Fathers Read online

  Fathers

  The King & Slater Series Book Nine

  Matt Rogers

  Copyright © 2021 by Matt Rogers

  All rights reserved.

  Cover design by Onur Aksoy.

  www.onegraphica.com

  Contents

  Reader’s Group

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  Books by Matt Rogers

  Preface

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Afterword

  Afterword

  Books by Matt Rogers

  Reader’s Group

  About the Author

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  Meet Ruby Nazarian, a government operative for a clandestine initiative known only as Lynx. She’s in Monaco to infiltrate the entourage of Aaron Wayne, a real estate tycoon on the precipice of dipping his hands into blood money. She charms her way aboard the magnate’s superyacht, but everyone seems suspicious of her, and as the party ebbs onward she prepares for war…

  Maybe she’s paranoid.

  Maybe not.

  Just click here.

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  Books by Matt Rogers

  THE JASON KING SERIES

  Isolated (Book 1)

  Imprisoned (Book 2)

  Reloaded (Book 3)

  Betrayed (Book 4)

  Corrupted (Book 5)

  Hunted (Book 6)

  THE JASON KING FILES

  Cartel (Book 1)

  Warrior (Book 2)

  Savages (Book 3)

  THE WILL SLATER SERIES

  Wolf (Book 1)

  Lion (Book 2)

  Bear (Book 3)

  Lynx (Book 4)

  Bull (Book 5)

  Hawk (Book 6)

  THE KING & SLATER SERIES

  Weapons (Book 1)

  Contracts (Book 2)

  Ciphers (Book 3)

  Outlaws (Book 4)

  Ghosts (Book 5)

  Sharks (Book 6)

  Messiahs (Book 7)

  Hunters (Book 8)

  Fathers (Book 9)

  LYNX SHORTS

  Blood Money (Book 1)

  BLACK FORCE SHORTS

  The Victor (Book 1)

  The Chimera (Book 2)

  The Tribe (Book 3)

  The Hidden (Book 4)

  The Coast (Book 5)

  The Storm (Book 6)

  The Wicked (Book 7)

  The King (Book 8)

  The Joker (Book 9)

  The Ruins (Book 10)

  “The sight of an unworthy father involuntarily suggests tormenting questions to a young creature ... Why am I bound to love him simply for begetting me when he has cared nothing for me all my life after?”

  Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

  1

  Boston

  Myles Vaughan washed the anaesthetising bourbon over his nerves.

  They felt taut as steel.

  He ended up downing half the flask without realising, and later he would swear to himself it was something subconscious. He couldn’t understand how he relinquished all control to the drink. He was so strong in so many areas of his life, he knew it, but when it came to this vice…

  This damn vice.

  He sat in the driver’s seat of his personal vehicle — a heavy Ford sedan, old school, from the early 2000s — but he wore the uniform. Long sleeved dark navy shirt tucked into black slacks, the name badge on the right breast pocket reading M.A. VAUGHAN, the shield on the opposite pocket with BOSTON POLICE inscribed up top and POLICE OFFICER underneath.

  He was parked in south Roxbury, near the Boston Housing Authority, in those grimy dreary streets that the surrounding residents knew to avoid. He tucked the flask away, wiped the corners of his mouth with his unbuttoned cuff, and belched. The whiskey tasted like shit and made him feel like shit. A fiery glob of heartburn seized his throat and he had to beat his chest with a closed fist so he didn’t vomit in his mouth.

  Not a great start.

  Then the guy he was looking for fell right into his hands.

  So it wasn’t all bad.

  The man just strolled right past, not noticing the anonymous Ford or Myles behind the wheel. It wouldn’t have mattered if he did. Myles had never met the guy, but he knew his name was Duante, he was Nigerian, he was twenty-six years old, and he was on just about the last shit list you ever wanted to end up on.

  Myles flashed the light bars built into the front grille of the Ford, and they strobed blue and red over Duante’s skinny frame. The man nearly jumped out of his skin, twisting to face the parked car with eyes wide as saucers.

