To him, Ryleigh represented innocence and strength, but maybe that was just a parent’s dream. Ryleigh had gone through and witnessed things in her life that would make even the most seasoned cringe. As the years went by, and he watched her grow, his admiration only grew. His goal in life was to protect, cherish, and love Ryleigh, the child who was once a job, but now a part of his heart. What he was doing now went against all that. He knew his teams would never hurt her physically, but he couldn’t guarantee she would come out of this emotionally unscathed, and that rankled him to his core. All of them were about to be tested.
After retiring from military service, Declan formed NAC (Not Another Child). His agency’s mission was to rescue children in peril and to do it significantly faster without the hindrance and bureaucracy constraints of the standard law enforcement system. His team’s mantra was “no stone left unturned.” They investigated every rumor, innuendo, or feeling, anything required to save a woman or child from one more minute of pain and suffering. He would never understand why evil people would want to destroy, consume, and harm such innocents. He wasn’t a naïve man, he had spent his life exposed to some of the most heinous acts human beings could perpetrate. It had hardened him to some degree, but it also helped him keep his focus and drove him to make the world a better place. He strove to do this not only for his daughter, but also for others who were lost but not forgotten, at least not forgotten to him and his teams.
Shaking his head, he watched his daughter gather her strength. She had stopped chewing her thumbnail and was now holding herself close. He wanted to go to Ryleigh, wrap his arms around her, and assure her that everything would be okay, but he couldn’t. She needed to do this on her own, and he needed to let her. He would always have her back; he really hoped she knew that.
He hated what was about to go down, but he also knew that he didn’t have any other choice. The cat was already out of the bag, so to speak. There was no sense in trying to shove the thing back in. His daughter would always come first for him, but his team and clansman were equally important. The guys needed the information Ryleigh had; it changed all of their lives significantly. Conversely, his need to protect his daughter was riding him hard.
His sweet girl was about to shake up the lives of very powerful and potentially harmful people by blowing their perceived secrecy and security right out the door and in some way, divulging his betrayal not only to Ryleigh, but to his people. He didn’t care about that; if any of them had a problem, they could take it up with him. The next couple of hours would be hard. Ryleigh would have to expose some of her deepest and darkest secrets to a room full of predators, and he would have to watch. Only to let them have the final blow; she and a handful of others could be the answer to what they have all been hoping and looking to find for well over a century.
He remembered the day she came to him, eyes red-rimmed and swollen from crying. His first instinct was to go to her, but she wasn’t acting like the child of his heart. She was mad, standoffish, and hurt, not making eye contact with him, and guarding her tiny body with her arms clenched around her waist. Declan didn’t like the combination at all.
“Dad,” Ryleigh croaked, “we need to talk.”
Declan’s first inclination was to kill anything that caused her harm or discomfort. He abruptly stood from his desk, pushing his chair into the wall, ready for anything.
She had a folder in her hand, and as she held it out to him, her next words gutted him, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Confused, Declan didn’t know what was going on. There were so many things he had kept from his daughter; missions, contacts, how he came to find her, and even his race. Deciding to tread carefully, he asked cautiously, “What do you mean honey?” She looked so forlorn and alone at that moment. Declan wanted to cry with her, tell her whatever it was they would work through it, and it would be okay, but he held his tongue. Whatever was in that folder was about to change both of their lives, and he was pretty sure it wasn’t for the better.
Ryleigh was so mad and hurt. This was her Dad, the man she valued above all others, and he was keeping things from her, important things. They weren’t mission secrets, which she understood the need for confidentiality or even mundane secrets like what he was planning on getting her for Christmas, but life changing secrets. Secrets that could change them both irrevocably.
He looked like the same man who rocked her to back to sleep when she had a nightmare or cheered in the crowd when she achieved every one of her degrees. Declan “Senior” Quinn was a handsome man. He was tall and maintained his physique even at his age. He was fort-eight, but could pass for a man in his early thirties. The only indication of age was a little graying on the temples of his blonde hair and the tiny crow’s feet next to his unusual eyes. With his experience and career, some would expect a weathered and aged man, but he wasn’t either of those things. She often wondered why he never dated or maybe even had a woman on the side, but to Ryleigh’s knowledge he didn’t and that always puzzled her. He was a catch by anyone’s standards. She had always wanted him to be happy, but never questioned him. Maybe now she knew why.
Chapter 2
Ryleigh wanted to puke. She tried to remember his actions, not what was to come. This was the man that had decided that because of her first eleven years, she didn’t have enough of a childhood and forced her to play with dolls and have tea parties. The big badass Navy Seal would come into her room with a tea set and a feather boa, talking with an English accent, trying to get her to play. She didn’t know how to play, it was something she hadn’t ever done before. He was an amazing father, and most importantly, she trusted him wholeheartedly. She had almost from the start. When he’d said he would get her out of the hellhole, she had called a home and promised nothing would ever harm her again, she believed him.
