Phoenix Legacy

by Corrina Lawson

  Now, however, was another story. Their age gap was insignificant as adults. He thought of her in a completely new way. He kept flashing to how Del had felt with her arm wrapped around his waist, how she’d looked so alive when taking the Charger around corners at such a high speed, and how she’d flirted with him in her bar before she knew why he was there.

  He hoped she never guessed he was her Hawk.

  It was best if he never saw her again. But that left one problem: the child she carried was also his son.

  Lansing had abandoned his biological son. Philip was loath to do the same. But his very presence would anger Del.

  He had no answers at all.

  So he would kill Genet instead.

  Chapter Twelve

  Del slept far better than she expected in a strange place. Her mind had been whirling still when she hit the pillow, but the fatigue from her pregnancy must have dragged her down into sleep.

  The first thing she did when she woke up was pull her cell phone out of her duffel bag and call Tammy. She wanted normal, she wanted some piece of her old life. She cursed as Tammy’s voicemail picked up, took a deep breath and left a quick message saying she was all right but that someone should cover her shifts for a few days and to please make sure to keep an eye out for the beer delivery scheduled for this afternoon.

  She put the phone down on the bedside table and looked around. Alec had apologized for giving her a small room and said the guest quarters weren’t quite ready yet. Sheepishly, he told her this room was his childhood bedroom and offered her a room in the complex below instead if it was too small. She’d begged off. All she wanted was a bed and quiet.

  It was definitely a boy’s bedroom, from the lamp with the toy train that went around the base to the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling and the bright blue paint on the walls.

  She reached into her duffel to pull out clothes for today. Instead, she found the handgun Drake had given her last night. She pulled it out and ran her fingers along the barrel. A Sig Sauer and probably a nine-millimeter, if she remembered right. A very good handgun from a very strange man.

  She settled back on the pillow and stared at the ceiling. Why had Drake seemed so familiar? She reviewed the day’s events in her mind’s eye, trying to make that maddening connection that seemed just out of her mental reach.

  It wasn’t until she reviewed their conversation beside the Charger that something clicked. They’d been staring up at a hawk after a lull in the conversation. I’d rather be a hawk. That’s what Drake had said. Drake. That was also a name connected to birds of prey. Hawk. Drake.

  Hawk.

  She stood up. Hawk. Drake was Hawk.

  But, no, he was too young. Hawk would be older than she was. Drake was maybe thirty, tops. That wasn’t possible.

  Yet when he danced with her, he’d picked It Had to be You. She and Hawk had danced to that as innocent children. That was no coincidence.

  Wait, Alec had said that Drake could heal his injuries. If he could do that, maybe that included facial wrinkles from age. And she’d pegged Drake as in his mid-twenties until she saw him up close and decided he was older than he looked.

  Hawk would be in his early to mid-forties now, if he was alive.

  Oh, he was definitely alive.

  Hawk, the murdering son of a bitch. Was that why she’d been dragged into this? Hawk had some plan to hurt her? Maybe he’d made up everything and she should get the hell out of here right now.

  She had her hand on the doorknob before she stopped. If she left, she wouldn’t have a chance to make him pay for what he’d done. She sat back down on the bed and picked up the gun. And not everything Hawk had told her was a lie. Alec’s firestarting abilities were absolutely genuine. The men who’d tried to kidnap her were real. How the hell did she sort through all the lies and truth in this?

  She put her hand over her swollen abdomen. Oh, shit. If what Alec said was true, Hawk could be the father or brother of this child. The man who murdered her parents had a thirty-three percent chance of being her baby’s father. Nauseated, she ran to the bathroom and splashed water on her face. It didn’t work. She threw up, chest heaving, her body in agony more than physical.

  “Del?”

  That was Alec’s voice.

  “Are you okay?”

  She groped for a towel and wiped off her face. She swallowed, her throat raw. “I’m okay,” she yelled. “Morning sickness.”

  “That sucks.”

