by Sybil Bartel
André looked up from his laptop. “Nothing. He’s either underground or great at covering his tracks.” He dropped his voice. “I don’t know what will be waiting for us in Daytona.”
“Us?”
“You think I’m going to leave your pathetic diaper-changing ass alone?”
I smirked. “I didn’t have all the practice you did with your twenty younger cousins.”
“Twenty-seven but who’s counting?”
Jesus. “That’s a lot of shitty diapers.”
He laughed. “No kidding.”
“Do you seriously have twenty-seven cousins?” I’d spent a few holiday meals with him and there were always a shitload of people in his parents’ small-ass house, but twenty-seven cousins?
“Yep. That’s what happens when you have ten aunts and uncles.”
I couldn’t even wrap my head around that. Siren and Maddie felt like a whole family. A family that wasn’t mine, I reminded myself. Ignoring the sting that thought brought, I cleared my throat. “I got half a mind to call Candle and tell him to set up a meet with me and Stone.”
André was shaking his head before I finished talking. “No fucking way. Unless you want to get shot again.”
I glanced at my arm. “I was grazed.”
“And the rounds that hit your chest?”
“Wasn’t Stone.” Facts were facts.
“Dios mios.” He ran a hand through his black hair. “I thought your death wish days would be behind you now. I should’ve known.”
“What the fuck are you talkin’ ’bout?” I didn’t have a death wish. The days after Leigh died had been grief.
He closed his laptop and turned to me. “Look.” He glanced back at Siren. “You want to keep them?”
I stared him down, not answering.
“Then let me give you a little advice. Quit trying to take everything head-on.”
Was he fucking serious? “You think I’m gonna lie down and take it? I’m not gonna let Stone rule my fuckin’ life. You wanna come back to Daytona with us, fine. I could use the extra muscle. But if you think I’m gonna sit back and wait for somethin’ to happen, you’re dead wrong.” I pushed out of the seat and went to the cockpit. André’s eyes on my back, Neil tracking my movements the whole fucking way, I cursed the small-ass plane.
I slid into the copilot’s seat and put the headphones on. “How long till wheels down?”
“Forty-five.”
“Walk me through what you’re doin’.”
Roark spent ten minutes teaching me about the instrumentation and the difference of this plane versus his, then he simply stopped talking.
I knew him the least out of all of the guys but I knew something was on his mind. “What’s up?”
“Something she said while we were waiting.”
When he didn’t elaborate, I asked. “Which was?”
“She said she couldn’t breathe.”
I turned in my seat, alarmed. “She was havin’ a panic attack? Why the fuck didn’t you call me?”
“It wasn’t an attack.”
Goddamn it. “If she was panickin’ and sayin’ she couldn’t breathe, it was a fuckin’ panic attack.”
“It wasn’t an attack. It’s a state of being for her.” Roark leveled me with an accusing look. “You know what that’s like? To live with something like that?”
I glanced at the leg he favored and sat back in my seat. “I think we both know,” I murmured.
“Just because she has the kid back, it doesn’t mean it’s going to disappear.”
“Copy that.” Humbled, I rubbed a hand over my face. If anyone knew about PTSD, it was him. “I’ll keep an eye out.”
He nodded. “You wanna land her?”
As tempting as it was, I wanted to make sure Maddie was drinking something as we started our descent. “Thanks. Maybe next time. I’m gonna check on them.” I got up and made my way back to Siren and Maddie.
Siren curled in her seat was a sight but Siren holding Maddie, both of them asleep, was a hit to my heart like none other.
I sat down and Siren opened her eyes. “Hi,” she whispered.
“We’re startin’ our descent. Maddie will need to drink something.”
“I’ll give her something if she wakes up.”
I liked how she spoke with the confidence of a mother who knew best. It was a good look on her. “Need me to get somethin’ so you have it ready?”
“We’re good.” She studied me.
