by Nicole Helm
“So, you let him believe you’re hurt, weak and rattled?” Brady replied. “I hate to break it to you, brother...”
“I know. We are those things, but we’d usually try to hide it. What if we didn’t. What if, instead of hiding everything beneath pride and some desperate need to show him up, we let him believe he’s getting what he wants?”
“He is,” Nina replied, but her voice didn’t break. She sounded more contemplative than angry or terrified.
“It doesn’t matter. Not in the long run. The mistake I made in that jail? It was getting mad. It was reacting. It was trying to show him up. He made that comment about Brianna to trick me into admitting I knew about her, and he won because I wanted to prove to him he would never touch her.”
“Okay,” Brady said, and Cody knew he was trying to sound thoughtful instead of dismissive.
“Let’s go with this thread. How do we use Ace knowing you’re hurt to our advantage?”
“We need to catch him in the act. Which means, we need to have him thinking it’s the time to strike, and we see how he’s getting messages out of the jail.”
“This second lawyer.”
“Exactly. I’ll want Jamison, Dev and Gage at the ranch with Brianna and the girls. We want the most presence there. But Tucker can look into this lawyer, while you find a way to get someone from the Sons to suspect you’re helping patch me up.”
Cody wished he could see his brother’s face. Brady was good at keeping his feelings close to the vest, but Cody would know his response to the plan.
“It won’t work.”
Cody frowned in Nina’s direction. “It could.”
“Not if you have three of your brothers stationed at the ranch. Ace won’t make a move for Brianna when she’s that protected. He’ll wait. He’ll wait it out.”
“She has a point,” Brady offered. “He doesn’t want you dead. He wants you hurt. He wants to punish you. Dev’s still alive for a reason. He’d leave you alive for the same.”
Cody wanted to shove away from the table. He wanted to pace. He wanted to act. But he couldn’t in his condition.
He could just hear the words his brother wasn’t saying rattle around in his head.
He’d leave you alive for the same...but he’d kill Brianna and Nina to hurt you.
No. He wouldn’t allow it. “If he thinks we’re weak, he’ll make a mistake.” Cody believed that wholeheartedly. Ace had made a mistake yesterday, or at least a slipup. He’d admitted the first man Nina had killed had blundered the kidnapping. Ace would have never wanted them to know he failed—even if he did blame it on an underling.
But how long could they wait around for Ace to make a move? Ace had the gift of time. Cody didn’t—because he had a little girl who deserved a real life.
He heard Nina take a sharp inhale, then slowly let it out. He wanted to place his hand over hers. Offer some kind of comfort, but he didn’t know where to reach and he couldn’t bring himself to fumble.
“He’s not going to act just because we’re weak,” Nina said quietly. “Surely we’ve been weak before. He wants a specific thing. He wants to use Brianna to hurt you.”
He’d worked very hard not to blame himself for his father’s vices, for his father’s evil. Sometimes he was so afraid he had that evil in him, but he chose to turn away from it. Which meant he wouldn’t lay blame on himself for Ace’s choices.
But Brianna being in the crosshairs of this hell was his fault. There was no getting around that. Being his daughter meant she’d always be Ace’s target.
“I don’t say that to hurt you,” Nina said quietly.
“It’s the truth. Regardless of hurt,” he replied, trying to keep his emotions out of it. Harder when he had nothing to look at but gray, when he remembered what it had felt like to read Brianna a story while she curled up next to him.
He heard Nina sigh, and could almost feel her wanting to argue with him. But maybe that was all wishful thinking. It wasn’t as if he could examine her expression and see what was going on there.
“Fine. Regardless of hurt. We let Ace know we’re weak. We give him the leeway to make a mistake, but he has to be motivated to use that leeway now. Which means he has to think Brianna is weak too. Obviously, we can’t ever let her be, but maybe we can make him think she is. What if he thinks we have Brianna? Here. Unguarded. Just the two of us, hurt and on the run. What would he do if he thought we were trying to run with her?”
Chapter Fourteen
Just the idea made Nina sick to her stomach, but if yesterday had taught her anything, it was that this had to end.
End.
“He’d send someone after you,” Brady said. “But... It’d require a lot of subterfuge to make it actually look like you guys had Brianna. It would take... I’m not sure it’s possible.”
“It doesn’t have to be possible,” Cody replied, nodding along with what Nina had said. “What does trying lose us?”
“I want to point out you’re both hurt. Severely. Nina’s gunshot wound might be last week’s news, but that’s still a serious injury. There’s a lot to lose.”
“As long as Brianna is safe, we haven’t lost anything,” Nina replied.
“But what will she lose?”
What would Brianna lose? Nina tried not to think that far. If she started counting all the things Brianna had already lost, she’d be crushed under the weight of it.
“Nothing,” Cody said, his voice harsh even as his unseeing eyes stared straight ahead. “I won’t allow Brianna to lose a damn thing.”
It wasn’t that the violence in his tone surprised her. She knew Cody had all sorts of violence in him. She knew, simply from watching them together, that he loved Brianna with no reservations. She knew he would protect her, because his own honor demanded it. But she was starting to realize that no matter the years she’d kept Brianna’s existence from him, he would protect her not just because he had to, but because he loved his daughter unreservedly.