  Alec, she judged, was standing just outside the door now. “Anything I can do?”

  Not unless he could get her out of this damned nightmare. “No, I’ll shower and be fine.”

  “You up for breakfast?”

  The last thing she wanted was food. But she should eat. Otherwise, she’d be lightheaded. “Coffee, at least. Decaf. Maybe some dry toast.”

  “You got it.”

  She splashed more water on her face and brushed her teeth. She wanted to like Alec. She wanted to believe him.

  But she’d liked Drake yesterday too.

  The coffee helped. She begged off on the toast as yet. Alec hovered as she drank. She finally asked if she was keeping him from something important.

  “No. You’re my priority right now. My team went to investigate a lead last night, and they’re doing all they can. If they needed my help, they’d ask.” He frowned. “Am I doing this wrong? I don’t have much experience being a host.”

  She smiled, despite her distrust. Alec was such an unusual combination of power and something that was oddly close to innocence. Maybe purity, if his story could be believed.

  “You’re doing fine.” If Hawk had lied to her, maybe he was deceiving Alec as well. This was like being stuck in quicksand. The more she struggled to find out what was going on, the more stuck she became. “You don’t sound like Drake is your favorite person, from what you said last night.”

  “He doesn’t like me. Beth says that’s because of her.”

  “He doesn’t like you because you’re sleeping with his daughter?”

  Alec leaned back against the kitchen counter. “That’s part of it, but more than that, he thinks what I want for the Phoenix Institute puts Beth in danger. He can’t stand the thought of her being hurt. I’ve seen him do superhuman stuff just to make sure she’s safe.”

  “What do you do here that makes Beth unsafe? I thought Genet was only after me. And Beth isn’t part of your assault team. No one’s shooting at her.”

  “I’d never let anyone shoot at her.” Alec’s face grew solemn. “I was raised in isolation. Beth was raised in a normal life because Drake made sure she was protected from people who wanted to use her telepathy. What I want this place to be is a safe haven where kids with psychic abilities can come and learn about their powers and still have a normal life. The best of both worlds.”

  “You’re talking about something like an after-school program for superpowered kids?” He had to be kidding.

  “Exactly!” Alec pointed at her. “Everything open and above-board. Beth had to hide her powers. She’s still wary of what they can do. I want these kids to enjoy their abilities, like I do.” He waved a hand and his coffee mug floated through the air to him. “Drake thinks being open can only cause trouble. Beth says that’s because he’s basically been hidden all of his life. He doesn’t know how to live in the open.”

  “My kid isn’t even here and someone’s already trying to kidnap him,” Del said. “So I guess I can see the point there.”

  “Drake calls it being in the line of fire.” Alec sighed. “Beth says he really can’t conceive of a hopeful outcome for all of this because of the way his life has been.”

  “How has his life been? This is because of the CIA work?” How much did Alec know about his sort-of in-law?

  “I’m not sure.” Alec sat on the kitchen stool in the breakfast nook, right next to her. “Like I said last night, he did CIA black ops and undercover work. I know that means pretending to be someone you’re not most of the t
ime. I also know that means he’s a trained assassin.” Alec turned. “Am I scaring you?”

  Del shook her head. “I’m all scared out for now. And I’m curious about the man who saved me yesterday.” Damn curious. How had Hawk ended up here?

  She wanted to know what his game was. She’d have sworn Drake was being sincere last night, but that was before she’d known he was Hawk. She had to admit their upbringing, where they had to learn to hide from the authorities, would be perfect training for a spy. And maybe joining the CIA, the government agency that terrified his stepfather, had been Hawk’s “fuck you” to the man who raised him. She knew one truth about Hawk. He had hated his stepfather.

  It didn’t explain how she’d been drawn into this. “What do you think of Drake? You can’t really think he’s crazy.”

  “I don’t know him because he doesn’t let anyone know him. He’s tightly wound. We talk when we need to work together but otherwise…” Alec shrugged. “I know he’s relentless. He’ll find out who’s trying to hurt you and why. I think you’re about to know him a lot better than me.”