Christ, she was beautiful. “What?”
“You ran away again.”
I frowned. “I didn’t ru—”
“Before I could tell you what I was thinking, you ran. You asked then you left.”
I smiled lazily, pretending I wasn’t holding my fucking breath. “Nothin’ doin’, darlin’. I was just checkin’ in with Patrol.”
“You get everything all squared away?”
I watched the slight tip up of her lips, the direct eye contact, and I heard the tone of her voice. Her expression was clear as day. I let my accent out, thick and unforgiving. “Why, Miss Archer, I do believe you’re makin’ fun of me.”
“Why, Mr. Talerco, I do believe you’re right,” she mimicked me perfectly.
“Ohh, darlin’.” I grinned, grabbing her chin. “You’re playin’ with fire.”
Her eyes sparkled and her smile went wide to match mine then she turned serious. “Thank you,” she breathed.
I sobered. “You’re welcome.”
“I’m glad I came to you.”
I released her chin and ran the back of my fingers along her face. “Me too, darlin’, me too.”
“But not because I thought you were medically trained.”
“No?” I brushed her hair off her shoulder and let the strands run through my fingers.
She shook her head. “No. And not because I knew you were stronger than him.”
Noticing she didn’t use his name made my pulse leap with hope but I carefully kept my face neutral and didn’t say anything.
“I knew you could protect me. I knew you could help me but I came to you for a different reason.”
“What was that?”
Steady, determined, she held my gaze. “Do you remember the first time we met?”
“Kinda hard to forget.” She was beautiful then and she was beautiful now. She’d stood out that night but I didn’t poach.
“Do you remember what you said to me that night before you left?”
“I told you good night.” What was she getting at?
“You said, ‘Good night, beautiful. I hope I see you again.’”
I smiled. “You are beautiful.”
“You said it like you meant it.” Her voice turned quiet. “And I felt like you really did want to see me again.”
I was missing something. “I did.”
She averted her gaze. “No one’s ever said that to me.”
I closed my eyes a moment, feeling the weight of her admission.
“Maddie was missing,” she went on. “I was drowning…you made me feel like I wasn’t invisible.”
My heart hurt. “Siren, if I’d known—”
“I know.” She nodded quickly then glanced down at Maddie. “She wouldn’t have been gone this long.”
Damn fucking right but I couldn’t make her feel worse. I tipped her chin and waited till her eyes found mine. “It’s over now.”
“I’ve been thinking about something you said.”
“I said a lot of things.” I stupidly wondered how much more she could gut me.
“Maybe if you hadn’t lost your wife and Maddie hadn’t been taken, we wouldn’t be here.”
I didn’t deal in what-if’s. Life wasn’t a hypothesis or a test run but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about how death came to both of us. “We’ll never know.”
She smiled sadly. “No, I suppose not.”
“Doesn’t mean I’m not grateful as hell for where I’m sittin’ right now.”
“Me, too
.” Her soft voice settled around my heart and I relaxed for the first time in days.
The plane made a noticeable drop in altitude and Maddie stirred. Siren casually reached for the cup Neil had bought and held it to Maddie’s lips. Eyes closed, her small body looking relaxed in sleep, Maddie’s mouth attached to the cup’s spout and sucked.
“She didn’t even open her eyes,” I whispered, in awe of this little girl’s adaptability.
Siren stroked her hair. “She’s too tired. She’s been through a lot.”
Understatement of the century. “So have you.”
Siren shrugged, not showing an ounce of the anger I was sure she’d be harboring. “If I teach her nothing else, I want to teach her to be resilient.”
I reached out and ran my thumb over Maddie’s tiny foot. “I think she’s got that one covered, darlin’. Her mama’s the strongest woman I’ve ever met.”
Heat flushed her cheeks. “Why do you have two accents?”
Taken off guard by her abrupt change of subject and the question, I joked, “Where I’m from, you’d be the one with an accent.”
