She hurriedly latched on, going from wailing like a banshee to her hungry food grunt in point four seconds flat.
Kettle chuckled as he ran his large finger down Saylor’s cheek.
“God, I love you.” He said, moving his eyes from his daughter’s hungry mauling to my eyes.
My mouth tipped up in a grin before my eyes drooped heavily. “I don’t hate you.”
He snorted. “I don’t hate you either.” He replied dryly. “I’ve got to go to work. I’ll see you when I get home. Mom’s coming over later. Don’t forget.”
I restrained the urge to laugh aloud. I wouldn’t forget. That woman became a lifesaver our first few days after bringing Saylor home. Now, at three months old, she came to watch Saylor every Wednesday evening so I could get papers graded, and any household chores done. Or even on the rare occasion, go out on a date with Kettle.
There’d been a lot of adjusting when Saylor arrived in our lives.
At three days old, Saylor was pronounced deaf. She’d failed not only her newborn screening, but also her follow up screening.
I’d scoured the internet for days after she’d been pronounced deaf, but the one thing that kept me from totally freaking out was Viddy.
She explained to me that being deaf wasn’t a death sentence. With the advancement in technology in this day and age, Saylor could live a full and happy life without one single thing holding her back.
As I looked down at my perfect little girl, I knew that was true.
She was a very special little girl, and she was absolutely adored by everyone.
Most assuredly her daddy, whom she had totally wrapped around her little finger
Which was why when he came back into the room five minutes later to place one last kiss on his daughter’s cheek, I wasn’t in the least bit surprised.
“Bye baby.” He said as he left for the second time.
I smiled and closed my eyes. Perfect indeed.
***
Kettle
7 months later
“Can she hear me?” I asked the audiologist, Kathy, who’d just put the transmitter on to my baby girl.
Saylor was ten months now and the light of my life.
She was so chubby that she had to waddle when I held onto her fingers when we practiced walking. Her black hair matched her mama’s, but unlike Adeline, she had ringlets. They covered her head from the tips of her roots to the bottom of her hair.
I was never one that liked curly hair too much, but on my little girl, it was the cutest fucking thing I’d ever seen.
“Yes, sir. As soon as I turn them on she should hear you.” Kathy said with a smile.
Saylor had her cochlear implants put in six weeks ago and today they’d be turned on for the first time.
Adeline, who was holding Saylor in her lap, reached out and clutched my hand, tears already dripping down her face.
When we’d learned in the hospital that Saylor was deaf, it was a huge blow.
Surprisingly, the one to snap me out of the dread I was feeling was Dixie. The man who always had a laugh on the tip of his tongue.
What’d he say that made me realize that Saylor being deaf wasn’t the end of the world? Something so simple, yet exactly what I needed to hear.
She’s freakin’ perfect.
And she was.
Now we were sitting here, moments away from turning the implants on, and my baby girl hearing for the first time.
“Okay, I’m turning one on in three, two, one...” Kathy smiled and pointed at Adeline.
“Saylor, I love you.” Adeline said softly.
Immediately Saylor turned to the sound of her mother’s voice...and screamed bloody murder.
Adeline was smiling, I was smiling, and Kathy was beaming.
“Saylor Rae, why are you crying?” I asked my little girl.
Saylor turned her watery, big brown eyes that could melt my heart, towards me and smiled. Instantly the tears dried, and swear to Christ, I dropped a tear or two for the first time in my life.
As we were driving home later that day, we finally got the chance to play Saylor’s favorite movie’s soundtrack on the radio, and even I got into the act, singing and dancing at the top of my lungs.
A badass biker belting out Disney songs at the top of my lungs, and not a care in the world as to who would hear.
By the time we arrived home, I knew one thing for sure.
Our life was beyond perfect. I couldn’t ask for anything more.
Keep reading for an excerpt from my friend!
Stripping Her Defenses
Book Two in the Ex Ops Series
By Jessie Lane
(You can read the first chapter of this book on Jessie Lane’s website!)
Chapter Five
Riley
Sitting in the meeting room of the Ex Ops headquarters with my teammates, I watched as Jaxon walked in with a large bag and shut the door behind himself. He stopped at the head of the table, dropped the bag onto the floor, and picked up a file that had already been sitting there. Walking over to the dry erase board behind him, he quickly taped up two pictures. One was of Laura Moore; smiling, carefree, and very much alive. The second was Laura’s dead body in the morgue.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Bobby Baker tense up. A few of the other guys in the room shifted uneasily, as well. I figured they were probably thinking the same thing I was. Laura’s picture was a grim reminder of how close Baker had come to losing his fiancée, Annabelle.
Jaxon turned around to face us, somber but determined. “Last night I was given the green light by Uncle Sam to pursue a lead that could tie to Ms. Moore’s kidnapping, torture, rape, and eventual death. We’re going over details today so we can head out tomorrow. I don’t think I need to explain why this mission is important.”
Fuck no, he didn’t need to explain. There wasn’t a man sitting at this table who hadn’t been horrified when finding Laura with Annabelle and learning what the women had been through while being held captive by Rivera.
We’d gone down to Mexico to save Bobby’s girl from a drug cartel the ATF and our team were investigating for gun trafficking. We had absolutely no idea that a sex slave ring was involved, too, until we’d seen poor Laura. Emaciated, bruised, and bloody. Obviously broken on the inside and the out. She’d been reduced to a terrified shell instead of the warm, vibrant human being her sister had spoken of.
No one with a sliver of a good soul would lay a finger on a woman in such a manner. My parents might have died while Declan and I had still been young; but, at ten, I’d been old enough to learn from my father that women were precious. You handled them with care and protected them from the dangers of the world.
