Chapter 21: Chapter 21

NICOLE

HEART in my mouth, drained physically and mentally, I held onto my two sons.

Lucas’ words rang in my mind like a sick twisted broken record. One that hit a delicate spot in my body, tearing me up from the inside.

“I’m letting you be free, Nix”, he’d said and in a moment of weakness, I had believed him.

Only you know what being free meant?

Freedom meant Lucas sending his goons to kill me at the airport.

Freedom meant me fighting nook and cranny for my boys’ lives.

All the bullshit things that had happened to me were my fault.

All the bruises inflicted on me by Luke and his brutal men were on me and I fucking deserved it.

I was the woman who had cried wolf, ran into the hands of the angel I didn’t know in a bid to escape the devil I knew. The devil who was my boys’ real father.

Lucas Hawkins had turned into the behemoth I hadn’t seen coming, the minute Jr and Connor turned two, something sinister grew in him.

Suddenly our boys weren’t his. Suddenly the love he’d showed our boys turned into hate.

The first time he laid a finger on me, I’d forgiven him because I duped him into believing they were his kids.

But the minute he raised his hand on Jr, I snapped, I fought for my sons and up until a minute ago when a man put a gun’s nozzle on my son’s head I had turned feral.

I had—

I killed a man.

My sons saw it.

My sons saw me be the worst version of myself because of their father.

The father that had betrayed us!

“Mommy? Is daddy coming for us?” Connor asked with those big hopeful cerulean eyes that trusted me.

I glanced at the crevice that was the only source of light in the creaky metallic thing that held thirty something of us.

It was almost funny really. A deer escaping a cheetah only to be caught under the mercy of a hunter. I had escaped Lucas’ men only to be caught by Mexican rebels who were without a doubt human traffickers.

“No, baby. Mommy will get us out of here”

And I would, I hadn’t survived all that shit to die under the mercy of punky little shits playing guns for a living.

My other hand fell on Jr swiping his dark hair from his face. He’d gone mute the minute he saw me blow a man’s brains out.

I was sorry for letting him see that but I was not sorry for killing the man. Truth be told, I’d kill another dozen men if it meant keeping my kids alive.

“Nosotras estamos condenadas”, the woman next to us exhaled. Her soul was one foot away from ascending into the land of the non-living.

When they brought me here there were about forty of us, the numbers reduced within two days. We heard shots yesterday and there could only be one conclusion to that.

They killed the feeble and sold the strongest.

The chances of my sons being separated to me were next to a hundred but I still held on to the hope that the hair pin in my left hand would be enough to help me gorge a man’s eye out and run with my sons before hell broke loose.

Exhaling shallowly, I glanced at the stray rays of light praying for a miracle.

Something. Anything.

Then without warning, prickly sounds rang in the air outside us and every weary being in the enclosed space we were shouted.

My hands on Jr, I stood up.

My other hand clutched the hair pin, my eyes falling on the boy who’d clutched my leg since we got in this predicament.

Only, Connor wasn’t there.

Nerves shooting up my spines like angry overdoses of morphine, my eyes welled, anxiety rippled through me.

“Connor! Connor!”

The space small, my chest constricting, my eyes searched for my other son to no avail.

“Connor! My son, he was just here. He was just here. He-Connor”

“We are all going to die”

Someone hollered and the ruckus went on. Everyone screaming through the sound proof walls, my eyes darted all over the little space weary that my son would be…lost, afraid, trampled on.

God.

“Mom? Mom, I’m scared”

Jr tugged at my dress and I bent over picking him up.

“I know. I know, baby but everything’s going to be alright. We'll find Connor. We’ll find Connor. We have to-“

The tears clogged my throat but I held them back for the boy in my arms dependent on me for strength.

I meandered through the panicky fellows, calling out Connor’s name like my life depended on it.

He was still inside the same room I was, that gave me hope. Though the thought that he’d lapse into one of his asthma attacks crippled me to the point of death.

“Connor! Please, baby gimme a sign, g-gimme a sign you are okay. Call my name, p-please”

A new sound lapsed through our ears and everyone stood stock still. Brusque and so sudden, the sound of chains falling to the ground sounded.