She didn’t comment and I took a deep breath, because I knew I was about to explain to her another part of myself I didn’t share. With anyone.
“I used to try and hide where I came from. I thought success meant losing the accent. Medics with a Southern twang aren’t taken too seriously in the Marines. Half the time I got accused of fakin’ it and the other half, I got relentlessly hazed so I worked at droppin’ it. Took a couple years but I could talk like a born-and-bred Yankee. Then I met my wife. She was cultured and poised and I thought she deserved a man who held his own in her world.”
Siren turned and looked at me with wide eyes. “How you’re speaking to me now, you didn’t speak that way to her?”
“Nope.” Not even once.
“But I love your accent,” she blurted.
I grinned, liking the sound of that way too much. “Back atcha.”
“I don’t have…” She caught herself and smiled then her features turned serious. “Did you nickname her?”
“Why all the questions?”
She turned back to Maddie and fussed with her blanket. “I’m just curious.”
“LeighLeigh,” I answered, waiting for an ache in my chest to blindside me that never came.
“She wasn’t a siren?” she half joked.
“I don’t compare her to you.”
“I wasn’t asking that,” she said quickly.
“Yes, you were.” And I didn’t blame her. I had skeletons, same as her.
She brought her gaze back to mine. “Do you miss her?”
Up until a few weeks ago, I’d missed the fuck out of her. But somewhere along the way, this siren showed me something I’d never seen before. I liked being myself. I needed to be myself. I didn’t want to fucking hide who I was or where I came from or make apologies for who I was. I’d been missing Leigh, I’d been missing the part of my life that had settled into being a husband but I wasn’t missing the part where I’d changed who I was for someone else. “I used to miss her so bad it hurt to breathe. I’d be lyin’ if I said otherwise. But this blonde-haired, blue-eyed beauty fell in my lap and blessed me with somethin’ I didn’t know I could have.” I stroked her cheek. “Wanna know what that was?”
“What?” she whispered.
“You.”
“Talon—”
I didn’t let her finish. I needed to get this out. “I remember that night I met you. I remember how beautiful you were and how miserable you looked. You still took my breath away but I wasn’t ready to feel somethin’ for a woman besides grief. I didn’t have anythin’ to give back then. Hell, maybe nothin’s changed in that regard but the difference is I wanna try and it’s because of you. Not that you changed me, but you made me realize somethin’. I’m still livin’ and I don’t have to be someone I’m not. I like who I am around you.” I cupped her cheek and dropped my voice. “I wanna be the man you come home to. I wanna be your hero.”
The wheels touched down and Maddie came awake with a small cry. Siren hugged her tight and leaned her head into my chest. “You’re our hero.”
Fuck if that didn’t feel good.
TWO OF ANDRÉ’S MEN MET us when we landed. They secured Maddie’s car seat in the back row of the SUV and Siren climbed in and got Maddie settled. Neil had a new truck waiting for him and Roark was taking the plane back to Miami.
Standing on the tarmac, I held my hand out to Neil. “Thank you.”
His gray eyes trained on me, we shook hands. “Let me know if there are any problems with Stone.”
I’d shoved my anger toward Stone down deep so I could get Siren and Maddie out of harm’s way but now that we were back on solid ground, I was ready to find him and fucking unleash. If Neil had beaten me to it, I wanted to know about it, right fucking now. “You did somethin’.”
“I do a lot of things.” Neil’s deep voice was unapologetic.
No fucking shit. My brain stretched in all directions, trying to decipher what he’d done. I could only come up with one plausible answer. “What do you have over Stone, besides the shit you built without permits?”
“I didn’t build anything without permits.”
I sighed. “Okay, I’ll bite. What did your crew do while they were out there?” They must’ve done something. I knew how to read between the lines with Neil and he was telling me something had gone down.
“The measure of a man is not what he does but how he does it.”
