his SWAT team commander more than anyone else in the FBI, he was nervous about leaving Jesse with anyone. He loved the kid like the little brother he’d always wanted, and knew that Sean and Lucy were counting on Nate to protect him should the shit hit the fan.
But this was Leo—a former sniper in the Marines, one of Nate’s closest friends, and his superior on the FBI SWAT team. He was more than capable of protecting Jesse if necessary. Nate had given him a full security briefing about what was going on, and Leo took it seriously.
“You’re worried about Jesse,” Aggie said as they headed to where they believed the Merides brothers were now living.
“He’s my responsibility,” Nate said. “I feel like I’ve passed the buck.”
Lucy trusted Leo, too. But Nate still felt like he was the best at making sure that Sean’s son was safe.
“He’s a good kid. Smart,” Aggie said. “Do you really think that Elise and her people will go after him?”
“I think Elise can and will do anything she damn well wants,” Nate said. “Sean’s house is secure—but nothing is one hundred percent.”
Nate would never forgive himself if anything happened to Jesse.
“You’re good with him,” Aggie said.
Nate shrugged. “I like him.”
“It’s more than that.”
“Maybe.”
When Nate left the Army, he was lost. He hadn’t wanted to leave, but a series of events that culminated in his best friend getting blown away by a roadside bomb had Nate rethinking his life choices. His commanding officer—a man Nate respected more than anyone on the planet—urged Nate to take his years, his GI Bill, and become a cop. In college he was recruited by the FBI, but he often wondered if he should have stayed in the Army. He’d been lost Stateside for years … until he met the Rogans.
Sean wasn’t military, but he understood Nate’s mind-set, and with Sean came Kane Rogan and Lucy’s brother Jack. They, more than anyone, had helped him fully integrate back into civilian life. As much as soldiers-at-heart could be civilians. Nate embraced his SWAT duties, enjoyed the investigative work, and tolerated the paperwork necessary to close cases. Because of the Rogans and the Kincaids, Nate finally felt like he had a place, an anchor. When Sean learned he had a son, Nate de facto became one of Jesse’s uncles. Or a big brother. He would die for the kid.
“You want kids someday?” Aggie asked.
“No.”
Aggie seemed to want more of an answer, but Nate didn’t feel inclined to talk. Finally, she asked, “Why?”
“The world sucks.”
“I don’t think so.”
Nate shrugged. There were so many kids out there today who had nothing. No family, no hope. There was danger, heartbreak, and agony. Nate had lived it. He didn’t care to bring a child into the world to share in that pain.
“Did you have a shitty childhood?” she asked.
“No.”
She waited.
“And?”
“You’re nosy,” Nate said.
“Not really. But you’re like my brother Tommy. Also Army. One-word answers. But I can usually get him to talk.”
“Because you’re his annoying little sister, I’m sure.”
She laughed. “I can be.”
She wasn’t really prying, so Nate said, “My childhood was ordinary and quiet, I guess I’d say. My parents adopted me late in life. They had one kid themselves—my sister. She’s twelve years older than me. They couldn’t have more, were on a waiting list to adopt, got me when my mom was forty-two. I think they forgot they were still on the list; they really didn’t know what to do with me. They loved me and gave me everything I needed, I have no complaints.”
“Did you ever look for your birth parents?”
He didn’t like talking about it. But what could he say, that he didn’t want to talk about it? “My birth mom is dead. She was a teenage drug addict, didn’t know who my father was. I tracked her down when I was eighteen; she’d already been dead for years. Overdose.”
Thankfully, Aggie didn’t say anything about that. Didn’t suggest he get a DNA test. Nate didn’t want to meet his birth father. Didn’t care. His parents weren’t perfect, but they were solid, law-abiding, middle-class folks who cared about him, even if they didn’t quite know what to do with an active boy after raising a studious girl.
Aggie pulled off the highway just past New Braunfels, northeast of San Antonio. Late last night Aggie had tracked the mother to this house; odds were her two sons would be here as well.
Nate was uncomfortable with their plan, but Aggie was confident. She felt that