Hell, the last one we’d run hadn’t even been the right gender of a child. Which was obvious in the way the little kid’s mohawked hair stood on end as he walked with his dad through Lowe’s.
He grimaced. “Anything is better than nothing at this point, in my opinion.”
Agreed. Though, it was getting disheartening. It’d been over three hours since that little girl had disappeared, and the more time that passed, the less likely it’d be that we’d find her.
However, without these leads, we’d be just driving around aimlessly.
What a mess.
“How far is 1968 from…” My breath left my body when I saw the car.
The exact make and model of the one that we were looking for.
It was stopped in a Wendy’s drive-through, and there was an elderly man driving.
“There,” I breathed, pointing.
Sin cursed and pulled his phone out of the holder, calling it in immediately.
“Closest law enforcement officer is eight minutes out,” a woman’s clear voice said. The dispatcher that’d been helping coordinate efforts from the main dispatch station all night. “Follow. Get as close as you can without drawing suspicion. Do not engage.”
So that was exactly what we did.
We followed the old man to the parking spot two away from him and watched and waited while he slowly ate a hamburger and French fries.
Sin even went in and ordered a couple of apple pies just so he could get a better look at the car in question.
He came back five minutes later with two in his hand as he closely studied the car next to us.
“Does he fit?” I asked once he got inside the cab of the truck, trying to get a better look without openly staring.
“Yes,” Sin answered instantly, carefully adjusting his cut to better lay on his shoulders once he got settled. “Pretty sure it’s him. Though I don’t see any child with him.”
My belly rolled at the news.
I hated saying what I had to say next.
“Maybe she’s in the trunk,” I whispered.
As abhorrent as the thought was, at least that would be a better alternative than her already being delivered to whatever man was buying her.
“Why is he just sitting here?” I asked curiously. “Do you think this is where he’s meeting the buyer?”
That was answered moments later when a man pulled up in an expensive-looking SUV.
“Fuck,” we both said at the same time.
That’s when the slimiest looking man I’d ever seen got out of the SUV with a grin on his disgusting face.
There was a gleam in his eyes, too, that made me want to vomit.
I almost wished that this wasn’t the kid, because a man that looked that excited about a kid being delivered to him was the purest form of evil.
Just as the thought came to me, the old man abandoned his food and placed it on the dash before hopping out of the vehicle.
I swallowed hard, hoping beyond hope that this wasn’t what I thought it was.
Then the man popped the trunk and reached inside for a duffel bag.
“Fuck,” I said again, knowing without a shadow of a doubt that there was something inside that duffel bag.
Someone.
“It’s her,” I whispered to Sin. “We can’t let that exchange happen.”
Sin was bailing out of his side of the truck in the next instant.
He didn’t tell me to stay behind, and I was thankful, because I wouldn’t have even if he’d asked.
I bailed out of my side, too, and Sin started to yell at me just as another couple of vehicles pulled into the driveway.
“I told you not to drip anything on my seats, bitch!” Sin bellowed, catching the attention of the two men that were in the process of handing off the duffel.
The old man paused in the handoff. And that’s when I realized that two of the vehicles that’d pulled over beside the SUV belonged to people we knew.
Trouper and Hunt, as well as two of Sin’s brothers, Coke and Jim.
I backed up against the side of the truck, looking scared as Sin prowled toward me.
It wasn’t hard to do.
I was terrified.
But not of Sin.
Of the two men that were only two car lengths away from me doing a fucking deal over a child.
“What do you have to say, you fucking whore?” Sin bellowed.
His eyes were pleading as he looked at me, and I wasn’t sure if he thought I thought he was being serious, or if it was because he was scared of what was about to happen behind him.
I pressed my hand to his chest to ‘ward him off’ but also drew soothing circles there to let him know that everything would be okay.
Because as we had the two men distracted, the four men behind them were sneaking up on them.
We wouldn’t be waiting for the police.
Thank. God.
Sin got right up into my face, poked me in the chest, and opened his mouth to say more when we heard a pained grunt.
Followed directly by another.
Both of us spun in time to see the duffel bag fall back into the back of the open trunk, and both men go down like lights.
One thanks to Trouper, and the other thanks to Sin’s brother, Jim.
They were both passed out on the ground seconds later, and there was a baby screaming.
“Jim,” I cried, a sob choking up the back of my throat.
Coke was already bending into the open trunk and unzipping the bag.
We all moved as one to look over, and a moan left my throat at what I saw.
Terrified brown eyes stared right at me.
And then they closed as she launched herself at me and didn’t let go.
CHAPTER 22
I’m only going to shave if there’s a 100% chance we’re going to have sex. What’s the point of peeling the potato if you’re not going to mash it?
-Text from Blaise to Sin
SIN
I went and knocked on the door, the little girl still clinging to Blaise’s throat, and waited for the door to open.
The officer that had accompanied us, Officer Tatum, the man that’d done the coordinating for everything, was at my side looking at the door with annoyance.
The very last thing that I wanted to be doing was giving a child back to a person like Brees.
