>SEATTLE, WA
>MONDAY.04.NOV.2019
>1824…///

Thankfully, the streets weren’t packed at this hour in Seattle on a Monday. Holly had seen Mark when the streets were choking on traffic, and in those moments, Mark seemed to be such an angry misanthrope. Mark didn’t usually swear, but in those times, Mark wasn’t usually Mark. He smiled over at Holly in the passenger seat as they stopped at a red light. He’d made everyone save their appetites for dinner, but in the end he’d let them have a quick snack before leaving to stoke their appetites… and make sure Holly didn’t get too snappy at him or Tilly. Her stomach was growing still, and if he thought there was no hiding it when Joseph came over for dinner, there was really no hiding it now.

He reached over and lay a hand over Holly’s while it rested on her own stomach. They still hadn’t decided on a name, and Mark wanted to name their child Hudson, after his uncle who’d passed away when he was younger. One of the only people who’d told him to do what [i]Mark[/i] wanted, and damn the world- and his father- if they didn’t like it. 

“I love you, baby.” He said to Holly, smile growing wider as she looked at him.

Holly was feeling the movement of their unborn child when Mark put her hand over hers and she smiled at him, quipping back, “Me or the baby baby?”

The teasing tone was light, the yogurt had done the trick of keeping the hangry beast at bay. Mark snorted and shook his head at Holly, eyeing the road for a second as he said, “[i]Both.[/i]” He glanced at Holly again with a smile before looking in the rearview mirror at Tilly, “How about you? How are you doing back there?”

Tilly lifted her head from her phone and popped out one ear bud, “Oh what? I’m good.”

Holly glanced at the rearview mirror, “What are you watching?”


“Just some skate stuff on Tik-Tok,” the girl replied, going back to flipping through her phone, then sent one of the short video of a guy wiping out in a hilariously painful way on a guard rail after trying to show off all set to an old JFA song to Joe Dad with a laughing emoji. 

“Well, make sure you put that up when we get to the restaurant,” Holly said after a moment, “I don’t want you texting the whole time while we eat.” 

Tilly huffed a breath, blowing a strand of blond hair from her face, “Yeah, yeah. I can only stand so much talk about your stupid clients.”

Holly tried not to laugh but failed, “Fine, no work talk. I promise.” 

“Yes,” Mark smiled into the rearview mirror at his daughter, “No work talk. We’ve got plenty more we can talk about. Like how you’ve got straight-A’s, how you aced that test, how all those extracurriculars are paying off and all those applications to Universities might just come back as acceptance letters.”

Mark glanced at Holly as he flicked on the turn signal and turned onto another street, “Can you imagine? Our Doctor Grier, exploring the ocean, or treating cancer, or… doing some other stuff that doctors do.”

Tilly rolled her eyes but her cheeks turned pink with embarrassed pride. She went back to her phone to see if her text had been responded to but it was still unread. She flicked through her app again, then finally asked, “I got invited to a party this Saturday, can I go?”

Her voice was that of a child trying to sound casual but clearly it was not. “It’s not a big deal, just some people I know hanging out.” 

“Have I met these people hanging out?” Mark quirked a brow in the rearview.

Tilly paused and shrugged, “I think you met a couple of them. Max and Lacey, they go to school with me. Mom, you know Lacey’s mom, she’s the one that always does the gluten-free snacks and makes sure everyone knows about it.” 

She avoided mentioning that most of the people there were friends of Max’s older sister who was a sophomore at University of Washington and other former high school friends of the young woman who were rumored to be bringing kegs and a local band was already booked. Max’s parents had a big house and they had drained their pool for the winter which was going to now be perfect for skating. 

“You know Max’s family,” she said, glancing at the rearview mirror. “They have that big house on Pine Bluff Street, at the cul-de-sac. His dad works for Boeing or something. Some engineer.” 

Mark opened his mouth to speak, then shut it. After these years, he knew when his daughter was biting her explanations just short. Even so, he shrugged, “Yeah,” he said, “I know his dad. Mick’s a good guy.”

He pursed his lips and then looked at Holly, “What do you say?”

