Kane (BBW Billionaire Romance)

by Wick,Christa

  Kane snuck up on the back side of the house. There were two windows—one on the rear door that was covered with grime and the second at the far end that was boarded over. He approached the door at an angle as Stoker took a call.

  “Trace?” he queried over the comm link.

  “Ilia Grekov,” Marcus answered after a few seconds, his voice turning queasy.

  Fuck! Kane cursed silently. If Stoker had a direct line to the Russian Butcher, the club was more connected than they had realized.

  Dani and Christine might never be safe.

  Kane inhaled then slowly released a deep breath as he tested the door handle.

  He knew what he had to do—leave no one alive who could give the Grekovs the name of the missing woman and baby.

  Finding the back door unlocked, a calm settled over him. He slipped inside to find a wiry male standing in front of a stove, spacing out over empty pans. Next to him, unmixed and capped, were chemicals used in the manufacture of methamphetamine.

  Kane stepped behind him, brought his gun hand up, his forearm flat against the man’s opposite cheek. His other hand snaked behind the target’s head then around his chin.

  There was less than half a second of the target realizing he was not alone in the room. He dropped the lid he was holding and then Kane jerked his right arm back to his right side, mirroring the technique with his left arm and snapping the man’s neck.

  Something touched against the back of Kane’s knee. Dropping the target, he spun, gun pointed and ready to fire.

  Yellow-green eyes stared up at him.

  The cat tapped Kane’s leg a second time as Stoker began yelling in the next room.

  “Drag Paulie’s fucking ass in here so I can kick it!”

  Cue target number two, Kane thought, lifting the pistol and stepping over the corpse as Wells walked into view.

  “What the—”

  Kane pulled the trigger and down the man went.

  “Fuck! Fuck!” Stoker shouted followed by a two-octave jump in the man’s voice before he screamed a threat that stopped Kane’s heart.

  “Bitch, I’ll kill you for that.”

  Kane burst into the room, gun up, gaze trained on the far side of the living room where Stoker had one hand covering his eye. The other hand held a Smith & Wesson M&P45. Daniella was on the floor, throwing herself in front of Christine’s car seat. She had something in her outstretched hand.

  A red dot bounced against Stoker’s cheek.

  Seeing Kane, Stoker jerked his gun arm up, both men firing at the same time.

  Stoker’s cheek exploded. Kane spun, a grunt leaving him, his body hitting the ground as Reed kicked in the front door.

  Over the comm link, Marcus offered an update.

  “Recovery in one-point-two-five.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Strong armed by Reed into the back of a massive armored vehicle, Daniella wanted to tear her hair out—or at least scream really, really loudly.

  Kane was inside the filthy house injured, a broad spray of his blood on the door Reed had ushered her through. No one had told her Kane’s condition, but a second team had arrived and was working on him.

  Sitting in the car seat, Christine began to kick and fuss.

  “It’s okay, love,” Daniella coaxed, her frustration, but none of her anxiety, abandoning her at the first sign of the baby’s distress.

  One of the other Stark employees who had arrived after the shooting had tossed Christine’s diaper bag into the vehicle. Daniella unzipped the bag and removed a water bottle.

  Lifting Christine out of the car seat, she patted at the baby’s bottom, relieved that a diaper change wasn’t necessary. The way her hands were still shaking, just giving the baby a bottle would be a challenge.

  Hearing a new vehicle enter the yard, Daniella tensed. It didn’t sound like a motorcycle, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t someone from Stoker’s gang.

  The back doors of the tactical vehicle in which she waited were thrown open.

  “That will have to wait a few minutes,” Reed said with a nod at the bottle.

  The right side of his face was red and puffy, the flesh around his eye socket beginning to purple. Without another word, he stepped into the vehicle, hoisted Christine’s car seat and bag then walked to a black van.

  Figuring that was her cue to follow, she got out of the first vehicle but stopped to look at the house.

