MARTIN JENNINGS SAT ON the witness stand. Dark eyes gleamed back at me, the man intent to control my gaze as I faced him from where I sat at the table next to my attorney.
The way he’d always attempted to control me.
His expression conveyed every threat he’d ever dealt me, all under the guise of concerned parent.
“You are mine now.”
“I always get what I want, no matter the means to attain it. You’d be wise not to forget it.”
“I will guarantee your silence.”
A rush of fear trembled through my spirit, and I shifted on the hard chair. Painfully¸ I twisted my fingers together as if it could bind me with courage. My stomach felt as though it was tied in a thousand knots as I listened to the false sincerity woven in his tone, and a part of me wanted to cower and cave.
But when it came to Kallie, I never had, and that definitely wouldn’t change now.
If anything, I was stronger.
And I had Sebastian now. I wasn’t alone.
The thought bolstered me, renewed with a charge of determination and fortitude.
Martin sat making a plea as to why he should be granted longer-term full custody of my baby girl.
Each word passing from his mouth only made me sicker.
Ill with the idea this monster could once again take that control.
But this time…
This time I refused to give it to him.
“And why is it now you’re just interested in obtaining custody of your daughter?” his attorney asked.
Playing devil’s advocate.
How ironic.
Still, he was asking all the questions I wanted to demand answers to.
Even knowing every single answer was a lie.
The attorney, Mr. Carbellero, represented the state, though it quickly became clear he was under Martin Jennings’s dime, pressing an issue that wouldn’t have been an issue at all had Martin not spearheaded it in the first place.
“I never sought any form of custody earlier because I respected Ms. Bentley’s wishes to step away from the limelight of the business to raise our daughter in her hometown. It’s a decision I’ve often regretted. When I saw the pictures of paramedics attending my daughter on the beach, I knew I had no other choice than to step in and intervene.”
He settled his soulless eyes on me. “Especially when I found out Shea was allowing my child to be exposed to someone as dangerous as Sebastian Stone.”
My daughter! I wanted to scream. How could he sit there and try to claim her? After what he’d done? What I’d told Sebastian had been true. I’d foolishly hoped Martin had changed. That some sort of conscience had grown within the warped confines of his evil heart.
From where Sebastian sat directly behind me, I could feel the anger roll from him at Martin’s insinuation—the hardness of his breaths and the restraint radiating from his body.
“And you know from experience how dangerous Sebastian Stone can be?” More propaganda from Martin’s attorney.
“I’ve been involved in Sebastian Stone’s business dealings for some time now.” Martin went on to paint Sebastian in the most awful light, a strung-out addict prone to violence. Violence propagated against him.
Just as I knew Martin to be. A liar. A manipulator. Saying whatever needed to be said to get his way. To build himself up while he tore everyone down around him.
Using them as steppingstones.
My heart lurched with the memories.
A masochist.
A destroyer.
Martin acted out his role so perfectly, giving details of the assault, as if there had been no inciting factors. He implied Sebastian had assaulted him for no reason at all. Martin played himself out to be nothing more than an unsuspecting victim in Sebastian’s premeditated fit of rage.
It was just as Sebastian had warned. Martin had the edge. The law on his side. They presented the assault charges against Sebastian as the ugliest kind of blemish—almost as bad as the time he had served in prison four years ago.
My fingers twisted tighter, and I tried to decipher the judge’s expression as she listened to Martin’s testimony. I knew she could easily look at Sebastian in a negative light—view the rest of the guys in that same light—making judgments on appearances and assumptions.
It made me sad few would blame her.
But she didn’t know Sebastian like I did. She didn’t see beneath all the hard lines and scars to what burned bright below.
I guessed her to be in her late fifties, and she wore her hair in a smart gray bob. Thin and tall. Yet everything about her felt powerful and strong.
Stoic.
Giving nothing away.
God, I was just thankful she wasn’t the judge who’d issued the emergency injunction in the first place.
From behind, I could almost feel Baz’s apology pouring from him. Could almost hear the words of self-flagellation churning in his head. He was probably pleading for me to forgive him. Asking me to heed the many warnings he’d given me that he would never be enough, that he would always drag me down and leave me in shreds.
But, I wouldn't listen to those words. Especially when he'd been the only thing that had held me together over the last two days.
Two days I’d been without my daughter.
Two days of torment.
Two days of agony.
Two days of not knowing where she was. If she was scared or if she was safe. If she understood I was fighting for her or if she simply wondered if she had been abandoned.
Two days of Sebastian holding me through it all.
Promising he would fix this.
Somehow I knew his thoughts now. The energy traveling between us was alive, and those devoted places in him flared with doubt, the man thinking he would have been doing me a favor had he just walked away.
But in those days, while he’d kept me sane, he’d also filled me with faith. And I felt it now—sure in my heart Kallie would find her way home today.
Certain Sebastian was exactly where he was supposed to be.
Because somehow I knew he needed me just as desperately as I needed him. That the hollow place he had revealed in me had been created with the sole purpose of him filling it.
And I knew…
I knew there was a matching one inside of him.
