Protecting What's Mine: A Security Romance Collection

by Apryl Baker

  “Three.”

  “Six.”

  “I’m trying to compromise with you, here. I am not raising six boys.”

  “It might be six girls.”

  “Oh, hell no. Girls are worse than boys.” She pointed to herself. “Case in point.”

  “You’re beautiful, smart, and the best person I know, moye serdste. Six more of you would be a gift.”

  “Until boys started coming by the house.”

  “Fuck no. Our girls aren’t dating until they graduate college.”

  She laughed, and his heart melted. It was the first real laugh he’d heard from her since she’d spotted their son.

  “You can’t dictate what they do when they go to college.”

  “The fuck I can’t. They are going to stay home and go to school. We’ll save a small fortune in room and board alone with six girls.”

  “I love you.”

  “I love you too, Angelique Lemoraux Kincaid.” He brushed his thumb across her lips. “More than I can ever tell you.”

  She took his hand and placed it on her belly. “This tells me just how much you love me. Our nugget.”

  A love so fierce it took him by surprise swelled up, and he laid his head on her belly. She’d given him a second chance after every awful thing he’d done to her. Now God was not only giving them another second chance with a baby, but he might have given them their son back.

  He wouldn’t let God down. He’d protect them with his life this time.

  Chapter Ten

  He caught his brother a little while later before he came back into the hospital room. Angel had dozed off, and he wanted her to sleep. The nurse said she’d wake her up every two hours because of the concussion, so trying to cat nap between those would be the best thing for her.

  “I got her a couple things. Not sure what she’d be able to eat.” Nik held up the bag from one of his favorite Italian places. “She awake?”

  “No, she just dozed off, but I need to talk to you two.” He included Watkins in this. “I don’t want her to know about Matthew yet.”

  “The fuck you say.” Nik nailed their mother’s angry glare in that moment. “She has a right to know her son is alive.”

  “Yes, she does, but not right now.” Kade pulled the door closed in case she woke up. “She’s pregnant. Do you think she’ll let me go get him by myself?”

  “Shit.”

  “Exactly.” Kade rolled his shoulders, hearing joints crack and pop. “If we tell her, and she goes to Miami, what if she gets hurt? If she loses this baby, she’ll never get past it.”

  “I get where you’re coming from, brat. Really, I do, but if you don’t tell her, she’ll never forgive that either. If it were Lily, I’d die to protect her, but I wouldn’t keep this from her. She deserves to know.”

  “I think everyone’s jumping ahead of themselves.” Watkins leaned against the door, watching the hallway. “The DNA results aren’t back yet. Wait for that, and then decide. No need to tell her right now then have it come back negative. Don’t cause her worry for no reason.”

  What Kade had originally planned on doing anyway before Nik took the high road on him. Or maybe he wouldn’t have. Fuck if he knew. All he wanted to do was protect her, the nugget, and Matthew, wherever he might be.

  “How long before we get the results?”

  “Couple hours,” he told his brother and grabbed one of the coffees out of the cardboard container. “I’m going a little crazy.”

  Nik handed a separate bag to Watkins, who sniffed and closed his eyes. It reminded him of Angel when she described food porn. No wonder the two of them got along so well. They were both food whores, but then again, his brother Dimitri could beat them both out for that title. Where all that food went, Kade would never know.

  Kade’s phone started ringing, and he tore it out of his pocket, hoping for news. Conner’s smiling face greeted him. Viktor must have called him.

  “Conner.”

  “How is she?” Abrupt and to the point. That was Conner these days. Not the happy-go-lucky kid who’d left for the military six years ago.

  “She’s okay aside from a concussion. They’re keeping her overnight for observation.”

  “Don’t let anything else happen to her before I get there.”

  “You’re coming here?” Kade pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it. He knew Conner was opening a club here in New York, but the man was firmly planted in Chicago.

