Submission is Not Enough Kobo

by Lexi Blake

  “I find everyone annoying, baby,” Ian replied. “Finding another Adam will be a breeze.” He pointed at the screen. “How did she give Kay and Owen the slip? Was the Scot in a pub drinking?”

  From what Theo had read about the two London team members, Kayla was a former double agent, serving the CIA by spying on Chinese intelligence, and Owen had been SAS in the British military. Both were highly trained, and it would have been hard to lose them.

  “They got her out by helo,” Nick explained. “She was in the building for three hours. Kay managed to get in by stealing a key card. She talked to some of the workers and figured out that McDonald had been in the CEO’s office for most of that time. They traced the helo to Reims. They think she actually crossed the border shortly after and went into Luxembourg. That’s where they lost her.”

  Ian’s eyes widened. “In Luxembourg? They lost her in fucking Luxembourg. Oh, they’re so fired.”

  Charlotte rolled her eyes. “Please tell them to keep looking and we would love anything and everything on the company she met with. I want the entire corporate structure and everything you have on the products they make.”

  “Owen is targeting a female employee back in Paris. She’s an upper-level executive who might have the information we need,” Nick explained, completely unfazed by Ian’s outburst. It made Theo wonder how Damon Knight ran his team. “He’s already got a meeting with her. Our tech guys set him up as a potential client. The lady is divorcing and apparently has a thing for British men. We’ll see what he can find out.”

  “See, Damon’s got man meat,” Ian said to his wife as though this was an argument they had often. “No whiney married guys who can’t romance some info out of a woman. All I’ve got are whiney married dudes. Even Theo comes back, his memory wiped out, and I still can’t use him as a man trap because the one thing he does remember is that his dick is attached to a female.”

  Charlotte’s mouth dropped open. “Ian!”

  But Theo threw back his head and laughed. It was true.

  Robert looked at him after the laughter died down. “You know it’s why she was so hard on you. You wouldn’t forget Erin. You wouldn’t play her games because of Erin.”

  Her games. It sent a chill through him. Her games had included running her hands over his body and trying to get a response. What had he given her? How much of himself had he given up? Had she taken?

  Robert turned back to Ian. “I will happily be man meat, sir. You know, once you decide I’m not going to explode like a land mine of horror. I thought that was colorful language for a formal report.”

  Ian frowned. “A report you weren’t supposed to get.”

  “If I can’t get a report on myself, what good could I ever be to the team?” Robert asked. “I want to be here. I want to give back, even if it’s in a small way. Let me read the reports on the new players. I can condense the information so it’s something everyone can understand.”

  Robert was giving him time to recover. He took a deep breath. They needed to have a talk. Robert obviously remembered more than he was telling Theo. Perhaps he was trying to hide the truth, but Theo needed to know.

  He had to find out what had happened to him in those tiny cells when the lights had gone out.

  The door flew open and Theo turned, his heart starting at the sound. It clanged against the wall and for a second, he thought about reaching for the Colt he carried. Thank god he didn’t because she was standing in the doorway, her curly hair floating around her face.

  And she wasn’t alone. Her arms were up, cradling a blanketed thing that could only be a baby. He guessed it could be something else. She could be holding a really big gun. She was the kind of woman who might bundle up her pet gun and hold it close to her heart.

  God, that was his son in her arms. She cradled his head and bounced gently as she spoke.

  “Ian, I need to talk to you.”

  It bugged him that she was looking at Ian and hadn’t spared him a glance. She turned away from him as though protecting the child in her arms.

  “What’s wrong?” Ian asked, standing up. “Did something go bad with the police? Should I call Derek?”

  She moved back and forth like the baby was heavy and she had to shift around to stay comfortable. “No. The police were fine. It’s what I found on my baby monitor that has me freaked out.”

  The door opened again and Li strode in, followed by Avery. He held up a thumb drive. “I’ve got the relevant data, but Erin’s right. It’s disturbing. We have to find this woman, Ian.”