  “Is he—”

  Reed interrupted the question by taking Christine from her and stepping into the van.

  “Strap in,” he ordered, his voice remaining gentle as he settled the baby into place. His gaze when he shut the van’s side door and jerked his thumb towards the front of the vehicle wasn’t as pleasant.

  Trying not to scowl or glare at the man that had just helped rescue her and the baby, Daniella climbed into the passenger seat and drew the belt across her chest.

  As soon as the belt’s lock clicked into place, Reed threw the van in reverse, turned in the narrow space and sped down the driveway to the road.

  Trying not to look at how the man’s eye and cheek were swelling, Daniella glanced around for a street sign or anything else that would tell her where she was. She had been unconscious the entire time in the van and couldn’t be sure she was even in the same state.

  “There was a driver,” she started, stopping when Reed snorted.

  “Yeah, we’re looking for that piece of…” He trailed off, jaw tightening.

  Okay, she thought. Duty discharged and not a topic Reed was interested in covering.

  “How badly was Trent shot?”

  “Compared to the men he shot?” Reed chuckled darkly.

  She didn’t respond, just stared at how the skin around his eye was turning a blackish purple.

  Reed shrugged after a few more seconds of silence. “He’ll probably be off his feet for a few days, followed by light duty for a few weeks IF he listens to his doctor.”

  She opened her mouth, started to say something, then swallowed while she tried to bring her voice under control.

  “Sorry I fought you,” she said at last.

  Her cheeks heated at the memory. As soon as she had realized Christine was out of danger, she rushed to Kane.

  Kane had immediately, and quite colorfully, ordered Reed to get her and the baby out of the house. She had resisted.

  From his side of the van, Reed cut her a side glance.

  “Is that why he hit you?” she asked.

  More color crept into her cheeks. She had been so adamant about staying that Reed had put some kind of ninja hold on her arm that had made her want to pass out.

  He shrugged. “You’re so far up into him, who knows why he’s doing anything.”

  Reed turned his attention back to the road. Daniella didn’t understand a word of what he had just said, other than he wasn’t sure why his boss had punched him in the face.

  “I don’t want to cause any bad blood between you.”

  “Don’t worry, Dani girl,” he said, a wistful smile turning up one corner of his mouth. “Another woman beat you to it.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  The girl overdosing was a lucky break,” Reed said sitting across from Kane a month after the rescue. “But we’re still coming up empty on locating the driver and figuring out how to keep his mouth shut once we do.”

  Kane said nothing, his gaze stuck on his laptop, his fingers tapping along the keyboard.

  Reed cleared his throat but Kane’s attention didn’t waver.

  “You know what’s got me confused?” Reed prompted.

  A sigh detectible only by the lift of his chest escaped Kane before Reed pressed on.

  “The State Crime Lab report noted a few drops of blood in the kitchen and next to the couch. Your blood.”

  Kane didn’t offer up a theory or any other comment.

  “So any thoughts on what to do about the driver?”

  “Leave it to the cops,” Kane answered drily. “He’s probably been g
round into the dirt in one of Grekov’s fight pits by now.”

  Leaning forward, Reed slammed the lid down on the laptop, Kane’s fingers escaping just in time.

  “You haven’t asked a single question about Daniella and the baby.”

  Kane pulled the laptop out of reach and flipped the lid up before shooting a warning look at Reed.

  “If there’s a problem you couldn’t handle, you’d tell me.”

  A minute ticked by with neither man making a sound except for Kane’s typing, an annoyed tick flexing rhythmically along his jaw at Reed’s continued presence.

  “Okay,” Reed exhaled. “This is me telling you there’s a problem with Dani I can’t handle.”

  The black gaze lifted in warning.

  “I’ve got her at the horse camp,” Reed continued. “She’s temporarily working for Mia’s foundation, consulting on some state laws they need advice on.”

  “Good, she’ll be safe there,” Kane said then returned to pretending like he wasn’t interested.

