Exchange

by Katherine Rhodes

  I’d always had a sixth sense about things, but the images that the mere touch of Wren had brought forward were breathtaking in their clarity. They shook me to my core, and I was never, ever someone who was shaken about anything.

  Swords? Flames? Threats? That was something I wasn’t used to, or expecting.

  But this…this quest they were sending me on? That was my thing. I could handle those people, their arrogance, their ridiculousness, their stupidity. My desire to legally grow my fortune was my weapon. I didn’t abide lawlessness, or dodging taxes. They existed for a reason, and I was okay with that.

  Because really, what was so bad about paying one million in taxes when you had over four hundred million more in the bank? Hell, even paying ten million didn’t put a dent in my lifestyle.

  And I liked that.

  Fischer

  I hated the fucker.

  There was no other way to put it. Lincoln Foster was a sleezy, slimy, greedy asshole.

  Sweetling? Really? That was my woman and he knew it and he dared to call her an endearment right there in front of my face? I was going to have to up my gym time to make sure that my gullet punch was dead on when I finally got to take one out on him.

  If we hadn’t needed him to help bust the Pipeline, I would have picked him up by the back of his pants and heaved his ass out into the street.

  But.

  We needed him. He could play the part we couldn’t. The people running the damn thing knew us, knew our faces. They knew we had Elutheria, and they knew we would destroy them given the opportunity.

  I tried not to grind my teeth around this jackass, but God, he was so fucking smug.

  Eventually we were able to get out of his orbit when Haden said she would talk to him alone about what he needed to do at the auction. I nearly yanked Ellie and Wren out the front door and down to the car. The two of them were chuckling as we went.

  “What?” I snapped as I clicked the seat belt into place.

  “You’re funny when you’re jealous,” Ellie said.

  “What?”

  Wren laughed. “You are so jealous of Lincoln. It’s absolutely the funniest thing I’ve seen you do. You’re seething that he had a pet name for me, and you’re ready to neuter him for even speaking to me.” She put her hand on my arm. “Fischer, it’s okay. He thinks I’m good looking and he thinks he can win me over to him.”

  “Fisch, she’s not stupid,” Ellie said, leaning forward. “Lincoln is a player. We all know that. Hell, I’m sixteen and I know the man is a player. Most of his associates and friends know that too. Wren is not going to get sucked in by a sweetling or two. Believe me.” She leaned back in the seat. “I can hear you guys at night, and I know she’s not giving that up.”

  “Ellie…” Wren groaned.

  “Oh, come on. You guys are frickin’ loud. I mean, I don’t really care, but Jesus. If I were a normal teenager, I’d be downright mortified that you two fuck the paint off the walls.”

  “Jesus…” I mumbled. “I hope you don’t talk like that around your friends.”

  “Worse.” She grinned.

  “Brat,” Wren said. She tossed a look over to me, and squeezed my hand. “Look, Ellie…Fischer and I have been talking, and we want to change somethings around here.”

  She turned and looked out the window. “Boarding school. Vermont or Switzerland?”

  “No!” Wren turned in her seat. “Who the hell put that idea in your head?”

  Ellie shrugged.

  “Fucking assholes at school again? I’m going to move you to a different damn school,” I grumbled.

  “Fischer…” she whispered. “The kids at school are assholes. But Emma makes them back off. If you want to send me to a boarding school, fine. But don’t—”

  “We are not sending you away, Elutheria,” Wren cut into her words neatly. “We’re not changing your school at all. If you have problems with the kids there, please come tell us. No, we didn’t want to send you away. We…well. We wanted to adopt you.”

  She blinked a few times, then turned her head to look at us in the front seat. “You…what?”

  “We want to adopt you,” I repeated. “After the incident in the Hamptons, we realized we want to be able to call you our daughter. Because that’s what we’ve come to think of you as.”

  “You…” She looked between us, and just started sobbing. “You really want to adopt me?”

  I pulled the car to the side of the road, and both Wren and I jumped out and piled into the back with her. Wren pulled Ellie into her arms and I soothed her back.