As she grew up, she wanted to be just like him, but now she was questioning that. Had he known what she was from the start and was that why he took her in? So many questions and so few answers. Was her life a lie? Did he want something from her like everyone else? Ryleigh couldn’t wrap her head around any of it.
Ryleigh wasn’t able to get anything past the lump in her throat, so she handed her Dad the folder. She watched as the furrow between his eyebrows got deeper and deeper. She also watched as his complexion went from red to almost purple with rage and knew that he was aware of what The Holly group had found. Those things she could ignore as human nature, but what she couldn’t ignore was that his eyes were now glowing an iridescent green, and his pupil seemed to elongate, totally not a human reaction. He was something other, and she had been genetically engineered to be that as well. She could understand him keeping his “enhancements” to himself, but did he know about her? If he did, that hurt.
“Where did you get this information, Ryleigh?” Her loving father was long gone, he was all business now. The tough as nails CO and President of NAC was definitely standing behind the desk at the moment. She wanted to throw a fit like a pubescent teen, but decided to take her cues from him. She would treat this conversation like any other professional meeting. Declan “Senior” Quinn wasn’t the person she thought he was. She needed him to be the loving and doting father he had always been, not something else. Not someone who would betray her and definitely not someone who would keep life-changing information from her. She would get her answers, she wasn’t leaving until he answered every single one.
Deciding to break the silence, she cleared her throat which felt like she had swallowed the Sahara Desert. “The case my group was on last month yielded a variety of information,” she said looking into his eerie eyes. “Including the fact that there is a doctor out there who is creating children and using animal DNA to enhance them. It also showed that this has been going on for a very long time, thirty years or so.” Ryleigh desperately wanted him to show some kind of shock, but her father’s face was expressionless. She could only assume he had known this information all along. If he hadn’t, would be as surprised and shocked
as she was when she read the initial intel?
Turning, unable to look at him anymore, she continued, “The intel brought back memories, things that were said to me as a child I had forgotten or chose to not to remember, I’m not sure.” She heard him grunt, but never moving from his station behind the desk. “When my team and I discussed the evidence, others were reminded of similar things. So, we decided to look further.”
Turning to look out the window because it seemed like the safest place at the moment, she continued, “We tested our blood and ran several tests with no results until we decided to check our DNA. Each of us has more than the standard 46. We narrowed down the results and found that we all carry animal DNA, some identified some not.” Turning she pointed and looked at her dad, “Can you explain that, father?” The father thing kind of slipped out, but what else was she supposed to do? She was mad and wanted to put him in his place somehow. She had never called him father. It was what the person who contributed his semen to create her insisted that she call him, she hated the word. Declan knew that.
He had lied to her, well, not really, he had kept something paramount from her. Something that explained so much. Ryleigh waited, but there was only silence. But, oh, his eyes were conveying a lot. He was furious.
“I’ve always known there was something different about you,” Ryleigh charged. “You never date, and even beyond missions, you used to disappear from the house without taking your car or letting me know you were going anywhere. I would look for you, but I could never find you, and then you would show up and act like nothing was out of the ordinary. I spent years looking through the house for a secret room or something to explain where you had gone, not once finding anything. I never put much thought into it, blamed it on your Seal training. Then there are the other things, your eyes glow when you’re upset, and you seem to get bigger. Your skin gets a sheen to it I have never been able to explain before, and you’ve never once in seventeen years even had so much as a cold.”
“Listen honey...” Declan said, trying to placate her.
“No, let me finish,” she said placing her hand up to stop him from continuing. “Do you remember that time when I was about fourteen? You got me those roller blades and insisted I try them out. You said it was good exercise, you had heard all the kids were doing it. That my life should include some fun not just studying. I didn’t want to, but you convinced me, and I lost control and headed down the driveway super-fast. The incline was so steep I couldn’t stop, but you somehow managed to catch up to me before I hit the main road and the oncoming traffic. You had been standing on the porch a good 50 feet from where I was watering the plants. No way should you have been able to catch up to me and that car you said swerved out of the way. Why weren’t there any skid marks from behind?” Ryleigh demanded.
“You told me that you fell into the car when it stopped, but the door was crushed along with the window. I saw the skid marks from the tires moving away from you like it skidded from your push. There was really no another explanation for it. The driver admitted that he never hit the brakes when he got out of the car. You refused to call the police and gave him money to fix the damage when the accident was clearly his fault. With this new information, I started to see patterns that I blew off before. So, I had your DNA run as well.”
“What the Hell Ryleigh!” Declan yelled, crouching over his desk, planting his hands, and staring right her. He needed her to realize how bad this was and how serious he was. She needed to start talking, but he needed something to ground him. For the moment, his desk would have to do; he ignored the loud cracking noise. He would never strike out at his daughter, but he was infuriated. This was even worse than Declan had expected. If word got out about what he was or what his people were, the damage would be horrific. His people lived by rules of secrecy which would put the government to shame. He was a Shifter, a man who could turn into an animal at will. He and his clansmen had lived thousands of years right alongside humans without detection, and now it looked like his daughter might be the reason behind the downfall to his entire race. He had been so cocky to not realize that Ryleigh had picked up on some of his Shifter traits. Never once did he detect her discomfort or even her curiosity. She never mentioned a thing.
