Hidden Betrayals (The Hidden Series Book 4)

by Kristin Coley

  “Something wrong?” Addie asked Jake as they walked down the hallway.

  “Nothing gets by you.” Jake grinned as a nurse whistled at him. “Okay, that was unexpectedly embarrassing.”

  “Oh, you get used to being whistled at by complete strangers,” Addie told him in a matter of fact tone. “Try have triple Ds.”

  “You have my permission to shoot anyone who whistles at you, besides myself and I say that with the full authority of the law behind me.” Addie laughed at his serious expression.

  “Yeah, yeah. That’s not what’s bothering you.”

  “No, it’s not.” Jake stopped in a quiet section of hallway. “I got a call right before we came in. It was the Captain.”

  “And?”

  “Marcus Tramonte’s body washed up on the bank of the Mississippi River this morning. A single gunshot to the back of the head.” Addie’s horrified gaze met his and Jake told her carefully, “These people aren’t messing around. They tied up all of their loose ends. Are you certain you’re not in danger?”

  Addie nodded, but it was Wade who spoke, having walked up unnoticed. “Maybe we’re asking the wrong questions.” He glanced down at Addie, “Or maybe our definitions of danger are different.”

  “They don’t intend to kill us,” Addie replied with certainty.

  “No, but there are things worse than death,” Wade answered, his eyes meeting Jake’s in a moment of complete understanding. “And I have a feeling whoever is behind this has plans for us.”

  Author’s Note

  Ahhh, yes. There will be a fifth book. I promise! Wade has a story to tell and whoever is after their abilities will need to be dealt with.

  Facebook is usually the best place to check when a new book is coming, but I hope to have Wade’s story out sometime in the summer of 2018. The intended title will be Hidden Desires, and it will provide plenty of backstory on Wade and tie up some if not all of the loose ends I’ve left here.

  Again, reviews are a huge help to me as an indie author. Word of mouth, likes and shares on Facebook all help to spread the word. I love to hear your feedback and if you haven’t signed up for my newsletter at www.kristincoley.com please do because you will get a bonus scene, Meeting Addie, told from Jake’s perspective.

  Also, please accept my apology. I don’t generally like leaving any type of cliffhanger, but in this instance, I couldn’t wrap everything up in one novel and Wade was insistent he get his own book.

  Thank you for reading and I truly hope you enjoyed Danny’s story.

  ~Other books by Kristin Coley~

  The Anderson Brothers Series

  Summer Escape

  Paranormal Reads:

  The Hidden Series:

  Hidden Truths

  Hidden Lies

  Hidden Secrets

  Hidden Betrayals

  The Trinity Sisters Trilogy

  Continue reading for an excerpt from my young adult novel, Summer Escape, a lighthearted romance.

  Summer Escape

  Abbi was looking for a summer away from her demanding younger siblings. Any escape would do. Playing housekeeper for the spoiled son of one of her stepfather’s business associates?

  Piece of cake.

  John West was country music royalty with a list of hits a mile long. His face was instantly recognizable around the globe.

  With the exception of his new housekeeper.

  A minor irritation.

  She was number six in as many months and if he ran her off like the others his parents were going to intercede. Considering the secret John was trying to keep that wasn’t an option.

  One summer can change everything.

  Chapter One

  “Did someone say escape?” I prayed what I’d overheard was true since one more day much less an entire summer with my colicky twin siblings might drive me to madness. Mom exchanged a look with my stepdad and reluctantly nodded. I could see it cost her since she didn’t want to be left alone with the vomiting duo either, and I felt bad for her.

  Really.

  I did.

  Just not enough to stay in the hell that was dirty diapers, projectile vomiting and near twenty-four hour crying.

  See, if there was just one it might not be so bad.

  Maybe.

  I wasn’t entirely certain of that fact because I still remembered Ava’s infancy. She’d come along about six months after Mom had married the stepdad – clearly waiting till marriage was something only meant for me – but I wasn’t judging.

