by Chloe Walsh
"Cool!" both boys cheered in unison before scampering off with Teagan, all thoughts of revenge and comic conventions forgotten.
"Come on, Hope," Derek began to say once Teagan and the boys were gone. "Talk to us. We're worried about you."
Derek looked at me with the same green eyes Jordan bore.
The same way he used to look before the heroin had taken a hold of him.
It was a painful reminder of my stark reality.
I was certain I hadn't just lost Jordan today.
Once Derek found out about what I'd done, I would lose him, too.
The adopted uncle who had helped raise me.
Protected me from harm.
When it all came out, he would hate me, too.
"I'm not the one you need to worry about," I told him, feeling the heat rise in my cheeks.
Derek balked. "Jordan?" Concern flashed across his features. "What's wrong?" Panic rose in his voice as he said, "I've been calling and visiting for weeks now, and he's not answering."
"Because he's drinking again," I whispered, hating myself for still caring so much.
I didn’t want to care anymore.
I wanted to wash my hands clean.
But I couldn’t.
"And he's using, too. Heroin, I think. The one with the needle. So maybe you should concentrate on him. I can handle myself."
Derek flinched at my words.
I didn’t say it to hurt him, but he needed to do something.
I was done being the anchor that held Jordan Porter's world together.
He needed to be his son's anchor, or better still, help him realize that he could become his own.
"No," Derek choked out, sounding winded. It was one word, but it brought with it so much pain and emotion. "Why?"
"He's an addict," I whispered, pressing my thumbs to my temples. "That's what they do."
"Hope," Mom gasped, cheeks turning bright pink. "Don’t say that."
"Say what, Mom?" I demanded, turning to give her my full attention. "The truth? Because that's what this is. He is an addict." I felt the sting of tears build up in my eyes, but I quickly batted them away, refusing to add another tear to the cesspool of pain I was drowning in.
"Why didn’t you tell me before now?" Derek demanded. "How long have you known?"
Because he threatened me with Hunter's freedom, that's why I didn’t tell you!
"I don’t know," I choked out instead, feeling guiltier with every word that spilled from my lips.
"You don’t know?" Derek countered, paling. "Jesus Christ, Hope. This is his life we're talking about."
"I'm sorry, okay!" I strangled out. "I tried to help him and he threw it back in my face." Shaking, I exhaled a huge ragged breath before saying, "He doesn’t want my help, and I'm tired of trying to fix everything."
"That's because he's in pain," Derek roared, trembling from head to toe with barely restrained frustration. "Because he doesn’t think he deserves help!"
"I’m sorry," I repeated, feeling dead inside. "But I can't read his mind."
"Is that what happened?" Cam demanded, staring hard at me, letting me know with one look that he had more insight about my 'situation' than most people in this kitchen. "Did he hurt you?"
I opened my mouth to speak, but Derek was in there first, back stiff and tone outraged.
"Don’t you dare even think about putting the blame on my son for this," Derek snarled, springing to Jordan's defense. "This has your fucked-up grandfather written all over it."
"Der," Dad said, moving to stand beside his best friend. "It never entered my mind, man. Not one time."
How wrong you are, Dad…
Derek, who up until this moment looked like he was two seconds away from kicking my brother's ass, sagged at my father's words.
Dad placed his hands on his shoulders and said, "Go to your kid. Whatever's going on here? I've got it."
I watched Derek stalk out of the kitchen with a heavy heart.
He was already blaming me for this.
Well, get in line…
"Hope," Mom choked out, gray eyes wide and locked on my face in disbelief. "Jordan has relapsed and you didn’t do anything?"
"What the fuck is she supposed to do?" That was Cam; angry and glaring, but still coming to my rescue. "She's not his fucking keeper, Mom," he added with an aggravated growl. "He's a grown ass man, making his own grown ass decisions."
"Do you have to be so heartless?" Mom countered, tone laced with hurt.
"I’m being real here," Cam shot back. "If that makes me heartless, then so fucking be it." He ran a hand through his dark brown hair and shrugged. "And to be quite fucking honest, I couldn’t give a shit about his recreational habits right now. Someone hurt my sister. Call it what you want, Mom, but my priorities are right on track."
Colton raised his hand. "I'm right there with him, Mom."
"Where the fuck have you been?" my father demanded then, glaring at the kitchen doorway, and distracting me from my thoughts. "I've been calling you for weeks!"
I swung around and almost died on the spot when my eyes landed on Hunter.
Oh god.
He was back.
****
Chapter Forty
Hope
"Morning," Hunter announced before sauntering over to the coffee pot. "I've missed you, you beautiful devil," he groaned in relief when he touched the coffee pot and found it piping hot. "It's been too fucking long." He reached for the sugar bowl and doled several spoons of sugar into his cup. "Come to daddy."
"Lucky?" Dad snapped, watching him pour himself a cup of coffee. "I'm talking to you."
"I know," Hunter mused, keeping his back to all of us as he prepared his coffee. "I'm listening."
When Hunter finally turned around, he looked at me like I was just the same as everyone else in the room.
With no emotion.
No feelings.
