Harlequin Intrigue March 2021--Box Set 2 of 2

by Nichole Severn

  He was furious, but he was also so freaking confused. Could he be mad at his teams for keeping a secret from him when they were all members of a shadow team? Everything they did was for a reason. No doubt, no one wanted to be the person to tell him about a son he didn’t know he’d had when that was Summer’s decision to make.

  And who knew, maybe Summer hadn’t told them about Joe. She hadn’t given any clues outwardly that she had a kid when he had first seen her. It was more than plausible she hadn’t wanted to put any of his family or team in such a compromising position by telling Kate about the baby.

  She hadn’t wanted to leave the news on his voice mail, so there was no way she would put the power of this revelation in the hands of anyone else.

  He opened the back door of the car and put Joe into his car seat. As he pulled the straps over Joe’s arms, the thumb went right back into his mouth and he turned his head to the side as though the little guy knew exactly what was going to happen next and he was just readying himself to fall asleep.

  Mike couldn’t be angry. Not really. Not when he had been given such a tremendous gift. Summer had tried to talk to him. He hadn’t listened. By her stepping forward at the wedding, she had granted him access to their baby. She hadn’t had to do what she had done. There had been other options.

  He couldn’t even imagine how it would have felt only to learn in twenty years that he’d had a child, after Joe was grown and likely starting to think about having a family of his own. She could have held out. She could have been so angry with him that she could have denied him the opportunity to be involved in their child’s infancy. And yet she had forgiven him enough to let him in.

  She had mucked up her life and she had gotten herself into trouble, but if they worked together, this potential compromising position was something they could get her out of. It would be hard, sure, but maybe with a few of the right phone calls to the right people, she could be safe.

  But that didn’t mean he didn’t need some answers both from her and from his team.

  He reached down and moved to pull his phone from his pocket, but realized he’d left it sitting on top of the box in the living room. And, he’d left the keys hanging beside the door. He needed to run back inside.

  Joe had his eyes closed and his head was resting comfortably on the gray polka dots of the car seat’s lining. Mike glanced around, looking for a button or something that would unlatch the car seat from its base, but there were a million little red buttons and tabs and he wasn’t sure which was the self-destruct button. Joe looked so at ease that Mike didn’t want to go through the motions of trying to unbuckle him.

  There was no one around, no cars coming or going, and he would only be inside for a second... But every part of his being told him not to leave the child alone. He looked down at Joe, whose eyes were now closed. His head dipped in sleep but jerked back up, eyes still closed.

  His son was definitely a fighter. Hopefully he would remain that way for the rest of his life—it was the only way to come out the other side of it in a way that was true to a person’s soul.

  How had Summer been able to be a single parent? This was such a simple thing and yet, by himself, it was immeasurably hard. He couldn’t imagine going through these seemingly easy, inconsequential moments where a person was stuck between a rock and hard place. She really was deserving of some kind of an award.

  He wouldn’t let her be on her own with his kiddo ever again. Joe needed a father and Summer needed a teammate, someone she could call whenever she needed anything.

  He held his breath as he pushed the red button near the top of the car seat and it unlatched from the base. Thankfully, Joe didn’t stir.

  He walked to the apartment and set the car seat down just inside the door. He pushed the door gently, barely closing it behind him as he made his way into the living room to grab his phone.

  Dude, seriously, this was rough. This back-and-forth thing. How did a parent get anything done?

  He’d heard many new parents complain about the inability to even do something as simple as take a shower when they had a new baby, and now he finally understood it. It wasn’t that they were incapable of showering, it was the anxiety that kept them needing to see where their child was and what they were doing at every second of every day.

  He suddenly felt sorry for his own parents. The hell he and his siblings must have put them through. At what point had they started to loosen the reins on their kids and started trusting that they would be safe? Or did they ever really assume they were safe? What if this fear never went away? He doubted that it did. Rather, it had likely only been dampened by the ravages of time and the need to keep moving forward and through the crippling anxiety.

  How did parents live like this, regardless of the age of their children?

  He grabbed his phone and glanced down the L-shaped hallway in the direction of what he assumed was Summer’s bedroom. “I don’t know how you do it,” he yelled toward her.

  “What?” she asked, her voice muffled behind the door.

  “I said, I don’t know how you do it.”

  “Huh?”

  He walked down the hall and to the left until he was standing outside the closed door. “I said, I don’t know how you do it.”

  “Do what?” she asked, moving closer to the other side of the door.

  “This. Be a single parent. It seems like it’s a real juggling act.”

  She gave a sarcastic laugh. “You don’t even know. You’ve only been at this for a day. And, honestly, I don’t know how I’m doing it. I have to admit that I feel like I’m literally figuring this out minute by minute.”

  That, he totally understood.

  He rested his forehead on the door for a moment. “Thank you, Summer.”

  “Huh? For what?”

