by Ruby Knoxx
“Leon,” I answered, holding the phone to my ear.
A grin curled onto my lips as I listened to the report on the other end of the phone, eyeing Justine who was pulling her skirt back down, looking at me hopefully. She fixed her bra and pulled off her blouse that hung open, in need of some button surgery.
“Thanks for your help,” I said as I hung up.
“That wasn’t sarcasm, right?” Justine asked, going to a laundry basket of folded clothes in the corner and finding another shirt. “You have something?”
“I do in fact have something,” I said. “The car belongs to a Lee Potts, who works for none other than Royce Rogers.”
As she found a new blouse and began buttoning it up, Justine’s face twisted into bitter anger. “That rat bastard,” she hissed. “That low-life son of a—”
“My guess,” I interrupted, “is that Potts intercepted Kat on behalf of Rogers, since he’s so desperate for a kid.”
We were both already dressed and getting our shoes on. I held the door to her apartment open for her, and we went for the stairs.
“But that doesn’t even make sense,” Justine said. “He only found out about Kat this morning. I mean, you guys were both at my office about the same time that Kat was …” her voice broke, rendering her unable to finish her thought.
She didn’t need to.
“Well,” I said, “we will just have to pay Mr. Rogers a visit and ask a few questions.” What I didn’t say was that if I didn’t like the way he answered them, then I had every intention of tearing his throat out.
“I have to admit,” Justine said as we made our way down the stairs. “In all my childhood of wanting to go to Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood, this was not what I pictured.”
“It’s a good thing it’s not the same Mr. Rogers, otherwise I think your childhood self would be pretty disappointed,” I muttered.
Royce Rogers had a house built into the side of a cliff overlooking the ocean. As we climbed the drive, it looked like we were heading to nowhere but the sky until we reached the gates. I gave my name, which was cleared because of my mission with him, and we were directed down a drive that spiraled into an open parking area, directly under the house.
There were arrows that led to an elevator further in a garage and stairs that led to the outside deck above. I opted for the more direct route, with Justine close on my heels, climbing the stairs.
The patio was empty, and the French doors leading inside were open. I had no qualms about letting myself in. As we went from the bright Southern California sun to the shade, I nearly didn’t see the maid who was on her way to greet us. I just barely missed slamming straight into her.
“May I help you?” she asked somewhat indignantly.
“Tell Rogers that Justine Wilson is here to see him,” I said.
“No need,” she said. “He is expecting Miss Wilson. Please, follow me.”
That was all the confirmation that I needed that Rogers had taken Kat. Why else would he be expecting Justine?
We followed the maid up a staircase to a large room, made up of white tile flooring, white walls, and blue furniture and accents. There was a bar at the back of it, which Rogers had clearly already helped himself to. He stood in the middle of the room, a glass of amber liquid in hand and his arms out.
“You made it!” he exclaimed. He coughed a wet cough, dropping his outstretched arms momentarily. “Welcome to my abode.”
It was like he was greeting old friends who he hadn’t seen in years. I wanted to slap that drink out of his hand and take that smile with him.
“Where’s Kat?” Justine demanded.
“Where’s the girl?” I echoed.
Rogers laughed, which, with his wheezing, sounded more like he was trying to drag himself through mud with his voice. I felt my limbs twitching to shift. My lion was hungry, and this fat man in front of us was exactly what he wanted.
“I’m sorry,” he said, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbing his eye with it, clearly for dramatic effect. “I don’t mean to be so rude and laugh, but I didn’t expect to see you here, Leon. This matter doesn’t really concern you.”
“Doesn’t it?” I growled.
Rogers thought for a second. “Well, you work for me, and the only thing you’re here to do is run an intensive background check on the potential brides, isn’t that right? So, I suppose that since you’ve accompanied Miss Wilson here to the property, you trust her enough. So no, this is not your matter anymore.”
“What are you talking about?” Justine aske. “Where is Kat?”