  “The insurance company settled on her house—”

  Kane growled and slammed the lid on his laptop. “You do know what I’ve been working on while you spent the last twenty minutes wasting my time?”

  It was Reed’s turn to shrug. “What’s a Congressional hearing or two? We know we didn’t bribe the general with any pussy or money—the man had nothing to do with our procurement contracts.”

  Kane’s cheeks heated once more, a cold glitter of menace lighting his gaze.

  “You know what your problem with Dani is?” Reed asked, sliding right back to his sole purpose for the visit to his boss’s office.

  “She thinks I’m a monster like the man who killed her sister,” Kane answered.

  Shocked that he got any kind of reply instead of another tap dance around the subject, it took a few seconds before Reed shook his head in disagreement.

  “No. That’s not the problem.”

  Kane fingered the edge of his laptop. “Yeah? What is?”

  “You agree with her.”

  Expecting the scowl Kane flashed at him, Reed pushed on. “Come on, man. Don’t do this to yourself—or to Dani. She is miserable in those moments she believes she is alone.”

  “You’re the last person to be handing out advi—” Kane clamped down on the growling rebuke, his eyes shaping an apology Reed knew would never be tendered.

  “Yeah, fuck you, too,” Reed said, getting up from the chair and storming out.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Kane coasted to a stop in front of the large, plantation era home that housed the Stark Foundation. He had kept the Maserati GranTurismo moving at a crawl up the long gravel drive, working hard to convince himself that the pace was intended to protect the twelve thousand dollar paint job from any chips.

  The excessive caution had nothing to do with the envelope on the seat next to him or the fact that Daniella was still working on the horse farm.

  And living there.

  The woman who came out on the porch to greet him had hair a few shades darker than Daniella’s and a belly rounded with pregnancy.

  She looked ready to pop, but the recent news was that there were two Stark babies cooking inside, not one.

  Taking a few extra seconds hiding behind the car’s heavily tinted windows, he tucked the envelope in his interior jacket pocket then stepped out of the car.

  “Collin thought you were arriving later.” Mia Stark offered a faint smile as she waved him toward the front door. “He’s out riding with Mishka.”

  Kane stopped on the porch, waiting for her to enter first. He doubted his boss was confused about the arrival time. The man was meddling, refusing to accept his resignation and appoint an interim successor anywhere but at the horse farm then forcing Kane to linger by being out.

  Mia started down a hall. He hesitated to follow. She turned and eyed him with a certain malevolent glee.

  “Alina and the kids came, of course.” She paused when Kane rolled his eyes. “You haven’t seen the baby yet, have you?”

  “Pictures,” he muttered, thinking how the big Russian’s brain had turned to mush since they last worked together in Serbia. Nazarov had been an unconquerable mountain before reuniting with the “love of his life.” Now he texted Kane photos of the baby every other day.

  “Can’t smell pictures,” Mia said, her smile warming as she opened the door to Collin’s home office.

  Expecting an ambush, Kane scanned the room.

  “I wouldn’t do that to Dani,” Mia said, reading his mind. “Even if I thought you deserved her.”

  And we’re back, Kane mused. There was no love lost between him and his boss’s wife. Mia associated some of the worst memories of her life with him.

  With the miscarriage that had ended her first pregnancy and the wall that Collin had erected afterwards to keep her safe, Kane had played the “bad cop” role, escorting her back to the States and placing her in a new job far away from corporate headquarters.

  Worse than that, he hadn’t felt the least bit bad about it. The woman made his boss weak—daft even. Their job wasn’t about having families, it was about keeping millions of families across the country safe.

  Mia’s light laugh startled Kane. He stared at her and she shrugged.

  “Sorry, it’s just that you looked so dead serious for a moment. Or severely constipated. I can never tell with you.”

  He snorted. The woman was certainly getting her digs in early.

  “You know why I’m here?”