  What had happened? Avery put a hand on Erin’s shoulder and held her arms out as if to take the baby.

  Theo had a choice. He could let that happen and then she probably wouldn’t look at him again all night long. She might not come back to the club. Yes, he’d signed a contract that stated he would take care of her inside the club, but that was bullshit. Life happened outside the club, and they, in particular, weren’t a couple who could be confined to a damn contract. He’d died. She’d had his baby. They were twelve kinds of fucked up, and that didn’t get fixed with a contract. It didn’t get fixed with sex.

  Maybe it could start to heal with a little compromise.

  “I’ll take him.”

  The room seemed to freeze, every eye on him.

  “It’s okay,” Erin said. “Avery can handle him. He’s had a rough night and he needs someone he knows.”

  She was giving him an out. The baby was asleep, his eyes closed and mouth sucking on a pacifier. He wouldn’t know who was holding him. The blanket had slipped and he could see the baby’s head. There was a cap of blond hair there. He could take the exit ramp she was offering him and sit back down and quietly listen.

  And nothing would change. If there was one thing he wanted out of tonight, it was some damn change. Ian was right. He couldn’t sit in that apartment anymore. He had to try. He’d spent all his time trying to remember what he’d had back then and none trying to figure out what was his in the now.

  “I’ll take him.”

  She sighed and started to hand the baby to Avery. “It’s fine, Theo.”

  Sometimes she needed a firm hand or she would walk all over him. “Erin, I said I will take my son. Hand him over to me or we are going to have trouble.”

  Her skin went the sweetest shade of pink and he couldn’t figure out if she was about to argue with him or if she’d gotten a little hot. Either way, he needed to start finding his real place in their relationship, and that began with the baby in her arms.

  No matter what had happened to him, he owed that kid a chance to know his father. A chance to have his father not be a total asshole who tried to live in the past.

  Well, she was finally looking at him. Oh, she kind of looked like she wanted to kick him in the balls, so that answered his previous question. Though the fact that she was pissed at him didn’t mean she wasn’t also hot. She was kind of perverted. He liked that about her.

  She moved toward him, the room completely silent. “If you drop him I will kill you.”

  He should have gone with her. He’d been scared, but now he could see how rough the night had been on her. He should have sucked it up and taken care of her, but he’d been a coward. “I’m not going to drop it.”

  She stopped and cradled the baby closer. “Him. Not it. He’s a baby, not a thing, and he has a name.”

  “He has my name, Erin. I’m trying, okay. You wanted me to try. Well, this is me trying, and I will fuck it all up. But I won’t drop my son.”

  Her shoulders came down from around her ears and she closed the space between them. “You have to make sure to hold his head.”

  He held out his arms and she shifted the baby over. He was eight months old. It wasn’t like he was some tiny, fragile thing, and yet he felt that way as his body sank against Theo’s arms. “I’m not going to hurt my own son.”

  He wasn’t. It finally hit him. He wasn’t going to hurt the kid. He might not be able to love him the way the other Theo would
have, but he wasn’t going to bring him to harm. He could do this. He could ease some of her burden and maybe she would let him back into her life. He’d been distant and that had to hurt her. Distance hadn’t worked. Closeness felt so much better.

  She stood there as though she wasn’t sure she should leave him with the sleeping baby.

  “Case, could you get Erin a seat?” He blinked through the pain, his hands perfectly steady. It was about half and half at this point when he said or thought her name. He would take it.

  “I’ll sit by Nick,” she offered.

  “Are we or are we not still in this club? It might be the conference room, but we’re still at Sanctum. You will sit beside me.”

  The look she sent him told him they would so be talking about that later.

  At least they would be talking.

  Case grinned as he presented the chair. “Here you go. You know the old saying. Be careful what you wish for…”

  She shot his brother her middle finger and sat down. “Li, will you please show them the footage?”

  Liam started messing around with the laptop and Theo settled back.

