Gl!tch.OS: Oscar.
Not waiting for a reply, she returned her phone to her back pocket and looked up at Thorne. “My son’s name is Oscar, andhe’s never been to a playground before. I’ll go get the trackers. And you don’t need to give me your spare. I have my own gun.”
* * *
“Is he asleep?”
Rose looked to her left to see Oscar was dead to the world. While he no longer slept next to her since Keys had bought him a Lightning McQueen toddler bed. They were still in the same room, which allowed her to keep an eye on him and made it easier when he wanted to crawl into bed with her in the mornings. But it was a start to, maybe, eventually, giving Oscar his own room so, hopefully, Rose could have someone else in her bed. Like a handsome tech nerd who made her heart flutter even after almost two years of near-daily communication.
“He’s out,” she confirmed softly. She was wearing headphones so Keys could talk normally while they video chatted. In the background of the video, she could see him walking down one of the halls in his building. She hadn’t been paying attention to where he was specifically, though she had wondered why he was at his building so late. It was nearing midnight where she was in Chicago, which meant that it was nearing one in the morning for him.
Poison and theNon Craswere heading down to south Mississippi to investigate accusations of a town mayor embezzling from a town. Normally, that wouldn’t be something theNon Craswould bother with. That was the town’s problem, and they had bigger fish to fry. But Rose had found a connection between the missing money, a lack of funding for the fire department, and a string of house fires that resulted in the deaths of three elderly residents. The land those homes sat on was also prime real estate that had been in families for generations, and was now being sought after by developers.
Andthatwas exactly the sort of crime Poison’s MC looked into. It could be that the thieving mayor had nothing to do with the fires, that the developers saw an opportunity when they realized how defunded the local fire department was,orthey could have paid the mayor to specifically target certain systems that made those houses vulnerable. Either way, three people were dead. And despite the mayor being cleared of all charges by a jury of his peers, he hadn’t been tried by a jury of theNon Cras, who would also judge and execute, if found guilty.
Keys stopped before a door. “Okay, please keep an open mind.”
Rose frowned. “About what?” From the limited view of the camera, she still couldn’t tell where he was. Her laptop was across the bed on the nightstand, and she was already curled up like a burrito. Keys would get to the point of this conversation and where he was eventually.
“I don’t want you to think this is me pressuring you in any way. But I wanted to show you something I’ve started, so you know, when you are ready, so am I.”
Rose wasn’t sure how she was supposed to feel about those words. The way he spoke implied excitement, but her heart raced as if she were nervous. “Keys, I need you to put the brakes on the suspense and just tell me what you did, because I’m on the verge of freaking out.”
“Shit. Sorry. Here.” He flipped the view of his camera around so she saw out of the phone’s main lens. She watched as he stood still in front of a door as its frame turned green. “Skeletal scan,” he informed her. “I’m working on other ideas, too, but this one is my favorite so far.” He opened the door with a push, since it lacked a doorknob. Rose blinked in shock at what the room revealed. She was expecting a robotics room or maybe a computer lab, but what she saw was a living space. Or the start of one. Construction equipment lay everywhere at what wasobviously going to be a kitchen and living room area one day. “Cage thinks he’s working on a mockup apartment for me to show clients. What he doesn’t know is that I’m making this for us.”
Rose sat up in bed, staring intently at her little screen like she could get a better view of the room by putting her nose closer to her phone. “For us?” she repeated, dumbfounded.
“Well, for you and Oscar, but eventually for us. The idea would be, when you’re ready, this is where you would live, and then I’ll move in when you and I are ready for that step.”
He did a quick three hundred and sixty degree spin that made Rose dizzy more than excited.
“Keys, slow down. Start at the beginning. What is this?”
The view rotated back to his face. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I just got so excited, and I wanted to show you.” She watched him visibly take a large breath in an effort to calm down. “After we talked a couple weeks ago about you thinking about coming here, I realized I’m not ready. I live in a small studio bedroom in a clubhouse filled with single men. It’s no place for you or Oscar. Not because you’d be unsafe, but because you deserve better. Additionally, I didn’t know if you would want to make a big announcement about your arrival. I know that would mean telling Poison you’re alive, because without even telling Ghost, I know he would not allow there to be such a huge secret between our clubs.
“But Ghost has no say in what occurshere. This building is neither owned or run by the club, nor does it fall under any umbrella of their businesses. It’smine. Well, technically mine and Tom’s, but you get the idea. Problem is, if you said to me tomorrow that you’re ready to come here, I would have no place to put you. I certainly can’t set up Oscar’s bed in my computer lab. So I spoke with my architect, who figured out the best place for a ‘mock up’,” he made air quotes, “apartment that is fully functional. After he offered me some design options, I chose this one.”Keys gestured around the room he was in. “And then I hired Cage’s construction crew to expedite the project.”
The more Keys talked, the calmer Rose felt, too. Her heart rate was slowing, and that gut feeling torunstarted dissipating.
“It’s not done by any means, and like I said, this isn’t about pressuring you to come here. I never want you to feel like I pushed you into something, Rose. But I wanted—no, Ineeded—to be prepared for you. Be it now, or five years from now, this place will still be yours, still be ready for you.”
Rose wasn’t sure what to say, and thankfully Keys paused speaking to allow her time to gather her thoughts. She understood his well-meaning intention. And while a part of her loved his desire to be prepared, the truth of the matter was that she was still working on just taking Oscaroutside.
Their little expeditions to the park each day might seem ridiculously mundane to some—okay,most—people, but for her, it was herculean. So much of the world was monitored, and she was one of the few who even understood just how much. People complained about the government listening to their phone calls or turning the location settings on in their phones. They had no idea the true scope that someone with her and Keys’ skills could truly do.
Oscar’s father might be in prison, but there were others who weren’t. Others who would pay someone like her to find her. And all it took was one second of an unsuspecting camera capturing her image, and it was game over.
She was already putting a lot of faith in Keys. Her growing feelings for him aside, she’d been more open and honest with him than anyone else in her life. Ever. And maybe that was just a sad fact of how closed off she was from people, including her own sister, the only family she had left in the world.
Rosewasn’tready, and if she was being completely honest, she didn’t know if she would everbeready. It wasn’t a question ofhow she came out of the shadows, but how could she, when doing so would threaten Oscar’s life?
Not maybe, butwould.
Rose Benson could never step into the light without bringing a world of hurt to anyone standing in front of her. Keys, Poison, their clubs…and while she would always be the one in front of Oscar, there would always be the ones coming at her from behind. Oscar was too innocent, too fragile, to not get caught in the crossfire.
“You don’t look happy.”
Rose put her phone down on the blankets, not knowing or caring if it took her out of view of the camera. She dropped her face into her hands, despair forming ice crystals in her veins despite the blankets wrapped around her.
