43
Wyatt
2018 - Present Day
Blake is on the floor; he’s been shot. I crouch on the floor next to him. We did not see that coming. We’d been told this apartment was vacant, that the man who lived here was away on business. I was supposed to be surprising him this weekend. It was close enough to Logan’s apartment for us to keep an eye on him.
“Blake,” I whisper into the dark.
“He’s not dead. I just wounded him. He’ll be right as rain once you get a paramedic to him. That is, if you get one here on time.”
I hate the sound of Logan’s voice. I listen carefully to where his voice is coming from.
He switches on the lights, and it blinds me for a second. He sits in an armchair, one leg crossed over his knee, a Glock in his hands. He holds his finger on the trigger.
“Ah, Wyatt, so good of you to join me. I was expecting you after you found out about Celia. Now, if you’ll drop that weapon and kick it way over there.”
“What the fuck is this, Logan?”
“Oh, you’ll find out soon enough.”
The gun trembles in my hand. What are the chances that this guy is quicker than me? I’m military trained. I consider shooting him in his fucking head, but something is menacing about him, something unstable, and my gut tells me to do as he says.
I look around the apartment. There are other things I can use to bash his fucking skull if I need it. I drop my gun and kick it over to the far end of the room.
“Now come to sit. Tell me how you’re feeling. You lost your daughter and love of your life in such a short space of time. It must be excruciatingly painful.”
“What do you want?” I say, making my way closer into the room.
“To get to know you better.”
“Let’s just stop with the games and come out and tell me what this is all about.”
“I want what’s mine, of course. My daughter and Hayley.”
“Hayley’s chosen me. London is our daughter. You had a chance to be in her life, which you’ve clearly just blown.”
He laughs, a crazy, maniacal laugh. The kind you hear on the battlefield when men have lost all reason. When the darkness is just too much to bear.
I consider the man before me. He is a few years older than me. In another lifetime, if he weren't such a cunt, we’d probably be friends. When we met again after all those years, I may not have liked him, but I respected how much he cared about my girls. But now, now he’s a stranger, and he’s dangerous. He has what I would give my life to protect. He has my whole world captive, and I’m about to teach him what a man in love is capable of.
“You’ll tell me where they are, and then you’ll turn yourself in. That, or I kill you now.”
“You’ve always been so sure of yourself, Wyatt. Like the day you decided to kiss my girlfriend at prom. When you made out with my fiancée before our wedding. When you walked in and tried to worm your way into London’s life after being absent for so long. A true Barnes, except you aren’t.”
“What the fuck does that mean? That man was more of a father to me than my own.”
He glares at me. “And he was less of a father to me.”
I’m stunned. I shake my head. My father didn’t have any kids, not as far as I knew.
“Surprised? Well, he kept it hidden well. He got my mother pregnant on one of his visits home, but he never stuck around to take care of the kid. She eventually remarried, and she was honest with me about who he was. I looked him up and found out he was playing happy family with you and your whore of a mother.”
“You’re crossing the line, man.”
“Why’d he choose to marry your mother instead of mine? What makes you better than me?”
“I am sure he never intended to do that. He probably never knew you existed, Logan. My father was not the kind of man who would walk out on his family.”