  “Why?”

  “I told you we had a lead in this investigation. That’s because we talked to someone involved in, um, your baby’s creation.” Alec held eye contact with her. “Drake’s sperm was used in their experiment.”

  “He’s the baby’s father,” Del whispered.

  Alec nodded, almost sheepish.

  Well, I did say I wanted to take a hammer upside the head of your father, kid.

  She blinked and focused on Alec again. The young man seemed almost disappointed he wasn’t about to become a father. “Why didn’t Drake come here this morning and tell me this?” Hawk had seemed very protective yesterday.

  “He left early this morning to track down Genet. I don’t know when he’ll be back. I thought you’d want to know right away. I’m sorry if that was the wrong call.”

  “It’s all right.” She probably wasn’t in the right kind of mood to hear this from Hawk anyway. “You’re sure Drake had nothing to do with what happened to me?”

  “Never,” Alec said. “He’s a good father to Beth. She adores him, and I can see why. They connect. When we had to pull her out from Lansing’s custody last year, he brought a bag of candy for her. I never would have thought of it, but he knew she’d be scared so he brought her favorite candy.”

  She looked away from Alec and stared at the wall-size television in the living room. Hawk had always been thoughtful with her as well. That was what had made his betrayal so terrible.

  Her stomach growled. Hungry already. Greedy kid.

  “You know, Drake didn’t tell me much about what happened yesterday, just that an attempt had been made to grab you by Genet’s people but you were safe and he was bringing you here. What happened?”

  “He showed up at my bar with his Dodge Charger and then told me he needed to speak with me about the baby. I thought he was nuts, but he knew some things that he shouldn’t know, like the fact I was attacked.” And raped. “And he knew who Genet was. I was following him to a local diner to hear the rest when a van blocked the road.” She told Alec how the men had tried to grab her, how Drake had intervened, and the car chase.

  “Drake let you drive his car?”

  She smiled. “I’m an excellent driver.”

  “I bet. It also sounds like he talked more to you in one day than he ever talked to me or anyone else except Beth.”

  “He had a lot of explaining to do.”

  “I guess.”

  Del went back to the living room with her coffee and sat in the same chair she’d used last night. Alec was pacing. It was exhausting to watch. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means you got a glimpse of the real Drake. You asked me if I liked him earlier. Did you like him?”

  “I…” Alec, she realized, was no fool. “I did.”

  “It’s a good start.”

  “With what?”

  “You’re the kid’s parents. You’ll need to work together, right?”

  “I hadn’t gotten that far.” When hell freezes over. “How did he end up being Beth’s father?”

  Alec sat across from her, the fireplace between them. “She was raised by a single mother. She was eight when someone grabbed her for her telepathic abilities. Her mother was killed when they kidnapped her. She doesn’t talk about her mother a lot.” Alec took a breath. “They had her in some facility, studying her telepathy. The CIA heard about this and sent Drake in to get her out. He was supposed to turn her over to Lansing to be raised and trained with me.”

  “He didn’t?”

  “Drake hated Lansing and for good reasons. Drake rescued Beth but he faked her death. While the CIA and Lansing thought she was dead, he gave her a new identity, placed her with a foster family and made sure she grew up normally. Drake didn’t dare visit her openly or the CIA might track him and know she was alive. But he must have seen her a lot because they know each other really well. She says she couldn’t have chosen a better father.”

  Son of a bitch. That kind of rescue was something Hawk’d pledged to do for her. About three months before the Feds got their parents, they had planned an escape. Hawk had said he was old enough to protect her now. She’d gotten cold feet at leaving her parents and told him to go without her. He didn’t. He said he’d stay to protect her.

  And then he’d killed her parents.

  So Hawk had eventually rescued a little girl, if Alec was to be believed.

  “I wish this made more sense,” she said to Alec. “Besides that Drake is the father, what else did you learn from whoever made me pregnant?”