When Martin’s attorney finished, Nigel, our attorney, declined asking Martin Jennings any questions of his own. He had told me earlier our job wouldn’t be to prove Martin an unfit father. That would come later if he sought some sort of future custody.
Instead, our job was to disprove the pictures, citing them as the lies they were, and bringing Kallie home.
As his first witness, Nigel called Lyrik. Lyrik strode to the stand, wearing a tailored dark suit, the tattoos on his hands and neck standing out in stark contrast against the obviously expensive clothing, everything about him menacing yet confident.
Nerves curled through my stomach.
Nigel did nothing more than ask him what happened that day, where I had been, where Sebastian had been, gathering his first-hand account.
“We were getting ready to grill some steaks. We’d been out playing on the beach all day, and Shea and Sebastian had just come back from a walk.”
He lifted a dark, dark brow. “Kallie had been with us during that time, playing in the sand, burying Zee…”
He gestured with his chin toward Zee who I knew sat behind me with the rest of the guys.
With Charlie, Tamar, and April.
Those who’d come together to support us.
To bring Kallie home.
“When Sebastian and Shea got back from taking that walk,” Lyrik continued, “Sebastian and his little brother, Austin, started tossing the ball around on the beach. Kallie was all excited, jumping around and begging her mom to take her out to play in the water.”
His tone grew serious. “I remember hearing them both laughing out there, playing in the waves, and then all of a sudden, Shea was screaming she’d lost hold of her. Kallie wasn’t ever out there in the water by herself. Never. None of us would have allowed that.”
“What happened then?” Nigel asked.
“Sebastian went running to the water. Dove in.” He swallowed hard. “It felt like forever, but I doubt more than thirty seconds or so could have passed when he got hold of her. Pulled her out of the water and onto the beach. By then, I was already dialing 911.”
“Thank you,” was all Nigel said before he took his seat.
Martin’s attorney approached and basically asked him the same questions, but with his own innuendo, trying to cast doubt, to catch him in a lie.
Lyrik’s story remained the same.
Nigel called Ash, then Zee.
Austin wasn’t here.
Nigel had assured us we didn’t need him, and Sebastian didn’t want him in the same room with Martin unless it was one-hundred percent necessary.
I didn’t blame him. God knew, I didn’t want to be around him, either.
Each of them gave their testimony, affirming I had been in the water with Kallie and she had in no way been neglected.
Each time Nigel finished, Martin’s attorney would approach them, doing everything he could to discredit them, calling their character into question, to chalk it up to their ties to the band.
A pact of deceit.
Last, Sebastian was called.
The power of the man’s presence stole the air from the room as he made his way to the stand. Filling it up with something all his own.
The weight of his gaze almost crushed me as he looked across at me, every admission, apprehension, and desire blazing in his eyes. Every reason he’d ever given to walk away and everything that had him running back played out in the depths of the roiling grey. A fire that flamed free and bold.
My heart beat frantically as he recounted the story from his perspective. The fear he’d felt was clear. There could be no denying how he cared for my child.
Most of the questions Nigel asked were the same he’d asked the rest of the guys, but he pushed a little deeper, gaining greater detail. It seemed as if Nigel were wrapping up his questioning, walking back toward the table where I sat, when he paused and looked back at Sebastian. “What is it exactly Shea Bentley means to you, Mr. Stone?”
Sebastian looked directly at me, something softening in the severity of his stare. “She’s my girl.”
His answer was simple, though his expression was anything but.
Yesterday, Sebastian had made a public statement.
Claiming me.
Claiming Kallie.
He denied our relationship had anything to do with the fact Kallie’s father was the same man who Sebastian had been arrested for assaulting. He’d calmly stated there was no bearing or connection, and it was just a twisted coincidence that had led us down this cruel yet exquisite path.
These two, they’re it for me, so as soon as we clear this mess up and get Kallie back home where she belongs, that’s where I’m gonna be.
That’s what he’d said before he pulled me a little closer and dropped a tender kiss on the top of my head, told them thank you for your time, and turned us away.
They’d rushed, firing question after question at us.
But Anthony had stepped in and corralled them as Sebastian quickly ushered me back inside Nigel’s office, saying we wouldn’t be available to answer any questions and making a plea for them to respect our privacy in this difficult time.
Nigel nodded. “One last question, Mr. Stone. How long has it been since you’ve used any illegal substances?”
Sebastian raked a hand down his face and blew a heavy breath from his mouth. “I’ve been clean for four years.”
“Thank you, that’s all.”
Nigel sat back down beside me, and Martin’s attorney approached. There was no missing Sebastian’s discomfort, the way he struggled to hold himself back, to keep himself in check, rage barely constrained as the man dove right in to undermine his testimony.
To undermine him as a man.
No doubt, just being in the same room as Martin Jennings was almost more than he could bear. Forcing him to sit through this attack was nothing less than cruel.
And make no mistake. It was an attack.
Mr. Carbellero asked the expected questions, before he shifted tactics and launched into his own agenda.
“Isn’t it true you came to Savannah knowing Martin Jennings had ties here?”
“No.”
“Isn’t it true you sought out Shea Bentley as a way to get back at Martin Jennings with whom you’re involved in both criminal and civil suits?”
“No.” That time, his answer was harder.