  “To turn in your resignation.”

  Kane expected to see a flash of victory in her gaze, but there was a quiet sadness that was hard to reconcile with the laugh of a second before.

  She was probably worried Collin would go back to more actively managing the company, taking risks as he had in the pre-Mia era.

  Well, Collin hadn’t totally turned soft after meeting Mia, Kane corrected. That time between pushing her away after the miscarriage from the car bomb then hunting her down, Collin had risked everything to make sure that the men who might be a danger to the woman he loved were dead.

  That was one thing he and his boss had in common.

  “The hearings aren’t going to affect business,” Mia offered. “And the company is privately held, so it’s not like the stock is going to tank…or that you’re the only senior executive who has…well, you know.”

  Her cheeks colored a beautiful shade of rose.

  She was right. He knew that. There was no real need to resign. Except that he was falling apart inside. That made him unfit to be the Chief Operations Officer.

  It didn’t help that Mia was harboring the cause of his disintegration and, from Reed’s reports, would continue harboring Dani and the baby for the foreseeable future.

  “Cell coverage is a little spotty out past the pastures. I’ll send a rider out to find Collin,” Mia said, turning toward the office door. “And I’ll have a tray sent in while you wait—unless you’d like to wait somewhere else?”

  “No.” The answer came out harsh when he didn’t mean it to. She was being kinder than he deserved or expected.

  She left with another faint smile, her pregnancy shortening her stride. He watched her go, wondering just before she turned the corner what Daniella would look like in the same condition, seven months pregnant and carrying his child.

  Mia may have been above playing games, but Collin wasn’t. He returned several hours after Kane’s arrival and sent one of the household staff to bring Kane outside, where dinner was being served just out of smelling range of the stables.

  The gathering was small, everyone but Kane having family present. There was Collin and Mia and their daughter who had just turned two, Mishka and Alina with their son and infant daughter, plus Daniella and Christine.

  Six weeks had passed since Kane last saw Dani and the baby. He had been bleeding then.

  He was bleeding now, trying to nod casually in her direction instead of openly snubbing her. Before she could
nod back, Mishka jumped up from the table and started dragging him like a rag doll.

  “You must meet Miss Marquardt,” he said. “She speaks Spanish and German and, soon, Russian.”

  Pulling out the chair on Daniella’s left, Mishka shoved Kane into it.

  “If she jokes about moving to Costa Rica, you must tell her how horrible it is there.”

  Kane stared, completely stunned, at the man. Granted, all of the males at the table were in the business of keeping secrets, but did he really not know that Kane at least knew Dani?

  “We’re acquainted,” he mumbled. “Although I didn’t know about the German or Spanish.”

  “Marquardt is a German surname,” she explained, her voice sounding too damn normal for Kane’s satisfaction.

  Hadn’t Reed said she was miserable?

  When she thinks she is alone…

  “My parents made me learn it and the Spanish is from working at the school district.”

  Kane glanced at her, noted that she was looking at Christine as she spoke, fussing with the baby’s clothing. She was also perched at the far edge of her seat, her voluptuous body angled away from him.

  He coughed, then his cheeks colored at his blatant display of need—of trying to call her attention to him.

  She had wanted to stay by his side the last time they were together. He had pushed her away and made sure she stayed away. Getting her out of Stoker’s house and off the property had been crucial to keeping her name off the police report.

  Not that the cops had really believed Kane’s claim about bringing a tactical vehicle and team to the location because of a potentially kidnapped Tap&Ride driver or how some highly proprietary “auto-magical” algorithm tied into the vehicle’s GPS had identified the driver’s probable distress. The local cops just didn’t have the resources to ever prove him a liar, especially when there were four less scumbags they had to worry about.

  By the time he had cleaned up the remaining loose ends, Dani had stopped asking to see him.

  “So, what happened to your tires?” Collin asked, seated a safe distance away at the head of the table. “Did you do that on the road or the drive?”