by Apryl Baker
The more she told herself that, the tenser and sicker she became. Dragging herself up, she swiped her phone off the sink and called Kade. Maybe hearing his voice would help.
“Finally.” The growl that reached her ears brought tears to her eyes. “Why the fuck didn’t you answer your damn phone?”
“Kade…” The words were barely a whisper, chock-full of tears.
“Angel, what’s wrong? Are you hurt? Where are you?”
“Home.” She tried to pull in air, but she strangled on it. “Come home, Kade. I need you.” Then she hung up, unable to deal with any more questions.
The doorbell rang ten minutes later. Lily. Angel found she couldn’t move from her position on the bathroom floor. All she could see were those tiny green eyes boring into her own. Expressionless and as empty as a barren wasteland. Why did they look like that?
“Angel?”
Kade’s roar caused her tears to flow harder. If only he’d been able to see the little boy. He’d know what Matthew should have looked like. It wasn’t fair.
Kade found his wife lying curled up in a fetal position on the floor, and terror gripped him. Was she sick, hurt? He rushed in and picked her up, carrying her to the bedroom. Lily stood in the doorway, eyes wide and concerned. He paid her no mind when she went into the bathroom.
“What is it, moye serdste? Tell me.” He didn’t mean to sound so angry or demanding, but he was scared. He’d never seen her like this.
She only cried harder.
“Maybe it’s the little boy she saved.” Lily came out of the bathroom with a wet cloth. He took it and wiped Angel’s face as best he could.
“Little boy?” he muttered as he wiped away the tears.
“She said he looked like you with her eyes and her brother’s nose.”
Kade’s head snapped up, and he stared at his future sister-in-law. “What?”
“We were on the phone, and the little boy stepped out into traffic. His father wasn’t watching him, and Angel ran to save him. She said looking at him brought back her own grief at losing her son. Maybe this is a manifestation of that grief.”
She saved a child who looked like him. That would do it. They’d been talking about their son recently, wondering if they might want to try to get pregnant again. Seeing a child who might look a little like him would definitely set her off.
“I’m going to make a pot of coffee. Getting something hot into her might help.”
“Thank you, Lily.”
“No worries.” She smiled and left the room, closing the door behind her. He was grateful for the privacy.
“Shh, baby, it’s okay.” He rocked Angel like a child as she sobbed. “I’m right here. It’s okay.”
Kade wasn’t sure how long he sat there, holding her while she cried, but he was grateful when she finally spoke. Angel was scaring him.
“He looked like Matthew.”
Kade closed his eyes and pulled his own grief in tight. He couldn’t let it show, not right now. She needed him to be strong.
“I know, baby.”
“No, Kade, you don’t understand.” Her words were barely above a whisper, but he heard them. “He was a mirror image of you. My eyes. It’s what our son would have looked like.”
“Honey, it’s because we’ve been talking about having another baby…”
“No.” Angel pushed his arms away and stood. “He looked like Matthew. He was even around the same age as our child would have been. If you could have seen him…” She cleared her throat and dashed the tears away. “Everything in me said he was mine, Kade. Walking away was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. This isn’t grief, it’s my body telling me that child is mine, even though I know he isn’t. My son died.”
Kade’s heart broke seeing the anguish on his wife’s face. “Angel, he’s not Matthew.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” she railed. “My brain tells me it’s not him, but my heart says he is. Illogical, but my body is telling me it’s not illogical, that I need to go back and snatch him and never let him go. It makes no sense, but that’s how I feel. I had a panic attack when I left him with that bastard.”
Kade took a deep breath and let it out. How was he going to argue with a mother’s instincts, wrong as they might be?
“I know how insane I sound.” Her shoulders slumped. “If you had seen him, you’d understand. Everything in me says he’s mine, Kade. How do I ignore that?”
“Baby.” He stood and wrapped her in his arms. “I am so sorry you’re hurting, but he’s not ours.”