The judge cut in with a lift of her chin. “Mr. Carbellero, please keep your questions pertinent to the event taking place this past Sunday,” she warned.
In annoyance, the attorney’s lips thinned, and he offered her a clipped nod.
Sebastian fidgeted in the stand, hostility clear, before he was excused.
From the side, Nigel gave me a reassuring glance, confidence clear in his eyes, and I tried to temper the overwhelming emotion pricking at my eyes.
Climbing down from the stand, Sebastian looked at me warily as he passed, big body eating up the ground as he crossed through the short gate and took his seat.
A storm of turmoil ricocheted between us, all our hope clouded with fear and uncertainty.
My fingers twitched, wishing I could go to him. Comfort him the same way he’d been comforting me.
Nigel stood and called my name.
I pulled in a breath and shuffled toward the stand. I was sure my feet would give out as I approached, my breaths shallow and my heart erratic as it pulsed frantic beats through my veins.
Emotion pressed fervently at my chest, and my little girl’s face swirled through my mind, her sweet voice an echo in my ear. As if she were near, her spirit fluttering through me on her tiny butterfly wings, brushing across the vacant places where she remained just out of reach.
Calling for me.
I fumbled as I sat down on the chair.
Martin Jennings smiled across at me.
Pleasantly.
As if he’d perfected the act.
As if he held the fate of the world in his pompous hands.
A placating expression that oozed arrogance.
Vile, disgusting man.
Hate hit me like the crack of a sonic boom.
If only everyone here knew what he was truly capable of.
What he’d done.
No. I’d had no proof.
But I knew his guilt as well as I knew his game.
My gut had screamed it. Claimed it. A natural intuition that had risen from inside. An instinct insisting we survive.
And for so long I had.
Survived.
I was sworn in and Nigel Trondow asked me the same questions he’d asked the guys. Only with me like he had done with Sebastian, he went into more detail, beginning from the moment Sebastian and I went on the walk down the beach.
“The pictures that allegedly took place while Kallie was left alone. You claim they took place down the beach without Kallie present?”
“That’s correct.”
I knew no matter what, those images shed me in less than stellar light. The pictures appeared dirty and lewd. No doubt, they gave pause to my judgment as a mother.
My voice quieted as I swallowed around the lump at the base of my throat, my explanation shaky. “We thought we were completely alone…there wasn’t anyone on that part of the beach. That never would have happened in front of my daughter, or in front of anyone else for that matter.”
I realized my statement came across as a plea.
For the judge to understand I would never intentionally place my daughter in harm’s way.
Nigel strode back to the table and pulled out the images he’d marked for evidence that morning.
“Your Honor, these are the pictures taken without Ms. Bentley or Mr. Stone’s knowledge last Sunday, on private property, no less.”
He stated the date they were taken and passed them to the judge.
They were the pictures of Sebastian touching me beneath my bikini top, our passionate kisses, the ones of Kallie from a distance with her face blurred out and surrounded by paramedics.
He handed her more prints. But these…these were the rest of the pictures. The photographer who had sold the condemning pictures had captured moment after moment of that afternoon. There were pictures of me playing in the water with Kallie. Close-ups of her smiling face. The wave. Me screaming when I lost her. Sebastian running in to save her.
They were all there.
I wasn’t entirely sure how this stunning reel of evidence had been obtained.
Sebastian had said he would spare no cost and clearly Nigel had dug until he’d found the proof.
“You’ll see by our own pictures that Ms. Bentley and Mr. Stone’s intimate encounter on the beach did not take place in the same spot where Ms. Bentley lost hold of her daughter behind Mr. Di Pietro’s beach-front home.”
There could be no question.
They were two separate events.
The judge perched her reading glasses on the narrow bridge of her nose. Quietly she perused them, saying little. The bit she did, she directed at Nigel, asking how and when the second set of images were obtained. Bile worked its way through my stomach.
Because no matter how much proof we believed we had, it still came down to perspective. To the way the judge would see, read, and interpret.
When she finished her inspection, the judge pulled off her glasses, and Nigel turned his attention toward me. “Thank you for your cooperation, Ms. Bentley, I have no further questions.”
Mr. Carbellero stood.
He didn’t hesitate to tear into me.
Twisting his questions.
Slanting innuendo.
Casting an illusion of neglect and disregard and possible abuse.
Finally I could take it no more and there was nothing I could do to keep the tears from breaking free. They streaked down my face as my words cracked on the appeal. “I would never intentionally place my daughter at risk. She’s my entire life.”
I was sobbing by the time I was excused, no longer able to stand beneath the pressure, beneath the possibility of losing my daughter.
I broke in front of them all.
The judge adjourned for a fifteen-minute break.
Those passing moments were nothing less than excruciating.
Sebastian stood behind me, rubbing my shoulders, pressing gentle kisses to the back of my head while I felt as if I stood at the cusp of eternity. Two paths tangled. One that would lead me to perpetual torment, and the other directly to deliverance.
How daunting that a woman I’d seen for the first time today held the fate of my daughter in her hands.
An unparalleled position of power.
If only she could have seen the years I’d given Kallie. If only she’d been there to watch my sacrifices. The hours of loving her and protecting her and nurturing her.