But, according to the officer, I had to.
It wasn’t my choice.
What the hell kind of man deserved a child as sweet as the one currently clinging to my fiancée’s neck when he didn’t even show up to help look for her? Or stay, for that matter, when he’d found out that she’d been taken?
“I don’t like this,” Blaise grumbled.
I looked at her and tugged lightly on her ponytail.
The little girl in her arms was still silently crying as she passed out from exhaustion.
God, my heart hurt.
Her big brown eyes had literally pierced their way through my soul.
“Me fuckin’ either,” Tatum grumbled.
“Boys,” the lovely social worker said. “That’s why I’m here. I’ll judge whether he’s fit to have this baby back.”
Her name was Shiloh, and she was a dream. She was also somehow, someway, related to Blaise but I hadn’t had enough time to ask how or why.
“I want to keep her,” Blaise declared.
Shiloh looked at her with a pity-filled gaze.
“I don’t think they’ll like you raising your attacker’s child,” the social worker said. “I’m sorry.”
I was very sorry, too.
She was right, however.
The court wouldn’t see this as me saving a child that had somehow burrowed her way into my soul to stay.
No, they’d think I had an ulterior motive.
Brees would do anything he could to make that motive stick, too, whether it was true or not.
“I don’t like this,” Sin grumbled for the fifth time. “What if we just keep her for tonig
ht?”
The social worker looked torn. “I’d love for you to. Honestly, I would. But that’s… you don’t have any credentials. You’re not foster approved. You haven’t had any background checks. There’s a system in place for a reason.”
“Yes, they do.” Hunt butted into our discussion. “Check and see.”
The woman looked at Hunt for a long moment, then to us.
Blaise wasn’t saying a single word.
Neither was I.
Not when that girl needed something stable in her life right now.
Needed her hero—Blaise—if only for tonight.
“Sadly, a parent hasn’t been deemed unfit,” she said. “If my superiors approve, and everything checks out, then you can keep her for the night, but only if Brees doesn’t want to keep her like Ames said he wouldn’t. But seriously, don’t get your hopes up on long-term. They won’t allow that.”
Just as we were all getting antsy, a thud sounded from behind the door, and then the intercom beside the door sounded.
“What do you want?”
Brees’ voice was loud and pissed off, as if he wasn’t happy to be woken in the middle of the night by us.
“Sir,” Tatum said. “We found your daughter.”
There was a long pause and then, “Sorry, but was she missing?”
Hunt snorted from his lean against the pillar to our right.
“He was there, but according to the videos, the kidnapping happened after he left for the night. Unlike what Ames said. She probably never called him, either.” Hunt paused. “I can verify that as well.”
Hunt pulled his phone out before either Tatum or Shiloh could ask for him to.
The door was slowly opened moments later with Brees firmly planted in his wheelchair and glaring daggers.
At me.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” he snarled, eyes snapping fire.
I wished I could throat punch him.
Beside me, Blaise trembled, and I wasn’t sure if it was due to her anger at the man in front of us, or the fact that she was scared of him.
Either way, I tossed my arm around her shoulders and didn’t say a word, waiting for Shiloh and Tatum to do the talking.
They did, explaining everything that had happened tonight.
“Not my kid.” He didn’t even spare her a look. “That’s Linnie’s kid with another man. She just stayed here while she tried to figure out what she was going to do next.”
Shiloh sighed. “You’re listed as the birth father.”
“I’m not.” Brees narrowed his eyes. “I’m more interested to know why the fuck y’all are here, and why the fuck you’re not fucking leaving.”
“All right then,” Tatum said. “Do you have the man’s name? The father?”
“Linnie can give it to ya,” Brees said. “I want you off my property.”
With that, he rolled backward in his chair and slammed the door. But not before offering a parting comment.
“Can’t wait to see you more in town, assholes.” Brees slammed the door closed in Shiloh’s and Tatum’s faces.
“Damn,” Shiloh breathed. “What an ass.”
“Hear that,” Tatum growled as he pulled out his phone. “Let me make a few calls.”
Shiloh’s eyes met ours.
“I…”
“Father is named Titus King,” Hunt murmured. “Ames and Titus had a brief fling about two years ago. She has the start of a child support petition with a lawyer in town after finding out that the kid she was carrying wasn’t her husband’s. Only, they didn’t go through with the suit. Was held after the kid was born.”
“Titus King?” Tatum paused. “As in the fucking professional football player, Titus King? That Titus King?”
Hunt looked up with confusion. “Titus King is a football player?”
“Uh, yeah.” Blaise shook her head. “How have you not heard of Titus King? He’s actually from around here.”
Hunt shrugged. “Got more important things to do than spend my time watching football. But it’s good to know he’s got money. He’s gonna need it to fight.”
“Fight who?” Shiloh asked. “If he’s the father, which will be determined pending a DNA test, then there is no fight. Ames will be going to jail after everything that she did. There’s no way she’ll be finding her way back to becoming a parent anytime soon.”
“Agreed,” Tatum murmured. “She won’t be seeing the light of day for a while.”
