Under His Protection Page 7

  “Mama, I promise you—”

  “We’ve messed around and stumbled into a lover’s getaway. Why didn’t you tell us you had plans with someone special?”

  Before Elijah could process what was happening, his mother walked up to Camden, spread her arms wide, and wrapped them around Camden’s middle.

  “It’s so nice to meet someone my boy feels is special enough to bring home.”

  “Mama—”

  Elijah tried to interrupt, but his mother dismissed him with a wave of her hand and a “Boy, hush,” before she turned to Elijah’s father with an ear-to-ear grin.

  “Walter, our baby has finally got him a man to bring home.”

  The floor of his stomach plummeted, and he had to breathe through pursed lips to keep its contents from climbing up his esophagus.

  The thought of his mother gushing about his love life and a man he’d just received a magnificent hand job from only moments before would sicken anyone. Add the fact that said man walked out on him without a second thought, and it was a wonder Elijah didn’t empty his stomach in the middle of the kitchen floor.

  “And Walter.” The conspiratorial gleam in her eye made Elijah’s heart rate race. “He’s a cute one too.”

  Please, God. Please kill me now.

  Chapter Eleven

  CAMDEN stood in the kitchen doorway with both arms filled with Elijah’s mother. It should’ve been uncomfortable. People in his circles didn’t wrap themselves around perfect strangers and squeeze with all their strength. Although the older woman had taken Camden by surprise with the force of her affection, the warmth blossoming inside his chest made being angry or uncomfortable with Evelyn’s lack of personal boundaries impossible.

  If he were to be honest—something his life or his work rarely permitted—being held by this stranger made him feel at ease in a way he couldn’t quite recognize.

  Camden lifted his eyes from the armful of Elijah’s mother he was holding and saw the lines of Elijah’s jaw tighten.

  Oh, somebody’s not liking this at all.

  For a beat Camden thought of backing off. Poking the bear when the bear was responsible for your safety probably wasn’t a wise thing. But resisting a challenge wasn’t in Camden’s nature. His need to not just win, but to decimate his opponent, was one of the reasons he was such a good trial lawyer. Aside from suborning perjury, there wasn’t much Camden wouldn’t do to win a case.

  He watched Elijah’s eyes narrow into tiny slits and opted to ignore the obvious warning the brooding police officer was silently throwing across the room.

  “Mrs. Stephenson, please forgive Elijah.” Camden gave Elijah’s mother one last squeeze of his arms, then stepped out of her embrace to look down into her warm, smiling face.

  She shared the same deep, rich brown tone as Elijah. And although her sons clearly inherited their tall, burly frames from their father, the full smile, the appled cheeks, the quick wit, it was all hers. “He wasn’t expecting me this weekend. Work sort of dropped me in his lap.”

  She wrinkled her nose at him to feign disappointment, but the cheerful smile hiding in her eyes told Camden it was all a show. “Don’t tell me you’re a workaholic like my Elijah?”

  Camden took both her hands and placed a sweet kiss on them. “I’m afraid I’d be lying to you if I said otherwise.”

  Still smiling, she shook her head. “If you work anywhere near as much as Elijah used to, it’s a wonder the two of you ever see each other.”

  If Camden and Elijah were in a relationship, Evelyn’s estimation would be correct. The DA’s office swallowed huge chunks of Camden’s time. You didn’t make executive ADA as quickly as he did without sacrificing a personal life.

  Sure, it would’ve been nice to have someone to share his time with, but if you wanted something extraordinary, sacrifices had to be made.

  A chill filled his chest as he remembered his father repeating those exact words to Camden. God, I’m even quoting him in my head.

  Refusing to let his father dampen his amusement, Camden refocused on Evelyn, leaning into her slightly, gracing her with a smile of his own. “We make it work. When it’s important, when he’s important, you make it work.”

