"We have an appointment with Dr. Bert on Wednesday, but that's it. I've cleared it with Levi and Billy."
"Good."
Parker brought our breakfast in, and I thanked him. Burke ignored the man but stabbed his eggs roughly. We were halfway through our meal when Caden and Logan arrived.
Picking up the coffee carafe and a mug, Logan was the first to speak. "Carson is at the gate."
"I know," Burke snarled, scowling at him.
"He tried to convince us to let him in," Caden commented. He smiled at me in greeting, then refocused on Burke.
"The men have instructions to send him on his way." Burke set his paper down and took a sip of coffee.
"They can't force him to leave, boss." Logan took a seat near the middle of the table. I saw it as a peacemaking gesture, one which showed he wouldn't take sides. But in my mind, he should take Burke's side as his boss and friend.
"A bullet in his brain would take care of everything," Burke muttered.
I kept my head down and picked at the fresh fruit on my plate. They never discussed things of a business nature in my presence; it almost seemed they'd forgotten I was there.
"Maybe he wants to meet his grandson," Logan said mildly.
"Too fucking bad!" Burke shoved his plate aside. "He should have thought of that a long damn time ago. What, Noah?" he shouted as the man re-entered the room.
"He won't leave, and he began making threats."
"Get rid of him by any means necessary!" Burke rose swiftly, and I cowered in my seat at the volume of his tirade. "Or it'll be your head on the chopping block!"
The baby monitor came to life, Finn's cries soft but insistent. I fled the room, glad for the distraction.
I was shaking by the time I picked him up out of his bassinet. It wasn't that I didn't know Burke was a criminal; it was just that I'd never heard him speak so casually of violence before. More frightening was the fact that he so readily threatened his father's life and Noah's.
"Shh, baby boy, it's okay."
Taking a second to feel around the front of his diaper, I decided that wasn't the reason for his tears. Instead, I settled down in the chair with him, pulling over the breastfeeding pillow I used. His puckered lips as he rooted around made me smile.
"Were you woken by Daddy's shouting? I wouldn't think you'd hear it all the way up here," I murmured.
Once he was suckling away, I picked up the book I kept on the side table and tried to focus on it, but it was no use.
"What do we do, Finn? We follow the rules and keep our heads down, I guess. We're innocent in all this, aren't we?" Smoothing the ruffled bits of hair over his ears, I watched his eyes drift closed again. "We'll make it work. We have to."
That was my only choice, for me and my baby. For all I knew, we were in the line of fire, but hopefully we were only in the background. I wondered what sort of danger Burke faced on a daily basis, then decided I would rather not know. It was easier to pretend everything was safe and secure if I didn't allow myself to dwell on the bad stuff.
Sighing, I stared out the window at the gray sky and wished I could see Danny and Brenda. A sudden restlessness came over me, making me wish I could leave, just go and visit Bristol. It might be out of the question to take a short trip, but I wouldn't know unless I asked. Rules and regulations had come naturally to me throughout my life, and yet it was different in that house, different with Burke in charge of my every move. It wasn't like following the teacher's directions so I wouldn't get in trouble in school; it was potentially life or death.
At that thought, a shudder ran through me. "What did I get us into?"
20
Burke
Nothing could have prepared me for the miracle of my son's birth. Unfortunately, nothing could have caused such a deep loathing to well up inside me, either. At the time Kinsley went into labor, I was dealing with a disloyal asshole who thought it was acceptable to leak information to Carson. I had to stop in the middle of torturing someone to go home and shower before heading to the hospital to watch the most innocent of souls come into my world. My ugly, cruel, sick and twisted world. Mere hours before, I'd been covered in someone else's blood, so how was I supposed to anticipate the pureness of my son's arrival without feeling as though I'm the most disgusting, undeserving piece of shit on earth?
Atoning for my sins the only way I knew how, I tried my best to be strong for Kinsley. I was nothing if not excellent under pressure, a skill I'd honed over the years. The least I could do was keep my cool and help Kinsley through labor, encouraging her and supporting her.
It would be impossible to describe watching the appearance of my baby. He did look exactly like me, though I'd never doubted Finn's parentage. Kinsley was too shy to look me in the eye when we first met, and she was a virgin. There was no chance she'd hopped into bed with someone else mere days after I left. Still, the boy's likeness to myself, right there for all to see, filled me with deep satisfaction. Naysayers had no place in Finn's life.
Being in the hospital with her for so many extraordinarily emotional hours gave me the hope that I could work things out with Kinsley. Connecting with her over something so monumental made me want to be a better man. If I was pleasant, she was pleasant in return.