We all took a step back hurdling to the walls like a bunch of turkeys on thanksgiving waiting for slaughter.

The doors parted and I looked away from the light that blinded us.

“You are safe”

Three little words and everyone sprinted out of our eternal cage like birds allowed to fly since forever. Jr in my arms, I didn’t move a muscle.

I searched for my son in the now almost empty room.

“Ma’am, come on out. You are safe”, one of the paramedics signaled.

My eyes weary, I glanced at her saying what I dreaded,

“My son. I CAN’T find my son”

Sympathetic and affectionate she approached me, her hand falling on the wrist that held Jr up.

“There are cops here. They’ll help in searching for your…other son but he needs some help, ma’am. He doesn’t look too well. You don’t look too well”

I glanced at Jr and at the visible burn marks on my other hand.

“Okay. Get him treated, I’m fine. I’ll look for my son, myself”

Handing Jr to the paramedic barely in her twenties, I kissed him on his forehead assuring him I’d be back with Connor.

The light I hadn’t been exposed to for two days straight nearly knocked me out. True to the nurse’s words there were a few cops, a few of the immigrants were being treated, others being offered relief food and water.

I asked around, each ‘no I haven’t seen your son’ breaking my heart to pieces.

I was on the verge of giving up. Afraid that I had been a bad mother and lost one of the strengths that tethered me to this shitty world.

Wiping the sweat that mixed with blood from the cut on my forehead, I walked outside the damn warehouse bumping into a few cops and a few roughed up immigrants.

My eyes lingered on the unfamiliar territory. Dilapidated buildings, dust that settled on my skin in layers. The scorching sun burning my skin like hot prickles.

“Need backup. Interpol handled its own shit but we need the feds to place some of them”

I knew that voice and I dreaded turning around to acknowledge that my second ex-bodyguard was behind me.

It couldn’t be Jason. He couldn’t be in Mexico and if he was in Miami, did that mean that…

No. I was delusional. I was thirsty. I was angsty and I was worried like I never had in my life.

Connor could have been hurt, Connor was somewhere, scared and alo…

Then I saw it. Clutching his favorite bear like he had since I first got it for him, my son smiled at the man carrying him. The man whose back faced me.

Smiling gratefully, my hands in my mouth I advanced to my son thanking God that he didn’t have a scratch on him.

“Connor!”

“Mommy”

The six-foot two male carrying my son turned around.

My heart stopped.

All the air left my lungs as the crowd around us faded into nothing.

I glanced at him.

The man I never thought I’d see again stood in front of me. The Marine I’d left without thinking twice. The Marine I’d given up on. The Marine who dominated my dreams all night. The man who carried my heart in his palms without even knowing.

The man I saw every time I stared into my boys’ eyes.

Bigger, muscular and so different. He was more beautiful than I remember. His face much more angular, his jaw more powerful, the ink spilling from his shirt new, I breathed him in like he was my saving grace.

Callan.

My Callan.

Except he didn’t look anything like the Callan I knew.

This Callan looked at me with malice, a protective hand lying around Connor. His son.

Fate was cruel. Out of all the ways I expected Callan to find out, this wasn’t it.

I wanted to tell him so much. Apologize for leaving his house that day I found out my dad was dead.

Apologize for—marrying Lucas.

His gaze lingered on me then on Connor and my heart pulsated.

As if the paramedic couldn’t taste the tension, Jr came running behind me only to stop at my right leg and clutch it tight.

“I’m sorry, he couldn’t stay still without you by his side”

“It’s okay. T-thank you”, I found my voice though it came harder and anguished.

Callan eyed Jr with Connor in his arms and reality hit me harder than a ten-story drop.

Pissed off as hell, his dagger eyes fell on me and he asked a question I was obliged to give nothing but the truth,

“How old?”

I knew what he was asking. I knew he saw it in Jr. Jr was a carbon copy of me while Connor looked a lot more than me with Callan’s hair.

“Give me my son”, was all I could say without tearing up.

“Bullshit. No one’s fucking moving till you answer my God damn question”

Cornered, my kids confused, I gave in, giving him the answer,

“Five years, ten months”

“Motherfucker!”

Callan hissed placing Connor down and before I knew it, he unholstered his gun pointing it to my head with untold rage.