“In a minute, in a minute,” Rogers said, patting the air with both hands as if he were trying to calm down an orchestra. “You know, Justine—I can call you Justine, can’t I? You know, I went through that list of women and their profiles, and none of them really jump out to me. But you do. You jump out a whole lot. A spunky thing like you would be a whole lot of fun.”
I was shaking with anger. I wanted to tear this man apart. The only thing stopping me was my duty to the ops. I was meant to protect this man, not maul him. Even if I weren’t a part of the ops, he wasn’t exactly just some nobody. He was the owner of RRC Bank. There were fewer people on the west coast who were as high profile as that. Killing him, especially if it was for my mate, would be the end of my career and an end to the life I had built. The end of who I had worked to become over the years.
“Now look,” Rogers went on, looking at me. “I’m a reasonable man. I know that I’m not a catch, and I know that you’re not particularly looking for someone yourself, at least, I assume you’re not looking for a mail order bride.” He chuckled. “So, I’ll make you a deal. Yes, I do have Kat—don’t you worry your head about her. She’s safe and happy and playing. She is absolutely fine. And she can continue being fine here in my care, never wanting for a thing in her life.”
“What are you saying?” I asked.
“I’m saying that if Justine will be my bride, then she can have Kat back.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
“Well, no matter what the child is now under my care,” he said.
“Tell that to the police, you bastard!” Justine shouted as she lunged at him. I grabbed her by the arms, holding her back. He might be older, he might be out of shape, but the man was still a shifter.
Rogers chuckled. “Darling, I am as rich as they come. You don’t think that I have the police in my pocket?”
That was it. I kicked off my shoes, tore off my shirt, and undid the button of my jeans as I shifted, my morphing pushing the rest of my clothes down my body.
I roared, lunging at him, slashing at him with my claws.
He only laughed.
Chapter 14 – Justine
I stumbled back at the sight of a lion in the house. I knew that Leon was a shifter, and that he was a lion shifter. Hell, he’d even showed me the night that he told me, but I hadn’t seen it happen before my eyes since.
I knocked against a lamp, which smacked against a wall, with me soon following it, using it to brace myself.
The lion slashed at Rogers, swiping at him with his massive paws, his claws extended and deadly. His teeth were on display as he growled at the man.
Rogers only laughed. Laughed. A massive predator was threatening his life, and he just stood there and laughed, pausing only to take a sip of his drink in hand, and let his wheeze turn into a sputtering cough.
The truth was, I was on the verge of agreeing to what Rogers wanted. I would have done anything to make sure that Kitty was safe and that I was there to keep her safe, and if that meant marrying this guy, then so be it. It wasn’t until Leon shifted that I realized that I actually had a choice in the matter. Leon was fighting for me to have that choice.
Leon roared, a deafening sound of frustration that shook the glass of the windows, shutting Rogers up and sending my hands to my ears. He lunged and swiped again, getting close enough to knock the glass out of his hand, though no further. Only then did I see Rogers flin
ch.
What is Leon doing? I wondered. He could hurt this man and get us all out of here, but he’s just threatening him. It wasn’t that I wanted to see a man torn to bits by a lion. I just didn’t understand what was going on. And if seeing bloodshed meant that I would see my daughter, then I’d accept it.
Part of me wanted to use this chance, while Rogers was distracted, to go and find Kat. With how cocky he was, she had to be somewhere in the house. But I was paralyzed. I couldn’t take my eyes off the scene in front of me, and while I knew that the lion was Leon, it was difficult to remember that it wasn’t a wild cat’s brain necessarily controlling the animal. It could turn and lash out at me, and if it killed me, what would happen to Kat?
With a grunt, Leon lunged at Rogers again, this time his claws making contact, tearing through his suit, leaving a deep gash behind.
My hands went to my mouth as I watched the blood pour from the man, his smile fading, for all he was trying to keep up his laughter. His hand covered the wound as a mixture of pain and anger darkened his gaze.