Always keeping her safe.
She would know I’d never hurt her or put her in harm’s way.
We all rose when she reentered from her chambers, and sat when directed to do so.
It seemed as if the entire room held a collective breath.
She looked in my direction. “I find no evidence of neglect on Ms. Bentley’s part.”
Her words spun through me, tempting and teasing at my understanding.
She turned her gaze in the direction of Martin. “Mr. Jennings, if you have any true interest in forming a relationship with your daughter with joint custody, then I would suggest you do it through the normal channels and not through a stunt like this.”
She lifted the gavel. “I find in favor of the defendant and hereby lift the emergency injunction in the care of Kallie Marie Bentley. Care should immediately be reinstated to her mother.”
Wood cracking against wood thundered through the courtroom as she slammed the gavel down, and I was hit with a violent jolt of relief.
Resonating.
Pulsating.
Taking hold.
I gasped. My shoulders dropped in the same second I dropped my head into my hands. And I sobbed. Only this time…this time it was out of thankfulness. Out of joy.
Simple, simple dreams.
They cried out from within me.
Finally.
Finally.
They were within my reach.
A barrage of flashes went off the second the door swung open.
Click.
Click.
Click.
I ducked my head and Sebastian pulled me closer to his side, and I could feel the way every inch of him hardened in defense.
Resentment and hostility.
“Don’t even acknowledge them, Shea,” Sebastian hissed against my head as he sought to protect me from the swarming onslaught of paparazzi questions.
They pushed and pressed in, vying for position, to be the first to grab our attention.
My head spun with the sudden intrusion. It was a sharp contrast to the rest of my body that felt lighter than it ever had. My arms and legs tingled, my heart stampeding hours into the future when I would hold my baby girl again.
As if I were flying there, more desperate for that moment than for any I’d ever lived in the past.
Over the last two days, as the shock had worn off, the sadness had grown. We’d never had a day apart. It had been utter agony. As if a tangle of roots had sprouted in my insides.
Spearing.
Tunneling.
Burrowing.
Cutting through muscle and bone and marrow.
Piercing me to the core.
To the most vital part of me.
They say our children are made of us. Essential to our being.
It’s never so apparent until they are ripped away, and now all those places resonated with the void only my baby girl could fill.
Now I couldn’t wait to get to that moment when she would fill it.
But we needed to make it through this crowd first.
A bristle of fierce energy rumbled through Sebastian. His tone was hard as he spoke near my ear. “This is the same bullshit they pull at every turn, and you don’t need to deal with it now. They have no right to be here.”
But they were.
And this was part of Sebastian’s life.
A part I had accepted to be with him.
Although now some of the obsession was directed at me.
We were hit with a firestorm of questions.
Most laced with assumptions.
Lies and hurt and morbid intrigue.
A warped and skewed truth to feed the fascination.
“Can you tell us the verdict in your daughter’s custody hearing?”
I cowered closer into Sebastian, part of me wanting to shout victory and adoration, the other determined to keep my mouth closed. Understanding the game because I’d had to play it before.
“Mr. Stone, is it true Sunder is currently seeking a new lead to replace you?”
“Sebastian Stone, has your relationship with Hailey Marx officially come to an end?”
Grunting, Sebastian shoved through the swelling crowd, his anger throttled, the restraint he barely hung onto quickly unraveling as he pulled me tighter.
“Ms. Bentley, how do you respond to the breach of contract between you and Mr. Jennings?”
My eyes immediately flew the reporter’s direction, and I could feel my brows pinching with the question he hurled.
Breach of contract?
Never before had it been claimed.
Was he claiming it now?
A jumble of voices fought for our attention.
“Now that you’re out of hiding, will Delaney Rhoads be making a comeback?”
I wanted to scream, Not a chance in hell, but instead I held my tongue and allowed Sebastian to haul us forward, his body a battering ram driving through the throng.
“Sebastian Stone, it’s no secret you and Martin Jennings remain at odds. It seems obvious you’re using your relationship with Shea Bentley to get back at him.”
Sebastian growled, “We told you what we had to say yesterday. Now get the hell out of my way.”
Rage vibrated from his bones. It was enough to send the lesser of the photographers scampering out of his way.
But some remained bold, and a microphone was shoved in my face. “Is it true you hid your pregnancy from Martin Jennings, and now he is seeking full custody?”
Nausea rolled in my stomach.
They had no clue, no idea the secrets I’d kept inside or why I’d kept them.
No idea the lengths I’d gone to protect my daughter.
Another voice at my ear. “Your estranged mother is quoted as saying, ‘I’ve never been faced with greater disappointment and discouragement than in my daughter’s betrayal.’ Can you comment?”
As if I’d been kicked in the gut, I gasped, and angry tears pricked at my eyes. I wanted to lash out, just as Sebastian had done outside the hospital on Sunday night.
Because. This. Hurt.
How did she still shock me with her vitriol?
Didn’t they understand what we had already been put through?
The pain?
This was the life I’d run from.
One I’d hidden away to protect myself, but most of all, to protect my daughter.
Burying Delaney Rhoads.
But shallow graves are so easily uncovered, and I wasn’t sure I was ready to deal with her resurrection.