Declan didn’t like the position that this new information put him in. He knew that his shifter DNA couldn’t be traced, his lineage and bloodlines were long extinct. Humans had no Dragon DNA to compare to his, but that didn’t mean the others were out of the woods. Apex predators were common, and although they were different from the traditional animal varieties, there would be similarities. Someone with Ryleigh’s brain or the others on her team could easily discern those similarities, and if that information ever got out, Fuck! He wanted to scream at her to forget about this, to never mention it again, but he also needed to know it all. What all did The Holly Group know? How could he protect his people while also keeping his daughter safe? Were all the members of The Holly Group like NAC, could all her people be trusted? Fuck, the list went on and on.
Her Dad never had so much as raised his voice to Ryleigh in all the years that they had been together. So, to have him yelling now, Ryleigh knew that all the theories her team had come up with were true, at least in part. He hadn’t denied anything yet, but he also hadn’t confirmed it. Her Dad was more than met her eyes.
“Did you know we are related?” Ryleigh sneered. This was the thing she hated most about all that she had learned. Ryleigh could feel her lip pull up and quiver, but she forced her body to remain planted where it was, desperately wanting to see his reaction. They were blood-related, and he had either not known, which she hoped he hadn’t, or kept it from her, which she hated. Didn't she have a right to know? Wasn’t family supposed to be the most important thing? That was what he had taught her.
“Those extra chromosomes led right back to you or at least someone in your family,” Ryleigh declared. “The rest, the standard ones, they lead right back to those people who created me. I have to ask, is that why you took me from that place? Or how about we start with the simple question, what are you?” Ryleigh wanted to be pleased by the flinch those words invoked, but she wasn’t, this all hurt her too much.
Turning his back to her, looking up at the ceiling like it held some answer he was never going to find, Declan was at a loss. Fuck, the hits kept coming. He had no idea he and Ryleigh were related. It wasn’t possible, his brother had died young, and he had no other siblings. His father would have been too old to have created Ryleigh. It was possible, but the old man had been so depressed after Seamus had passed, he was pretty sure he never left his home. Looking at the paperwork Ryleigh had given him, he noticed that he and Ryleigh did share a twenty-five percent DNA match. Not really knowing what that meant, he had to ask.
Turning back to his desk, he moved his chair into place and took a seat. He wouldn’t get anywhere if he kept on ranting and raving. It looked like Ryleigh wasn’t the only one who needed answers.
“What does all this mean, Ryleigh,” he said pointing at the open folder. He was avoiding her questions, and he knew it. She knew it too because her shoulders slumped, and she looked down at her feet.
He wasn’t ready to disclose everything just yet. There was still a chance that some of the secrets could be kept. There was one in particular he would always keep from her. It was better for both of them that way. They had always had a bond; he was really never sure where it came from, it was instant and insistent. Never having children, he assumed it came from his human side. Blowing off what he always knew was true that his dragon had also claimed Ryleigh. It was unheard of, and he couldn’t name a single time it had ever happened in all his years.
He knew the moment he saw her that he needed to protect her. His instincts had always driven him, and that day, they had been screaming at him. His dragon had been clawing at him. Declan had a firm grip on the beast, but now that he really got down to the brass tacks, he realized how much he had already let slip. Ryleigh was family. He had
no idea how or why, but knew what she was saying was the truth. It didn’t change his feelings, but it explained so much.
“What that means Ryleigh…” he tried again, still pointing to the paper.
This time she answered, taking her cues from him. She released one of her arms from around her stomach, but kept it close, like it would somehow protect her from what was going to come. She pointed at the papers on his desk like they were going to jump out and bite her. Clearing her throat again, she said, “What that means is you and I are blood-related. More specifically, you are either my Uncle, Grandfather, or Nephew. We had a twenty-five percent match.”
Declan shook his head. He still couldn’t get his mind wrapped around what she was saying. When that didn’t work, he got up and started pacing. Pacing always helped him concentrate, but this time it did nothing. He kept stopping and looking at Ryleigh, wanting her to finish, but at the same time he was unable to accept what she was saying. It didn’t make any sense. Instead of expressing this verbally, because he wasn’t quite sure how it would come out, he gestured at her on his next pass to continue.
God, Ryleigh really hated this. Her dad was agitated and angry. It was instinctive for her to never want him to be that way, but she couldn’t just brush any of this under the rug. She couldn’t pretend she hadn’t seen something like when she was a child. She couldn’t ignore the evidence her team had discovered. She could make him happy and pretend that everything was all right, but it wasn’t. So, she gave him the facts. Sometimes it was easier to deal with data than with emotions.
Tank: Ruthless Bastards (RBMC Book 2) Page 15