Page 15 of Borden 3

Link replied, “Can we get a dog?”

“I got you, don’t I? What do I need a dog for?”

“Dad!”

Borden laughed. “What? I’m raising good points. They’re stinky, they’re hungry all the time, and they fart like you.”

Lincoln giggled and stared out the window. On a shrug, he said, “I just want someone to play with that lives at home.”

Borden’s chest tightened. That, he could understand.

???

“Slow down there, little hippo.”

Too late.

Lincoln’s face was covered in chocolate ice cream. He’d practically dunked his face in the damn cone. It dotted his nose and coloured his cheeks like a blush. Borden wished he’d had Emma’s phone on him to take a picture instead of the damn dummy phone. Electronics were purely prohibited when he took care of business. None of that tracking bullshit on there. No worries about microphones or cameras or whatever the fuck.

Borden leaned back in his chair. They were seated outside on patio chairs. It was an old mom and pop ice cream shop. He loved shops like these. Obscure but popular because it tasted fucking good. It was one of the shops Borden threw money at under the table to keep going. His way of saying fuck you to the giant corporations that tried to muscle their asses into his already ugly city like warts on a rectum.

He counted his men just then. Two by the parlour. A car parked feet from them. He wondered in that moment, not for the first time, what it would be like to find a quiet place. Somewhere nobody knew him. A place he could safely take his kid and enjoy a sunset and an ice cream without the noise.

Borden hated the fucking noise.

He watched the people pass, but he was hardly looking at them. He was thinking about Emma. Always thinking about Emma. Always talking himself down from racing across this fucking city to see her.

To touch her.

He just wanted to touch her. Remind himself he must not be so bad if a woman as good as her could love a man like him.

He glanced down at his hands. Even after he’d fucking scrubbed them raw in that room, the fine lines were creased in blood. His gut twisted.

“Go on and kill me, but you can’t kill an idea, Borden…”

His shoulders stiffened. The man’s chilling words were spoken with such sincere calm. A man at fucking peace.

“An idea spreads like a virus…And we live by our idea…That’s what makes us unstoppable.”

A woman giggled nearby. Borden idly looked up. A tall woman. Pink heels. Skinny jeans. Blonde hair falling like waves down her back. Chatting on the phone, she pushed the button to cross the street, her profile in direct view of him.

He froze.

His body felt like ice.

Dots clouded his vision.

“Kate…?”

The name barely fell from his lips as the crosswalk flashed and the woman walked. Everything about her…Height, hair, fucking giggle…

Borden should have been running to her. Should have grasped her by the arm and spun her around and seen for himself that it was impossible.

Utterly fucking impossible.

But it was like those fucking nightmares.

He fucking froze.

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