  “Why wouldn’t we, baby doll? You’ve become such an important part of our lives.” I turned my head so I could see her expression.

  “Because I’m broken. I’m not a good girl. I’m not right or clean or healthy,” she managed to gasp out between sobs.

  “Broken things aren’t always meant to be thrown away, Ellie,” Wren said. She pulled the young woman from her shoulder. “Have you ever heard of something called kintsugi?”

  Ellie shook her head. “No.”

  “Well, it’s a Japanese art. They never threw out the broken pottery, but instead pieced it back together with gold. The gold gave the pottery a unique and wonderful look, helping to show off the uniqueness of each broken piece. It helped the bowls and plates and cups take on a new look. These objects were prized for their cracks and repairs.” Wren lifted her chin to look into her eyes. “Ellie, we know you’re broken, but you’re repairing your cracks with gold and neither of us can wait to see what you’re going to be when you’re all back together. Those cracks will be filled and will gleam. You’ll be you, but an amazing new version of you.”

  Ellie narrowed her eyes. “You always know exactly the right thing to say.”

  “I hope so.” Wren laughed. “I spent nearly two hundred thousand dollars learning how to do that.”

  I chuckled and Ellie started laughing, hard. She leaned back and gave me a kiss on the cheek, and then hugged Wren again. “Yes, please. I would love it if you adopted me. I love you guys, and you’ve been the best thing that could have ever happened to me.”

  She pulled back a bit. “What about Ben?”

  “We’re still working with Paige on that,” I answered. “His foster parents are a bit high strung and don’t even really want to talk to her.”

  “I don’t like them,” Wren said. “If we adopt you, we have a very strong case for them to surrender him to us. The system works on family first goals. If we’re willing to take both of you, that’s better for him.” She was quiet a moment, then added, “Sometimes, family first isn’t always a good idea. But in this case, we can use it to get your brother back with you.”

  “You’d…” Ellie choked on her words.

  “We’d adopt him too,” I answered. “Of course. This isn’t a pick and choose situation. We’d take you both.”

  Her lower lip trembled and she smiled softly. “Thank you. I don’t know what I did to deserve you guys.”

  Wren smiled. “You were you, Elutheria. That’s all we needed.”

  Paige sauntered into the office. It took all I had not to groan as the woman walked in. I didn’t want to put her off from us, since she had the power to push Ben’s foster parents to release him to us.

  “Good morning, Doctor Skillman. I have some paperwork for you to sign and check over for the formal proceedings on the adoption.”

  She was as nervous as a hen at the end of a pecking order. What the hell was that? Paige Domingues was not that kind of woman—

  “What happened?” I gasped, jumping out of the chair and racing around to her. “What the hell is that?”

  “It’s nothing,” she managed.

  She put her hand up to block my view, but it was too late. I’d seen what was on the skin of her neck. I pulled her hand away and found exactly what I thought it was. “Those are finger bruises, Paige! Did you get these looked at? Where the hell did they come from?”

  Pushing my hand away, she shook her
head. “I had a bad removal the other night, and they tried to choke me. It’s fine…”

  I took her chin in my hand and tipped her head to the side, looking at the bruises. “Those are horrible, Paige. Did you file a complaint?”

  “No, no, there was no need. It was all in the report the officers took. I didn’t need a separate one.”

  Her words were on top of each other and I didn’t like that. She wasn’t telling me something. I took a few more seconds to actually examine the bruises to keep myself happy she wasn’t hurting more than she was letting on. They were definitely choke marks, but didn’t seem to do any serious damage. I finally released her, satisfied with my exam.

  “Ice them. It will help them heal faster. It’s always better to ice it right after, but it’ll still work as the bruise blooms. And you’re going to have some real lookers there, Paige.”

  She stared down at my desk as I sat again. “Thank you, Fischer. Honestly and for real. Thank you.”

  I nodded—but I knew immediately she hadn’t had them looked at the night before. There was a good chance she was lying about where she got them, but since her story was plausible, I had to let it go.