  He put his hand on the white paint of the paneled door, it was cool under his fingertips. “For letting me into your guys’ life. I know things must have been so hard for you. But you don’t have to go through any of this by yourself anymore. I’m here for you. I don’t expect that we will always see eye to eye, and we will probably fight about a lot of things, but whenever you need anything you know I have your and Joe’s back.”

  There was a long silence from inside the room. “Thanks, Mike. And hey, you know I’m sorry.”

  “What do you have to be sorry about?” He had been the one to put all this chaos into motion.

  “I’m sorry for not telling you sooner. I hope you know I tried.”

  “I know... I know you tried.” He paused, still angry with himself. “I am the one who needs to be sorry. I am sorry.”

  He could hear her breathing right on the other side of the door, like she was standing parallel to him, sharing this moment of pain. He wanted to open the door and pull her into his arms, but if he was touching her or even just seeing her, he wasn’t sure that he had the power it would take to say all the things he needed to say.

  “I think we need to go to the feds with all this.”

  There was a long pause. “No, not yet.” Her voice was high, the sound false. She was still not telling him something. He could hear the hesitation and the lies in her tone.

  “What company was it that you were working for—the one that is threatening you?” he asked, questioning his judgment in asking. If she told him, he might come under fire, as well. But if she didn’t, he wouldn’t know exactly who he was fighting.

  Her breathing quickened. “Er, Ben and I...were working for a company.”

  “What company?” he asked, not understanding.

  “Rockwood—the group that tried to have you and your brother gunned down.” She paused as if to let her words sink in for a moment. In interrogation, he would have called that tactical silence. He hated it, but not as much as he hated Rockwood.

  He ran his hand over his face, trying to stave off the start of a headach
e. “I’ve got to run. I left Joe alone in the hall. We can continue this conversation when you get out to the car. Hurry up.”

  When this woman screwed up, she screwed up royally. At least they had that one thing in common—they could both wreak havoc on their personal lives.

  He hummed as he made his way back out to the hall to fetch the keys, the song just a little ditty, a reflection of the hope he was feeling even during these dark times. It was crazy, but the fact that she had been working for his enemy—or rather, had been spying on Rockwood—made him feel better. Something about this entire scenario made him feel like they were approaching even ground. Maybe this, being here with Summer and Joe, was an opportunity to put all of their lives back in order and he could be her hero and show her how much he was willing to sacrifice to be with them.

  “All right, little guy, Mom is just about done. She’ll be out in a minute,” he said, walking toward the front door where the car seat had been sitting on the floor. However, the spot where he had put Joe was now empty and the door was ajar.

  He rushed to the door, jerking it wide open and looking outside as if Joe could have gotten up and somehow moved himself. But the baby and the car seat were nowhere in sight. Someone must have been watching, reached inside the moment his back was turned and taken his son.

  His heart shuddered, threatening to stop beating with the pain. Joe was gone.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  His scream was something unlike anything she had ever heard before, a blood-curdling sound like a dying animal—and something that she never wanted to hear again. Summer rushed out, expecting to find Mike lying on the floor in a pool of his own blood or maybe being bludgeoned by a house bandit. Instead, he was standing beside the front door, his hand on the top of his head, staring at nothing.

  “What’s the matter? What happened to Joe? Is he okay?” She found herself beside him, but she had no idea how her body had gotten her there. “Where is he? Did you put him in the car?” she asked.

  Not waiting for Mike to respond, she rushed outside to the car, but it sat empty.

  Mike stared at the car, saying nothing for a long moment. “He’s...he’s gone. They must have just opened the front door and reached in. I didn’t lock it. I wasn’t planning on leaving him alone... I-I just...” His voice cracked as his breath seeped from his lips.

  Summer couldn’t hear anything over the din of terror ringing through her. Someone had taken their son. Someone had taken him. It had to have been Ben. But he had only threatened her. He hadn’t said Rockwood had concrete evidence about her being a double agent. If anything, he’d just seemed pissed about the breakup. And as much as he had scared her, part of her hadn’t really taken him seriously.

  If Ben had wanted her dead or to kidnap Joe, why would he have done it now?

  No. It didn’t make sense. Ben had always come at her head-on, he wouldn’t have just taken Joe and slipped away. It wasn’t his way of working. He would have wanted her to see him with Joe, to witness in horror as he took him away. He would have made a show of it, making her watch what she had caused.

  Besides, when they had been dating, Ben had always said he loved Joe. He had even gone so far as to talk about adopting him—not that she would have ever let that happen.

  But then there were times when Ben had made it no secret that he’d thought she was a terrible mother—especially when she had gone away for days without telling him where she was going. Little had he known at the time, but she had been meeting with her boss, Kevin, at the DTRA and reporting what she had learned about Rockwood.

  Maybe Ben had been pushed over the edge by seeing her with Mike. Maybe this was all some terrible and warped way for Ben to get his revenge.

  Her breathing started to quicken as panic wormed through her. She pressed her forehead against the cold steel of the car door as reality hit. This was her fault.

  What made it worse was that it was all because she had once again put her faith in Mike Spade. She had trusted him to watch her son. To keep him safe.

