Welcome to the Family

“Morning, Lovely.” He kissed his wife on the cheek as he passed her. She was standing at the kitchen sink, taking her morning medications with a glass of orange juice.

“Hmm…” She mumbled, frowning as she struggled to down the pills. He had offered many times to help her crush them, but she was stubborn. She coughed and almost gagged the last one back up, but hurriedly threw back the OJ like a shot.

He turned his back while she regained her composure because he knew how she hated his sympathetic looks; said they felt more like pity. He simply hated seeing her in pain. It wasn’t a bad flare; she was even still working. Regardless, her pain was his.

A steaming breakfast sandwich and to-go cup of coffee were on the counter for him, along with a container of leftovers for lunch.

“Hey…” He pulled her to him, gently enveloping her in his arms. “Dana, you sure you don’t need to call Doc Grace, take some time off?”

“I did call off. Only going to the studio.”

“Working on commissions then?” He felt her nod and relaxed. “Promise you’ll take lots of breaks and drink lots of water.” When she nodded again, he kissed the top of her dark curls and gently gave her a brief squeeze. “I love you.”

“Love you too, Jimmy…” she mumbled.

He gently rubbed her arms and kissed her forehead as they moved apart to go on about their morning routines.

“Thanks for this.” He raised the breakfast sandwich in a salute with one hand as he tucked his lunch container into his satchel with the other. “I’ll see you tonight. Order pizza and watch a movie?”

She smiled brightly, though he could still see the glimmer of pain in her eyes. “Sounds like a date! Bring propper snacks then, too? Please?”

“So… Licorice and popcorn?”

She giggled and blushed like a schoolgirl, then they kissed their way to the front door where she watched him climb into his truck and drive away.

He felt a little guilty about this part of his life; the lying. She thought he worked security at a local engineering firm. What she and most of the town didn’t know was that it was actually a front. They took on just enough jobs to appear legit and to justify staying open. On paper, it belonged to a little LLC, but in truth it was owned by a local crime family and used it to shift around large amounts of money. He was the location’s hired muscle.

It wasn’t a busy day, but it certainly got interesting when a young couple came in just before lunch. While the guy headed into the office to talk about commissioning a custom house, his young wife decided to flirt.

“Happily tied down, Sweetheart,” Jimmy wiggled the fingers of his left hand. In his head, he could see Dana laughing.

The chick was undeterred. If anything, that only seemed to make him more desirable. She turned on the pout first. “Then how come you got all those worry lines? You’re too young for worry lines.”

“They come from doing adult things like paying bills. You’re here with your husband? Boyfriend? Right?”

“Ugh! You’re just as boring as he is!” She popped herself up to sit on his desk, uninvited.

“Hey! If an old man like me is so boring, why don’t you go right there to the client waiting area and have a soda. I’m sure your husband, who’s trying to build you a house, will be out shortly.” Inside, he was getting flustered. He was only twenty-eight, not *that* old.

She giggled and started messing with anything on his desk she could get her hands on. “You might be boring, but you’re fun to rile up.” She snatched up a picture frame and began scrutinizing the image. “So that’s what you’d turn this down for?” She adjusted her shoulders and posture while pulling her top down in the front to make her cleavage pop in his face.

He burst out laughing. “Hers are bigger than that, Sweetheart. Without even trying.” He reclaimed the picture and set it back where it belonged. It had been taken by a friend the day he’d proposed, on a hiking trip, on their one year anniversary. Dana almost hadn’t gone because she was having a flare, But since the trip had been planned for over a month and she already had the time approved off work, she had hobbled up the mountain on crutches. They were leaning next to her in the picture.

The chick grabbed the next frame, with a picture of their wedding day. “Crutches in that one, cane in this one. You marry a cripple? On purpose?”

Without warning he picked her up by her waist. She started to screech and kick as he carried her over and as gently as she would allow him to, deposited her on the couch in the waiting area. He then leaned over her, his voice deepening and taking on the same gravely tone his father’s often had. “My wife and her chronic health issues are none of your business, Sweetheart. My desk is not a seat. And I hope your husband sees what you really are very soon because shallow, cruel, spoiled brats like you don’t deserve fancy, new custom houses.” He snatched the picture, then strode back to his desk, leaving her flustered.

As he passed the receptionist, she was failing to hide a smirk. “Jimmy,” she whispered. “That was almost naughty!”

The young woman pouted and fumed, but stayed on the couch until her husband came out of the office and they left.

The receptionist started whispering to the boss and Jimmy’s suspicion that she was relaying the story of him defending himself was confirmed when the boss looked up sharply, grinning. He then barked out a laugh as he gave him a thumbs up.