For a horrifying moment, I remembered that he, too, was a shifter. He could shift at any moment, and I would be witness to a full-on fight between these two beings. I had no idea what animal he could shift to, but I didn’t want to stick around to find out. I had to survive so I could find my daughter, and I didn’t think I would survive if these two started a deathmatch. I finally got my feet to move as I began creeping along the wall toward a hallway.
“You don’t need to go anywhere, Miss Wilson,” Rogers said.
I froze, not sure what to do. The pain on his face eased, and he removed his hand from his arm, red and sticky with blood. To my astonishment, the wound was healing. Right before my eyes. There was still a puddle of blood on the floor and splashes that had stained his suit, but the wound itself was disappearing.
How could that be?
“Leon, you don’t need to keep acting like a wild animal,” he said. “I’m a reasonable man. I concede. I’m too old to be fighting like this. Sonya, bring out the girl, will you?”
I blinked in astonishment. Just like that. Just like that, and he was bringing her out to me. I swiveled my head, searching for any sign of movement, of anyone bringing forward my daughter. My heart was pounding in my ears as for a terrifying moment, I worried that he wasn’t going to bring out my daughter alive. I shook my head free of that thought. He wanted an heir. He had no reason to kill her.
Leon shifted back, quick to pull on his clothes as he kept his eye on Rogers.
“And bring a mop, would you?” Rogers called out as he looked at the mess of his own blood on the white tile floor. He turned his attention to me. “I’m sorry about all this trouble, Justine. I had to try. You turned me down once today, and I didn’t want to let you go without trying one more tactic.”
“Kidnapping my child and holding her ransom was your tactic?” I hissed at him.
He sighed. “Try to see it from my perspective, just for a moment. You just don’t know how strange it looks for a man to suddenly acquire a child, especially a man of my position. I need a woman, and it’s even better if she already has a child. Then I can leave her alone, she can leave me alone, and I have someone to pass on my legacy.”
Through the patio door, the maid from earlier appeared, with Kat’s little hand in her own. Kat’s face lit up when she saw me.
There she was. My little girl, looking just like she did whenever I picked her up from daycare, happy as ever and bursting to tell me about her day. Hot tears streamed from my eyes as I ran over to her, scooping her up in my arms and hugging her tightly to me.
A light hand touched my arm. The maid leaned toward my ear and said quietly, “I assure you she was well looked-after. I saw to it myself that she was alright.”
I thanked her, wondering if she understood everything that had gone on and why they had my daughter in their custody in the first place. She didn’t look like the type of woman who would have gone along with a kidnapping.
“There,” Rogers said. “See? All is well. Mother and daughter reunited. And the little one none the worse for wear.”
My eyes narrowed at him. I put Kat down and, keeping her hand firmly in mine, marched over to him and smacked him across his smug face with every ounce of strength in me.
“You bastard,” I hissed at him.
He only smiled. Did nothing phase him? It only made me want to hit him again and again. But I felt warm hands on my shoulders, pulling me away from him. Leon’s voice vibrated in my ear as he said, “He’s not worth it.”
“Look, Miss Wilson,” Rogers went on, “I know that I don’t deserve anything from you. But this whole looking for a mail order bride thing is weary work. Truth be told, I don’t want a wife. I don’t want a bride. I’m happily married to my work. I just need an heir. When I learned that you had a child when I was doing my own background check on you, before I hired you, I thought you might be a simpler solution. I had Leon here looking into what you came up with, but I had my own staff keeping an eye on you, seeing if I was right about you.”
“You’ve been watching me?” I asked my skin crawling at the thought.
“Not like that,” he said. “You work hard, and I like that. I wanted a woman who would be happily left to her own devices but would also look good on my arm when I had to appear in public and someone who would give me a child. Call me too inclined toward my animal self, but I have little interest in the mating habits of humans, so the fact that you already had a daughter was pretty appealing.”