  Camden made the mistake of raising his gaze from the smiling woman’s face in search of her son’s. Sure, this entire conversation was a charade. But the tight pull in his stomach when his gaze connected with the steady, intentional stare Elijah returned was as real as the breath caught in Camden’s chest.

  Maybe you really shouldn’t poke the bear.

  “ELIJAH, come help me haul the rest of your mama’s junk in from the car.”

  “Junk?” Evelyn countered. “Most of that is food you’re gonna shove in your mouth, Walter. You ought to be grateful I made a grocery run before we left. You know this child don’t keep no food in the house.”

  Elijah locked his gaze on Camden’s captivating blue eyes. Sure, he heard his mother and father bickering somewhere in the distance, but his focus couldn’t spare his parents even a glimmer of attention.

  Camden was smiling and laughing with Elijah’s mother right at his side, and all Elijah could focus on was how perfect this all would be if it were real. If things had turned out differently in the past, they may well have shared a weekend like this with Elijah’s family.

  “Elijah.” His father’s baritone interrupted the living daydream Elijah was enthralled by. “You coming?”

  Elijah took one more glance at Camden and broke free of the connection only the two of them seemed to be aware of in the room. When he stepped outside into the cool air, it was a pleasant relief. Be it anger, frustration, or desire, Camden had the ability to make Elijah’s blood boil. A fact Elijah had to get control over if he was going to keep Camden safe.

  When Elijah met his father at the back of the SUV, his father turned to him and asked, “What the fuck was that about?”

  “Camden is—”

  “Elijah, we both know Camden isn’t your man. What exactly did we interrupt?”

  He was about to answer his father when a question popped into his head. “Wait, what makes you think he isn’t mine?”

  “Because you brought him home.”

  Elijah wasn’t exactly certain what his father’s statement meant. He may not have settled down over the years, but he hadn’t lived like a hermit either. He’d enjoyed a healthy run of men in his bed over the years. What the hell was his father getting at?

  “I don’t follow.”

  Walter Stephenson crossed his arms over his chest and widened his stance. “Elijah, you bring men to that apartment in Brooklyn like it has a revolving door. In tonight, gone tomorrow.”

  “True,” he agreed even though his father’s words still puzzled him. “So, why is it so strange I’ve brought Camden here?”

  “Because the apartment in Brooklyn is where you sleep.” Walter pointed his finger back toward Elijah’s house. “But that house is your home, Elijah. And if a man was serious enough for you to let into your home, there’s no way your mother and I would find out about him like this.”

  He swallowed, thrown off his game by his father’s observation. Elijah didn’t dispute his father’s words. He knew without thinking, or even trying to calculate, that the only people who’d entered his home were service people and his family. No friends, no acquaintances, and certainly no dates.

  “So, tell me”—the rumble of his father’s voice in his ear made Elijah twitch slightly—“why is the executive ADA cozying up to my wife in your kitchen?”

  Elijah took a deep breath and gently chewed on the inside of his bottom lip. He had a choice here. He could continue to push this ridiculous notion of him and Camden being a couple, or he could come clean. There were consequences to both paths.

  Lying had never been Elijah’s strong suit. When you were told it didn’t matter what anyone else thought, that as long as you weren’t hurting anyone else, your life was your own to live as you pleased, lying didn’t seem all that necessary a s
kill to have.

  His parents raised Elijah to live out loud, to embrace and walk in his truth. His parents had given him that gift. As a black, gay little boy growing up in the ’hood in East New York, Brooklyn, his life could’ve played out differently than it had. But because Elijah never believed he had to apologize for belonging to any of those demographics, he moved through the world with a sense of authority that told him he didn’t have to lie about who and what he was and where he came from.

  One would think that after fourteen years on the force, and a large portion of that time being spent in undercover work, would make Elijah the greatest liar there was. But what most didn’t understand about undercover police work was that the best cover was built from the truth.

  Elijah straightened his shoulders and looked his father in the eye before speaking. This was the man who not only taught Elijah about truth and justice but exemplified those characteristics in practice. If he wanted the truth, Elijah would give it to him.