Holly glanced up at the rearview mirror, noticing how Tilly kept her head down and at her phone, the same she had asked her to put away. “I know Lacy’s mother and Max’s mom, she really likes her wine. Are his parents going to actually be there for this party?”

Tilly looked aside, out the window as they drove, the gray hue of the city would get no better as autumn turned to winter. “I dunno, I assume so. It’s their house.”

“Uh, huh,” Holly replied, raising an eyebrow. “Then you wouldn’t mind me calling them and asking.”

Tilly rolled her eyes then looked up, “Yeah if you have to, whatever. You never trust me even though I don’t do anything to make you not trust me. But sure, call them and ask.” 

She threw her hands up in an exaggerated shrug and then shook her head, not wanting to fight with her mom before dinner. Tilly put her earbuds in and went to her playlist. 

“Young lady,” Holly said, turning around to look at her, “Don’t pull that attitude. I have every right to know who my sixteen year old daughter is going to be hanging around.” 

Tilly rolled her eyes again, this time hidden behind the fall of pale blonde hair as she bent her head over her phone in her hands. “Fine.”

Holly turned back and looked at Mark as he drove. “We’ll talk about this at home.” 

Tilly sent a text to her biological dad, following up the video he still had not responded to. [i]“Hey Joe-Dad, did you and mom ever go to parties when you were my age? Like real parties, not like cake and ice cream bullshit. Or was she always this fun?”[/i]

Mark looked at Tilly in the rearview, just a glance, but he knew that posture. After riding that high of knowing his daughter would be a benefit to any university that would accept her, he did feel a bit of pity for that face in that backseat. He cleared his throat, looking at the road as he slowed to a halt at a red light. No cars were around at this part of the city, which wasn’t too weird for a Monday. He glanced at Holly, “If we say yes, and that’s an [i]if[/i],” Mark said, his voice a bit projected so Tilly could hear him over that loud rock music, “You’ll text us about what you’re doing, and you’ll answer when we call. Just to check in. Am I understood?”

Holly looked at Mark and gave a minute nod of acknowledgement to what he said. She could see Tilly’s eyes light up and her heart clenched. She was nearly an adult and she would have to let go soon. But they had another on the way, maybe the mistakes she made would not happen again. At least she knew Mark would not be the force of natural disaster in their lives as Joseph had been. 

“And it’s not you I don’t trust,” Holly said, glancing back at her daughter. 

“Yeah, I know, Mom,” Tilly replied, “You always say that.”

“Because it’s true.”

Tilly pulled the ear buds out and wrapped them around her hand, “I get that. But I’m careful and yeah, I would text you and check in, I know the drill.”

“Just stay safe and stay out of trouble.” Mark chimed in with that caring dad-voice, “We love you, Tilly.”

She brushed her hair back from her face, the bright blue Donnelley eyes looking back at Mark and Holly, “I know, I love you, too. And I don’t want to get in trouble...not like real trouble anyway.”

Tilly spoke before Holly could, “I get it.”

Holly sighed then smirked, shaking her head “Alright smarty-pants. It’s fine by me as long as you do what your dad just told you.” 

“Our little girl,” Mark teased in a song-song voice, “Growing up [i]so fast.[/i]”

Mark peeked at the GPS. Shouldn’t be long now, he thought. A string of green lights down the street made him feel just a tad dangerous, and he sped up only a couple miles per hour just to get every green light he could. They were making good time to the fancy steak house, and he began to hum along to the song coming through on the radio. He couldn’t help but to smile at Tilly in the rearview, until he saw her double-take to the window to her left. Mark looked too, and it was too quick.

He saw headlights, then he saw nothing.

>LEES LICK, VA…///

Donnelley opened his eyes and the world rushed back in with a torrent of silence and memory. The panic was still gripping his chest, he’d sat straight up on the tiny couch he’d crawled into in the tiny house he was living in while the world mounted against him. He stood, rushing steps into the kitchen, not that it took many steps to cross the tiny house. He grabbed up the bottle of whiskey and took a swig, and then another, and he wiped at his mouth and growled, before taking another. He bent double and grabbed his hair as he painted almost helplessly, a tight fistful of it and growled, “Fuck. [i]Fuck.[/i]”

He fell back onto the floor with a grunt, fishing out his pack of cigarettes, and lighting one up, staring at the floor. He dragged in a breath, held it for a few seconds, and let it go. A few more of those, a few more drags, and a couple more swigs had him right enough to stand up again. Here he was, he thought, in another empty house. Another bottle of whiskey, and two women who wanted nothing to do with him. He couldn’t help but laugh, bitterly. There was a joke in there somewhere. 