  Seriously, I wasn’t.

  It’s not like everyone didn’t automatically think she belonged to me anyway. I mean, really, who’s more likely to be the mom? The teenager or the almost forty-year-old woman?

  Well, these days it might be a tossup, but that’s beside the point.

  Most people automatically assumed Ava was mine. Maybe my mom just didn’t look the type to remarry and decide having another kid at thirty-eight was a brilliant idea.

  I won’t think about what that implied about me.

  The fact that I was Ava’s primary caregiver didn’t help matters. Mom and the stepdad worked…a lot….to support this new life in the new (read: expensive) house where we would magically become a family.

  Ha.

  Ha.

  Ha.

  You may be wondering at the caustic laughter. Let me set one thing straight for all the second and third marriages out there. A new house does not a family create especially when there’s a new baby and you wind up feeling like the nanny slash housekeeper. Which makes me sound bitter. I swear I’m not.

  Really.

  Maybe a little.

  Anyway.

  They got me a car which would have been fantastic except it was a minivan.

  Yep. You read that right.

  A minivan for a sixteen-year-old. Not only that, it was a brand-new minivan. And before you start assuming I was an ungrateful brat…I was super appreciative. I swear. Wheels are wheels, right?

  Wrong.

  This one came with stipulations. Like picking baby Ava up from daycare every day and shuttling her to the doctor’s appointments my mom could never seem to make and some strange ass baby yoga class that was clearly pointless since Ava never relaxed. Talk about an uptight baby. If crying was an Olympic sport she would have brought home gold.

  I will give my mom and the stepdad kudos on one thing.

  Infants truly are the world’s best birth control.

  Ava definitely kept me from getting knocked up in high school. Of course, that also could have been because I had no social life what with taking care of Ava and all, but I digress.

  We were talking about escape. Specifically, my escape from the diabolic duo and Ava the Terrible. Whoever came up the idea of the terrible twos missed the memo because it should have been called the Terrible Toddler Years.

  You’ve probably already figured out where the twins came from, but in case you haven’t I’ll fill you in so you can truly understand my desire to escape.

  College was supposed to be my time. My chance to spread my wings. Freedom, you know? Live in a dorm, party all night, stumble to class hungover…okay, so I probably wouldn’t do that, but sleeping through the night without a two-year-old waking me up to tell me about how much she loved Peppa Pig would have been enough. Seriously, it would have been enough.

  I was ready. I could shed the teen mom persona I hadn’t wanted and be me, Abbi, for the first time in two years. There would be intellectual debates, flirting with cute college boys who didn’t know me as the easy girl with the baby, and you know, the chance to pee by myself. It’s the little things in life, right?

  Until A-day. A-day being short for announcement day for the uninitiated, and the day I found out my freedom was nothing but a lie.

  That day I was happily scrolling through my social media account liking cute cat videos when I spotted it. Mom and stepdad with ridiculous grins on their faces, each one holding an ultrasound picture with the words, ‘Oops, I d
id it again.’

  That was Mom’s pregnancy announcement.

  Some old nineties pop song.

  Yep. I found out my Mom was pregnant again through social media. We live in the same house! Am I the only one who finds this disturbing? Because really, I thought it was common courtesy to inform immediate family members before posting it on social media. I stormed downstairs to confront her, because yes, I was home when she posted it to their joint account.

  Joint account. What a joke.

  I knew for a fact that the stepdad had his own social media account using some stupid nickname he had in high school. It’s where he liked porn star’s pictures and posted political rants that were the polar opposite of the joint account. If Mom knew, she pretended ignorance which was probably best for all concerned.

  Oops, got a little sidetracked there.

  I stormed downstairs to ask if this was some cruel April’s fool joke.

  “Mom, you can’t post stupid shit like this on April’s Fool’s day. There are women struggling with fertility that don’t appreciate jokes like this!” I ranted as I entered the massive kitchen no one ever cooked in. I tried once, but the stepdad had such a freak out about keeping it clean I gave up.

