He uses a surprising amount of strength forcing me up off my knees. Once we’re face to face, he grabs me roughly between his hands. “No son of Cain and Ruth Washington is going to cry on their knees. Stand up and get shit done. You have men here, and there’re...well there are a fuck ton of dead bodies. Manage your team.”
What he doesn’t say is that we’ll hash the rest of this out when we get home.Home. With my brother. And my wife.
“My nephew?”
“Safe. With mom.”
Using everything, absolutely all of whatever I have left in me, I compose myself.
“Vaughn.”
It’s like my acknowledgment of her presence lets her know that it’s okay to come to me. She runs to me, jumping into my arms like she isn’t covered in bruises and likely sporting some internal injuries. I catch my wife, attempting to be wary of the most obvious damage, and I have never felt more whole in my life.
Abbi strides over to us, and Abel pulls her to his side. His eyes close as he buries his face in her hair.I still can’t believe it. It was him. He took them.
Cotton walks back into the building. I’m seeing him for the first time since he carried one of our injured outside during the melee.
“We have several men who need medical attention. I have a doctor and two techs on the way, but they’ll need help, and we have to find a place for them to work. Eve, Abbi, can you two find a spot? Adam, Cal. Grab some men and get the bodies outside. Pull them all in here. Jax, Marshall. Grab any shell casings you can find.” Cotton delivers these precise commands before walking back outside to...who knows what the fuck the boss is going outside to do.
Abe looks at me, perplexed. “Well, shit. This whole time I thought you were in charge.”
My honest, genuine laugh bellows between us, and we hug like brothers. We both pull Abbi and Vaughn in and just...breathe.
Cotton coordinated a streamlined cleanup effort. He was apparently owed a favor by the owner of a crime scene cleanup company.How anyone is owed a favor from a company...no idea.Apart from the hole we left in one of the buildings, the whole place looked like it did when we first arrived. Cal wiped all the security footage on the way home, and Cotton’s doctor patched up all of our injured so well that everyone walked out on their own two feet.
Not only did we not lose a single member of our team, but we’ve actually returned home with more people than we left with.
Mama and little Abel were in a hotel in New Braunfels. We picked them up on the way home. Seeing my nephew with his father is nothing short of incredible. My brother looks at his son like he’, his hero. Little Abel looks at his dad with awe and wonder. It’s not every day your dad comes back from the dead.
Back at Eve’s, we all clustered in the front yard to say our goodbyes.
“Pleasure meeting you all.” Matteo has a thick Italian accent and eyes that don’t miss a thing.
“I can never thank you enough for all that you’ve done.” I’m so grateful to all of these people. I couldn’t have done this without them.
“Yep. Thanks. You’re welcome. Everyone’s alive. Gotta go.” Cal runs to his truck like his ass is on fire.
Several of us look around, confused by his hurried words and abrupt departure.
“He’s going to get my sister. She’s in Dallas at our parents’.”
Adam doesn’t see the thing.Those of us who were looking confused, now look knowing.
“What?” Adam’s standard tone is annoyed, but he takes it up a notch when he asks.
“Not a thing, brother. Not a thing.” Cotton doesn’t seem to want him clued in.
Adam, Eve, and Cotton drove over with us to Abbi’s and stayed for a while until we got settled in. They left soon after, and I could tell it was hard for Eve to go. She hadn’t gotten more than six inches from Vaughn’s side since we got her back. She held Vaughn’s hand up to the moment she left. Adam whispered in her ear, and I swear she almost cried. I can just imagine that he told her we needed time to sort things out. He wasn’t wrong. I have so many questions.
Mom has had several more days than I have to get used to the idea of Abel being alive, but she still breaks down in tears every 30-40 seconds.
“So.” Abel slaps his hands on his knees before standing and walking over to the fireplace. “Let’s get you caught up so you can get out of my house.”
“Ah, yes. Still a dick.”
He ignores me and goes on. “Mom and Abbi already know everything, but I’m sure you have questions. I’ll do what I can to clear everything up. Obviously, I didn’t die in Liberia. Close, but not quite. Men came and pulled me and the others out. I only know that because we made it out. We never saw Parker or Jackson again. Samuel and I, that is. We both made it. I was in a coma for months. Medically induced. Samuel was in a bad way, but awake the whole time. When I woke up, I still couldn’t get out of bed for several weeks. As soon as I could, they brought in the prosthetic, and I started PT. We knew they had something planned for us. They tried to act like they were good guys, but we couldn’t use the phone, and everyone around us spoke Latvian. We played along and made plans whenever they allowed us to be together. We just couldn’t figure out why they wanted us well. Why didn’t they just let us die that day? We would’ve. There’s no way we would’ve made it a day with our injuries without medical attention. They saved us. It wasn’t until about a month ago that we learned why. They sold us to the Russian leg of their organization. Still not sure how much we went for.”
“Thirty million.” Abel looks at me allowing me time to elaborate. “The big guy. Well, biggest guy. My size. Cal. He’s a computer genius. He’s probably the main reason we were so prepared last night. We had financials, flight records, surveillance, everything. You name it, he got it for us. He found a recent thirty-million-dollar transaction to the Russians. We actually thought that it was for me. We thought they had already sold me.”