  He took a deep breath. He was holding his kid. Yep. Here he was holding his son like a regular old, hadn’t-been-dead-and-had-his-memory-wiped-over-and-over-again father.

  “He likes to be held higher,” Erin said, her eyes staring away from him.

  “He is higher. I’m taller than you.”

  “You have to bounce him when he gets fussy.”

  “He’s not fussy. He’s asleep.” Theo looked down and that pacifier was working. Like he was dreaming about eating. Typical Taggart. Jeez, he was kind of cute. His tiny hands were fisted against his chest. Tiny hands that would reach up for him.

  “He won’t be for long if you don’t fix his blanket. He doesn’t like the cold.”

  She was going to micromanage everything he did and he was going to have to deal with it. If things had been normal, they would have learned all this together. They would have sat up nights trying to figure out if he needed his diaper changed or another feeding. They would have worried and fretted.

  She’d done all of it alone.

  He resettled the blanket over his son, who snuggled closer, his face rubbing against Theo’s chest. “I should have gone with you tonight.”

  “It was no big deal.”

  Shit. He was in trouble. Big old trouble. He didn’t have to remember. Any man with half a sense of self-preservation knew that tone. It was worse with Erin since she knew how to kill a man a hundred different ways and had named her gun. “It was a big deal and I screwed up.”

  She sat back as though simply relaxing. “I handled it. I’m used to handling things.”

  “I know and you’ve done it so well. I’m sorry. I should have done this the moment I got home. I should have taken over some of your work. You’re not alone now.”

  “Not in the club, I suppose.”

  She wasn’t going to give him an inch.

  “I’m trying. I’m sorry. Sometimes it hurts, but I’m going to be better. I’m going to get to know him.”

  Her head turned and she was looking at him like he wasn’t the worst human being on earth. “You hurt? Where? Kai told you. You have to stop trying to remember, Theo. Do you need something for a headache?”

  Ian cleared his throat as if to say “told you.” “I think Princess Theo can survive a few minutes. Li, you ready?”

  She put a hand on his arm. “If you’re in pain, I can stop all of this. It can wait.”

  His brother was a fucking genius. “I’m fine. It only hurts a little. Maybe if you kissed me I would forget.”

  Erin looked around as though she knew she was being had, but couldn’t quite wriggle out of the trap. “Well, I suppose since we’re in the club, I have to.”

  She leaned over, brushing her lips against his, their child between them.

  It was over almost before it began, but it struck him that it was the first time she’d kissed him.

  Maybe not the first, but the first he remembered.

  She settled into her seat, but leaned toward him this time.

  The baby wasn’t trouble at all. He kind of liked having something to hold on to. The weight was good in his hands. It was chilly in the room though. He tucked the blanket around TJ’s head. Didn’t most of the body heat get lost through the head? Shouldn’t the kid be wearing a hat?

  “Okay, so this asshole broke into Erin’s place around midnight tonight,” Li was saying. “That’s the best we can tell since he managed to take out the security system.”

  “And he did it without setting off the alarm that would normally go off if the electricity was cut,” Erin added. “So I have to think he hacked into the system, and that means he’s not some two-bit burglar looking to make some cash.”

  “Which this video proves.” Li touched a key on the laptop and the screen in front of them filled with a grainy, black-and-white feed. “He didn’t break in to steal anything…well not anything of financial value.”

  Theo watched the video. It was TJ sleeping. How did he sleep like that? His body was kind of bent in two and his butt was up in the air. He’d kicked off his blanket and looked small in the crib. There was a mobile above his head. It looked like airplanes.

  “Are you trying to ruin him?”

  Erin’s eyes went wide. “What?”

  “I told her you wouldn’t like the airplanes.” Case leaned in, his voice quiet.

  Erin huffed. “For god’s sake, it’s a mobile, you two.”

  “It’s going to send that kid straight to the Air Force.” He would never have allowed that in his poor kid’s room. “We’re a Navy family. He’s going into the Navy. You’re switching that thing out for boats.”