If she let herself linger in that wonder, she’d have to look too hard at her own parents’ failures and be buried under the weight of that. So she studied his face—bruised and bandaged.
That bandage needed to be changed. He needed a real doctor and probably some kind of scan to look at the damage to his brain likely causing the loss of sight. He needed this to be over.
They all did.
“So, how can we make that happen? How can we make Ace think we have her, and that we’re running away?” Nina asked, turning her gaze to Brady.
They spent the next hour or so coming up with ideas, rejecting most of them. Brady went about changing Cody’s bandages and examining his eyes as they plotted.
But no matter how many plans they came up with, they kept running into the same problem.
“How is Ace going to know we’re doing this? We keep working under the assumption he’s watching our every move. I don’t think that’s true. Clearly there are limits to what he can accomplish—at least with time constraints,” Brady said.
“We have to find out more about this attorney,” Cody replied to his brother. “Use that angle. We need to go at this from multiple fronts.”
Nina watched them. Both men seemed to pulse with excess energy—Cody unable to pace like she was almost sure he would be doing if he could see. Brady keeping still whether out of deference to Cody or because it was simply his personality.
“The more fronts we go after, the more we leave Brianna unprotected. We can’t all be on the ranch if we’re pulling on these threads.”
Cody rubbed a hand over the side of his face that wasn’t bandaged.
“So, we have the attorney thread,” Nina said, holding up one finger. “Jamison is the one most likely to tackle that.”
“Making it look like someone got Brianna to you guys, or you got Brianna from the ranch—all while making it look like we
’re trying to be sneaky,” Brady said, adding another finger to the list. “You’d need more than one of us. Likely me and Gage.”
“Tuck should also look into these men who’ve come after us. Maybe he can get someone to talk. Bodies are piling up. You really want to be next while Ace cools his heels in a cell?”
Nina held up a finger for him since he didn’t know they were silently counting.
“That only leaves Dev at the ranch to protect Brianna.” Brady shook his head. “We can’t go after all those threads at once and leave her that open.”
“That’s insulting.”
Brady raised his eyebrows at her. “How so?”
“You’re underestimating everyone who doesn’t have a magical genital gift between their legs.”
Brady tilted his head toward Cody even though Cody couldn’t see. “Did she really just say magical genital gift?” Brady asked, his voice tinged with both horror and amusement.
Nina didn’t have time for either. “Grandma Pauline is probably just as good a shot as any of you boys, if not better. Liza held her own in the Sons for years. Cecilia is a police officer, for God’s sake. You’re ignoring the fact we have very capable women able and willing to keep my daughter safe.”
“Our daughter. Our daughter safe,” Cody returned, his voice so cold she almost shivered. “Excuse me if I trust my brothers first and foremost.”
Though she felt the sting of that rebuff, and guilt that she had used my instead of our, she kept her response to the point. “Excuse me if I trust my sisters just as much.”
“She’s right,” Brady said, though his voice was quiet, almost as if he was trying to talk to Cody without her hearing. “Liza and Cec and Dev, plus Grandma and Duke? She’ll be protected.”
Cody was quiet, and whatever he was thinking or feeling, Nina couldn’t read. So she didn’t try. She let silence settle around them, everyone waiting for Cody to talk.
“You’ll have to go,” he finally offered in Brady’s direction.
“Excuse me? I’m not leaving you guys.”
“Gage can’t cause a diversion and make it look like he got Brianna out all on his own. He needs help,” Cody returned.
“Rachel, Sarah and Felicity.”
“A half-blind woman, a timid park ranger and Sarah—who’d chop off Ace’s nose to spite all our faces?”
Cody’s mouth curved. “Say that to their face?”
“Not a chance in hell,” Brady muttered, shoving away from the table. Irritation simmered off him in waves, and Nina had to resist the urge to return with exasperation in kind.
Rachel, Sarah and Felicity could take anyone Brady threw at them. Unfortunately, they weren’t the answer here.
“Let’s think like Ace for a second,” Nina replied, ignoring the disgusted snorts from both men she was stuck in this little cabin with. “We know he doesn’t think much of women. I think he might be afraid of Grandma Pauline, but mostly he sees the rest of us as pawns. Pawns to get to you boys. It’ll be you boys he’s watching, and it’ll be you boys he expects to do the work. If we really wanted to get Brianna out of there, we’d go with people he wouldn’t expect. But we’re trying to play into his hands.”
Brady heaved out a sigh. “Play into his hands without him seeing through it.”
“Yes,” Nina agreed. “But we’ve talked about Ace’s weakness being his pride. His focus, his obsession, is his children. He wanted me dead.” This time, she couldn’t quite suppress a shudder. “He made that clear back there in that prison. I should be dead. Because I don’t matter to him.” She forced herself to say the next part. “But Brianna does.”
“Matter isn’t the word I’d use, Nina.”