  “What are you talking about?” Mom’s eyes rounded in surprise, but I wasn’t taken in by it. She could give Oscar winners’ lessons on how to act innocent. I held up my phone with the photo evidence staring out. I hadn’t even bothered to like it because what was there to like?

  “Oh, that.”

  “Yeah, that.” She might have the innocent thing down, but I excelled at sarcasm. “Were you gonna tell me or did you just hope I’d see it?” I glared at her, but inside I was shaking. Anger warred with disappointment as I considered the fact that my own mother couldn’t be bothered to tell me something so important but felt it acceptable to post it instead.

  “We were going to tell you tonight when we went to dinner,” she lied without a hint of remorse.

  “Was that before you left or after you came back?” Because when she said ‘we went to dinner’ she meant her and the stepdad while I stayed home with Ava the Terrible. We’d tried the whole family night out once, but after Ava threw her spaghetti on the woman in the white dress at the table next to us and insisted on calling me Mama all night to no one’s amusement but her own, it hadn’t happened again. So, I spent my Friday nights at home with her while the stepdad took Mom out for ‘date’ night which brought us right back to…

  “You do know how to prevent pregnancy right?”

  It was her turn to glare, but I wasn’t joking. She’d just turned forty and I could count. There were two ultrasounds photos in her post. Which meant…

  “Twins? Seriously, Mom, how could you let this happen?” There came a time in every daughter’s life where the mother/daughter roles reversed. I just hadn’t counted on it happening when I was eighteen. “I know I’m going to college, but this is carrying the empty nest thing a little far. What about….?” I jerked my eyes toward the stairs to indicate I was talking about Ava. I knew better than to speak her name during naptime. She had some weird supersonic hearing where her name was concerned and if you even whispered it when she has asleep, she’d wake up instantly and start screaming.

  “Ava will have siblings.” Mom spouted off and I flinched, already prepared for the immediate wailing. Two years and she still didn’t get it. I met her eyes and we had a stare down as to who was going to get her, because now that the monster had been awoken she wouldn’t stop till someone went to her.

  “Maaaammmmmmaaaaaa!”

  I refused to cave even as my eyes started burning from not blinking. She’d woken up the beast, she could deal with it. But I’d forgotten how cunning my mother could be.

  “I feel sick.” She clutched her stomach and made little gagging noises before running to the half bath off the kitchen.

  “Motherfuck…” I muttered, knowing I’d been had, but unable to do anything about it. “FAKER!” I shouted at the closed door before jogging back up the stairs. She’d settled any doubts I’d had about the legitimacy of her pregnancy so there was no point wasting any more time harassing her about it.

  As I entered Ava’s room I flicked the Post It note I’d stuck under the pink wooden letters spelling out her name. I’d written ‘the Terrible’ on it as a joke and stuck it up there months before when she’d revealed her true nature.

  The second she saw me the cries stopped. Thank God, because at full volume she could destroy hearing. I gave her a narrow glare but she just smiled up at me babbling, “’Ab, ‘Ab.” She’d shortened my name from Abbi to just Ab and I’d never admit I found it adorable. She was entirely too clever for her own good as it was, and I didn’t need her knowing how firmly she had me wrapped around her finger. It was bad enough she called me Mama in public when she knew full well who I was.

  I reached into the circular princess crib and plucked her out. Her one saving grace was she hadn’t figured out how to escape the crib yet. Or she had and just preferred to scream until someone (me) finally caved and came to get her. Somehow, I wouldn’t put the latter past her.

  “Well, little monster, you’re going to have a couple of siblings soon.” I pressed a kiss against her baby fine hair to hide my smile as I said, “You have my sympathy.”

  See, I hadn’t yet realized how profoundly my mother’s pregnancy would affect me. I remained under the illusion (read: delusion) that my future was set. The golden gates of an out of state university beckoned and this newly revealed pregnancy would be nothing more than a pesky nuisance on the holidays I was forced to come home.