  “Pops, you guys stumbled in on a case I’m working.” Elijah could see the confusion settling in his father’s eyes, but before he could speak, Elijah pushed forward with his explanation. “I know I was supposed to be sitting behind a desk when I did return to work. But the powers that be demanded I take on one last case in the field. I’ve got to protect Camden from a cult group that’s trying to kill him before he makes it to trial next week.”

  Elijah’s father leaned against the vehicle and took in a deep breath. After digesting Elijah’s explanation, Walter stood up and focused on Elijah again.

  “So, you brought him to your house, Elijah? How does that make sense?”

  Elijah laughed. It was true; there was a risk in him bringing Camden here, more than one in fact, and not all having to do with this case.

  “This house isn’t attached to me, not on the surface anyway.” Elijah had purchased this house through a shell company he’d created. One couldn’t work in Vice for as long as he did and not walk away with more than a handful of enemies. If those enemies could find his name easily on a property record, Elijah wouldn’t have survived as long as he had in the game. “Not to mention, technically, I’m still on the disability list. There’s nothing on paper that connects me to Camden or the precinct right now. If they’re looking for him, my spot is the last place they’ll look.”

  His father nodded. Elijah could see acquiescence taking hold in Walter’s eyes as the man mulled over Elijah’s explanation. “It’s not the most orthodox plan you could’ve come up with, son. Who knows where you have him?”

  Elijah shook his head. “No one. My captain knows I have him, but she doesn’t know where. I’m not using my cell, only contacting the captain through a burner.”

  His father continued to nod his head as he processed the info Elijah was feeding him. “You know your mama can’t know about this, right?”

  Elijah’s chest swelled with discomfort. Choosing not to disclose the particulars of his dangerous job was one thing. Allowing her to believe her son had found love, something he knew she prayed for, was a different scenario. The image of her wrapping herself around Camden both frightened and excited him at the same time. It was a glimpse into a future he’d hoped his new desk job would help him build.

  But that future couldn’t happen with Camden. And no matter how ready his mother seemed to designate Camden her extra son, the reality was Camden would walk away from Elijah when this was all over. If he perpetuated this lie, it would disappoint his mother.

  But what was the alternative?

  “She’d worry.”

  His father sighed loudly and rubbed the sides of his temple. “Between my twenty years on the force, and your fourteen, and nearly losing you, Elijah, her heart can’t take it. She’s a strong woman. She’d have to be to put up with me all these years. But your mother pushed herself so much worrying about you in that hospital bed and during your recovery that her heart nearly gave out.”

  Elijah didn’t need the memory of finding his mother on the floor unresponsive and laboring to breathe as a reminder of how deadly stress could be. The doctor had called it a small heart attack. Nothing about its effects seemed small to Elijah. A change in diet, more exercise, and minimal stress had been the recommendation. His mother had dedicated her life to taking care of the men in her family. And in kind, the three Stephenson men vowed they’d do whatever they needed to keep Evelyn Stephenson alive and thriving.

  “She’s gonna kill me when she finds out Camden and I are scamming her.” Elijah moved next to his father, nudging him slightly out of the way as he leaned against the SUV. “And then she’s gonna kill you when she finds out you knew about it.”

  His father chuckled and shook his head. “You ain’t ever lied, son.”

  Walter pushed off from the car and began a slow saunter toward the stairs leading to the house, leaving Elijah to replay their conversation in his head. It wasn’t until his father reached the top of the landing that Elijah realized what was bothering him.

  “How did you know Camden was the executive ADA? I never mentioned that. And as far as I know, PD has kept his attack under wraps from the press. The explosion was linked to a faulty gas pump, and no injuries or casualties were revealed.”

  Walter turned around to answer Elijah’s question. His brow furrowed into a sharp point between his eyebrows. “I met him at the hospital when you were attacked.”

  “He was there?”

