The Quelling Tide (The Gifted Realm Book 7)

by Jillian Neal

  Another broad grin spread across her beautiful face.

  “I guess we could just pack all day Saturday, and then go to our reception, and finish up Sunday before we leave.”

  “If we forget something, I’ll buy it for you when we get there.” Dan wasn’t certain why he was so adamant, or why he was ordering Fionna around, but every cell of his body needed to know that his girls were safe in Kauai. They had to be away from the insanity they’d been living lately.

  A moment later, they headed down the stairs to locate their little girl.

  Alex and Aida

  Aida appeared and crawled up in Dan’s lap as Fitz and Maddie settled in the living room with them.

  “Alex taught me some words in French.”

  “Oh no!” Fitz closed his eyes in defeat, and Maddie looked horrified.

  Fionna took in the situation with a slight chuckle. “Are the words he taught you nice words, because it’s not okay to say unkind words even in another language?”

  Aida nodded her understanding. “He taught me to say bonjour which means hello. And how to say another word that means something you do in the bathroom, but I told him I didn’t think we should say that word because it isn’t nice, but it was a little bit funny.” She blushed deeply, but it was the delightedly impressed look in her eye as she informed Dan of all of this that had him reeling.

  “Alex!” Fitz roared.

  “Fitz.” Maddie shook her head. “He’s acting out because of what happened.”

  Alex appeared and Aida grinned at him. A sudden sense of panic came over Dan, though he couldn’t quite reason why.

  “Let’s go play ball on the deck, Aida.”

  Aida’s eyes sparkled as she nodded and leapt out of Dan’s lap.

  “I want to be on your team.” She admitted to Alex in an almost flirtatious drawl.

  Alex looked thrilled. “Of course.” He assured her arrogantly.

  Dan turned to Fionna. She was biting her lips together trying not to laugh outright.

  After they ate breakfast, Fionna braided Aida’s hair into two long braids on either side of her head just like Anne’s.

  Alex appeared just as they were all sitting down again. “Hey, Aida, watch this!” He chanted as he performed a handstand and then proceeded to walk the length of the kitchen on his hands before flipping back on his feet. “Neat, huh?”

  “That was really good!”

  Dan felt his coffee began to twist uncomfortably in his stomach.

  “It’s cause my muscles are way bigger than Alfred’s.” He flexed his scrawny arms once again.

  Fionna’s hand covered her mouth as she tried hard not to laugh.

  “You can touch them if you want.” Alex moved to Aida holding his non-existent bicep out for her to touch.

  Dan’s eyes goggled in horror as his own biceps began to tremble. Aida reached and squeezed Alex’s arm and then giggled.

  Fitz and Maddie were guffawing as Fionna continued to fight hysterical laughter.

  As soon as she pulled her hand away from his arm, Alex dealt the final blow.

  He took firm hold of one of her braids and yanked.

  Aida looked shocked momentarily, but then a knowing grin formed on her face.

  “I pulled your hair. That means you have to chase me!” Alex chanted excitedly.

  Dan clutched his chest as Aida laughed. She took off chasing him out the backdoors and onto the deck.

  Fionna began laughing with Fitz and Maddie but halted as she took in Dan’s horrified face. “Okay, now, don’t freak out.”

  Dan was way beyond being calmed. He shoved back from the table with fury pulsing through his veins. “He just pulled her hair! Are you just gonna let him get away with that?” He demanded angrily of Fitzroy who looked thoroughly bemused.

  “Dan!” Fionna warned. “Would you come upstairs with me, please?”

  He started to pace as she grasped his hand and attempted to drag him towards the stairs.

  Following along in her wake begrudgingly, he drowned in fury and confusion. This couldn’t be happening. She was a little girl, his baby girl. Thoughts raced through his head as his stomach twisted into violent knots.

  Fionna led them to the guestroom they were using and closed the door.

  “Sweetheart.” She soothed, but he shook his head and marched to a window to see if he could still see Aida.

  “Dan this is perfectly normal. She’s seven. He’s eight, and he’s your godson.”

  “Not Alex.” Dan demanded furiously. “Definitely not Alex!”

  She fought hard to keep from laughing as she gave a knowing nod. “Because Alex reminds you a little bit too much of someone else I know?”

