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I couldn’t get much information out of him, only that she’d bonded with a retired agent who also had memory issues. I was both heartbroken and happy to hear she was finding some joy in the situation.
Now, I just had to face my other parent.
After squeezing Mari close and dropping a kiss to her head, I straightened. “Let’s get this over with.”
“Say the word, and we’ll leave.” Mari’s reassuring smile warmed me to the bones as she took the lead, leaving Dominic and me to take our respective places behind her.
Warden Michaels, whom I’d met previously, waited just beyond the door with an uncomfortable smile. He seemed the possessive type, so I assumed he didn’t like us infringing on his turf. The line of guards down the hall didn’t seem to have the same issue.
Half of them gawked at Dominic and me, while the other half slobbered over Mari. I got it—our girl was fine when she was strapped with weapons and any other second of the day—but it pissed me off to see them do it so blatantly.
“If you want to keep them, I’d remove your eyes from our girlfriend,” Dominic hissed. When the guards darted their gazes to me, I gave them my most killer smile and hoped they read how much I’d like to rip them apart with my teeth.
Every single man found somewhere else to look.
I could feel Mari’s smugness, and from the way Dominic rolled his eyes, he could too. No matter what she said, she liked us possessive. Which was good because we weren’t stopping anytime soon.
The good warden cleared his throat, reaching up to adjust the collar of his pressed shirt delicately. “Ms. Marcosa. We received word from the FBI that you were coming and prepared the meeting room for you, as requested.”
Mari tilted her head at the men watching the show. “Guards?”
Michaels shifted uncomfortably. “We were told not to have any inside, but I have to warn you. Beckstrom is?—”
“I’m aware of what a Beckstrom can do,” she assured him, sliding her hand behind her back to grab mine. A reminder that I wasn’t the Beckstrom she meant, and for once, I felt it.
Cash and Ace weren’t me, and I wasn’t them. I didn’t have to hold their sins as my own. Not anymore.
The weighted look Dominic gave me was another firm reminder. We’re your family, not them.
I wondered if Mari would mind another man taking her name because I was ready to torch mine.
Warden Michaels looked like he wanted to argue his point again, but he finally slumped. “In that case, he’s ready for you.”
Lifting his arm in invitation, he walked us to a door at the end of the hall. “I’m aware you’re professionals, but I have to insist that if you’re going to keep your weapons, you keep them. I will not have an inmate getting hold of one.”
Dominic smirked. “Don’t worry, Warden. We won’t give him a way to stab us in the back.”
With an uncomfortable grunt, he knocked twice and opened the door, leaving us to our fate.
Despite the years between visits, that same sense of desperation clung to my skin the second we stepped inside the room. It seeped into the plain walls, the slick floors, the metal tables, and even the chair where my father waited in his red jumpsuit, his hands shackled to a bolt in the floor.
“This place is creepy as fuck,” Dominic whispered. And I had to agree. I’d never been one to believe in ghosts, but I could practically feel the desperate specters pressing in on us.
“Desolation will do that to you,” I said, finally looking at the man we were here for full on and wishing I hadn’t.
It hit me then that Ace looked more like my brother than Cash did. We had the same build, though he had more muscle. His skin was darker, as was his hair, and he had a smattering of shitty tattoos along his arms. Beyond that, we could’ve been twins. It was like I was seeing who I would’ve been if I’d stayed the course and let the Aces run my life. That’s if I’d managed to stay alive at all.
“Christ, it’s like looking at a doppelgänger,” Mari muttered.
“Just what we need. Two fuckboys,” Dominic joked.
Once I got over the shock of our similarities, it was easier to see the differences. There was white in Ace’s hair now and wrinkles around his face I could tell he didn’t like. He’d always been a prideful fuck. The cruelty was still prevalent, the same kind I saw in Cash, plus a bit of that manic attitude the cocaine brought out in him too.
“He’s juiced,” I whispered to the others, and Mari hummed under her breath, completely unsurprised. Drugs were more common in jails than most people thought. All it took was the right bribe, and you could get whatever you wanted. No doubt we had my brother to thank for Ace’s recreational habits.
As the warden said, there were no guards in the room, thanks to Two-Bit’s and Mari’s influence, so it was just the four of us. Dominic took one look around, barely glancing at Ace before taking up a place by the door. It was not only a sign that Mari could protect herself, but a clear dismissal. Ace wasn’t a threat to us at all.
The tightening of my father’s mouth said he noticed and didn’t appreciate it, but what else could he do when he was in chains and we were armed for extermination.