For a second we broke free, and we darted across the street to where the Suburban was parked. Running lights flashed as we neared it, the locks disarming, and Sebastian yanked open the passenger door, quick to help me inside.
He slammed the door shut behind me.
I watched as he fought back through the reporters, as he rounded the front, this time not quite as amicably as he’d been with me at his side. Three seconds later, his door flung open and he jumped in. Immediately he slammed it closed, cutting off the frenzy of voices.
Panting, my breaths wheezed from my too-tight lungs, and I tried to calm my thundering pulse.
From across the space, Sebastian searched me for injuries he knew would not be visible.
“Those bastards.” His rugged face winced, his voice a hard rumble. More regret.
“This is exactly what I was trying to protect you from all along. Never wanted to drag you and Kallie into this kind of life. It’s no good, Shea. No fucking good.”
I stared at him and my head tilted to the side. My voice was soft but packed with emphasis. “Life with you is good, Sebastian. As long as we make it that way. I don’t care what lies they tell or what they believe. Just as long as it means I get to spend my life with you.”
He exhaled and shook his head, a hint of a smile playing at the corner of his pretty, pretty mouth. “Where’d you come from, baby?”
“I’ve been right here all along, waiting for you.”
Outside, we were surrounded.
But here?
It was just the two of us.
That strange energy still intense and profound.
But different.
Maybe it was the overwhelming relief, the weight that had been lifted, but the air had shifted. A glimmer of sweet. A suggestion of desire. Sebastian slanted me a smile—all flirty and sexy—gaze brazen, as he looked me up and down where I sat in the passenger seat while he readjusted his tie. His gray fitted suit only amplified the bulk of his stunning presence.
“So fucking beautiful,” he moved in to murmur near my face, “still can’t believe I get to call you my girl.”
Heat climbed my neck and I could feel it radiating from my cheeks.
God.
One thing about Sebastian?
He never balked at finding comfort in the other’s touch, and over the last two days, he’d sought me out time and time again. Taking me. Soothing me. For a few blissful moments, lifting me to a place where I was detached from everything in this world.
Except for him.
A place where we existed only in the other.
Tied.
Tethered.
Bound.
Hearts and minds and bodies and souls.
After everything that had happened, it seemed impossible only four days had passed since he’d come back to me.
Since he’d torn all those barriers down and chosen to stay.
Even though deep down, in the places we didn’t want to acknowledge, we both knew he would eventually have to go.
This life would take him places where I couldn’t always physically follow, whether standing up for his little brother would land him back behind bars, or if the call of his spirit would take him back on the road.
At the thought, my heart thrashed a severe beat of defiance, and I flinched as I attempted to block the injustice of it all.
Sebastian frowned when he noticed the shift in me, his touch gentle as he hooked his index finger under my chin.
A simple promise.
You belong to me.
It didn’t matter where the road took him. How much time or distance existed between us.
It didn’t hold the power to erase what that promise meant.
“You did it,” he finally whispered just above our slowed breaths, and he reached out and cupped the side of my face.
“She’s really coming home.”
But what would be Martin’s next step?
I forced off the grim thought.
“Yeah, Shea, she’s really coming home.” Sebastian started the truck and put it in gear. “Think it’s about damned time we go and get her.”
He jerked the long black Suburban out onto the road. Paparazzi scattered. A tumble of bodies rushed to get out of Sebastian’s way as he gunned it onto the one-way street and headed away from the courthouse.
Inside my purse, my phone rang.
I dug through my bag and pulled it free.
Nigel.
“Hello?” I answered. There was still a tremor in my voice, unable to shake the worry that in the ten minutes since I’d last spoken with the attorney, something had gone amiss. That I’d misunderstood or misconstrued.
That my mind had played the cruelest kind of trick.
“You can pick up Kallie at 4:30.”
I breathed out and glanced at the dashboard.
Four o’clock.
My chest fluttered.
In only thirty minutes, Kallie would be in my arms.
“Claribel Sanchez,” he continued with his instructions, “the case manager, will meet you at the house where Martin Jennings has been staying with Kallie to oversee the exchange.”
I blanched.
It sounded as if we were bartering goods.
I swallowed down the residual bitterness. Even though I hated that was precisely what Martin had done—using an innocent child as a tool in a failed coup—I would only be thankful she was coming home.
He rattled off the address and I scribbled it down so I could plug it into the navigation.
“Got it,” I said.
Of course, the monster had not only taken her from her home, but removed her from her hometown. Placed her in the midst of everything foreign more than thirty miles away.
Every piece of me prayed she was truly okay.
That she would recover and this trauma wouldn’t leave her with scars that would never heal.
I bore enough of those for the both of us.
My mind swam with questions.
How had he treated her? Fed her? Cared for a child he didn’t even know? What lies had he fed her? How would I answer her thousands of warranted questions?
A chill skittered down my spine.
What would I do if I found out he’d harmed her?
Nigel pushed out a relieved breath. The no-nonsense persona he typically wore veered into something warm. “Congratulations, Shea. I was confident this case would come out in your favor, but I can’t begin to describe the satisfaction I feel with getting your little girl back where she belongs. I know my job made a true difference today, and I want to thank you for placing your trust in me.”