  “Da.” Conner spoke to someone in the background. “Viktor says you need help, military help. I am better than he is at covert ops. I am coming to get my nephew.”

  This was what he was telling Angel about. Family. A big family who would jump in without being asked. He wanted this for their kids.

  “I’ll send Nik to pick you up. What time do you get in?”

  “My flight arrives at seven tonight. We’ll go shopping when I get there.”

  “Shopping?”

  “Da, brat. We will need guns, lots of guns. Unless you want to let the police know ahead of time?”

  “I don’t know.” Did he want to involve the police? It would be the smartest move, but they might not believe him. Then they’d waste precious time. Time his son might not have. If the cartel knew Angel recognized him, they might not wait to start torturing him.

  “We’ll figure it out when I get there.” Conner disconnected without even saying goodbye.

  “He does that now.” Nik shook his head at their brother’s bad manners. “Mama would switch his backside good for that, even though he’s a head taller and three times wider than she is.”

  “Come on back in, and we’ll eat while we wait for Angel to wake up…” He trailed off when he saw Max get out of the elevator. That was quick. Too quick. He probably just grabbed his laptop and hadn’t had time to even run the check.

  “We need to find a quiet place to talk.” Max glanced around nervously.

  “You found something?”

  Max nodded curtly.

  Kade asked Marcy if there was somewhere they could talk quietly and privately. She showed them to an empty on call room with a lock on the door. She didn’t ask any questions, much to her credit.

  “What?”

  Max opened his laptop and showed the police report that had been filed earlier. It was a man who worked for the construction company. He sent a snapshot to Watkins, who had been there this morning, and got a confirmation that it was the man who hadn’t shown up. His boss came instead. They’d found him a few blocks from his wife’s new building, dead.

  “This makes no sense. Why would they kill a construction guy?”

  “If they dumped her phones, they would have seen she’d made several calls to the business. If it were me, I’d have called them and gotten all the juicy details.”

  “They’re not going to give out client information…”

  “Kade.” Max put a hand up and stopped him. “It’s a construction company, not a doctor’s office. If someone called and said they couldn’t remember what time their meeting was or who it was with, they would have confirmed it.”

  “Motherfucker.”

  “You should know this. You were in the FBI.”

  “I do know it, I’m just fucking tired.” He sat down on one of the beds. “They probably grilled the kid and got the address. The bastards leave no witnesses behind. He was dead the minute they got his name.”

  “Do you know anyone who works gang intel down in Florida?” Max closed his laptop. “If it were Texas, I’d have you covered, but I know jackshit about Florida.”

  “It’s been years. I can get in touch with my old handler, but he was my only contact while I was there.”

  “I think Cole knows some people down there.”

  “Cole?” Kade searched his memory but came up blank.

  “Cole Daniels, Viktor’s new hire. He’s from the Miami-Dade area. He might be able to help. He’s supposed to start Monday, but I’ll shoot him a text see if he can lend a hand.”
r />   Kade glanced at his phone when it pinged. It was Watkins telling him they were taking Angel for her CT, and he was going with her.

  “Do we want to involve the police, though? It’s a lot of red tape.”

  “You can’t just roll into town, shoot it up, and not expect police backlash.” Max stuffed the laptop back into its case. “You need the police. Call your buddies in the feds. Keep a plan B on the backburner in case plan A fails, but we want the police involved.”

  “I’m with Max on this.” Nik finally spoke up. “I’m not a military man, so I can’t say Conner’s plan won’t work, but I think you need to do it legally first.”

  “And what happens if legal doesn’t work and we have to go in? The dead bodies will lead back to us then. The cops will know we were looking for Matthew. If we go with stealth and just take out the necessary players and take him back, no one is the wiser.”

  “And how are you going to explain finding the son you thought was dead?” Nik asked. “You’re not thinking like a cop, Kade. You’re thinking like a father who is willing to do anything to get his son back. If you don’t start thinking like a cop, you’re going to wind up in jail where no one can protect you, and it still might end up with Angel and Matthew dead.”

