most people’s—his brain went a hundred different directions at once before latching onto something to keep him from going crazy. Right now, it appeared that one thing would be Castello. Axel’s thumb stroked over Castello’s knuckles in retaliation for the feelings he didn’t want to acknowledge, the sneaking gut feeling that told him this could be a really good plan, or it could blow his world up with the equivalent of a Hiroshima nuclear blast.
“Boss and Axel sitting in a tree.”The faint sound of the playground chant filtered through the door, followed by a snort of laughter.
“K.I.S.S.I.N.G.”the rest of the voices chimed in over Castello’s earpiece.
“Assholes.” Castello muttered. He stepped off the porch and led Axel to the driveway. “I’m gonna kill them.”
“They are like a bunch of kiddos.”
“Yup, my kiddos.” Castello headed toward his truck, opening the passenger door for Axel before he went around to the driver’s side. Settling himself into the seat, he started the engine, and put his phone in the holder on the dash. “Zack and Rafe will be around.”
“Won’t that tell Colgan that something is up?”
“Nah,” Castello drove out of the driveway, following Axel’s pointed finger toward the direction of the store. “You are their Boss’s guy, he more or less told you today that Givens wants you for something. That means you are protected. It would stand out more if we went out with no one covering us.”
“Okay.”
Before Axel could say more, Castello’s phone rang; glancing at the number, Castello nodded to it, “Hit accept, will you?”
“Sure.”
“Pop?”
Castello smiled wide at the sound of his son’s voice. There were a lot of things he had done wrong in his life, but Rourke wasn’t one of them. The boy drove him batshit, and had a knack for getting into trouble, but he was a good kid. “Hey, Roo, how you doing?”
“Good.”
The sound of a computer came filtering through the speaker and made Castello wince. It was a program built into a computer that got him in trouble with the Russians a few months ago.
“Are you home?”
“No, going for groceries for a safe house,” Castello flicked on the
indicator to take the turn at the lights. “Everything okay? You need me to send someone?”
“No, no need to send someone.”Rourke answered.“I just was gonnacall over to the house and grab some stuff.”
Castello glanced at Axel, his face turned away as if trying to give Castello as much privacy as possible while taking a call on speaker phone in a truck. But his son had a strange tone to his voice, something was going on.
“Spill it, Rourke. What’s going on?”
“I was just missing you I guess.”The sounds of the computer game went silent as if Rourke had hit pause.“I’m being stupid. I just hoped withthis new job, you would be kinda based outta here.”
“I’m in the US.” Castello told him, “Maybe I can fly home for the weekend, and we can catch a game?” No matter how much his country needed him to work for them and protect their borders, if his son needed him, he would drop everything and run. He could bring Axel with him— Castello shut that thought down fast, before it could go any further.
“Turn here.” Axel muttered. “This one has the best prices.”
“Sure.”
“Who’s that?”
Shit, if he didn’t need them open to see where he was going, Castello would have squeezed his eyes shut. “Umm, Axel, meet my son, Rourke. Roo, this is Axel. He’s—uh—helping us with some intel for a job.”
“Hi…”
“Hi, Rourke.” Axel picked at the frayed edges of a hole in the knee of his jeans. “Um, nice to meet you.”
“You too.”The sound of the computer came once again filtered through the speakers.“You’re going shopping with my dad?”