  I pulled the file over to me from where Paige had put it down. “Paperwork for the adoption, eh? That’s efficient.”

  She smiled. “Truth? I had the feeling you two were going to do this, and I just basically drew it all up about a month ago. Does this mean you two are getting married?”

  I choked on the sip of water I had taken. “Jesus, Paige!” Taking a moment to get myself under control, I shook my head. “My parents haven’t even asked me that. You know damn well that we don’t have to be to adopt her.”

  “That wasn’t meant to offend,” she said. “I was curious. Most people are married when they adopt.”

  “They aren’t, and you need to stop being nosey,” I snapped.

  “It was meant to be a compliment, Doctor Skillman. You two seem to be fated for each other and I’m a little jealous. Which is insane for a happily married woman to feel. But you two are so good together. Is there anything you won’t do for each other?”

  I nearly choked again. There was literally nothing I wouldn’t do for our little budding family if it was in my ability to do so. How was it people kept poking that secret? “Nope,” I answered, coughing over it.

  I didn’t even have the small inkling of guilt for having murdered the man. Not one drop. He dealt in children and that was abhorrent. Watching him die had been cathartic in a way. But I doubted the law would see the murder of one of the wealthiest real estate moguls on the east coast as cathartic.

  “I love my husband, but there are limits on what we’ll do, and I just wonder…” Paige said.

  “Wonder what?”

  “Wonder what it would be like to have love without limits like you two clearly have. I’m sorry if I butted in, Fischer. What you and Wren do and don’t do is none of my business.”

  I took a deep breath. “I wasn’t offended, Paige. I just wasn’t expecting you to ask. Of all people.”

  “I know a good thing when I see it, and I just don’t want you to lose her.”

  Well. Paige had a sweet side. Who knew? “I’m not going to lose her, Paige. We just need a little longer to get to know each other.”

  She smiled at me, but the smile never reached her eyes. “Well, good. And Ellie is in excellent hands at your house, so I have no doubt this can be done in just a few weeks. She’s free for adoption.”

  I laughed. “Is it like pet adoption? Do we get her shots with that?”

  Paige chuckled. “Actually, because she’s considered special needs, she’s covered by CHIP through twenty-two.”

  “Oh, assign that to someone else, please, we don’t need it at all. Special needs?”

  “Anyone who is adopted over the age of two is considered special needs. That’s all. There’s nothing wrong with her. Well, nothing that you two can’t handle.”

  Leaning back in the chair, I thought a moment. “Any word on her brother?”

  The light look of happiness died on her face. “No. The family fostering him has been avoiding me. I don’t like it. I’m going to call in some favors I think and have him removed. I know that’s going to take me two weeks to get together because of the way the system runs. I’m going to get the paperwork in for that tomorrow.”

  “They’re ignoring you?”

  “Dodging me,” she replied. “I just…well, I just don’t like that they won’t talk to me. I have to get the cops involved and because the DHS is so overloaded all the time, I have to get someone to take a half a day out of their schedule to go with me.” She picked at a paper on the desk, toying with it. “They know that the goal is reunification, and they aren’t willing take on Ellie. So that means if you’re willing to take on Ben, you win.”

  “It’s not a contest,” I said.

  “I know that, you know that. But they don’t. God damn it, I wish I’d picked a different family for him.”

  I pointed her to a chair. “Sit.” She wanted to object, but I stood and walked around the desk and leaned there. “Sit.”

  She sat.

  “What is going on?”

  “The instant the Danvers found out that Benjamin had a sister who had whored herself out, they started to pare down my ability to check on him,” she said. “They didn’t want Ellie there, but they also didn’t want me there, or DHS. And I haven’t been able to get someone at DHS to help me contact them. I’m afraid for that little boy because…”

  She swiped at her eyes, and took a deep breath. I didn’t like this at all.

  “Because of what?”

