Find A Way Or Make One

Find a Way
or
Make One

By

E. C. Kelley

© 2014 E. Christanna Kelley

All Rights Reserved.

This book may not be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of E. Christanna Kelley, except for the use of brief quotations in articles and or reviews.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, events, locations, businesses and plot are all products of the author’s imagination and meant to be used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead or actual events throughout the story are purely coincidental. The author acknowledges trademark owners and trademarked status of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication and use of these trademarks is not authorized, sponsored, or associated by or with the trademark owners.

The following story contains violence, sexual situations, and strong language. It is intended for a mature audience.

Cover Photo by Shutterstock

Dedication

There have been countless people in my life who have helped me become who I am
today. I want to mention four
of them.

First, my seventh grade English teacher, Pam Honeycutt. Thank you for everything you taught me. Misanthropic is still one of my favorite words.

My godmother, Sharon Holbrook. I will never be able to stand in a crowd without thinking
of you and smiling. I will always love and miss you.

My god-sister, Shonna Kiser. You were who I wanted to be as a little girl, and you will always be the best big sister a girl could ask for.

Finally, my husband, Jonah. I know how lucky I am; many people search their whole life and never find either their Wyatt or their Toby. I found them both in the same man.
Thank you so very much for being in my life.

Table of Contents

4 Years Ago

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

One Year Later

Playlist

4 years ago

“Either find a way or make one”

~Hannibal~

Kye

As the sun set and its warm rays were replaced by the chilly mist of twilight, I brushed the tears off my cheeks and pushed myself up off the cold
hard ground. Toby was my
best friend and had helped me through the darkness…twice. He gave me a chance to have the life, and more importantly the family, that I thought I would never have. Well, except for those six months in Quantico. During those brief six months a couple of years ago when I had thought…
NO!
I will not go there, I
made my peace with the past and I knew that it had all just been a lie. At least for him it had been a lie. I stared blindly at the mound of dirt covering Toby’s coffin. I closed my eyes, listening to the wind rustle the leaves, wishing I could wake up to find this had all been a sick, twisted dream. As the air whipping around me suddenly changed
and the birds became instantly quiet. I ten
sed and became instantly alert.

“I hate to bother you, but I was told
to bring you this. TB told me that you would…”

I spun around with my arms braced for a fight
. Toby’s friends and squad members
always called Toby TB, but that voice didn’t belong to one of them. As my heart rate returned to normal, I quickly assessed the tall young man, no boy really, that stood in front of me.

At just three and a half inches above five feet, I am b
y no means tall.
But even with my lack of stature, I could tell that the boy’s perceived height was not a trick of comparing his height to mine. I would guess that
he was five or six inches above six feet.
While the boy was not overly muscular in that “I spend all my time in the gym” kind of way
, his strength was readily apparent.
His ink black hair and olive skin tone verified my instant belief that his accent was Hispanic.

Based on his height and build alone, it would be easy to mistake the boy as a young man of nineteen o
r twenty. When I looked closer at the boy I soon saw the truth. He had smooth
yet unshaven face and lingering boyish roundness of his cheeks, making the fact that he had not completely passed through puberty undeniable. I guessed he was close to fifteen, sixteen tops.

The frustrated grunt that passed through the boy’s lips startled me out of the mental evaluation of the boy and caused me to look into the boy’s ebony eyes. The tension in his stance was almost completely replicated in the eyes that narrowed as they took me in. His lips flattened into a thin line and I could tell that he was beyond frustrated.
“Look lady, TB told me you would take care of the
kid. He even gave me this letter.”

At the mention of a child,
my gaze instantly roamed over the boy and our surroundings.
When I saw the object sitting at the boy’s feet, my eyes flew back up to the boy’s face in surprise. Beside his feet, was a baby carrier that had most certainly seen better days, maybe even better decades?
Whatever or whoever was in the carrier was covered by an old ratty blue towel.
I lowered my arms and tried to find that oh so peaceful, serene, and fake smile that I would have to use from now on with the guys. The
y would be worried about me and Seamus.
I would have to find some way for them to believe that I was ok.

Taking a deep breath
I relaxed my stance and lowered my arms. As he took in my smile, I cocked my eyebrow and simply said, “
Yes?”

“Here, read the letter and decide if you can take care of the kid,” he said as he jerked the rumpled letter out of his back pocket and thrust it in my face, barely missing my nose.

I looked down at the envelope. The heavy, dark slashes once again brought a tear to my
eye.
My name was on the envelope in Toby’s handwriting.
Taking a deep breath, I
slowly opened the envelope and pulled out the letter to begin reading.

