Jack asked if I wanted to have a good-bye session with him. Silly question really. I resisted the temptation to call Toni. I wanted to talk face-to-fa...ce. The same on Sunday at the gym. I wanted to have all my ducks in a row before telling her my plans. I had a quick lunch, a snack really, and headed for Jack’s house to say my good-bye to Randy.I found Jack very excited about his move. I wondered whether he had shared Rose with his wife and with the several Randy’s over the years. None of my. I love you and Betty; can I help it if the family tree has so many knots I want to drill out.”“Interesting visual, Priest. She’s got nice big boobies, doesn’t she?”“You could join us and find out for yourself, Jennifer?” I offered.“Between you and your father, I’m OK,” she said.“How about both of us ... at the same time?”She looked at me and just laughed, then said, “Robert, come to dinner.”I helped the young ladies by pulling their chairs out for them. Mom looked over at Dad who had simply sat. They needed to be part of a pack and as I recognized before, the idea of a larger community had a strong appeal to me now that it was here, and now that I had some experience with it.I doubted myself as the beta in the pack and that had projected onto my thoughts of the others, particularly the mother wolf. She was the former beta of the pack; I was sure of it. My doubts were never reflected from her, however. She was the first to accept me and trust in me. She trusted me with her pup while. That lasted until the elevator door opened again.God damn it! Sitting there in the small foyer in front of our suite door were the same two DHS jerk-offs we'd seen twice before. And they weren't, it seemed, in a good mood—not surprising, given that it was about 1:00 a.m. and they'd probably been waiting quite a while for us."Where the hell have you been?" snarled Smith as we emerged.Well, fuck that. I wasn't Scarpia any more, I'd left him back at the opera house, but even Nick Volker didn't.