“I know.” She shook with more sobs, and all he could do was hold her, helpless to do anything to take her pain away.
“Why don’t you lie down and rest for a bit?” He led her over to her side of the bed and helped her with her shoes. Then he tucked a throw around her and sat with her until she cried herself to sleep. This was too much. He had to find a way to help her.
He found Lily sitting at the bar in the kitchen, sipping a cup of coffee, pale and concerned. “How is she?”
“I’ve never seen her this bad.” Granted, he hadn’t been there to see her in the days after Matthew and Peter died, but somehow he thought this was worse than that dark time. “Do you know where she was when she saw the kid?”
“Macy’s, I think. Birthday shopping for you.”
He winced. He’d told her not to bother, that he didn’t want any big fuss over his birthday, but she’d never listened to a word he said.
Lily’s phone buzzed, and she made a face before muting it. “Dodging work?”
“No, dodging your asinine brother. He ordered me to stay put, but he was mean about it.”
“So, you came over here?” When she nodded, he pulled his phone out and called Nik.
He picked up on the first ring, panicked. “I can’t find her, and she’s not answering…”
“Calm down. She’s here.”
“The fuck? Why the hell isn’t she answering her phone?”
“I told you there’d be consequences for how you spoke to her.” He listened then nodded. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll keep her here until you can come get her.” He ignored Lily’s outraged gasp. “See you soon, brat.”
“Why…”
He held up a hand before she could light into him. “There’s a lot going on, Lily. He’s trying to protect you, even if he went about it wrong. When the Kincaid men worry, we can sound angry and gruff, even hostile. It’s because we’re scared. You need to cut him some slack.”
“Protect me from what?” Her blue eyes deepened with worry. Lily reminded him of Snow White with her blue eyes, alabaster skin, and black hair. Even her voice had this musical quality to it. He remembered how Nik had made fun of Snow White for being stupid enough to eat a poison apple from someone who obviously wasn’t trustworthy when he was a kid. Now he was engaged to a Snow White lookalike. Kade chuckled at the comparison.
“What’s so funny?” Lily’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“Sorry, I was just thinking of something.” He poured himself a cup of coffee. “You and Angel will both be getting a protective detail until the threat is handled.”
“Threat?”
“A drug cartel I investigated when I worked in Miami.” He turned and leaned against the sink, sipping the coffee. “They could use you to get to me.”
“I don’t understand.”
Kade explained his past with the cartel and the present danger they were all in. He watched it sink in and grew alarmed when her already pale face went completely white.
“Don’t worry, Lily, we will keep you safe.”
Before she could respond, they heard the key in the lock, and then the door slammed against the wall. Nikoli stormed in and stopped inches from Lily. He looked mad enough to wring her neck, but he didn’t touch her. Lily had a phobia about being touched. No matter how upset Nik might get, he always put her first, which meant giving her time to realize what he was about to do. According to his brother, her fear wasn’t nearly as bad as it used to
be, though.
She took a steady breath and gave him a half smile. Nikoli wasted no time grabbing her, hugging her so tight it looked like he might choke the air out of her lungs.
“Lily Bells, I swear to God, if you ever do that to me again, I will…shit, I don’t know what the hell I’ll do. Just, please, for fuck’s sake, don’t do that to me again.”
“I’m sorry,” she murmured when he let her move enough to breathe. “I didn’t know what was going on. You should have told me before you summarily decided to go all caveman.”
Nikoli let out a breath so hard, her hair fluttered. Kade watched him swallow his irritation. His little brother had a thing about authority. He might get away with that in Lily’s bed, but she sure as hell wasn’t letting him act like a domineering asshole outside the bedroom.
“I mean it, Nikoli.” She pushed away from him far enough to look him in the eyes. “I will not be spoken to like that. Ever. For any reason.”
