My big man.
My sweet man.
He rubbed a fist in his eye. “You’re home safe?”
He was also my worrying man.
My little protector.
The oldest of my children and the only one who had an inkling about the severity of our situation. That things were bad and there was a chance they could get worse.
We were riding on a hope and a prayer and fighting with every single thing we had.
My babies could be taken from me, and there was nothing in this world that was worse than that.
“Yeah, I’m home, Sweet T.”
“Did you find someone to help us?” he asked, strain in the heavy bob of his little throat.
Slowly, I pushed up to my feet and crossed the room so I could kneel in front of him. I set my hand on his face. The gentlest kind of reassurance. “Not yet, Thomas, but I will. I promise that I will.”
“It’s okay, Tom Tom. Momma knows all the tricks, don’t you, Momma?” Mallory slid off her bed and dug around under it before she pulled out a big drawing notepad, the pages a textured beige and bound in a thick brown stock. “See!”
She pointed at the pictures we’d drawn.
It had been the only way I’d been able to explain to her a little of what we were going through without instilling her with fear, a happily ever after waiting at the end the only comfort I could give her.
The last thing I wanted was to cut down the vitality that oozed from her like a spring gushing up from the earth.
“Tell us another one?” my five-year-old asked with way too much enthusiasm for the middle of the night. “Oh, please, Momma. You didn’t tell one before you left. You owe us.”
She grinned.
Way too big.
All little teeth with a single one missing in the middle.
I swore the child could melt a glacier.
I glanced at Thomas who was still wearing worry all over his expression. I wished I could take it from him, the terror he’d felt when I’d woken him in the middle of the night four months ago and whisked him and the girls away in the darkness.
Wished I could cover it and conceal it.
Or more importantly, make it completely go away.
Instead, I stood and stretched my hand out for him. “What do you say?”
He nodded, accepted my hand, and took a seat next to me on the floor by Mallory’s bed.
Criss-crossing my legs, I pulled her onto my lap and wrapped an arm around Thomas. He snuggled into my side, my nine-year-old putting aside his shield of armor that he typically wore in favor of consolation during the late hour.
Sophie Marie continued to sleep through the ruckus, her tiny breaths filling the air as I opened the book. The pages were full of freehand drawings, and I opened my mouth and whispered the words to my older two children who snuggled closer.
“Once upon a time, there was a prince and two princesses. They were the most fearless in the land, held hostage by a ruthless king. The prince . . . the prince wore a crown of rubies . . .”
I squeezed Thomas just a little tighter. I could feel him fighting an affected smile.
“The baby princess wore a ring of sapphire, and the sweet reigning princess wore a pendant of diamond.”
Mallory flapped her arms in excitement, lost in the inflection of my voice when her character was woven into the story.
“But they weren’t only brave, they were also smart. So, one day, they came to their handmaiden who cared for them with every ounce of her being. They were sure she had their best interest at heart and would help them no matter what. They knew she would help them make a plan to break free from the castle. They knew of the endless maze of bushes that grew ten feet tall around the castle, confusing any reckless warriors who dared come against the king. Many had been lost to the maze, their minds sent into a permanent bewilderment that left them wandering throughout their years. But not the prince and the princesses . . . they knew a secret way, their loving handmaiden helping to guide them as they set out into the night . . .”
Only our story wasn’t so much a fairytale.
It was our reality.
My children nothing but pawns in an elaborate game. In the end, I knew I’d be the expendable one.
All signs pointing to a tragedy.
For them, for us, I refused to let that happen.
I wouldn’t stop until we found our way out.
Five
Ian
I’d been sitting in my office for the last four hours with the contents of a file spread out in front of me. Pretending I could focus on reviewing the details for a case that was going to court next week rather than the fact I was actually sitting there, all spun up and feeling like I was going to go right out of my mind.
A fucking pussy who couldn’t shake the feeling that had been chasing me down for the last two days. This cagey urge to get wrapped up in the middle of something that I had no tie to. No binding or connection to the situation other than a random encounter at a bar.
But when I closed my eyes and the only thing I saw was that stunning face, it made me feel like I was. Like I’d already stumbled into something that I couldn’t climb out of.
Her wallet was burning a goddamned hole in my pocket, and not because I was itching to spend the whole fifteen dollars she had stuffed in there.
I was going to take it and that bracelet to her, make sure she was okay, and then get the hell out of there.
Put the girl out of my mind.
My phone rumbled on my desk, and I exhaled, thankful for the distraction, even though the chances were stacked high that it would be some stupid question that I’d have to grin and bear. Teeth clenched tight while I pretended like I cared as a client droned on about something insignificant or irrelevant.
But at least I could allay the annoyance, knowing a five-minute call was an easy five-hundred made. You’d think they’d stop with the inane bullshit when they realized how much their stupidity was costing them.
Guessed I shouldn’t complain.
But this grin? The one that spread across my mouth when I saw who was calling?
It was real and unstoppable and knocked down a piece of that wall.
Immediately, I reached out and accepted it.
A face that was so much like mine popped up on the screen. The two of us resembled each other so closely that I felt like I was looking into a mirror when I looked at him.
That was where our similarities ended, though. My brother was made up of courage and strength and loyalty. I was built of greed and immorality.
I could only wish I could be as good as the guy smiling back. But I gave up on that idea a long, long time ago. It wasn’t gonna happen. Some things were just embedded bone deep.
Still, I admired the asshole, the guy carving himself out a spot in my bleak, black heart. For being the one who’d kept it beating for all those years.
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t my big brother, Jace. Tell me how life is in the middle of insanity.”
My voice was totally wry.
Because that was what that shit had to be.
Insanity.
The guy had his phone in one hand, holding it out so I could see him, all the while trying to wrangle a squirming, squalling baby in the other. The only part of the kid showing up on the screen was a tiny fist that waved its fury in front of his face. He tried to angle his head around it.
Still couldn’t believe that my brother had made his way back to the girl who he’d loved since he was seventeen. The path sure hadn’t been easy for him to get there, littered with treacherous shit, twists and turns and dead ends, but it was a road he’d deemed worth traveling.
The guy was married to a girl named Faith and lived in this huge plantation that they’d restored and now ran as a bed and breakfast over in Broadshire Rim.
Lucky bastard had gotten one of the good ones. His wife, Faith, had this blooming heart, just fucking glowing.
Women like that should be impossible. She was the kind of mother every kid deserved. One in a billion. But if anyone deserved a love like that, Jace did. I was just about as happy for him as I was petrified that he might lose it.
Love precarious. Lost so easily.
The guy had taken up the family life like that was where he’d been heading all along.
Faith had given birth to their son just a few weeks ago. Not to mention, Jace had inherited Faith’s little girl, Bailey, in the process.
I didn’t get it.