  When did his little brother start making so much fucking sense? He did want to go in guns blazing and take his son back, but Nik was right. How would he explain it? A child who had been presumed dead? How did he find out about him? Who did he contact? Where did he get the child? All those questions would land at his doorstep, and he had no answers that wouldn’t land him with a prison sentence.

  People would die when he went in to take back his kid. If the cops weren’t in on it, his family would be the ones to pay for it.

  “Just calm down.” Nik gripped his shoulder. “Conner will be here in a few hours, and we’ll all sit down and come up with a plan A and a plan B. We’re going to get him back one way or another.”

  Kade wanted to argue, every instinct he had wanted to argue, but he agreed with his brother. There couldn’t be any mistakes this time.

  And there wouldn’t be.

  ***

  Angel yawned when a nurse woke her up. It wasn’t Marcy. This one was from radiology and told her they were going to do a repeat CT on the doctor’s orders. The first thing Angel noticed was Kade was missing. He was probably on the phone with his mother or one of his brothers telling them about the baby.

  The baby.

  A small smile escaped as she got into the wheelchair with the help of the nurse. The light still bothered her eyes a bit, but it was getting better. Even the dizziness had almost dissipated. She must have really hit her head when she passed out.

  “Where are you taking her?” Jasper asked when the nurse wheeled her out of the room.

  “To CT.” She started pushing the chair and stopped when Jasper followed. “Excuse me, sir, but you are not allowed in CT. You can wait here until she gets back.”

  “Not happening.”

  “Sir…”

  “You’re not going to get him to stay here.” Angel shook her head, forgetting the movement would hurt. Dammit. “He’s my bodyguard. Where I go, he goes.”

  The nurse looked like she wanted to insist, but the expression on Jasper’s face brooked no argument. She gave in with a huff and started wheeling her down the hall, Jasper on their heels.

  “I’ll text Kade to let him know where you are. He’ll panic if he comes back and you’re gone.”

  That was the God’s truth. All the Kincaid men went into caveman mode if they so much as suspected there was danger to their women. Angel loved them for it, but it also irritated her. She wasn’t a china doll who had to be locked up in a glass case, protected from everything.

  Granted, she wasn’t indestructible. She knew firsthand how easily anyone could get into a bad situation where they had no control. She’d survived a serial killer, after all.

  They rode the elevator down to the second floor. The nurse refused to let Jasper enter the CT room itself. He argued, but this time the woman held her own. It wasn’t safe for him, and the nurse told him in no uncertain terms she’d call hospital security to escort him back to Angel’s room.

  Angel hid her laughter by ducking her head.

  “Is he always like that?”

  “Yes. He’s not being ornery on purpose. His job is to protect me.”

  The nurse shook her head. “I…”

  Angel looked up when the nurse stopped talking. A man stood behind her, a gun pressed against her temple.

  “Hello, Angelique.”

  She knew him. He’d been to her brother’s house many, many times. Emilio. That was his name. This man was hard to forget. Dark eyes, black hair pulled back in a braid, with a scar that ran from his temple to the center of his cheek. For most men, that kind of scar would detract from their looks, but not Emilio. It made him look scarier, yes, but he was gorgeous.

  “Hello, Emilio.”

  He grinned. “You remember me.”

  “You’re a hard man to forget.”

  He tipped his head to her. “As are you, chica. As beautiful as ever.”

  “Thank you.” She did her best to keep her voice steady, but on the inside, she was falling apart. He was here to kill her. She knew it. He knew it. It was just a matter of how long he was going to taunt her.

  “Perhaps I will have you dance for me tonight.” He pushed the girl toward her. “Now, Angelique, stand up and have the nurse take your seat.”

  “Don’t kill her.” Angel did as she was bid and stepped out of the way so the nurse could sit. “She has nothing to do with this.”