His ears perked up at the sound of his phone buzzing on the floor. He staggered to his feet and then dropped to his knees in front of his phone. It wasn’t even daylight out, he noticed, and he wondered why Tilly was calling him. Fuck, he was drunk. What would she say? That mom was right? No, he wouldn’t disappoint her. This was it, this was the last time. This girl was one of the only things he’d ever kept living for. He swallowed and then picked up his phone and answered the call in a very well-honed sober voice, “How you doin’, lil’ girl?” He asked with a smile.

The voice on the other end was not that bright sassy young woman but one of a scared girl, “I’m not doing that great. There was an accident.”

Her breath hitched and she sighed into the receiver, “Mom and Dad are ok, but we’re all in the hospital.”

There was a hesitancy there and she said even softer, “They’re not really ok, but they’re alive.”

Donnelley’s smile died, and he swallowed. He stared at the wall for a few moments, the panic starting to reach back in. He let out a quivering breath, “What?” He said lamely, hardly the confident leader that knew where to go. The past few days proved him otherwise, anyway, “What do you mean? It’s okay, just tell me what happened, sweetie.”

Tilly hesitated then spoke up, her voice more firm and normal as she recited what had happened, as she had told the police who took the report and how she kept playing it over in her mind, a torture but one she kept doing to herself so she would not forget any details. Her father was involved, that much she knew but how much and why was a mystery. 

“We were driving to go out to eat, that steak place, Jak’s Grill...” she trailed off for a moment, then came back, “We were almost there I think, there wasn’t much traffic and that song was playing, Montero. I looked up and saw a truck just coming at us, nothing but headlights. They were set up high, even if it was pitch black outside I know it was a big ass truck. Two white guys, I could see just that from their console lights and the glare. It was so fast, but I remember that. I remember, Dad. I didn’t hear brakes, the cop asked me that. I don’t remember any brakes and I heard them say there were no skid marks on the road like they tried to stop.”

A breathless pause on the other end as she caught herself, a soft wheeze of pain could be heard. “We’re all hurt but they got the worst of it. My arm and some ribs are broken, it hurts but they said it should heal just fine. Got a bump on the head.” 

There was a tension in her voice and a catch, she paused again before speaking. “Mom lost the baby. He would have been my little brother.”

It was then she broke down, Tilly unable to keep the sobs hidden even under the press of her hand. Donnelley could only listen, his grip on his phone growing tighter the more Tilly recited the same deadpan lines she gave the cops like some sort of badly rehearsed movie lines, flat and void of emotion. Or like someone whose mind was still reeling with fresh trauma. When he heard Tilly choking on sobs, and knowing that he couldn’t be there right now, in an instant, he almost started with his own tears.

He’d been hoping it was just some kind of elaborate prank, but when Tilly said that Holly had lost her baby, and that there was no screech of tires or screaming brakes… Probably just drunk drivers. Probably, he kept telling himself.

“Baby,” Donnelley’s voice was shaking and breathy, “Baby, I’m [i]so sorry[/i] you had to go through that. I’m so sorry, I wish I could be there right now.”

“Is…” Donnelley swallowed, not wanting to pile on another person asking her to remember what she wanted to forget, but he had to know. There was a voice in the back of his head, a quiet, little fear, “Is there anythin’ else? Anythin’? What did they look like, the drivers?”

Tilly stopped crying but her voice sounded raw and it rose in pitch with the simmering anger. “You can’t be, I get it. Nothing ever changes.”

There was silence and she finally said, “It was about [i]you[/i]. I found a note, one of them put it in my jacket pocket while I was knocked out...I didn’t show it to the cops or even mom and dad. It said ‘tell Joseph Donnelley to stop’.” 