  “I was in the Army, jerk. And we can talk about this later. There he is.” She pointed to the screen.

  Theo forgot about the highly inappropriate mobile and started thinking about the man who crept into his son’s room.

  “How tall is the crib?” Robert asked.

  “What does that matter?” Why the hell was Robert interested in the crib?

  “The side comes up to my waist. I know because I bend over that sucker every single day,” Erin replied, standing up and putting her hand at her waist. “I’m five foot eight. Do you think you can figure out how tall he is?”

  The man on the screen stood over the baby’s bed, his masked face to the camera, though he didn’t seem to know he was being taped.

  “I need to look at it on a computer, but I would estimate he’s roughly six foot and weighs about one ninety.” Robert was studying the screen carefully. “Theo, do you recognize the balaclava?”

  It was hard to tell because the screen was in night vision, but the man’s face mask did seem familiar. “It looks like there’s a change in material around the neck. Do you think it’s leather?”

  Mother always made them wear the masks when they worked. She insisted on protecting their throats. It wasn’t a common balaclava.

  “I think so. I think it’s exactly like the ones we used to wear. He’s from Mother.”

  Ian shuddered. “I thought we weren’t going to call her that anymore. It’s creepy. What the fuck is that in his hand?”

  Erin went stiff beside him. “It’s a medical grade swab. It’s in a container to keep it sterile.”

  The man pulled out the swab and rolled TJ over. The baby yawned and his pacifier fell out. The man pressed the swab inside TJ’s mouth and ran it inside his cheek.

  Theo’s arms tightened around his son. Erin’s hand went to his shoulder, as if trying to soothe him.

  “Did he take TJ’s DNA?” Mia asked. “Why would he do that?”

  The man eased the swab into the container as TJ started to flip over again. The man put the container inside his jacket and exited the room.

  That bitch. He felt his heart rate jack up. She had his son’s DNA. His fucking DNA.

  What the hell was she going to do with his son’s DNA?


  Soothing hands moved over his shoulders. Erin was standing behind him. “Take a deep breath, babe. Your eyebrow is doing that weird thing where I’m pretty sure you’re about to have a heart attack.”

  “I’m going to kill her.” He watched in horror as the window shattered and TJ started to howl. He couldn’t hear a damn thing, but his son’s face screwed up and he started screaming. Kori rushed in, covering TJ’s body with her own and pulling him away.

  “I’m going to kill her.”

  “I know, babe,” Erin replied. “I know.”

  He sat and held TJ and wondered if he hadn’t brought hell down on his son.

  * * * *

  Erin kissed TJ and settled him into the crib with Aidan. The boys had bunked down before and Aidan didn’t even move as TJ settled in. She wanted to keep him in bed with her, but Avery and Li’s guest bed was one of those monstrous things that was high off the ground, and she worried because TJ sometimes woke up early and liked to roll around.

  She could sleep in here. There was a rocking chair. It wasn’t like she would actually be able to close her eyes and fall asleep. She was fairly certain that the moment she tried, all she would see was that man standing over Theo Jr. It would likely shift and change into that crazy fucking bitch looming over her Theo.

  The door came open, light spilling in from the hall. Liam’s big body blocked most of the illumination. “Come on out. The boy’s will be fine. We need to talk.”

  It was so late. She didn’t want to talk. She wanted to go back to the moment in the evening when Theo had been her Master and she hadn’t thought about anything but the way he made her feel. Before all their problems landed back on her doorstep.

  It had been a good plan, but the first crack had already shown up and it had fallen apart. She wasn’t sure she could go back to the club now. She might never leave her child again.

  Still, she followed Li out. He’d gotten down to a pair of PJ pants, his hair wet. It was obvious the man was ready to end the night, but here he was still dealing with her. This Irishman who shared no blood with her had been more her brother than the three she had. He’d been more of a father, too, though she would never say that to him since they were practically the same age. Still, when they’d become partners he’d been so much more mature than she’d been, settled and confident with his life.