Kye,

Hey babe, if you are reading this, I guess the mission didn’t end well. There are so many things that I am sorry for, I don’t know where to start. I am sorry I won’t get to watch my boy grow up, and be the man that I know you will help him become
. I am sorry that we never really got the chance
to see where this, whatever it is between us,
would go. I know you were leery of us stepping out of the friend
zone, but I got to say, I really think we could have made it. Not only are you my best friend, but you are what I measure all women by, and all that I have seen so far are sadly lacking.
Even Seamus’ mother
fell short. I liked her and tried to love her, but she just never seemed to light any spark in my soul. I am sorry that she died, but I know that we wouldn’t have been together now if she had survived Seamus’ birth.

Even though the circumstances we were under were completely shitty, it seems that from the first day I met you I knew how important you were going to be to me.
Why else would I have chucked the mission like I did to get you out of there? I know you,
and I know that you are thinking to yourself that I did it just because I am a
good guy. W
ell baby, I hate to tell you this, but I ain’t that good. From that first moment that I saw you I knew that you were going to be something special in my life and I
just knew I couldn’t let anything else happen to you.

We may have always danced around what was between us up until a few months ago, but I always knew deep down that if I ever got lucky enough to have you give me a chance, I would never take it or you for granted.
I would never a
nd could never hurt you like you have been hurt in the past. If I had made it back, we would have been for keeps.

But while I do have my regrets, there are plenty of things that I am not and cannot be
sorry for. Even if we never got to see what could be between us, I have always felt honored to have you as a friend. You have always been there for me, and you have and always will be there for
OUR son. I know that you will continue to be the best mother for Seamus,
and I thank God every day that he has you in his life.

I know that you have always wanted a big family, and I had hoped and planned on being the
one to give you one. Well
, this may not be the way I had planned to do it, but never let it be said that Tobias O’Quinn Murphy leaves any project
unfinished.
The baby needs a strong, loving mother and the boy needs
the same, even if he doesn’t know it yet.
I want you to always remember
:
Either find a way or make one
. Well, I FOUND a way to help you MAKE a family, even if I am not there to share it with you.

Damn that sucks. You know, me, not being there to be part of it, now THAT is my biggest regret.

Remember me and raise our boys to be strong!

All my love,

Toby

The tears streamed down my face as a sad smile touched my
lips.
Taking a deep breath, I looked up to the sky. “Thank you Toby,” I
said as slowly folded the letter. As the
sun finished sinking below the horizon, I turned to go to the family that Toby had given me.

1

Kye’s Rules to Live By

1. When you love, love with all your heart.
   
2. When it’s over it’s over. No
   take backs and
   NO SECOND CHANCES
   !!!
   

Kye

“Alright boys, same stakes as always
?”
I asked the four men standing around the boxing/MMA ring in the back of the warehouse turned gym
. They were each
like brothers to me.
As I approached the ring, I
hastily pulled the dark brown hair that just reached my shoulders into a
sloppy ponytail. As I
stretched, my shiny black boxing shorts glistened in the glaring florescent light, and my white tank/sports bra seemed to glow.

Groaning, Cale a 31 year old man of Scotch-Irish and Cherokee descent, pushed off the wall he had been leaning on to say, “Why should we even step in the ring with you when all it is going to mean is that one of us goes to the club tonight dressed like some trainee hooker?”

Ken looked at me a moment and shook his head while he laughed at me. “Kye, just because
they asked you to come out of retirement to help us on this assignment because you are the goddess of foreign languages, and can kick most men’s asses within ten seconds, doesn’t mean we are going to go back to letting you kick our asses and making us look like complete tools.”

There might be a little more to it; like I was one of the few people who could identify Zandoville’s, a Peruvian drug lord, with plans to control the cocaine market in Europe, operational maneuvers.
Zandoville’s cartel always finds someone, either in business or in politics, that they can use to make the shipping of
their product smooth and easy. Typically it is a man, but on a few occasions it has been a woman, that can be easily swayed. These individuals are always killed before we can talk to them, but there are certain characteristics that they all have that are easily recognizable, and this time both the U.S. and the E.U. want to find out who the target before he or she is turned and ultimately killed.

My friends knew I had a history with Zandoville, and I know they wouldn’t like me taking on an assignment dealing with him, even if it is only gathering operational recon.
That is why they don’t know
about the gathering recon part of this assignment; only the training.

I am a little apprehensive myself. However, knowing Zandoville and how he operates like I do, I know that he won’t be in Europe to lay the initial ground work; he has his minions do that. He doesn’t show until his operation has control over the business or government
that they are trying to use. In fact, I am so sure that he is not here right now that I have brought my
sons with me on this trip, and using this “vacation” as a chance for them to become closer to my mother, stepfather, and brothers.

I let out a short laugh. I had missed working with these guys since I had retired from the DEA four years ago, a few months before I turned twenty-four.
After shak
ing my head, I put on my most pitiful, pouty face and whined, “Come on, today could always be somebody’s lucky day!
And you guys know that Rashid
is bringing Seamus and Cian back Sunday. This will be the last time I get to go out.
Please, please, PLEASE?”