  “Witnesses, chica, witnesses.” Before Angel could do anything, he pulled the trigger. It wasn’t loud. He had a silencer on the gun, and it sounded more like a soft whoosh. He’d shot her between the eyes. At least it had been quick.

  “You’re not going to get out of here.” Angel debated screaming and alerting Jasper. “My guard will only wait outside for so long, and Kade’s in the hospital.”

  “I know all that.” His grin, all male and full of teeth, appeared again. “You’re going to come with me willingly.”

  “You’re insane.”

  “My mother says the same thing, but that doesn’t change the fact that you’re going to come with me. Someone wants to meet you.”

  Going with him wasn’t an option. If she went, she was dead.

  “Who would want to meet me?” She had to buy some time. Jasper would come in if it took too long.

  “Your son.”

  Her brain froze for half a second before the anger surfaced.

  “My son is dead.” How dare he? As terrified as she was of Emilio, no one was ever going to use the memory of her child against her.

  “Is he?” Emilio took out his phone and tapped a few times before handing it to her. “Look.”

  She reached out and took the phone, her eyes darting between Emilio and the screen. It was the same little boy from yesterday, and her inner mama instincts roared to life. This was her son? No. She tamped all that hope down. Her child died.

  “This is a lie.” She threw the phone at him. He caught it mid-air. “My baby died before he was even born.”

  “No, he’s not dead.” Emilio pocketed his phone. “Since you won’t come with me, you leave me only one option, chica.”

  “What’s his name?” All those feelings from yesterday surged up. It didn’t make sense, but Emilio wasn’t lying. That little boy was hers.

  “Mateo.” Emilio cocked his gun and pointed it at her.

  “Why tell me right before you kill me?”

  Emilio smiled. “So you know your child is being raised to kill for us, the same people who took everything from you. You will die knowing all this.”

  The knock on the door interrupted them. Emilio’s eyes narrowed as he weighed his options. Jasper would open the door any second.

  Emilio put the gun to her forehead, and she braced her knees to keep standing. She woul
dn’t show him fear.

  “You tell him we were this close to you.”

  Then he was gone through another door on the opposite side of the wall, and Angel’s knees hit the floor. Sweet Mary Mother in Heaven.

  Her son wasn’t dead.

  Chapter Eleven

  Kade paced. Why wasn’t she back from radiology yet? Nikoli sat eating in one of the hospital chairs. He claimed he hadn’t eaten all day. That was like Angel saying she skipped breakfast. All lies.

  “Dude, calm the fuck down. She’s perfectly safe. They took her to do a repeat CT. All that pacing is making me dizzy.”

  If that were true, why did he have this awful sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach? The same feeling he’d had when Boston’s serial killer had kidnapped her. He trusted his instincts more than he trusted his brother’s evaluation of the situation. Scans didn’t take thirty minutes.

  He pulled his phone out just as it started to ring, and he jumped.

  “Told you, man, calm the fuck down.” Nikoli shoveled more ravioli in his mouth.

  “Fucker.” He shot his brother a glare and answered the phone. “Where are you?”

  “We’re in radiology. You need to get your ass down here. There was an incident.”

  “Incident?” He didn’t wait to explain to Nik as he tore out the door and headed for the elevator. “What floor?”

  “Second. The nurse took her to CT and wouldn’t let me go in with her. I stayed right outside the door, but they were waiting on her in the room.”

  His stomach bottomed out, and he felt sick. “Was she…is she…”

  “She’s okay, but the nurse isn’t. They killed the girl in front of her and would have killed her if I hadn’t come in when I had. The guy took off.”

  “Did you get the motherfucker?”

  “No. I was afraid to give chase and leave her alone.”

  “No, you were right. There could have been more waiting for you to leave. She’s okay?”

  “The man put a gun to her head and said to tell you they were that close to her. She’s not all right, Kade. She’s in pretty bad shape, but she’s not physically hurt.”