Page 13 of His Reluctant Savior

I had a list of his friends and acquaintances from Veil, but I hadn’t had time to dive deep into it, needing to reach Dalton quickly once I got his location.

“You were careless with the bank,” I said instead of answering his question.

“I needed to clean out my account. I knowingly took the risk.”

“And if I hadn’t been there…”

I let that hang in the heavy air between us.

“Why? Why do you even fucking care?” he suddenly snapped, then glanced back at Owen to make sure he hadn’t woken the boy up from his yelling.

I didn’t have any quick answers for him. “We need to get rid of your car.”

Dalton scoffed and shook his head. “Yeah, I know.”

“I have a couple of cars I keep at the safe house for emergencies.”

I kept the place from my family’s knowledge, not wanting them to know about it. While I trusted them as much as one could trust assassins, I was always prepared for the worst, needing a place to go to, just in case. No doubt, each of my family members did the same.

“I told you—”

I didn’t let him finish. “Yeah, yeah… you want to drop Owen off. But we still need a car, and we need to rest before we move on. Owen probably needs to eat, too. We can use my house to make plans. It’s safe there. Not even my organization knows about it.”

Dalton sank into his seat and nodded. “Yeah, okay.”

I turned right onto a long and winding dirt road through the woods before we came up to open farmland and an old white farmhouse with a wraparound porch built back in the early 1900s. While I was a city boy and owned a condo in DC, I loved the place. I’d been drawn to the old home while on a job seventeen years ago.I’d spent those years fixing her up and giving her the best security I could buy.

The house and land were maintained by a local married couple I trusted—after a thorough background check. Several cattle kept the grass down on the five acres of land surrounded by woods. They also needed to be fed and watered or put into the barn when the weather was bad.

“This is your safe house?” Dalton asked, leaning forward, staring out of the windshield.

“Yep.”

I pulled up along the driveway that led to a separate building, which worked as a garage and storage and could hold up to four cars. On the other side of the house was the barn for the cows.

“I never pictured you as a country boy.”

I chuckled. “It’s nice to get away, but I don’t spend much time here. Maybe a few times over the seventeen years I’ve owned it, mostly to fix it up.”

After putting the car in park, I quickly jumped out, punched in the code to get into the garage, and got back in when the door slid open. I pulled into it, parked next to the light blue 1986Ford BroncoI had restored, and the very boring 2014Honda Accordin silver meant to go unnoticed on the road.

“I have a clean set of plates to put on your car, and I have someone who can register the plates under a different name if necessary.”

Dalton said nothing as he got out of the car and unbuckled his sleeping son, gently lifting him into his arms along with the dinosaur pillow thing. The boy sleepily wrapped his arms around hisdad’s neck, resting his head on his shoulder, and started drooling on him.

Dalton stood there for a second, his eyes shut, and held his boy close before walking out of the garage.

I followed closely behind him. When we reached the front door, I entered a code on the keypad to get in. We stepped inside, and I led him up the stairs.

“There’s a bedroom you can put Owen in,” I whispered so I wouldn’t wake up the child.

Dalton still hadn’t said anything, and his silence was starting to make me itch. What was going on in that head of his? The tension was rolling off him, but then again, the day had been harrowing.

He headed up the stairs, and I opened the door to the first bedroom on the left because it had the best view of Middletown Valley and the Catoctin Mountains.

The entire house was clean, as I had called ahead yesterday to prepare it for guests. This was the first time I had brought someone here.

I pulled back the quilt and sheet as Dalton gently laid down his son, who was still out. Once he was covered up, the boy rolled onto his side, holding onto his dino pillow thing, pale reddish-blond hair spilling into his face.

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