“Fuck. I’m sorry, dushka.” He kissed her forehead, almost reverently. “I was scared…and…”
“And Kade explained it to me,” she interrupted. “You get a pass this time, but never again.”
Kade broke in before the heat pouring off them scorched the walls. “Now that that’s settled, Nik, have you put in the call for more security?”
“Yes, Blackhawk Security will provide us with six men. Three more will be heading to Becca on the next flight to Chicago. They should arrive at your offices in about an hour.” His arms tightened around Lily, his face fierce. “No one is going to get near our women.”
“You head home, and I’ll go to the office as soon as Watkins gets here.” Kade rubbed his forehead, the migraine blooming enough to make him wince.
“Where’s Angel?” Nik frowned, looking around. Took him long enough to realize his sister-in-law wasn’t in the room.
“She got upset earlier and had a bit of an episode. She’s sleeping now.”
“Episode? What…”
“Lily can tell you about it on the way home. I have some calls to make, so I’m throwing you out.” He didn’t want to get into how Angel reacted to the child until he could wrap his head around it himself. He’d call Dr. Horn. The therapist might know how to help her. He’d gotten her through the worst of her fears from being kidnapped and tortured, or at least shown her how to emotionally handle them.
Once Nik left and he checked his voicemail, he went back to their bedroom. She was still sound asleep, her vibrant red hair splayed out behind her on the pillow. His Angel looked pale and haunted, even in sleep.
How the fuck was he supposed to help her?
Juan tossed his keys and wallet onto the small desk in the hotel room, his mind running a thousand miles a minute. Did she know? How could she, though? She thought the boy was dead. Hell, Juan had been surprised the kid survived. Children born at twenty weeks were not viable, but Mateo had defied death. It was why Juan agreed to train him. Even as an infant, he’d had the strength of will most adults lacked. That strength would serve the boy well in the cartel.
He told his whore to get into bed. Mateo sat quietly on the couch, staring straight ahead. Juan tossed him the iPad to keep him occupied while he was busy. Then he pulled out his phone and called Tomás.
“Juan, my friend. I trust New York is handled?” The jovial voice belied the murderous bastard it belonged to. Tomás ran the cartel because he was ruthless and not afraid to punish those who disobeyed or turned disloyal. He’d seen him cut the fingers off a four-year-old and feed them to her father once. The man was insane.
“Sí, Tomás. The issue has been resolved, but I have other news to report.”
He kept his tone serious to alert his boss of the gravity of the situation. The man had a hard-on for Kincaid. Tomás’s little brother had been killed in the raid Kincaid led down in Miami. It garnered him a death sentence, and Tomás had stolen his child from him just as Miguel had been taken from Tomás.
“Speak.”
The coldness in that one word sent shivers racing over his skin. Juan was an evil bastard, but Tomás scared him. “I ran into an old friend. Angelique Kincaid.”
“Kincaid.” Tomás went from cold to downright scary. “I thought they separated.”
“That was the last intelligence we had. She moved to Boston, and he was in Atlanta. Sometime between then and now, they reconnected.”
“And they are in New York?”
“She is. I am not sure of Kade.”
“Find out. And, Juan?”
“Sí?”
“I want them alive. Both of them. And bring the boy to me.”
“Of course.”
Juan hung up the phone and looked at the child. He was playing a game and not paying attention to the conversation, but he had no idea his parents were being discussed. Juan felt a twinge of something like fear run through him. Tomás would use Mateo to torture his parents. He’d brutalize the kid before killing him in front of Kincaid. Juan had put distance between him and the boy over the years, but he had cared for him all this time. If he had to be the one to butcher him, it wouldn’t be as easy as his other marks. He might not love the kid, but he was responsible for him.
He’d butcher him in the end, but he wouldn’t enjoy it.
Sighing, he left Mateo to his game and went to find his whore.