“Well, I don’t want to argue semantics, Cody. I want this over. We all do. So, Brady. You’ll go. You’ll lay out the plan for everyone. Once Jamison has a few leads on the lawyer, and can be sure he’ll be watching or having someone watch so he can feed messages to Ace, you and Gage enact a plan to make it look like you’re bringing Brianna here.”
“And if some of his goons find you first?” Brady returned.
“We can protect ourselves, injuries or not,” Cody replied. “We’ve gotten this far. Besides, this is a North Star property. There are weapons and security measures here.”
Nina frowned. “Shay made it sound like she might get kicked out for helping. But they’ll let you stay here?”
Cody shrugged negligently.
“That is not an answer, Cody Wyatt.”
Brady snorted. “That is some mom voice.”
Nina glared at him and he held up his hands in surrender.
“I can’t get into it. It’s North Star business, but we’ve got this place for a few days. While we’re here, we can use their security systems and their weapons.”
“You’ll want it to look like you’re getting ready to move. To run. You’ll need a vehicle,” Brady mused.
“I’m guessing it won’t be my truck.”
“Make it part of the fake getting Brianna to us,” Nina suggested. “Come in two cars. Leave one.”
Brady nodded. “What about communication?”
“We’ve got to be careful. No texts. Phone calls should be all right, as long as they’re in safe locations. I don’t think Ace has the power right now to do much more than follow and threaten. Tech’s going to be beyond his reach, but we should still be careful.”
“I think you’re right, and we’ll all be careful. I guess we should start.”
Cody nodded. “Thanks for the patch up.”
Brady scowled, studying Cody’s damaged face. “You need a real doctor.”
“You do in a pinch.”
Brady shook his head in disgust. “Let’s end this quick so someone can check out that head wound, huh?”
“I’m all for quick as long as Brianna’s safe.”
Brady grunted, nodded toward Nina. “I’ll get my stuff together and head out.” He walked back into the hallway and to the room he must have stayed in.
Nina knew Cody couldn’t see, but his gaze was on his clasped hands in front of him. Some of his stoic surety had faded—likely in knowing Brady would be gone and she’d be his best hope for survival. Probably not a pleasant thought.
But she’d protect him, just as she’d protected Brianna.
Love swept through her, a painful reminder that for these past seven years she had existed in a kind of cage. She’d kept moving forward, kept protecting her daughter, but on the inside she was the same woman who’d loved this man.
She opened her mouth to tell him she’d keep him safe, but then thought better of it. That would be no comfort to him. She didn’t know what would be—so she did the only thing she could think of.
She got out of her chair and leaned close to his face. She’d only meant to kiss his cheek. A kind of reassurance, a sign this was as okay as it could be. But he angled his head, as if he heard her next to him. She could have stopped herself, if she’d wanted to.
But she didn’t want to.
So she brushed her lips against his instead.
* * *
LIPS BRUSHED HIS and Cody’s heart seemed to shudder to a stop, like a car slipping a gear. He thought maybe he could have handled it somehow if he could see, but blind there was only sensation and that was very, very dangerous.
So he held himself still. As much as he wanted to reach out, how could he? He didn’t know exactly where she was. When he could think, puzzle out what they would do, he didn’t panic despite the loss of eyesight.
But in this, a sensation he’d missed for seven years no matter how often he’d told himself he didn’t want or need it, seeing nothing was only panic.
He could hear what were presumably his brother’s footsteps even over the beating of his rioting heart.
Nina didn’t move, and all Cody could seem to do was wonder
how she looked. He wasn’t even sure if she was standing or sitting—he only knew she was close enough to touch—and he didn’t know how to reach her.
“For the record, no one is going to like this plan,” Brady said. “I’ll be lucky if I even explain it to them before the arguing takes over.”
“Get lucky then.” Cody tried to aim a smile in Brady’s direction. “Watch your back, brother.”
“Let Nina watch yours,” Brady replied.
Cody didn’t say anything to that, didn’t say anything at all until he heard a door swing open and then click shut.
He heard Nina’s expelled whoosh of breath—a kind of release of tension even as a new one settled around them.
They were alone. Their hands were tied until someone else acted.
She had kissed him.
He was blind.
Brady’s words let Nina watch yours.
It scraped him raw. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust her, didn’t believe her capable. She’d kept Brianna safe from Ace—whether for seven whole years or just stabbing a man after she’d been shot—it was quite the feat.
But he wanted to be the one saving. He hadn’t saved her seven years ago. If anything, by disappearing and never telling him about Brianna, she’d saved him then.
What had he ever done for her except bring her here? Away from their daughter. Injured. With a man who couldn’t fully protect her.
The scrape of chair against floor interrupted the quiet, the table wiggling underneath his arms.
“I don’t understand this North Star group,” Nina blurted out, clearly agitated. “How can they threaten to fire Shay when she’s helping you? How can they not help you when they want to bring Ace down?”
“They don’t want to bring Ace down,” Cody replied calmly. It was easy to be calm when talking about facts. And ignoring that a kiss so sweet and featherlight made him feel like he’d been asleep all those seven years he thought he’d been doing the most important work of his life.
“I thought you said...”