  Myles already had his window down, so he leant one elbow on the sill and stuck his head out of the car. ‘Get in.’

  Duante stood ramrod straight like his feet were concreted to the sidewalk. Myles could see the cogs turning in his head. ‘I’m, uh, under arrest…?’

  ‘No,’ Myles said. ‘Just get in.’

  Still leaning out the window, he reached blindly forward with his opposite hand and killed the undercover lights in
the grille. Minimising the attention the scene would draw.

  Now Duante was confused. ‘Huh? Why?’

  Myles said, ‘You’re not in trouble.’

  ‘Then I’ll stay right here. Thanks, though.’

  ‘Duante, you’re making this harder than it needs to be.’

  ‘How you know my name?’

  ‘I know more than that. I know you owe thirty-eight grand to Dwayne Griggs. I know he’s looking for you right now, and closing in.’

  Duante’s eyes went even wider, and he looked around like every criminal in Boston was listening in. When he turned back to Myles, he hissed through his teeth at a loud whisper. ‘Man, keep it down. Fuck’s sake…’

  Then he paused as certain things became obvious.

  He said, ‘Why aren’t I under arrest, man?’

  ‘Get in the car.’

  ‘You with Dwayne? He giving you envelopes to do shit like this?’

  ‘No,’ Myles said, and he must have sounded convincing, because Duante rounded the hood to the passenger side and got in. He reeked of stale cigarette smoke and barely suppressed body odour. Myles was about to judge him for it, then realised he likely smelled similar.

  Myles faced forward, didn’t look at his new passenger as he said, ‘You gonna ask me how I know all that?’

  Duante shrugged. ‘It don’t matter. Either way I’m screwed. You arrest me, you don’t… it don’t matter.’

  ‘I’m not going to arrest you,’ Myles said. ‘I’m going to protect you.’

  Duante perked up a touch. ‘Don’t play with me.’

  ‘I’m not playing. I got a confidential tip that Dwayne’s boys are after you. I can put you up in a safe house. No one will have to know. It’ll be our little secret. You crash there until the heat dies down and Dwayne forgets you exist.’

  ‘Why would you do that?’

  ‘Because you’ll split the thirty-eight k worth of product with me at the end of all this.’

  Duante thought hard. He didn’t have a choice either way, but Myles guessed the skinny thief was trying to get it to make sense. ‘That’s not much money, man. For the risk you’re taking.’

  ‘You know what cops get paid?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘For me it’s a lot.’

  ‘Alright.’

  Myles put the Ford in gear and peeled south, first down Route 28 then onto Blue Hill Avenue. It was winter in Boston — cold, grey, bleak, miserable. Franklin Park stretched out to their right, the trees twisting toward the heavens and draping darker shadows across the grounds. Raindrops lashed the windshield like stinging nettles.

  Duante asked, ‘How you gonna justify me crashing this safe house?’

  Myles said, ‘I’ll figure something out.’

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘South.’

  ‘Why you being all suspicious?’

  ‘Because you’re not supposed to know where it is,’ Myles said. ‘I’ll bring you supplies. You’re not going to step foot outside, and then later, if I get busted and you get grilled by my superiors about this, you can say you don’t know where the safe house is without failing a polygraph.’

  Duante paused. ‘You smart.’

  ‘Yeah. Now close your eyes.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Close your eyes. And put your hands over them, too. We’re close.’

  ‘Man, the shit you think of… I could never.’

  ‘That’s why you’re thirty-eight grand in debt and I’m not.’

  ‘You got a mortgage?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Then—’

  ‘I get your point. My bank’s not going to rip my limbs off, though, are they?’

  ‘You don’t know that.’

  Myles smirked, then scolded himself for showing emotion. He twisted the smirk into a grimace as he looked over to check that Duante’s eyes were shut. He spotted the cargo van parked out the front of the laundromat on their left, and he slowed and pulled the Ford into the deserted lot.

  He let the sedan roll hard into the adjacent parking space and stamped on the brakes so the passenger door came to rest only a few feet from the van’s sliding door.