If I was any other person, I would have believed he truly had no feelings inside of his body.
But I wasn’t any other person.
The man had an incredible poker face. The only problem was I could see straight through it. It was obvious to me, the woman who had been watching him almost obsessively for more than a year now.
His face was the epitome of calm, but I could see the fire bubbling up in his blue irises, and I could see the slight flare of his nostrils as kept his gaze firmly locked on my father, and not on me.
His carefree attitude cloaked his pain, and his consumption of coffee and cigarettes took the edge off his temper, but the man beneath the weapon was in there.
And I was dying to get to that man.
My pulse hammered so loudly I was sure it was audible to everyone around me.
Forcing myself to keep my breathing even and slow, I desperately sought through my thoughts, plotting my escape to my lover.
The bond we shared, it was impenetrable.
What he'd done for me?
It had solidified the already unbreakable link between us.
I just needed to find a way to get him to forgive me.
And then tell him that I was pregnant...
****
Chapter Forty-One
Lucky
It wasn’t often I felt the old pull of fatigue, but fuck me, I was feeling it today. A five-hundred-mile and back trip had kicked my ass. Hell, that many hours alone in my truck had screwed with my head.
The entire journey I'd spent thinking about Hope.
And when I thought about Hope, I thought about who she was at home with.
And when I thought about who she was at home with, I got mad.
Burning fucking mad.
I had planned on heading straight to my apartment and crashing, but the voicemail Noah had left on my burner phone made that impossible.
"Kyle's back from Vale, and he's on the way over to my house. He's going batshit. He can't get a hold of Hope, he can't get a hold of you, and I'm fairly certain he's about two damn minutes away from losing his shit.
He knows something's up, Luck, so get your ass back here and help me figure out what the fuck we're gonna tell him."
That voicemail was the reason I was standing in Noah's kitchen, locked in a stare down with Kyle Carter, and trying my very fucking best to not look at his daughter.
Looking at her caused feelings.
I couldn’t afford to have feelings right now.
The shit I was messed up in was insane.
I needed to keep my head in the game and out of the clouds.
Kyle was flanked by the three younger versions of him, and I didn’t give a shit about any of them. If he knew where the fuck I'd been, I doubt he'd still try and call me.
Hell, I'd put good money on him calling for a psych doc with a straight jacket and a padded fucking cell.
To be fair, I probably needed all of the above.
"You told me you had this," Kyle snarled. "You told me you would take care of her."
I took another sip of my coffee and strived to contain my temper.
I was two fucking seconds away from losing my shit, but that wouldn’t help anyone.
So instead, I hustled for calm and said, "I know."
"Then what the fuck is that? Kyle demanded, pointing at his daughter's face.
Pain hit me like a goddamn wrecking ball.
Knowing that if I'd come just five minutes earlier I could have prevented that fucking scar on her face, would haunt me for the rest of my life.
In a life filled with poor choices and even worse decisions, that was my biggest regret.
Always being too late.
"We need to talk," was all I replied, keeping my focus on him.
"Now you want to talk?" Cam growled, coming to stand beside his father. "Where the hell have you been, douchebag?" Sticking the knife in deeper, he hissed, "Thought you cared about my sister, but obviously fucking not since the second shit gets tough you go running."
I didn’t answer baby Carter.
Had no dealings with him.
But the guy needed to watch his damn mouth.
I wasn’t in a good mood.
"Take a drive with me," I said calmly. "We'll talk then."
Kyle must have seen something in my eyes that told him I meant business because he nodded stiffly.
Turning to Colton and Logan, he ordered, "Boys, go home." Kyle then turned to Cameron and said, "Go back to Thirteenth Street with your mother and the twins."
"Dad –"
"Do it, Cameron," he snapped, targeting the ringleader of the triplets, in a tone that left no room for argument. "Now."
"Hunter, please don’t get him involved in this –" Hope began to say, but I cut her off with a shake of my head.
She didn’t need to be scared of a damn thing.
I had it under control.
And she really didn’t need to talk to me right now.
I couldn’t fucking handle it.
"You ready, man?" I asked Noah who was already on his feet, spinning his car keys around his finger.
"Let's go," he replied, stalking past me.
****
Chapter Forty-Two
Lucky
"First my wife, and now my daughter," Kyle snarled when I filled him in on everything that had gone down inside his house on Thirteenth Street that night. "I'm going to kill him."
"That particular wheel's already in motion, man," I replied calmly, taking a drag of my cigarette. "All you need to do is sit back and stay out of it."
"Stay out of it?" he roared. "How the fuck can you even ask me that?"
"Because it's what has to happen," I countered, staring out between the front seats of the car to where Noah and Kyle were sitting. "Move now and you'll end up alerting him and fucking this up for me." Exhaling a cloud of smoke, I flicked the ash of my cigarette out the back window of the Lexus. "And quite possibly get my ass killed in the process." Rolling my shoulders to work out the horrible fucking knots in them, I added, "And I really fucking don’t want to die before he does."