Her voice quivered and she sniffled, “I can’t...Mom had to be sedated. A medical coma they call it. She’s hurt real bad, she doesn’t know...”

Tilly broke down again and held the phone away, but her sobs were still audible. Donnelley bit back the hurt at Tilly’s outburst. Her [i]justified[/i] anger at him for not being there. Off chasing conspiracies and murderers, too busy for his own daughter. And now look what it did to her. That little fear in the back of his head grew louder, and sharper, and then it grew into an anger of its own. A knife stabbing into his chest. How dare they hurt his daughter, instead of coming to him and locking eyes, and seeing who made it out.

He clamped his jaw shut, thinking up a few swears and dragged in a breath, held it, and then let it go. “I’m sorry that this happened.” He said, “I’m goin’ to make this…”

Right? Right wouldn’t be the word. Not for any of this. There was nothing about this that he could make right, not for Tilly, not for Holly, not for Mark. They were all just stuck between him and Foster, Nikolai Gorochev and his Bratva, and the GRU. In danger, and not even knowing it until it smashed into them. He breathed, “I’m goin’ to fix this. I promise you, Tilly, I’m fixin’ this.” He had a frown, but it softened, “Please, belie-… just, please, have some faith in me that I’m never lettin’ this happen again.”

His breath caught, “And I promise I’ll be there in person with you when this is all over.” He swallowed, “If you’ll still want me.”

Tilly was quiet as he spoke, the tension almost palatable. “Just stop, stop whatever it is you’re doing that’s pissed them off this much. I’m scared.”

She sniffed the repeated, “I’m scared, Daddy. What if they come back when you’re trying to fix everything?” 

He swallowed again, dry and hoarse, burning. He couldn’t stop this. Not to him. Whatever Foster was doing, whatever the Bratva was doing… he was one of the only people he trusted to [i]end it.[/i] Not just burying his head to the girls already lost, and the girls waiting to be, but ending that cycle forever. But the shaking in Tilly’s voice, he couldn’t help but to spare a thought towards booking a plane ticket, but then even the Feds would know where he was and where he was going.

He shook his head, even though Tilly couldn’t see it, “They won’t ever get to you again, baby.” He said, “I’ll be with you again soon.”

He paused, his lips moving but without words, and then he said it. What he should’ve said while he could. What he should say… just in case this would be his last service to the world, “I love you, Tilly.”

“I love you too, Joe-Dad,” she said, her voice not trembling as much. “Please... this all really sucks, I hate it. I just want to wake up but then I remember it’s not a dream.”

Tilly sighed heavily and said, “I gotta go. Please, please don’t do anything to...you know. I want to see you again, like we talked about. Bye, Dad.” 

Donnelley nodded unseen, closing his eyes, “I know, you’ll see me again, and we’ll go on that ride on my bike.” Donnelley didn’t have to try hard to force a smile on his face, hoping it’d at least take an ounce of the pain and fear away from his daughter, “I’ll see you, bye, Tilly.”

He hung up the phone and stood, taking it from his face and just staring at the screen. That picture of him and his little girl, not so little anymore. He thought about Holly, and Mark. Holly in a coma, and her baby lost. He swallowed rising bile, and then his grip crushed around the neck of the whiskey bottle and the cigarette between his fingers, still smoldering.

He hauled in a breath, but it hitched before it had any hope of filling his lungs as he choked on the guilt, and the fear, and the anger. And then chased it all with a long pull of whiskey. He cocked back his arm and sent the whiskey bottle flying across the room to smack into the wall, leaving a good crack in it. He turned and flipped the small coffee table in a fury he hadn’t felt for so long, and that felt so trapping, and so futile, but so lacking in alternatives. If he could, he’d sprout wings and fly to Washington. If he could, he’d burn all of this like an Angel drunk on righteous fury if there was only a hair of a chance the sun would rise one more time and whoever came after wouldn’t be as evil as man, or make the same mistakes. Or just burn this house down, hug the flames, and hope the same for whoever came after him.

By the end of it all, chairs were toppled, tables were on their side or overturned, and he sat on his knees with his face in his hands. With nothing else to break, maybe even Frank Gamble could hear him all the way back in Lexington when he screamed in desperation.