  This was Mike’s doing. He had left their son alone. She had told him that Rockwood was threatening to take Joe and yet he had not put her baby’s safety first. Then again, Joe had been in her apartment. She could have made the same mistake. And yet, she had to be angry at someone other than herself.

  She turned to Mike, hate filling her as she looked at his terror-stricken face. “You did this.”

  He didn’t speak. He didn’t bother to deny.

  He had to have known that what she said was true—they had lost Joe because of him.

  “We will get him back. I will get him back.” Mike sounded breathless, as if the vastness of loss had stripped him of his voice.

  “If you don’t, I will spend the rest of my life hating you.” She didn’t like the words that spilled from her like blood, but she couldn’t help it, she couldn’t control anything anymore, least of all what she was feeling.

  Her son... Her son was gone.

  “I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “I just put him down for a split second. I didn’t think—”

  “I already know that much,” she seethed.

  Mike ran his hands over his face and held them there, covering his eyes for a long moment as though he could strip away the reality of what he had caused. “You have every right to be upset. I screwed up. But I will get Joe back. I will set things right. I will fix this. All of this.”

  She opened her mouth, ready to spit more fire at him, but he stopped her when he glanced over at her. He looked like he was in physical pain, like someone had slashed through his chest and removed his heart. She knew the look because she was feeling it too.

  “You can hate me all you want, but we have to work together to get Joe back. We are in this together.” Mike paused. “We have to be strategic about this. We have to think. We can’t let our emotions cloud our judgment. Not when Joe’s life, all our lives, are on the line.”

  “Since when has it been our lives? No one is trying to gun you down.” She was indignant in her pain, but she couldn’t stop herself. He couldn’t possibly be hurting as much as she was right now.

  Mike stepped closer to her and she backed away. He couldn’t fix this like he normally did, when he’d let her fall into his embrace. No. That wouldn’t work anymore. Her weakness for his touch had gotten them into this mess in the first place.

  “We need to call in backup. We need to get law enforcement involved. They need to know that Joe is missing.”

  “No.” The word was a knee-jerk response, but she meant it. “Bringing them in would be a slippery slope.” She stopped as she thought about all the different facets of what it would mean to bring in the locals—few of the advantages would outweigh the profusion of potential negatives. “Your team has just about the same level of resources at their disposal. Do you think they would be willing to help me out? I can pay.”

  “You know if this thing goes even more haywire, the police will end up getting involved. I mean what if someone gets killed? How will we come out of this looking like the good guys if we work behind the police’s backs and they find out about it?”

  “I hear what you are saying, but I can’t expose what I’ve done.”

  “Not even if that leads to our son being returned safely?” Mike challenged.

  “How dare you. That was low, even for you.” She tried to control her rage. “I can’t expose what I’ve done because it might lead to worse things happening...to Joe.”

  “I’m sorry,” Mike huffed. “I didn’t mean it like that... I mean I did, I want Joe home, but I didn’t mean to attack you. I’m just as scared and upset as you are.”

  How could he be when he’d only just entered their lives? He didn’t know the feeling of holding Joe in the hospital when he had taken his first breath. He didn’t know what it was like taking care of a baby with a cold, worrying if he was going to make it through the n
ight.

  As hurt as she felt, Summer didn’t voice her thoughts. He didn’t deserve to be lashed with them. He loved Joe. He loved their son just as much as she did.

  Love had the power to overwhelm a person in less than a second—and she had seen it engulf Mike when he’d first held their son. Their love for their son was different, though. Hers had had more time to grow and blossom. But love, she knew, wasn’t something tangible that could be measured by such feeble metrics like time. Love could only be measured by sacrifice. And here Mike was, willing to sacrifice his life for their son. No matter what she was feeling, the power of his love was undeniable.

  But she wasn’t ready to forgive him for everything he had put them through.

  “Do you think it was Ben who took him?” Mike asked.

  She shook her head, violently. “He would have made a show of it. But it very well could have been someone from Rockwood.”

  Mike scowled, and she could see the terror in his eyes at the possibility that just about anyone could have taken their boy.

  “Did you see anyone when you came outside?” she asked, trying to shift her focus to what needed to happen next to bring Joe back.

  “I didn’t,” he said, shaking his head. “Whoever did this had to be watching. Either they followed us or were staked out here and just waiting for an opening to get their hands on Joe.”

  Whichever it was, it didn’t matter. They needed to assume they’d been followed and that there probably had been someone staked out and watching her. The people she was working for, or had been working for, weren’t stupid, but they were dangerous and angry.

  She had been part of kidnapping cases before, not on the frontlines or in the role as a negotiator, but she had seen enough of these things to know that people—and kids, specifically—were usually used to barter for ransom. She doubted Rockwood would use Joe for ransom, but why else would they have taken him instead of killing him outright? They had to have wanted something.

  “They are going to reach out to us. Right now, I think all we can do is wait.” She couldn’t believe what she was saying. To wait went against every particle of her being as a mother, but it didn’t change the reality of what was happening.