  “Because they are Christian Fundamentalists. The sins of the father are visited upon the son. They will absolutely hold it against Ben that his sister had to prostitute herself for food and shelter. I didn’t know. I didn’t know their beliefs. I would never have placed Ben there.”

  “You didn’t know Ben’s sister was a prostitute when you placed him.”

  “They shouldn’t be an option.”

  I snorted. “You just said it yourself. Everything is a mess at DHS. They give people who have long, long terrible records children to foster. It’s insane.”

  “That I’ll be able to get someone out there to take Ben in the next two weeks will be a miracle.”

  “Call Haden.”

  “She doesn’t like me,” Paige said, her words clipped and neat.

  “It doesn’t matter if she likes you, it matters if she can help you get the job done. If you’re afraid a minor’s life is in danger, she is an officer of the law and required to assist you. Plus. It’s Haden and I promise she doesn’t hate you.”

  “He won’t be able to go straight to your place,” she said. “He has to be taken in and reevaluated and he’ll be held in a temporary home for a few days.”

  I pointed to my face. “I am unbothered.”

  “And you’re sure she doesn’t hate me.”

  “It doesn’t matter if she does, Paige. Ben is a minor and a ward of the state. She’ll help you.” I grabbed a pen and paper and scribbled down her number. “Call her. Get all the paperwork lined up and call her. Trust me.”

  She took the piece of paper and nodded. “Thank you. Get those papers back to me, Fischer. As fast as you can. We will be able to get Ben to you as fast as possible if you’re already in the adoption process of his sister.” Paige smiled. “I think your daughter would like her brother there with her.”

  “I think she would.” I nodded. “More, I think she would like to not have to worry about him and get on with being a teenager.”

  “Very true.” Paige nodded. “Thank you, Fischer. I know you all don’t think highly of me, but, I’m really not a terrible person.”

  “We all know that, Paige.”

  She smiled at me, and there was an openness I hadn’t seen before this. I really had to learn to relax with my judgments about people.

  After all, I was a murderer, and a lifesaving surgeon.


  Lincoln

  “You’re not ready for this,” Wren stated.

  “Yes, sweetling, I am. Trust me. I’ve spent the last week ingratiating myself to that miserable bastard and I’m ready to go in and get this over with.”

  She nodded.

  Fischer was standing there holding my coat. He was so ready to be rid of me at this point. It was just so much fun to poke the bear, and he made it so easy.

  “Fischer, give us a second, please,” Wren said. He was going to argue with her, but she gave him a look, and he nodded. He took the jacket with him, and closed the door.

  “Just wanted a moment alone with the hot competition?” I teased her.

  “Look, Lincoln, yes, you’re incredibly hot and if I didn’t have Fischer it could be really fun to check out what might be between us. But he and I…we have something that goes a lot deeper than you can understand. I know you enjoy ribbing him, but… I’m going to warn you off. He won’t put up with it much longer.”

  “Is this his girlfriend telling me, or my boss?”

  “It’s Doctor Warner,” she answered.

  I stepped into her. “Do I have a chance to convince you otherwise, Doctor?”

  She looked me up and down and shook her head, but it wasn’t a true no—it was an exasperated shake of the head. “Linc, I’m going to say it this way. Back off or he’ll kill you.”

  “Kill me? For making a pass at his girl?”

  She didn’t answer. She just stared at me, and didn’t move at all.

  He would. Fischer Skillman would kill me for trying to touch his woman. What the hell had he done to make her so sure he would kill me?

  “If you didn’t have him…”

  “But I do.”

  “And that’s the last word?”

  She blinked a few times, and smirked. “Convince him you’re worth my time, and we can talk then.”

  She turned and stepped away from me, but I grabbed her arm. “What? What does that mean?”

  Her eyes raked over me. “Figure it out, Mister Foster. I’m not repeating it.” She removed her arm from my grip. “What I am going to tell you is you’re not ready for this, you’re not ready for what goes on in this auction. You think you are, but I can put money on you having no idea what you’re going into. And when you come out, we’ll debrief you and we’ll set up a therapy session or two to help you process it.”