Free The End Game by Raymond Khoury Page A

needed to get out there and see how both events would play out. Right now, the best call was to get back to the bedroom with Tess’s beer and make up for not fawning over her overpriced selection of haute couture.
    I didn’t get much of a chance to fawn. Within moments of me handing Tess her exquisite brew, I saw her eyes move away and land on something by our bedroom door.
    I followed her gaze to see Alex standing there, his face tense with worry despite clearly being half-asleep.
    “Oh, baby,” she said warmly.
    She started to get out of bed, but I stopped her and said, “I’ve got this.”
    I turned and padded over to him, slowly. He just watched me in silence as I dropped down to one knee in front of him.
    “Hey,” I said softly, giving him a kiss on his forehead. “What’s going on, champ? It’s very late.”
    He stared at me, his lower lip curled out and quivering a bit, his big brown eyes brimming with anxiety.
    He didn’t need to tell me what was going on. This wasn’t the first time he’d had a nightmare.
    “Come on,” I said as I lifted him up and hugged him against me. “Let’s get you back to bed.”
    I glanced back at Tess. She gave me a pained half-smile and a small, warm nod, and I carried him into his bedroom.
    “Story,” he mumbled, clinging to me tightly.
    I melted a bit. Despite the anger roaring through me regarding what he was going through, what they’d done to him, at least he was now letting me comfort him, and not just Tess.
    It was such a bittersweet feeling—enjoying holding my son tight against me, feeling him cling to me like this, his protector, his dad—but at the same time wanting to pound the guys who did this to a pulp.
    “OK,” I told him as we cuddled up in his bed. “What are we in the mood for tonight? Some gobblefunk or that clever mouse and his big, toothy friend?”
    Alex smiled.
    I melted some more.
    “Gobblefunk,” he murmured.
    “Good call,” I said, and raised my hand for a high five, which he gently tapped back before rubbing his eyes with tight fists in that glorious way kids do.
    We cuddled up and sank together into the wonderful world of the Big Friendly Giant. Alex’s breathing got louder and slower, his little snores a symphony to my ears, a balm to my tired senses.
    Once I was sure he was comfortably asleep, it was hard to extricate myself from that lovely cocoon and move back to our bedroom, but I needed to. I had to get some good zees in.
    Tomorrow was shaping up to be a day of a complication or two, at best.

THURSDAY

9
    Boston, Massachusetts
    Dr. Ralph Padley woke at seven, as he did every day since moving into the East Broadway brownstone seventeen years ago.
    Until his body had turned on him, he had enjoyed starting his days there. The purchase had proved an exceptionally wise investment, as the area was now quite the equal of the Back Bay or South End—his meticulous research having, once again, paid off. As per his rigid habit, he showered, dressed, scraped a dusting of snow and a thin layer of ice from his windshield, then drove to the Starbucks at the corner of Beacon and Charles. Regardless of what he was going through, regardless of the aches and weaknesses, he would stick to his routine as long as he could. It would be his small revenge over what fate had decreed for him.
    He walked under the string of Christmas lights hanging inside the faux-classical entrance and joined the short line. Beyond the Ionic columns that met the plaster-molded ceiling, there was a seasonal warmth, though Padley was entirely oblivious to the imminent holidays. More than ever, he vehemently believed that any feelings of joy generated inside retail outlets was nothing more than a cynical exercise in marketing.
    Despite it all, Padley felt good today. Apprehensive, certainly. Fearful, even. But deep down, he felt hopeful. Today, he would trigger a sequence of events that, while highly dangerous, would—if successful—lay the foundation of his quest for