Jesus fuck. What’d he do? Wire the fucking place? “You sayin’ I don’t need to kill Stone?” I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. At all.
Neil placed his hand on my shoulder. “Move forward.”
André walked up. “We got your back.”
I stared at them.
“Go take care of your women,” André added.
“What about Stone?”
André glanced at Neil and Neil nodded. “He shouldn’t be a problem.”
“I thought we’d decided to keep the cops out of this.”
“We did.” André agreed.
My hands on my hips, I hung my head a moment. When I looked back up at them, I let them know I wasn’t fucking around on this. “Shit goes down, I’m not gonna ride out the storm. I will be the storm.” I stalked to the SUV and got in.
I made sure Siren and Maddie were okay then I turned my phone on and checked in to my security system. André said something to his two men in the front seat before he turned toward me.
“We’re dropping you off then I’m heading back to Miami.”
“You should’ve stayed on the plane with Roark.”
André ignored me. “I’ll have one of my men bring your car up tomorrow.”
I scrolled through my live camera feeds but I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. “Kendall can drive it back.”
“Is Candle going to be okay with that?”
“Why should I give a fuck? You said I didn’t have to worry about that shit anymore.” I was still pissed they hadn’t told me what they’d planned on doing about Stone.
André sighed. “I don’t need to explain to you why not knowing is in your best interest.”
I only refrained from telling him to fuck off because Siren was probably listening. A few minutes later, we pulled up to my house. The driver entered the gate code and André made me and Siren and Maddie wait in the SUV while his men did a perimeter search and he checked the house. Neither Siren nor I spoke a word.
Five minutes later, André popped his head in the car. “All clear.”
I helped Siren out then lifted a sleeping Maddie into my arms. The second her warm little body was against my chest, all the shit anger running loose in my head became background noise.
“Thank you.” Siren hugged André and he stiffened.
“No problem, ma’am.” He pulled back, looking uncomfortable as hell. “You’re welcome.”
If I wasn’t ass tired, I would’ve laughed.
“Send Kendall home. I’ll deal with Candle.”
André nodded, but he didn’t look happy. He pulled Maddie’s car seat out and set it by the front door. Before he got back in the SUV, I stopped him.
“Any chance I can get some coverage for a week or so? Till shit blows over?” I knew I’d been taking up all his time and he needed to get back to his business, but I wasn’t comfortable leaving Siren and Maddie unprotected while I was at the shop or getting supplies.
André nodded. “I’ll leave this team on perimeter after they take me to get a car.”
“Thanks. Bill me.” He wouldn’t, but I knew his bank account number.
“Later.” He got in the SUV and I ushered Siren inside the house.
Upstairs, I handed Maddie to Siren. “I’ll get a bath going.”
“Okay. I’m going to see if I can get her to eat something.”
I nodded and set the alarm. A couple of weeks ago, there would’ve been only one reason I’d be awake at three in the morning. Drawing a bath for a one-and-a-half-year-old wasn’t even on my radar.
I went through the motions of filling the tub then I stripped my clothes off and pulled on clean boxers. Everything about my house was exactly as I’d left it but nothing felt the same. When I could no longer stall, I headed to the kitchen.
Siren’s back to me, Maddie’s filthy body sitting on my counter, I stole a moment to look at them. And shit got real. A mother with a broken wrist, a stab wound and a scar up her back was feeding her thin, dirty child bites of cheese from my fridge. For a second, I almost wished they’d had a better life raft than me.
Steeling myself, I pasted on a smile. “Bath’s ready.”
Maddie looked at me first then Siren turned with a tired smile and my heart skipped a beat.
“I think she remembers me.” Siren’s eyes softened as a quiet joy spread across her face. Maddie leaned into her Siren’s chest as if she understood what her mother was saying. I’d never seen a woman look more beautiful than Siren did in that moment.
I rubbed a hand over my chest, feeling like an impostor. “Bath time.” I tried to smile.