Page 59 of Played by Him

His tone was mild, and he sounded so much like my mother that it sent a stab of pain through me. I usually tried to ignore how much he looked like her, but times like now made it hard, though not as much as when people commented on how much he and I looked alike since that reminded both of us of who we’d lost.

“I’m not a child, Uncle Anton,” I said, glaring at him. “You should have told me that you were getting death threats.”

He turned toward me and pushed his sleeves up higher on his arms. Most of my female classmates growing up – and a few of the guys – had swooned over my uncle’s forearms and I’d often wondered if that was how things would’ve been if I’d had a brother.

“I have an entire filing cabinet full of letters like that,” he said calmly. “I get them at least once or twice a week, though they usually come to the office and not here.”

“Don’t they scare you?” I asked. “Someone could hurt you.”

I saw the shadow cross his face, and I knew that he’d understood what I was really scared of: that some crazy person would take him away from me like my father had taken my mother. He came over to where I was standing and pulled me to him in a hug. I tucked my head under his chin and let myself pretend that I was in junior high again, accepting comfort from my uncle because of some minor incident.

“’Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.’”

“Mark Twain.” My words were muffled, but I knew he could hear them. “He also said something about school boards being idiots.”

Uncle Anton laughed and took a step back. “That he did. And I happen to think that makes him more credible.”

I managed a smile. “Are you sure it’s safe for you to go to court tomorrow?”

“Nothing’s ever one hundred percent safe,” he said as he went back to his salad. “Cars and airplanes crash. Tornados and hurricanes happen. Random events, natural phenomenon, all of it is as likely as something malicious.”

He hadn’t answered my question. “Do you at least tell the police about the letters?”

“They know,” he said. “And I have to let them do their job so I can do mine.”

I’d let it go then. He’d seemed so calm, so in control. It wasn’t until days later, after he’d been gunned down on the courthouse steps, after the case on his murder had been officially closed, that I’d learned the cops had tried to convince Clay to go into protective custody after the latest set of threats.

He’d turned them down, saying that he wasn’t going to let someone scare him into silence.

I’d hated him for that.

It hadn’t been until I’d started at Quantico that I’d started to understand why he’d done what he’d done, but as I stood in front of Clay and Agent Matthews, a similar offer hanging in the air between us, I realized that only now could I truly get it.

“Do you know the Mark Twain quote about courage?” I asked. I brushed my hair back from my face and squared my shoulders. “If I hide, my father accomplishes what he’d set out to do nearly ten years ago. I can’t let the fear of him rule my life.”

“Rona,” Clay protested. “Be smart about this.”

“Telling a woman that she’s stupid isn’t usually the best way to get her to listen.”

A man’s voice came from the doorway, but I didn’t quite believe that I wasn’t hearing things until my eyes confirmed what my ears heard.

Jalen.

I scowled at him. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

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