  Sigh.

  The innocent desperation of youth.

  They left on their Friday night date cringing with shame as I glared them out the door, but it was the ruthless determination they returned with which would spell doom for my carefree college years.

  I’d settled Ava down earlier and was working on my dorm roommate survey when they waltzed in. My eyes narrowed as I took in their happy smiles. Even my mother wasn’t stupid enough to drink while she was pregnant so being tipsy wasn’t her excuse.

  “We spent the evening discussing the coming changes,” Stepdad began when I interrupted.

  “Better methods of birth control since the pull-out method has failed so spectacularly?”

  He clenched his jaw and I pointed to his perfectly capped white teeth. “Careful, don’t want to crack one.” Mom laid her hand on his arm at that point and gave me her patented ‘would you quit’ look. I huffed but conceded, holding my hands out in a placating manner. A fact I regretted after finding out what they had planned. I should have given them so much more shit.

  “With the new development,” Stepdad paused and looked disconcerted when I didn’t interrupt him with a wisecrack. “Your mother and I have decided we’ll need you around more.”

  More?

  More?

  How could I be around anymore than I already was? I literally spent more time at home than they did.

  “Oh, really?” I replied carefully, still not suspecting what was coming. Oh, my youthful ignorance. “And by more, what do you mean exactly?”

  “Your mother’s pregnancy is considered high risk,” he stated and by that point I couldn’t help myself.

  “Yes, because you should stop breeding by the time you’re forty.” I retorted as my gaze flickered toward my mom but she didn’t bother to reply as Stepdad roared, “BECAUSE she’s carrying twins.”

  “And because she’s past the normal childbearing years. Did they suspect menopause first?” I shifted my laptop out of the way right before Stepdad slammed his hand on the table.

  “Honey, she’s upset. We have to accept this is difficult for her.” Mom patted his shoulder all sympathetically while shooting me a glare. “Remember what our therapist said.” I rolled my eyes at that. ‘Our therapist said’ was uttered regularly, but rarely was the advice taken. You’d think they’d have figured out by now if you weren’t going to take the t
herapist’s advice you should probably stop paying to hear it.

  He exhaled loudly, his face so red I actually felt a flicker of concern for his blood pressure but that disappeared with his next words.

  “You’ll be remaining here to help your mother with the twins and going to the local state school.”

  “What?” I shrieked at a decibel I was previously unaware I could reach. Stepdad reared back and even Mom winced. “No, no. No. No. And no. I’m filling out my roommate profile. I’ve been accepted into the early summer program. I’ve already started packing.” Okay, maybe the packing was a little premature since I didn’t actually leave until June 1st, but I was ready. Past ready and more than a little eager to see them in the rearview mirror.

  “Well, you’ll just have to change it,” was Stepdad’s witty reply.

  “No, I don’t. I’m going. You made your bed and obviously slept in it so you deal with the consequences.” I crossed my arms over my chest and dared them to contradict me. “I’m leaving.”

  “Not if I don’t pay for it you won’t.” Stepdad’s grin was positively evil and my stomach sank as Mom refused to meet my eyes.

  “No,” I answered slowly, growing mighty fond of that little word. “My tuition comes from Dad’s insurance money.” It had been set up ages ago by my grandparents before their deaths. My Dad had been a bit of a reckless fellow since he knocked my mom up at twenty and then proceeded to die in a motorcycle crash before I was even born. My paternal grandparents had demanded DNA tests to prove my paternity, but once it was confirmed they’d help support me until their deaths. They’d also set aside the life insurance money from my dad as a college fund for me.

  “Well, sweetie.” Ah, hell, when Mom used that endearment I knew she’d screwed up royally and her next words proved it. “We used that money for the down payment on the house.” She gave me a perky little smile like that was an acceptable use for my college fund. “Your stepfather promised to pay for your tuition when it was time so I didn’t see the big deal.”