  “We filmed the interview Drake did with Dr. Cheshire.” Alec cleared his throat. “Did you want to see it?”

  “Yes.” She wanted to see this man who’d screwed up her life. She especially wanted to see how he interacted with Hawk.

  What she didn’t expect was for Alec to pull up the video on the big screen. She was glad she’d begged off on breakfast until after because her stomach felt sick almost immediately while watching.

  The Messiah gene. That was the first shock. The second was that Richard Lansing had been Hawk’s biological father. Unless she was misreading Hawk badly, he’d hated the man as much as he hated his stepfather.

  She wondered if Dr. Cheshire realized he’d been a few seconds from death when he examined Hawk’s arm. She knew that look on Hawk’s face. Blank, utterly devoid of expression. It hid murderous rage. She’d seen him explode once at some boys they’d run into at the local bowling alley. The boys had been teasing her. One of them had taken her favorite stuffed animal and taunted her with it.

  Hawk’s stepfather had specialized in noisy, screaming rages. Hawk was the opposite. That day, he’d been so ice cold, it was eerie. He’d made not a sound as he waded into that crowd of boys. Only their numbers had saved someone from being killed. He hadn’t learned to be a killer from the CIA. He’d been one when he joined.

  “Del, you okay?” Alec asked.

  “I could use that dry toast to settle my stomach.”

  “You got it.”

  Del kept her gaze glued on the video. When Alec nudged her just a few seconds later, she flinched.

  “Sorry.” He handed her a plate. Dry wheat toast, just as she’d asked.

  She paused the video. “How the hell did you make toast in five seconds?”

  Alec held up a hand. “I can hard-boil eggs with my heat too.”

  She took a bite of the toast. It tasted completely normal. “Thank you.”

  She munched on the toast, not tasting it, as she watched the end of the video. She leaned back in Alec’s comfortable chair and closed her eyes when it was done. She put her hands over her baby, Cheshire’s words echoing through her head. Accelerated growth rate, he’d said. Messiah gene. A healer, like Hawk and the late Richard Lansing, except her child might be able to heal others.

  If her son lived.

  Cheshire seemed concerned about her pregnancy. And
her doctor had quizzed her already about the date of conception, so that meant her son was growing faster than normal by design. How would that affect her? And his birth? To her eye, her baby bump was visibly bigger than just a few days ago, but that could be fear prodding her imagination.

  “Del? Are you hurt?”

  Other than her heart bleeding all over the floor, no. “You said you could feel my baby moving last night. Can you still feel him? Can you tell if he’s okay?”

  Alec knelt as he had last night and put his hand on her stomach. After a few seconds, he nodded. “He’s moving around. Seems fine to me, but I’m not a doctor. If Beth were here, she might be able to hear him thinking and we’d know for sure.” He sighed. “Do you want to go see your doctor? I’ll take you.”

  “No. Someone leaked my medical records to Cheshire. I don’t trust my doctor anymore.”

  She stared at the floor for a long time. She wanted to go back home and crawl in bed for days. But on the day she’d bought Bar & Grill, she’d stopped running.

  Alec started pacing again. “Del?”

  “I don’t know what to do next,” she confessed. “I don’t even know how to begin to decide what to do.”

  “Do you want to keep the baby?” Alec asked quietly.

  “He’s my son.” She had already decided that. And even if she hadn’t, she wasn’t going to walk away and leave him with crazy people. And she’d never leave him with Hawk.

  “Then what we’re going to do is make sure you’re both safe,” Alec said.

  “And what do I do?”

  “No one thinks you should suddenly jump up and do something right now. You’re safe here, we’re investigating and I’ll let you know the minute we find out anything.” He waved at the game system. “It’s hooked up to a ton of television stations and has instant movie viewing, and there’s a computer in the big study. I’ve got a lot of books too. If there’s anything else you want, tell me, and I’ll get it for you.”

  “I want peace and quiet. I want my bar back.”

  “I’m so sorry you’ve been pulled into this.”