The men who had taken Laura and broken her weren’t men; they were monsters. I planned to track every single one of them and put them down like the vicious animals they had become. Only it wouldn’t be a sterile, comforting euthanization. No, I wanted their deaths to hurt in the most unimaginable ways. Those bastards could start their trip to Hell feeling every bit of the pain they’d inflicted on others first.
We’d all promised Baker’s girl we would do our best to get the assholes who had led poor Laura to her death in Mexico. Of course, all of us would have promised her anything and everything to keep her calm and happy these days. Her health was of the utmost importance, not only to Baker, but to all of us. I didn’t think any of us would be forgetting what she’d looked like cut up, with a bullet hole, and covered in blood; damn near dead in Mexico.
Annabelle had been beside herself with the traumatic loss of her fellow captive, who had died right in front of her during our botched rescue mission. It was something I knew was going to haunt the tough, little ATF Agent for the rest of her days. It was never easy seeing someone killed right in front of you, but given the extenuating circumstances the two women had endured together, Annabelle had been extremely traumatized.
In fact, she’d been so up
set that we’d had to bring Ms. Moore’s body back with us in the choppers to the States just to help keep Annabelle calm enough to get her to the San Antonio hospital that would ultimately save her life. It had also unknowingly saved the life of Baker’s unborn little girl.
The guilt that she’d been kidnapped right in front of us by the Rivera Cartel, and we’d missed it, had driven most of us to spend a lot of time at Baker’s place. I thought the entire team often felt the need to see with our own eyes that she was alive and okay. Thankfully, after everything that had happened, it was the truth.
She was currently on leave from the ATF, something her agency had insisted on since she was five months pregnant and considered a high risk due to her injuries from being kidnapped and tortured. Besides that, Annabelle and Seth both seemed happy living with Baker here in Virginia. From what Baker had said, she’d even been okay with the fact that he was about to bug out with us.
I could imagine many insanely hormonal pregnant women would have had a shit fit if they’d found out their fiancé was leaving for a job right after they’d moved in together, but not Baker’s woman. He’d told us that she’d asked one thing of them all and one thing only: find out whoever was responsible for the kidnapping, torture, rape, and auctioning of Laura. The team was all onboard for that. If it was what brought Annabelle some peace, we’d find those assholes and shut them down.
The initial investigation had involved contacting Laura’s only living relative, her sister Jessica Moore. They’d had to notify her of Laura’s death while also trying to find out whatever she might know about her sister’s life here in Miami. Unfortunately, Jessica could only give us a few details about Laura, due to her sister’s vagabond lifestyle. She had been able to point us in the direction of the strip clubs. It wasn’t a lot, but it had been better than nothing.
Watching Jaxon drop the paperwork he’d had rolled up in his hand on the table, I noted that he seemed on edge, as if ready to spring into action. Hopefully this meant whatever new intelligence he had was going to lead us to the fuckers we were all anxious to bury eight feet deep.
“And the reason I was given the green light by Uncle Sam is because last night Lucas received a call from one of his former teammates with the first credible tip we’ve received in months. Apparently, Lucas has some very interesting friends.”
Picking up the black duffle bag up off the floor, Jaxon dropped it on top of the table in front of him and then undid the zipper. Reaching in he pulled out what looked to be black leather, unfolding the material in front of us until we were looking at the back of what resembled a vest with different patches sewn on. The biggest patch was in the middle of the back and was an insignia of an eagle with a sword held in its talons and two small letters “MC” off to the side. Above that was a curved patch that said “REGULATORS” and below the eagle was another curved patch that said “FLORIDA”, all in red letters.
While I didn’t ride motorcycles, or grow up anywhere near that sub culture, I’d been around the world enough to know that was a cut to a motorcycle club. Just what, exactly, were we getting’ into here?
"Boys, Young took it upon himself to do some digging. While I don't usually condone that sort of lone wolf behavior-" Jaxon paused to give Lucas a glare, "BECAUSE WE'RE A TEAM – this time I have to admit that it paid off. Apparently, one of Young's old teammates joined a group of bikers when he got out of the Army. They're known as the Regulators. Young's contact, Ethan 'Hammer' McCoy, is the motorcycle club's Sergeant At Arms. Young asked him if they knew anything about missing women in Florida and it turns out they've got their finger on that pulse for personal reasons. The women going missing are strippers. Apparently, they own a strip club. So, the minute they heard about the second stripper going missing in the south Florida area, they did their best to lock their girls down. That hasn't stopped them from being worried about them, or the situation, though. Hammer spoke with his club president and they've invited us down to their turf to run an undercover operation to look into the matter."
"What's our cover?" I asked as the wheels started to turn in my head. I was ready for a mission to keep my mind occupied. Hell, I was ready for this mission. More than ready to give Baker's woman some piece of mind. To say I was eager to get my ass to Florida and shut these sadistic motherfuckers selling women was an understatement. Taking these assholes out and finally closing this mission wouldn't only give Annabelle peace, but it would also give me an outlet. I'd been dreaming of Kara again every night. I was tired. I was fucking restless. And because of that I was anxious and ready to work the anxiety out one way or another. I couldn't bring myself to touch another woman when Kara was all I could see in my head. And unless I wanted to become an alcoholic in the span of a week, I didn't dare try and drown my fuckin’ sorrows. So bashing some heads and dumpin’ bodies sounded like the perfect way to keep myself occupied.
Jaxon's smirk brought me out of my head and caught me off guard. If he was smiling like that I knew we were in for some crazy shit.
Holding the black leather cut, loaded with patches, up again for a few seconds for all of us to see, he then threw it in my direction.
"Welcome to the world of outlaw bikers Sullivan. I've been assured we're in for one helluva a ride."
Halligan To My Axe (The Heroes of The Dixie Wardens MC Book 2) Page 23