The entire office crew soon headed out for lunch, except for the security guard. As soon as they were gone and the door locked, he cheerfully warmed up his leftovers and settled at his desk to enjoy a long phone call with his wife.

She answered on the second ring. “Hey! How’s work?”

He could hear vehicle sounds in the background. “Are you just now going to the studio?”

“No… You were right. Only managed to finish one commission. Heading home.”

“I’m sorry. Know you’re frustrated. Promise you’ll be careful. Get off here. You shouldn’t talk and drive.”

“I’m on bluetooth. But I promise. Going straight to bed when I get there.”

“Hey… I love you. Please call me once you’re settled in.”

“Will do, Captain Worry Wart!”

He had no sooner ended the call, then the phone rang again, but he didn’t know the number. “Hello?”

“Hello, Jimmy boy.”

“Who is this?”

“Your new employer.”

He frowned. “Scuse me?”

“You are going to do everything we tell you to, Jimmy, boy.”

He guessed the caller knew what this office really was, but knew if he was ever suspected, the syndicate boss would decorate his house with his guts. “Why should I?”

“Because there is a bomb on your porch. If you try to warn your boss, we will set it off. If you try to call the cops, we will set it off. We will not penalize you for incoming calls and messages, but we will be monitoring them. Any attempt to get help or pass on information, we will set it off.”

It felt like he was going to choke on his heart.

“Oh, and we do, so hope that your wife isn’t a Pandora.”

“Pandora?”

“Is she a curious sort? Like to open boxes?”

“Oh god…” He prayed that in her pain fog she wouldn't notice it and just go to bed, like she’d said she would.

“Tell your boss you’re going home to be with your wife. When you leave, do *not* set the alarm. Get going, Jimmy boy. Call this number when you reach the old cannery.”

The line went dead and his hands started shaking. He decided to text, not trusting his voice, saying that Dana wasn’t feeling well and that he was worried. The reply was almost immediate. “Go.”

He gathered his things and took off, almost setting the alarm out of habit, then rushed to the cannery. He’d never prayed to get caught in a speed trap before.

“Well done. Stay there until your normal clock-out time, then you can go home to your wife. Act like everything is normal when you get there. Your payment will be in the bottom of the box with the bomb.”

“Wait!” The line went dead and he checked the time. Dana should've called back by now. He screamed and cursed in frustration until he remembered the emergency burner phone in the bugout kit behind his seat. He struggled to open the package, cutting his hands on the heavy plastic more than once in the process. With trembling, fumbling fingers, he managed to insert the sim card and battery. When it turned on, he called his boss.

“Hello?”

For a split second, he worried that both phones were bugged, but he was too far in now. “Hey, Boss.”

“Jimmy?”

“Red roses are for fire and lovers. White roses are for business and loyalty. Yellow doesn’t always mean cowardice.” The line went dead and he slouched in the seat, his head and every pulse point in his body throbbing to his elevated heartbeat. It felt like an eternity, but he knew by the glowing clock in his dash that it had only been about twenty minutes until there was a call from a strange number to the burner. He didn’t even recognize his own voice when he answered. “Yeah?”

“Jimmy. Kid.”

He sighed in relief at the tone in his boss’s voice.

“Come in now, kid. It’s safe. We found the bomb on your porch. The boys are taking care of it. Dana’s home, safe, but not feeling well. Someone’s with her till you get there.”

“What about the office?”

“We caught them but we need you to come talk to us before you go home.”

When he arrived at the office, Jimmy handed over his old phone to the syndicate’s tech geek and she began sorting through it while he told them his side of the story.

“That lines up with what we got out of the couple from the office this morning. They bugged our phones during their visit, then returned to do the heist.”

They led him to the office and showed him the box. It had been wrapped up in brown butcher’s paper like an old-school parcel and hand delivered by the mailman. The bomb had been disabled and pulled apart, the pieces scattered across the desk.

“Was under the chair next to the door and she didn’t see it. Lucky.” The boss clapped him on the shoulder.

“Here. I saved and transferred what I could.” The tech girl handed him a new phone.

“Thanks.” He nodded and tried to smile.

“For your loyalty at great personal risk to yourself, you’re moving up in the world, kid.”

A fat envelope of cash was pressed into his hand. “What?”

His boss steered him to a chair. “You’re being moved up, to bodyguard for the top boss’s wife. They understand why your hours will need to be flexible and since she only uses a bodyguard to go out a few times a week they think they can usually accommodate your needs. You’ll get a salary, double what you’re earning now. This was in the box. What you would have been paid for doing the job had the bomb not been detonated for any reason. Consider it a bonus, kid.”

He stared at the money in his hand, mind racing.

“Go home, kid,” the boss clapped his shoulder again. “Gonna miss seeing you around here, but I’ll see you. And let me be the first to welcome you to the Family.”