“Thank you for putting everything you had into it. I will forever be in your debt.”
I ended the call, and Sebastian turned and headed north out of Savannah.
He hit the freeway.
Trees hugged the roadway, interspersed by buildings that opened up to small towns as the sun beat a path west and we continued silently toward our destination. The entire ride I fidgeted in my seat, picking at the hem of my shirt as I incessantly checked the time.
Urging it along.
Ten more minutes.
Sebastian reached across the console and took my hand. “We’re gettin’ close, baby.”
I squeezed his hand and attempted to steady my breaths, to calm the escalation of my heartbeat. But it only increased with every passing second. “I can’t wait to see her.”
Every emotion I’d felt over the last few months seemed to gather right at the base of my throat. A lump derived from the blinding bliss Sebastian had brought into my life and the pain and torment that had followed, building and weaving and breaking and strengthening until I stood right here.
On the cusp of where it all manifested as my future.
A future with her.
A future with him.
All muddied with a cataclysm of unknowns that would make up our lives.
Unknowns I couldn’t wait to experience.
Exiting the freeway, Sebastian made a right, then a left.
Sitting forward in my seat, I clamped down on his hand.
Wave after wave of yearning washed me through.
My beautiful, frightening man cast me a reassuring smile as he made another right down a street, then began to slow as we approached the address.
He pulled up to a stop in front of a single-story home.
My gaze was immediately drawn to the windows framed by white shutters, wondering if Kallie stood behind one, peering out, just as anxious for my return as I was for hers.
Did she know I was coming? Did she know I would have come for her two days ago had it been possible?
For the rural area, the house was on the nicer side. A manicured lawn adorned the yard. Two mature, lush trees flanked the walkway lined with rows of recently planted fall flowers.
Still, it didn’t come close to touching the extravagance of Martin’s Nashville residence.
I realized this was little more than a holding cell. A place to keep Kallie, because he hadn’t been allowed to move her out of state until I’d been in front of a judge.
A palpable rush of agitation burned through Sebastian, and he gripped the steering wheel, his attention also locked on the face of the house where my daughter had been held.
The clock read four twenty-eight, and the same small blue car that had been present the night Kallie was taken pulled up behind the Suburban as the sun slid slowly toward the horizon.
In discomfort, Sebastian cleared his throat. “Think it’s best I wait here. Last thing we need is me bringing more trouble on you two. Took about all I had not to lay that smug bastard out back in court. Not sure how things would go down without a building full of cops to deter me.”
I gave a quick nod. “Yeah.”
I knew with Sebastian, it was vastly more than just an idle threat, which was precisely why I could never let him know just how depraved Martin truly was.
He smiled a brilliant smile that cut through his intensity. Something beautiful beneath his hardened scars. “Go get your girl.”
Through the rearview mirror, I watched Claribel Sanchez step from her car. I did the same. Although my movements were rushed and shaky, filled with the culmination of my anxiety, fear, and relief.
This was it.
I attempted to steel myself against the idea of facing Martin in this setting. One without the screen of intercessors. No attorneys or judges or officers there to act as a buffer. Only this lone woman, who knew nothing of Martin, and Sebastian who knew too much.
I flattened my palms down the front of my blouse, nervously straightening it, needing something to do with my hands.
She approached me with a cautious smile on her face. “Ms. Bentley.” Sympathy flashed across her features. “I’m glad I can be here to help with the transition.”
In her eyes I saw an apology. As if maybe she’d felt it in her gut she’d been making a mistake the night she’d torn my daughter from our home.
Or rather, the judge had made one, because it was clear she’d only been doing what she’d been commissioned to do. The lines marring the woman’s face obviously told of the countless hours she devoted to her job with very little thanks, but rather case after case of heartache and abuse and broken homes.
I twisted my hands as I glanced at the house, making a vain attempt at controlling the moisture clouding my eyes. “I’m just thankful this transition is taking place.”
Her smile turned knowing, and she gestured with her head toward the house. “If you’ll just wait here, I’ll go inside and get your daughter and bring her out to you.”
She looked to the Suburban. “And with Mr. Jennings’s and Mr. Stone’s history, I’d like to ask he remain in the truck.”
Apparently Sebastian wasn’t the only one who viewed himself as a danger.
“Of course, thank you,” I rushed.
“You’re welcome.”
She took the walkway to the front door and rang the doorbell. An older woman I’d never seen before opened the door.
Not Martin.
I stuttered over my heightened defenses, a second’s ease in knowing I wouldn’t have to face him. I absolutely hated the power he still held over me. The utter fear I felt at just the mention of his name.
Although it was no longer just for myself, but for my daughter.
Nodding, the older woman extended the door open and welcomed Claribel inside. Then it closed.
I stood there with my heart in my throat. Restless, I tried to force myself to stand still and wait, when the only thing in the world I wanted was to beat down the door and find my daughter.
Five minutes later, the door opened again.
A tiny girl with a mane of wild blonde curls stepped out, and my heart, which had been in my throat, felt as if it burst. As if it exploded with a balm filling my chest too full, overflowing into my veins. Touching and soothing and inciting where it brushed through every inch of me.