  “Yes!” He didn’t understand how she didn’t see this as a disastrous problem.

  “Dan, come on. Calm down. She doesn’t even understand why she feels like that, and neither does he. He just wants to impress her, and she just wants him to like her, nothing more. Okay?”

  “She’s way too young for all of that.”

  Fionna rolled her eyes. “No, she isn’t.”

  “And why does she want him to like her so much? She’s perfect! Who wouldn’t like her?”

  “So, Alex has good taste.”

  “Oh my God! Alex! Why does it have to be Alex?” He continued his relentless pacing.

  “They’ve been through a lot together. He makes her feel safe because he was with us in the basement the other night. They’ve bonded over the last few days. She had a crush on a little boy in the orphanage. They used to eat together. His name was Leo, and I think she misses him.”

  “What?!” He was enraged again. How could that have been? He hadn’t been there to protect her.

  “Dan! Would you please calm down? No one has done anything to her. This is perfectly normal. It’s completely healthy. I mean, of course she likes him. He’s an eight year old version of you!”

  That did nothing to calm him. “Oh my God!” He sank down on the bed. “If he hurts her….”

  That was met with another eye roll. “Dan, he’s eight. He just wants to show off for her. He wants her to think he’s cool, because he’s male! And she’s only too happy to show him how impressed she is, because she’s a girl. Did you really think she’d never have a crush?”

  “No! I just thought she’d be much older, you know, like well into her thirties.”

  She doubled over laughing, and he continued to pout and to try to look out the windows to spot Aida.

  “He pulled her hair!”

  Fionna bit her lips together and nodded. “Sometimes you pull my hair, and I really, really like it.”

  His eyes flashed in fury. “No! No, no! Do not go there! I can’t take that. I cannot think about her and Alex. My God, Fionna!”

  “I was only teasing. Listen.” she took his hand and forced calming energy into his fury. “I know this is hard for Dad’s, but just try to hear me out. She was probably a little bit surprised that he did that, but she was also delighted because girls know that means you really like us. If it had upset her, she would’ve come to you. I promise.”

  “Fionna, I should not want to kill one of my godsons.” He added guilt into the volatile cocktail of confusion and fury swirling in his stomach.

  “Yes, that’s true. You kind of flipped, but I think that’s normal, since this is the first crush she’s had that you’ve witnessed.”

  “Did I yell at Fitzroy?” The whole, horrific scene replayed in his mind.

  “You did.”

  He had no idea what to do. He always prided himself on always having a contingency plan, but for this he was completely unprepared.

  “You okay?”

  Dan shook his head, but allowed her to guide him from their room.

  Aida and Alex were playing in the room Aida was staying in. “Let’s play house. I’ll be the mommy, and you can be the daddy, and Sophie will be our baby.”

  “Are we gonna have another baby in your stomach like Uncle Dan and Fionna are?” Alex
quizzed.

  Bile flooded Dan’s throat. He spun in the hall and glared at Fionna.

  “Wow! You’ve had a really rough week.” She cringed.

  Eventually, Dan sauntered down the stairs to find Fitzroy flipping through papers splayed all over the coffee table.

  “You gonna be all right or should I go ahead and take Alex to the gun range?”

  “Talk to me when you have a little girl, shit head.” Dan demanded indignantly earning him another round of laughter from Fitzroy.

  Suddenly, Dan remembered the phone call from Stegman. “Hey, have you talked to Portwood?”

  “No, should I have?”

  Sinking down on the sofa beside Fitzroy, Dan glanced over the paperwork. “Quentin Vitrio got himself killed last night out in Latimer. It looked like a hit.”

  “What?”

  “And I don’t want Portwood to think I’m checking up on him.” Dan urged.

  “Ah.” Fitz pulled his cell from his pocket, checked the time, and phoned the American Senate Iodex office.

  “Hey, Landon, it’s Fitz.” He laughed. “Nah, he’s not checking up on you. We were just curious about Vitrio.”

  Dan tried to hide his chuckle. Fitzroy cast his phone, projected the speaker out, and they listened intently.