“Why not adopt?” I snapped. “Why kidnap my child?”
“That’s a very harsh word,” he said.
Behind me, I heard Leon growl, and I tightened my hold on Kat’s hand.
“We didn’t kidnap your daughter, per se,” Rogers went on.
“Taking a child from a school sure as hell looks like kidnap to me,” Leon said.
“I suppose it would,” Rogers said, leaning against the back of the couch, getting out of Sonya’s way as she brought a mop through for the mess on the floor. “But what my man saw was a little girl who shifted into a cub in public. Now, there were many possible outcomes that could have come of that, one of which could have been nothing, but the majority of those outcomes wouldn’t have boded well for Kat here, nor shifter kind. My man picked the cub up and got her out of sight and brought her here where she was safe. He did you and all shifters a favor.”
“So much so that you thought you would use the girl as a bargaining chip?” Leon growled.
Rogers let out a long sigh, pulling out his handkerchief and dabbing his forehead with it. He went over to the bar and poured himself another drink before he said anything else, holding the glass with two ice cubes in it to his forehead for a minute.
“I’ll level with you,” he said. “I don’t have long for this world. I thought I was lucky. I thought that maybe I had eluded the disease but apparently not.”
He paused to sip his drink. I had no idea what he was talking about, and I couldn’t say that he was gaining my sympathies. Leon gave my shoulder a squeeze.
“I have Shunter’s Disease,” Rogers said.
“Shunter’s,” Leon repeated. He seemed to think for a moment, his lips pressing together and his brow furrowing in what looked like deliberation. “You know that there’s been a cure found, right?”
“What’s Shunter’s?” I asked.
“A shifter disease,” Leon supplied, keeping his eyes on Rogers. “And one I would imagine a man like Mr. Rogers here could afford the cure for.”
“Yes, yes,” Rogers said, pausing for a moment to caught. “There is a cure, but there’s something about my specific case which renders me unable to qualify for the treatment. I suppose because it’s still in the trial stages and I’m too prominent of a figure to be killed by an experimental shifter drug. I don’t know. Anyway, I don’t have time to find a wife on my own and go through the process of getting her with child, and then waiting for the child to grow so I can g
room them for their inheritance. I need someone now.”
Chapter 15 – Leon
I was stunned.
I had seen a lot during my years, especially while working as a black ops, but never had I seen anything that rendered me speechless, not like seeing that five-year-old girl walk into the room, happy as can be, going straight to Justine.
There was no doubt in my mind that she was mine. I could see it in everything about her and felt it in the pull she had on me. I was completely transfixed as I watched her hug her mother, as I watched her go along with Justine, while Kat waved to Sonya as she left.
It wasn’t until I heard that sound of skin smacking against skin that I came back to reality. The reality of it was either Rogers was going to get his ass taken down by Justine Justice, or he was going to be pushed over the edge and finally shift, which likely wouldn’t go well for anyone in the room.
Holding Justine back from him, listening to him, I felt a bitter taste of disgust in my mouth. How entitled the rich thought they were, that they could just do things as they wanted. They could live their lives and one day decide that they needed something and do whatever it was they had to do in order to get that something. Whether that something involved another person or not.
“Like I said,” Rogers continued. “I am a reasonable man. And I can’t just leave the bank to the shareholders. Not in good conscience, anyway. I feel like I should leave what I’ve created to someone so that it can live on.”
I had no idea what he was talking about. Then again, I wasn’t a business man. I knew music, and I knew the ops. As far as I could tell, we were witnessing the unwinding of a man’s mind as Shunter’s Disease took hold of him.
“I guess what I’m trying to say, Miss. Wilson,” Rogers said, “is that I know I haven’t acted properly toward you, toward your company, or toward your daughter. Though, I assure you, she was looked after very well. Not a harmful finger was laid on her, I can promise you that. I would like to make it up to you. Let me just leave it all to Kat, here.”