  Elijah’s memory of that time was still sketchy. Between the pain meds and the brain swelling, Elijah couldn’t trust any of the strange visions that haunted him from that time. But somewhere in the depths of his subconscious Elijah remembered a glimmer of Camden’s face. He’d passed it off all this time as the wishful musings of a dying man. But what if he wasn’t dreaming? What if Camden had been there?

  “He was the first one from the DA’s office to come to your hospital bed when you were attacked.”

  Elijah followed his father up the stairs, leaning against the banister as he sifted through his father’s answer. “Then why didn’t Mama and Manny recognize him?”

  “Your mother and brother weren’t with me when the squad car pulled up to the house. Manny and Viv were on vacation, and your mother was off on that missionary trip with her church in Boston. She arrived by police escort a few hours after me.” Walter returned to the house as Elijah jogged back down the steps and removed the remaining suitcase from the SUV’s cargo area.

  Elijah had believed it was a dream all this time. Hell, even if Camden had been in his room, the memory Elijah carried with him could well have been a hallucination. Just his mind’s way of easing Elijah’s pain and giving him something to hold on to.

  He tried to think back to that time. All of it was hazy to him. One minute Elijah was doing a dirty gun deal in the back room of an underground club. The next, he was blocking an attack from multiple directions. It was dark, and he couldn’t see who his attackers were. The only thing he knew was that there was more than one of them, and if his backup didn’t get to him soon, he’d be a dead man.

  Six months later and Elijah still didn’t remember what happened between initially being attacked and waking up in the ICU a week later on life support. But he’d always carried the fuzzy image of Camden with a single tear down his cheek.

  The sadness that registered in Camden’s eyes lit a fire somewhere in Elijah’s addled brain that told him there was something, someone worth fighting for. When Elijah had finally awoken, and the only faces he saw were those of his family members, he’d concluded it was just his imagination.

  Elijah gently shook himself free of the haunting image. Elijah moved up the steps with the suitcase in hand and stepped inside of the kitchen. He glimpsed his family and Camden sitting at the kitchen table laughing loudly and thought to himself, Maybe it wasn’t a dream at all.

  Chapter Twelve

  CAMDEN sat in the living room flanked by the entire Stephenson clan. He made himself comfortable in the oversized armchair, his back st
raight, one leg crossed over the other, and his hands neatly sitting atop his thigh as he took in Elijah’s family.

  They were loud, fun, and connected in ways Camden had never experienced on a personal level. Sure, he understood the fundamentals of how a family was supposed to work, but the reality often differed from the ideal.

  He’d always thought of himself as fortunate being born into the Warren clan. His family possessed generational wealth that afforded Camden and his parents a luxurious life most couldn’t conceive of.

  The Warrens never had to worry about having money; they only ever had to worry about using it to their advantage.

  And they did.

  Ivy League educations, several beautiful homes across the globe, traveling by private accommodations, experiencing the best of what life and the world offered, there were no worries.

  Well, not of the financial kind. Instead, his family worried about how to compound their wealth and the prestige it brought them. In the Warren family, you married to improve your fortune, your standing in the community, or both.

  It was reminiscent of the intermarriage that took place among European royalty. To preserve the line, they arranged marriages between unwed children.

  The Warrens weren’t royalty. However, they sought many of the tenets of royalty: wealth, power, and prestige.

  But here Camden sat in a room full of laughing people who had no monetary fortunes to speak of, none that he could tell anyway, and they seemed to possess something Camden didn’t remember ever witnessing in his own family: happiness.

  They were at ease with one another. Invading one another’s personal space, finding humor in one another, enjoying one another’s company. This was something he’d never experienced in his family.

  The laughter died down, and the focus of the conversation shifted as everyone’s gaze fell on him.

  “So where are you and your family from, Camden?”

  Camden blinked for a moment while he pondered how to answer Evelyn Stephenson’s question. Elijah must have seen his hesitance and moved closer to him, sitting on the arm of his armchair and placing a comforting arm around the back of the chair.