"I hear what you're saying, son," Kyle said, turning in his seat to look at me. "And I appreciate everything you have done for my family – what you're still doing for my family– but she's my baby." His voice was thick with emotion when he said, "Until you have a daughter of your own, you're never going to understand the overwhelming urge a father has to commit the most heinous of crimes on the bastard who hurt her. And asking me to sit back and do nothing?" He shook his head and released a pained growl. "I don’t think I can do nothing."
Noah, who had remained silent until this moment, said, "I get it, Kyle. I had a daughter who I loved like no other. And she was taken from me. She was murdered. I understand the feeling of hopelessness, and that unquenchable thirst for revenge flushing around inside of your body right about now, man, but you need to listen to Luck. The man knows what he's doing." Shifting gears, he took a sharp corner, taking us further up the mountains. "He's the reason I’m sitting in this car with you today." He switched on the windshield wipers to the fastest setting. It was raining so heavily that I was surprised the man could see where he was going. "He's the reason my wife is at home breathing," he continued to say, not missing a beat. "The piece of shit that fathered us might be smart," Noah continued. "But Luck's smarter."
"I've got her under twenty-four-hour watch," I added, appreciating Noah's high opinion of me, but needing to stay on track. "Got someone watching your wife and the kids, too."
"And?"
"And nothing," I replied. "Not a fucking peep."
"What's he waiting for?" Kyle growled.
"Me to make the next move," I explained, knowing exactly what the bastard was waiting for. "He's playing us like a fucking chess game, Kyle." I tapped my finger to my temple. "And you win chess with your head, not your heart."
"And the would-be rapist?" he hissed, turning a deep shade of red at the mention of his daughter's attacker. "Is there any possible way that can fall back on you?"
I shrugged. "Not unless the cops want to go digging through dust."
Kyle cocked a brow in confusion.
"The body's gone, man," I explained. "And the bones are chalk." Inhaling another drag of my cigarette, I exhaled a puff of smoke and gestured towards the white circle floating in front of my face. "Cops have a better chance of catching that, man. I'm in the clear."
"No witnesses?"
"Do you think I'd be sitting here if there were witnesses?" I shot back with a smirk.
Kyle frowned. "I think there would be a higher body count if there were witnesses."
"Yeah, you're right about that," I chuckled, not bothering to deny what we all knew was the truth.
"I don’t like this," Kyle muttered, running a hand through his hair. "I fucking hate feeling like a sitting duck."
"We're not sitting ducks," I told him. "We're sleeping lions."
"And to think this is about money," he ground out through clenched teeth. "A fucking string of hotels I never goddamn wanted and even when I gave them to him, he drove them into the fucking ground."
"This ain't got shit to do with money anymore, man," I explained calmly. "This might have started out about him taking revenge on you, but that's not what's happening now."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means your father has a new obsession."
"My daughter?"
"My reaction made sure of that." I shrugged, then took another drag. "He's intrigued."
"God fucking dammit!"
"He's messing with the wrong fucking woman."
"I don’t want Lee knowing. She needs to be kept as far away from this bullshit as possible." I watched Kyle as he looked from me to Noah then back to me again. "This doesn’t touch her."
"Agreed."
Thorn stays out of it, too," Noah added. He tightened his hands on the wheel before biting out, "She needs to focus on the pregnancy. No more goddamn stress."
"All either of you have to do is nothing," I said. "Do nothing, and shit gets handled."
"Yo
u love her?" Kyle asked finally, tone resigned.
"With everything I have," I replied without a hint of hesitation. I had no problem laying it out there. My feelings for Hope Carter weren't something I had ever tried to hide. From day one, I had laid it all out there for the world and its mother to see. If anyone had a problem with that, then it was their fucking issue because I wasn’t stopping – couldn’t even if I wanted to.
"You know she's married."
I arched a brow. "I did manage to catch a glimpse of the ring."
Kyle's jaw worked. "And it doesn’t change anything for you?"
"Not a damn thing," I came right out and said. "Doesn’t matter whether she's with him, or with me. I would still take the whole damn world down to keep her safe," I explained, feeling the need to lay all my cards down for her father to see. Didn’t matter whether he approved or not. I'd already lost. "There's no limit I wouldn’t stoop to if it kept her safe." Smirking, I added, "I'd kill you if I had to."
Kyle stared hard at me for a long ass time before letting out a heavy sigh. "Good."
"Good?" I arched a brow in wry amusement. "I just told you I wouldn’t have a problem taking your life, and that's your response?"
"I needed to know the kind of man I'm trusting my daughter's life with," he shot back gruffly, steel blue eyes narrowed on mine. "And now I do." I watched a vein tick in his forehead and noted that this wasn’t an easy conversation for him. "You're the kind of man who protects what's his. The kind of man who doesn’t hesitate to eliminate a threat. I'm undecided on whether you're a ballsy son of a bitch or just plain crazy for sitting here and laying it all out there like this, but I can respect you for it– I do respect you."
Well shit…
Was that approval?
"Appreciate the vote of confidence," I told him before taking a drag off the end of my smoke then tossing the butt out the window, watching as it disappeared into the windswept rain.
"You need to quit that shit," Kyle grumbled, gesturing to the cigarette being carried away by the wind. "You'll be no fucking use to me without any lungs left."