“In that case.” Shiloh rubbed her eyes. “Tonight, you can keep her. But tomorrow, Titus King will be taking her.”
“She doesn’t know him,” Blaise grumbled.
Shiloh shot her a grin. “She doesn’t know you, and she’s done okay.”
True words.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s get home and grab a couple of hours of sleep.”
“I’ll find you everything you need to know on Titus King,” Hunt said. “Send it to both of your emails. But from what I can tell, this man is loyal as fuck. He’s got a friend that’s a Navy SEAL. You know him, Banner Spurlock. The first thing that pulls up is a photo of the two of them at a game a few weeks back. You should see his face. It’s like his best friend in the entire world showed up in uniform. I’m actually tearing up here.”
I walked over to Hunt to look at his phone, and sure enough, he was right. Titus King’s face looked euphoric as Banner ran across the field toward him.
How sweet.
Banner was in the military. A SEAL. He hadn’t been home for a long time.
“Okay,” I breathed. “We’ll see you in the morning.”
CHAPTER 23
Not going to lie, I’m a little bit of a pain in the ass.
-T-shirt
SIN
Morning came with our house brimming to the gills with people.
My brothers. My niece and nephew. Blaise’s parents. Blaise’s brother and his family. Blaise’s grandfather and grandmother.
Lynn and Six, Trouper and Beckham, Swayze and Trick, Hunt and Wyett, Zach, Laric and Bruno.
They were all there, new family and old, waiting for Titus King to show his face.
Which he was doing right at that moment.
“He looks scared as fuck,” Lynn mused as he watched with me as a big behemoth of a man walked up the length of the path toward us.
The rest of our family was at our back inside, while Blaise, Lynn, Shiloh, Tatum, and I were on the front porch with the little girl.
The moment Titus’ eyes landed on the girl, he froze solid.
His eyes were enraptured as he stared.
Then, I shit you not, he placed his hand over his heart and pressed there as if it was actually hurting.
I didn’t blame him.
If I’d learned that I was a father after such a long time of that baby being on this earth, I would feel sick at heart, too.
He swallowed hard, then bridged the gap between us.
It’d been two days since the two of them were tested for DNA, and just this morning the results had come back.
Titus King was Annabelle’s father.
He hadn’t wasted a single second getting here.
In person.
He’d even missed a game to do it.
When he got close, Annabelle lifted her head and stared at her father.
That’s when the biggest man I’d ever seen started to cry.
• • •
“She sold her own daughter?” Titus asked quietly, trying not to wake the baby in his arms. “What kind of person does that?”
“According to her,” Tatum said. “She fell into the wrong crowd when she moved here. Got hooked up with Thelma and Harold Barnes. An elderly couple that kidnapped children and sold them to the highest bidder. They were small-time, not very big in the grand scheme of things, but the moment that Ames met them, she became just as entrenched in the filth as they were. Even if she didn’t do much besides doing the transporting, or so she claims.”
“And the two people tha
t were going to traffic my kid. What of them?” Titus sounded calm, but the way he was swallowing every three seconds as if trying to get it past a lump in his throat was telling.
“Going to be charged with at least two counts of kidnapping of a minor under seven. Felonies in their own rights. As well as a slew of other charges that’ll get them the rest of their lives in a penitentiary.” Tatum paused.
“That’s not enough,” Titus growled, making the girl in his arms stir.
“No,” I agreed. “But look at it this way. Prison isn’t kind to people that hurt kids. There’s not much that is frowned upon there, but anything to do with children? Let’s just say their lives won’t be kind.”
I’d seen proof of that with my own fucking eyes.
Ever seen a man’s dick chopped off using a sharpened spoon? I had.
And I’ll tell you what. That was one crime that I hadn’t had a problem with.
Titus met my eyes. “Good.”
• • •
“I’m tired.” Blaise all but fell into me as she curled up into bed beside me.
I grinned and pulled her close.
“A lot of excitement for today,” I agreed. “And we haven’t gotten much sleep in the last forty-eight hours.”
“Agreed,” she mumbled, rubbing her face against my bare chest. “Our baby growing up in a world like this terrifies me.”
I tightened my arm around her, then turned so that I could look into her eyes.
“Do you know how many men are sleeping on our living room floor right now that would be willing to tear this world apart, piece by piece, for that little baby growing inside of you?” I asked.
She sniffled. “Yeah.”
“I’m not going to say that everything will be perfect for our kid, but I can guaran-damn-tee you that she or he will never be harmed. There are too many men that’ll move hell itself to make sure that doesn’t ever happen,” I told her.
“You can’t make promises like that. But I see where you’re coming from.” She ran her nose along my pec. “I’m just scared. This world is scary.”
“Life is scary,” I agreed. “But we’ll make it safe for her. I promise you.”
“Her?” she teased.
I shrugged. “I have a feeling.”
My feeling was proved correct four weeks later when our sonogram confirmed it. It turned out that I couldn’t wait for our baby to be born to find out the sex afterall.
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