Kade shut off his laptop and leaned back. He’d left Angel over an hour ago in the trustworthy hands of Watkins to parcel out assignments to the security team Nikoli acquired for them. He’d pulled another of their men, Max Sheridon, to watch Lily until Able could be pulled from a security detail for a pop singer in town. She was one of their bigger clients, so Kade was hesitant to upset her. She knew Able and trusted him, even though he wasn’t who they usually put on bodyguard detail. Kade still wasn’t sure why the man was assigned to her every time she called. He’d make a note to ask Viktor about that.
He’d called Watkins earlier, and Angel was still sound asleep. Her breakdown had taken a lot out of her. The doctor hadn’t returned his call yet either, but it was the weekend, and the man probably didn’t return non-urgent medical messages. While that was all well and good, it left Kade in a bad spot. It drove him nuts not being able to help Angel. It fucking killed him.
“I thought you went home.”
Kade looked up to see Dylan lounging in the doorway. It was Saturday evening. What the hell was he doing here?
“I’m waiting on some information for a case. Why are you here?”
Kade pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a sigh. The man was uncanny. There might be a psychic bone in his body somewhere, hidden behind all the badassedness.
“Nik hired extra security for the girls. I met them here and gave them their assignments.” Kade rolled his neck, wincing when so many bones popped and cracked. Damn, he felt old.
“Why do you still look like hell?” Dylan wandered in and plopped down in one of the chairs across from his desk. “They’re protected now.”
“Angel had a bit of a breakdown.” Kade explained that they’d lost their son and about the boy she’d seen at the store. “Lily said it might be a physical manifestation of her grief, and I called the fucking shrink, but he hasn’t called me back. I don’t know how to help her.”
Dylan was silent for a long moment before finally leaning back in his chair. “My daughter died in a car accident. Black ice. My wife survived, but she couldn’t come to terms with the fact she lived and Holly didn’t. Grief can do all sorts of things to you. She ended up taking her own life, so I get how worried you are.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know about your family.”
Dylan shrugged it off, but the tortured look in his eyes remained. Grief never truly went away. “I don’t make a habit of telling people. I’m only talking to you because I don’t want your wife to get so depressed over this it drives her to do something she normally wouldn’t. I like Angel. She’s a spitfire.”
“That she is.” A smile tugged at Kade’s lips despi
te how worried he was. “I just wish I knew how to help her.”
“Maybe it’s as simple as showing her who the boy belongs to.”
“What do you mean?” Kade sat up, intrigued.
“I can do some investigating and find out who his parents are. Shouldn’t take more than a few hours.”
“I don’t know his name. Angel didn’t get it either.”
“You know what hotel it is?”
“The one across the street from Macy’s.” Could it be that simple? Show her who his parents were and make her understand the kid wasn’t theirs?
“I know it. The head concierge over there is a friend of mine. He’ll be able to tell me who they are. It’s easy after that. I’ll call you later tonight once I have the information.”
“Thanks, man. You don’t know how much I appreciate this.”
“I do, because I wish someone had been there to help Lisa. I’ll do what I can for your wife.” Dylan didn’t say anything else and left to start digging into the mystery man and his son.
Kade grabbed his keys and locked his office, heading home. Typically, he’d walk, as it was only a few blocks away. He and Viktor decided to find places as close to their business as possible since they would potentially have clients staying in the brownstone. It was why they chose the building over some modern office building. There were bedrooms upstairs and a full kitchen downstairs for guests to use as well as the staff.
The security system Mason, their youngest brother, had installed was top-notch. He knew computers almost as well as Nikoli did. He liked to try his hand at hacking too. That was why Viktor was trying to move Mason into the business. He and Kade both feared their little brother would do something that landed him in jail. At least, working with them, his hacking would only be at the request of the client, and they’d have permission to hack private work products.
His car was parked in the small lot right behind the building. Kade glanced around, nervous for the first time in years. No one seemed to be watching, but you never really knew. He hurried to the SUV as quickly as he could and breathed a sigh of relief once he closed the driver’s door.
