m doing the same thing. I’d be pissed if my emotions weren’t being swamped with unease.
The crippling weight on my chest slackens when not an ounce of disappointment is heard in my mom’s tone when she replies, “I’m sure. Just promise me one thing.”
“Anything,” I answer without pause for thought.
Guilt rains down on me when she whispers, “Please be careful. My heart barely survived losing one son. I can’t lose another.”
I wrap her up in a firm hug before pressing my lips to the shell of her ear. “I’m not going anywhere. I promise you that.”
Recognition on how hard my vow will be to keep smacks into me when I give my mom one final squeeze before connecting Grayson’s call and squishing my phone to my ear. “Dimitri moved before we could. We have reports of multiple casualties.”
His words impact me like a punch to the stomach. I’m wholly and utterly shocked. “Dimitri agreed to wait. He fucking shook on it.”
“He got desperate. Can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same thing if I were handed the news he was.” He’s right. Doesn’t make it any easier to swallow, though. “We’re preparing to move in. You coming?”
“How far out?”
Grayson releases a chuckle between frantic breaths. He sounds like he’s running. “I’ve seen you drive. You could be here in ten.”
“That close?”
My stomach gurgles when he replies, “It’s practically in your back paddock.” If Castro is that close, my plan to catfish him with Isabelle was a woeful waste of time. No one lives in this part of Saugerties anymore. It became a ghost town not long after my family moved to New York, so Castro didn’t choose this location for no reason. He wanted privacy, and the many horrid reasons as to why he needs that privacy has me mentally suiting up for battle.
“Send me the deets.”