Swallowing hard, I shook more as my gaze met with those sweet brown eyes, love and belief and innocence still shining through.
Without even making sense of it, I was moving, taking two hesitant steps forward, knowing I was supposed to stay.
To wait.
I broke out in a sprint. Awkwardly. My heels clattered against the sidewalk, and my pulse thundered and spun, a frenzy urging me forward.
Claribel stopped at the bottom of the three steps that led to the house. Kallie’s hand was still secured in hers.
A foot away, I fell to my knees. Concrete ripped at my stockings and cut into my skin.
But none of that registered.
The only thing I felt was the desperate ache to hold my daughter.
Kallie.
I choked. Tears fell fast and free, soaking my face.
I reached for her. Pulled her to me. The warmth of her tiny body pressed into my chest. My face got lost in ringlet curls, and I breathed her in, hugging her close, my mouth at her ear. “I missed you, Butterfly. I missed you.”
God, I’d missed her so much it was frightening.
Terrifying.
My body wept with the residual pain and torment crashing violently with this welcomed remedy.
Little arms wrapped tightly around my neck. “Mommy.” She said it so quietly. As if she were testing if it were true. Wondering if I really was there. Then she breathed out her own relief, letting go of some of her fear while she clung to me.
“It’s okay, sweet girl. I have you. I have you.”
Slowly, I climbed to my feet, taking Kallie with me.
Claribel Sanchez inclined her head down the walk. “We should go.”
Nodding, I wrapped my arm tighter around Kallie, my free hand pressed to the back of her head. She buried her face in my neck, and her little heart beat so hard against mine. Frantically, I kissed the top of her head. “I have you,” I whispered again as I followed the social worker down the walkway.
Claribel Sanchez opened the back door of the Suburban and placed a bag inside, one that had not belonged to Kallie two days ago. Part of me wanted to rip it from where she set it on the floor. To throw it to the ground. To trample it into dust. To erase any memories of the past two days.
For Kallie as much as for myself.
Instead, I edged around her and reluctantly settled Kallie in the booster seat, loathed to let her go. I buckled her in and kissed her on the forehead, moved to her temple, then to her tiny nose.
On the tiniest giggle, she lifted her trusting face to me and a smile whispered at the corner of her red-bow lips.
I could feel Sebastian, the gravity of his stare, the power of energy that glimmered in the confined space. I looked up and met his strange grey eyes, saw the heavy swallow that bobbed his throat as his gaze drifted to my baby girl.
Affection.
Love.
Adoration.
My head spun with the magnitude of it.
“Hi, Baz.” Kallie’s timid voice broke into the charged air, her sweet little drawl tugging at me from all angles. A hint of that unending exuberance bled through her greeting.
A soft smile edged Sebastian’s mouth.
“Hey, Little Bug. You ready to go home?”
Her smile grew and she kicked her feet. “I so, so, so ready.”
“Let’s get you out of here,” I said, and I kissed her forehead again, unable to stop, before I finally forced myself to step back and shut her door.
Claribel Sanchez stood there waiting, before she gave me a slight tilt of her head. “I will need to follow up in a couple of weeks. Take care of her.”
“Always.”
She got into her car and drove away.
I started for the front passenger’s door when I felt the presence behind me. Mouth going dry, I froze with my hand clamped down on the door handle.
Sickness crawled across the surface of my skin.
He inched closer. My instincts kicked in. My body shrank away, my eyes squeezed tight, and my lungs sealed off.
Cringing.
Cowering.
I hated he still evoked this reaction in me.
Greed and conceit and spite pressed into my senses, and my lungs burned with restraint until I could do nothing but take in a sharp breath.
That smell.
There would never be anything I could do to erase it from my mind.
A noxious spice that under any other circumstances should have been pleasant.
But pair it with something vile, the memories of his body dictating mine—that scent soaking my nose and clogging my throat—and it was as if I were suddenly eighteen again. Just a scared little girl with a voice so many proclaimed adoration for…yet never really heard.
Regret curled my stomach with nausea, and Martin Jennings laughed, low and malignant.
I refused to bend to him. Slowly, I turned around and lifted my chin, my eyes narrowed as I took in the man who’d sought to take everything from me.
Using me up.
All too happy to hang me out to dry.
It was the same second I heard the driver’s side door click open.
A shimmer of violence pitched through the darkening day, a crack of aggression struck the dense air.
From behind me, I could sense every step Sebastian took as he carefully approached, making his way around the front of the Suburban.
Slow.
Purposeful.
Poised to protect.
I latched onto his controlled disdain, allowed it to multiply—to be enough for both of us—and stared at the face I wished I could forget.
My voice wavered, but I held strong. “If you hurt my daughter…in any way…I swear to God, I won’t stop until you wish you were dead.”
Martin Jennings tsked. “So angry, Delaney. Funny, I always thought you a pushover.”
His breath spread across my face as he inched closer. Eyes, so dark they were almost black, glinted with contempt.
A sneer curled his mouth. “You’d always been so anxious to please. Stumbling all over yourself for a little praise. You surprise me.”
Every cell in my body squeezed as memories of the mistakes I’d made surged forward.