  “I’m still not certain it was actually a hit. Stegman doubts it.” Portwood supplied. “According to the cafeteria staff, Vitrio was mouthing off about the guy’s sister. He identified a rather well hidden birthmark that he apparently would have to have done the things he was bragging about to have seen. I can’t figure out where the car came from, but sounds like the guy was pissed and thought he’d get away with it.”

  Dan and Fitz shared a doubtful glance. “Let me know if you hear anything else.” Fitz commanded.

  “Will do,” Portwood agreed. “Good luck tomorrow. Hey, is Dan there with you?”

  With a mischievous smirk, Fitz lied. “Nah, he’s upstairs with Fionna. I swear they’re like rabbits. He can’t keep his mitts off of her.”

  Dan rolled his eyes and anxiously awaited Portwood’s response.

  He laughed. “Yeah, I know, but good for him. He deserves to be happy.”

  Dan was truly touched.

  “Leave ‘um alone. It’s nothing. I’ll ask him later.”

  Fitz ended the call.

  “Okay, you and I both know there is more to it than he banged the guy’s sister.” Dan quipped.

  “Yeah but we need to let Portwood figure that out.”

  Dan lifted a stack of papers from the coffee table. A photograph of an attractive blonde that he recognized but couldn’t place was on top. “Who’s this?”

  “One of Nic’s mistresses. Vivian or something like that. I can’t remember. She got mouthy about Lucinda. He shut her up permanently a few years ago. The Auxiliary department just handed all of this back after you ended him. It’s their case files on the Interfeci. I found them at the house when I was grabbing everything from my office. I’m trying to sort through it and take most of it to the office until I find us a new place.”

  “Want some help?”

  “Thanks.” Fitz accepted the offer with a sigh. “Hey, how’s Fi really? She still looks a little off.”

  “She is, but she refuses to leave. I’ve got to get her home. I can’t let her get like she was before.”

  “Yeah, I know you’re worried, but she’s probably just freaked about tomorrow. Once the trials are over, I’m sure she’ll be fine.”

  Studying the picture again, Dan couldn’t figure out why he was so intrigued with it.

  “You might not want to let Fionna catch you drooling over that.” Fitz teased him.

  Dan rolled his eyes. “She just looks familiar for some reason.”

  “She looks like all the others to me. Blonde, custom made top, fawning all over him, just how he liked ‘um.”

  Dan had to agree. Wretchkinsides had mistresses at every port, and they all fit the same playbill.

  “What time do we have to be there tomorrow?” Dan tossed the picture back on the table. All that mattered was getting Fionna home.

  “The girl’s, Vythica or whatever her name, is at eight. I tried to book them back to back. I know you want her home, Dan.”

  “Thanks. Truthfully, I’m a disaster. I hope I make it through the trials. I’m worried sick.”

  “They should be open and shut. They were caught in my home with guns. Basically, we nod our heads that they’re the people, and the Crown hands out punishments, which won’t be pretty.”

  “Good!”

  Kaleidoscope Turns

  The next morning, Dan paced. His breakfast was on the constant verge of making a dramatic come back as he read the Elite team Fitz had assigned to Maddie, Fionna, and Aida the riot act.

  He watched the officers, two men and two women, who would be responsible for bathroom and spa room accompaniments, escort Fionna and Aida into an extremely posh salon in the middle of Paris.

  He glanced at his watch fretfully. In six hours I’m putting her on a plane and taking her home. He began his countdown as he followed Fitz onto the metro and towards the Parliament building.

  He fell onto the prosecution bench with a fitful huff. How the hell was he was back in yet another courtroom? How had he put his wife and baby girls in danger yet again?

  Fitz slapped him on the back, though he was pale, and weary fury flooded his energy as he scowled at the defense’s attorney.

  The Parliamentary board glided into the room, and everyone stood. The Crown read the charges and gave an account of the attack on the Fitzroy’s home.

  Vile revulsion coursed through Dan’s veins as he recalled Fionna waking him, sobbing, screaming in his face, and racing to Aida. Images of her inability to do anything more than gasp for ragged breaths as she sobbed after it was over. Her lying in the hospital bed with Aida trembling beside her made vicious rage seep from his pores.