  Duante’s eyes flew open, sensing something was up.

  He looked out his window just as the door rolled open, exposing three men crouched in the darkened belly of the beast. They were all huge, heavyset. The men on either side wore balaclavas, but the one in the middle didn’t. His angular face was sharp beneath the cornrows braided tight to his skull.

  Duante collapsed in on himself, his shoulders slumping. When he turned to look back at Myles his eyes were dark pits of fear. ‘Man…’

  ‘Sorry,’ Myles said, looking down. He didn’t have the nerve to meet Duante’s gaze. ‘Had to be sure you wouldn’t run.’

  The henchmen in balaclavas yanked the passenger door open and hauled the thin man out. Dwayne Griggs grinned maniacally from within the van. The two helpers had to drag Duante between the two vehicles because his limbs had locked with terror. They threw him in and Dwayne pinned him down with a boot against his throat as he ushered his men in and slid the door shut.

  The van reversed and peeled away, leaving the sedan the only vehicle in the laundromat lot.

  Myles sat for a moment in the silent car, then reached for the gearstick.

  But his hands wouldn’t stop shaking, so after a pause of acceptance he went for the flask of bourbon instead.

  2

  In routine, time gains momentum on an invisible wheel.

  Will Slater guessed he always knew that, but he’d never stayed in one place long enough to experience it for himself. He’d lived nearly forty years, but the way he’d lived them, they felt like centuries. He had a never-ending Rolodex of memories, and if he sat down and pondered them he’d die of old age before he fully comprehended what he’d been through.

  And now…

  Well, now it was different.

  He had routine. Every day had become a mirror image of the last as he nailed down a consistent schedule. His surroundings hadn’t changed in more than six months. So he was on that invisible wheel, and it was starting to speed up, each beautiful morning and evening blurring into the next. He didn’t mind. If there was anything wrong with the routine, he’d change it.

  So far, he couldn’t find a single flaw.

  He kissed Alexis on the cheek as he woke, but she didn’t stir. It wasn’t yet six a.m. so he let her lie there. There were porte-fenêtre French doors all around their green two-storey house, including in the master bedroom, and the predawn light leeched inside, covering Slater’s silhouette with murky grey-blue as he swung naked out of bed and crossed the room to the walk-in closet. He dressed and walked down the hall into the kitchen. Flicked the Rancilio coffee machine on and soaked in the morning quiet before the water started to boil.

  The kitchen had white oak hardwood floors, and exposed beams framed the ceiling above. The house effortlessly carried a rich smell that seeped from the natural woodwork. Slater knew he had a couple of minutes to kill before the espresso machine was ready, so he instinctually dropped into the push-up position and hammered out fifty with clean form, just to get the blood circulating. His chest and triceps steadily inflated over the course of the set until, by the time he got up and tamped the ground coffee beans in the metal portafilter, the veins in his forearms were throbbing.

  Who needs central heating? he thought, feeling the warmth creep up his shoulders into his neck. It was close to summer but still cold this time of year in Winthrop, Massachusetts.

  In the end they’d never left Winthrop.

  It had been an impulse to flee north toward Boston after the chaos in New York, and another subconscious urge had sent them further east into the small coastal city. They’d done a couple of weeks in an Airbnb rental before they realised they’d be happy anywhere, so long as they weren’t hunted.

  Half a year later, there hadn’t been so much as a hint of pursuit.

  As far as they coul
d tell, the shadow faction of the government was dormant. Slater firmly believed they were only licking their wounds, and soon they’d be out for vengeance, but Alonzo Romero begged to differ. He was more a part of the shadow world than Slater had ever been. Slater had been a solo operative, always kept at arm’s length from the inner workings because of deniability, but Alonzo had designed most of those inner workings himself. It was why Slater was convinced the government would soon come after them with renewed aggression. However important it was to silence him or Jason King, the state secrets that resided in Alonzo’s head were infinitely more dangerous. But Alonzo had been protecting their location with every trick in the book, and they had a largely uneventful six months to show for it.