Taunting.
Reminders of a past I had never wanted to live.
“You don’t know anything about me,” I spat, holding my ground while I felt as if it might crumble out from beneath my feet.
Memories of myself as a teenager swamped me. Growing up, every path I’d ever traveled had been with my mother at the reins. Leading me. I strove to conform to who she wanted me to be, always hungering for her attention. Anxious to make her proud. Desperate for a soft touch or a gentle hug or some kind of affection, rather than bearing the brunt of all her hateful dissatisfaction.
Sadness closed over me.
Both she and Martin had used that to their advantage.
Took advantage of me.
She had allowed him to take over everything in my life. Changing my image. My name. The songs I sang. I had been nothing more than his pretty little puppet, there to do with as he’d wished, which quickly included him claiming me as his own.
Just an ignorant lamb willingly led to the slaughter. Blind to what was waiting around the corner.
Until I’d discovered what was lurking behind it.
I could feel Sebastian edge forward. Tension wound in the force of his breaths, and Martin’s gaze darted over my shoulder at him, before it flitted back to me. He sent me a mocking smirk.
“I see you’ve gone digging through the trash for a little of that attention you’ve always been so desperate for,” he taunted with a chuckle. “Such a shame. A waste.”
The last dropped with slow insult, and I could feel Sebastian’s rage pulsing at my back, the man at war with himself to keep from attacking.
Air shot from Martin’s nose, and I knew he felt it, too.
“By all means, Mr. Stone, come at me. There would be no better way to end this day than watching you get hauled away in cuffs.”
“Stay away from us,” I warned through a barely heard whisper.
Martin laughed. “Do you really think you won today, Delaney? You think this is over?” His voice dropped. “Had you forgotten?”
Dread prickled across my skin.
Dark eyes glinted malevolent satisfaction and his mouth twisted in a morbid sneer as if he found glee with it. “Besides, I’m just getting to know my daughter.”
My daughter was uttered on a deviant’s tongue, yet came off with pure disdain. I wanted to puke.
“What do you want from us?” The words cracked. I knew it sounded as if I were begging.
Sebastian wound his arm around my waist, his hand firm across my stomach as he pulled me against him.
“Shea, don’t,” he urged, attempting to drag me back and keep me from getting sucked into the cesspool that was Martin Jennings.
Offhandedly, Martin lifted a shoulder, ignoring Sebastian, his tone deceptively sweet. “Come now, Delaney. Did you really think I wouldn’t return for you? I promised I would. And I never break my promises. You do remember what you cost me?”
He looked at me pointedly. Reminding.
But the underlying reminder wasn’t about how much money had been lost by my desertion. But what he’d planned to do with that money. Money effectively stolen from me because of the contracts I’d been pressured to sign. Contracts where almost all royalties went to Martin and my mother. My eighteen-year-old naivety had once again gotten the best of me.
Lester Ford was a name I’d wanted to forget. For years I almost had. But briefly hearing his name on the news about a year ago had caused everything inside me to seize. The announcement the Tennessee tycoon was throwing in a bid to run for governor tripping up my feet.
Ignorantly, I’d pushed the importance of it aside. Pretended some more.
Anger pressed at my chest. “I owe you nothing.”
He laughed as if I was ignorant, then glanced at the blackened back window of the Suburban. “Don’t forget she’s my daughter, too.”
It came across as another threat, this revolting man using my child against me.
Expendable.
A belonging.
A possession.
Just as my mother had treated me. The same as she’d passed me on to him.
Sold me, really.
I’d just been too blinded by my desire to please her to see it for what it really was.
But I wasn’t that frightened girl anymore.
He lifted his chin in a gesture toward Sebastian. “And you can’t imagine the pleasure it will bring me to take down the two people who owe me most in one fell swoop. I suppose I should thank you for slumming it with this piece of trash, Delaney. I couldn’t ask for a better scenario.”
He leaned in close as he mouthed at my ear. “I will guarantee your silence.”
I choked and Sebastian growled.
As Martin backed away, his smile curled the hairs at the back of my neck, fierce and shameless and somehow knowing. He turned on his heel and stalked toward the house.
There was no question he’d not forgotten my promise, either.
The shaky, foolishly bold promise I’d made when he’d come to the hospital the day Kallie was born.
The one stating I would expose both him and Lester Ford if he didn’t let Kallie and me go, implying I had securities in place that would destroy him if something happened to me.
He’d promised I was nothing but a fool for thinking I had any control, and he’d be back for me when the time was right.
Maybe he knew I’d been bluffing. Doing anything in my power to protect my daughter.
Still, I was certain we’d danced around those threats for years. Each of us reliant on what one held over the other.
But why now?
“We’ll fight you,” I claimed on a broken shout.
Martin stopped. Slow to look over his shoulder.
I did everything I could to steady the words, to keep from conceding and yielding the way I’d always done. “And I promise, I’ll do everything to make sure you go down in flames.”
He began to turn back around, when I said, “And my name isn’t Delaney. She died a long time ago.”
The smile on his face appeared satisfied, and he shook his head as if pleased, muttering as he walked way, “You surprise me again, Delaney Rhoads.”