  Le premier essai sera de la Malleus Mme Vythica drawled from the Crown. “The first trial will be of Ms. Vythica Dietrech.” The translator stated.

  Dan felt his blood run ice cold. It seemed to freeze in his veins. All of the heinous pieces of the puzzle that had plagued him for days began to sear into place in his mind.

  Like the turn of a child’s kaleidoscope, Dan’s heart vibrated in his chest. “What’s your name ma’am?” He heard the frustrated question fall from his own lips ten years before.

  And the answering reply shot through him like a blazing bullet.

  “Vivianna Malden.”

  Realization tore through him as the woman was led into the room. She looked just like her mother. Blonde hair, blue eyes, curves, only there were no frightened tears, no, she wore the hate-fueled scowl of her father.

  The son of famed millionaire Hadrian Dietrech Wretchkinsides Dan gasped in horror as he saw the picture from the Erotic Museum with the placard underneath. That was the clue that his brain had been unable to locate for the past several days. It had eluded him just like his prey.

  “Where’s Malden?” He demanded of Fitzroy.

  “What?” Fitz glanced around the room nervously as all eyes fell to Dan in disdain. He continued to reel.

  “So, what do they need the money for?” Dan heard Portwood’s inquiry in his mind as he glared at the answer before him.

  “Whoever did this needed the money they received for selling the pictures, and the papers needed to make back the exorbitant prices I’m sure they paid for them. Neither could afford to wait any longer. His own words pounded against his skull.

  He’d had every account, every dollar tracked except the ones Nic so often sent to Belgium in odd amounts, the ones he sent to his son. Difficult to track money when it was immediately being hidden by another Iodex officer.

  Guess you can only escape death so many times especially if Uncle Nic put out the first hit. Stegman’s quip had bile rising violently in his throat.

  The money for the set up of Rainer and Emily! Dan shuddered in horror. Well,
for what it’s worth, the money came from Belgium. He could still feel the confusion that he’d felt as Portwood rattled off the evidence.

  “Vivianna Malden! My God, Fitz! Where the hell is Malden?” Dan shouted loudly.

  “We traced some money that’s been bounced around from one of the Interfeci accounts it ended up in Belgium.” Portwood’s words allied with his own joining the war in his brain.

  “Oh my God!” Dan grabbed Fitzroy’s collar. “Where the fuck is Malden!”

  “Dan, what the hell?”

  “Is he speaking of zee Officer H. Malden? He was not called for testimony today, Mr. Vindico.” The court clerk tried to soothe him.

  “What is his real name?” Dan demanded.

  “He goes by Richard, but H. is his first initial.” Fitz stared at Dan like he’d lost his mind.

  “How’s the tummy? It was nervous a minute ago.”

  “Oh my God, Aida!” Dan felt Aida’s tiny body curl up in his lap at the children’s park. He’d followed them there. He’d been watching her.

  The rock through the window. The only people that know you’re here, would be people that work for the Senate. They were trying to get in. That’s why the bush outside was crushed. He’d stood close enough to try to keep it from being too loud. It was the best he’d come up with in the limited time he’d had to plan when Dan himself had alerted the press to the fact that they were travelling to Paris.

  Holding Fionna in the bath, Dan heard her frightened intonation. “It’s like in my head I know that I’m safe and that the girls are safe, but my energy just won’t calm. I know there’s not some kind of horrible danger, but my rhythms are so agitated. It’s exhausting.”

  The pickpocket. He hadn’t wanted her wallet. He wanted her phone. That’s what he was searching for in her bag. Malden wanted to tag her phone to follow her. Guys got two outstanding warrants. Seems he’s expanded his business from Brussels.

  His body trembled. He’d never felt the need to move or such acrid terror in all his life. Every hair on his body stood as his temperature fluctuated rapidly.

  “There’s nothing wrong with her radar! She was right all along! Fionna, oh my God! Why didn’t I listen?” Dan swallowed back vomit and turned to the Parliamentary board. “H is for Hadrian! He named him after his father to piss him off! His name is Haydrien Dietrech Wretchkinsides! Malden was his mother’s surname!” Dan seethed. “And that is his sister!” Dan pointed to the woman on the stands, just before he bolted from the courtroom sprinting outside with Fitzroy hot on his heels.