“Motherfucker!”
Kade paced while Nikoli sat in Kade’s office chair, eyes glued to the screen in front of him. He’d tried to find Mason this morning, who knew more about hacking than Nikoli did, but his youngest brother was nowhere to be found.
Dylan flew out to Miami last night to be their eyes and ears on the ground there. No one in the cartel knew Dylan, so they all agreed it would be safest for him to go snooping. He also knew more about gang intel than any of them did. He’d been working the gang unit of LAPD before he took the job here at KS&I.
“Cool your shit.” Nikoli didn’t even glance his way. “It’s going to take as long as it takes. You don’t want this tracing back to us.”
“Mason installed firewalls that make it impossible to trace shit back here.”
“Nothing is impossible. Difficult, but not impossible.”
Nik was currently hacked into several governmental websites in Miami looking for information on Juan Ramirez and his son.
Or maybe Kade’s son.
This waiting around was killing him. He had no patience for it. Nik had been working since around seven this morning. It was now well past noon. Kade’s every instinct prodded him to get on a plane, hunt the motherfucker down, and take his son back, but Dylan was right. He had no proof, only gut instinct, and that would get him arrested.
Nik’s phone buzzed, and he glanced at it. The ringtone was Lily’s.
“Hey, Lily Bells. You on your lunch break?” Nik got up and walked out of the office. As much as the interruption irritated Kade, he kept his anger in check. He couldn’t fault his brother for taking a break to speak with his woman. Kade would have done the same.
Well, maybe today he wouldn’t. He was hiding things from Angel. That was the reason he’d snuck out so early this morning. He wanted to tell her everything, that she’d had such a physical reaction to the boy because it might be Matthew, but he couldn’t do that to her. To get her hopes up and then find out he wasn’t theirs? It would crush her, and Kade would rather slice off an appendage than cause her any more pain.
His mother had often known things she shouldn’t have, things her sons didn’t want her to know. Things they’d done that would have made her so disappointed, but guilt usually got the best of them. Strangely, she’d never been shocked when they confessed or admitted she was right about something being wrong.
A mother knows her child.
That was what she’d always say. Kade got lost once, and it had taken them about an hour to find him. He’d been six or seven. He remembered being afraid and thinking if he was lost for too long, his parents wouldn’t recognize him. It was a child’s fear, but his mother had sat him down in her lap, hugged him close, and assured him that even if he had been lost for years and years, she would always know him, because a mother knew her child.
Angel knew Matthew the moment she saw him. She knew he was hers. Every instinct in her drove it home, her body physically reacting to leaving him. A mother knows her child.
He should have listened to her. He should have gone straight to the hotel and…and what?
He had no proof. No evidence. He’d have wound up in jail for attempted kidnapping. There was no way in hell he’d have left there without his son or in handcuffs.
“Sorry,” Nik muttered a few minutes later. “She’s worried. Having security trailing her is making her nervous. You know how anxious she gets if strangers are around. They won’t know how to help her if one accidently touches her and she’s not expecting it.”
“I thought she was a lot better?”
Nik shrugged and sat back down. “With people she knows, yes. Strangers, though? Whole other ball game. And her fucking boss is a flirt. Fucker better keep his distance.”
“You know this because…?”
“Because I met him a few days after she started working there. Fucker thought he was going to keep her there all hours. I explained to him if he didn’t fuck off, I’d buy the damn company and then let’s see what might happen.”
“Did you tell Lily you spoke to him?”
“Shit, no. Do you think I have a death wish?” His onyx eyes widened, horrified at the thought.
“He might tell her, though.”
Nikoli cracked his knuckles, a Cheshire Cat grin overtaking his face. “I thought of that. Fucker knows if he says one word to my girl, I will buy the company and toss him out on his ass and get him blacklisted in the industry.”
“You’re a video game mogul. How do you plan on blacklisting him in an industry you know nothing about?”
“The literary agency she’s at is one of the oldest and most prestigious in New York. They know the right people. I’d have them do it.”
“You’re an evil motherfucker, you know that?”
“Yup.”
Kade resumed his pacing, and Nikoli went back to hacking. Why was this taking so damn long? He needed information.
“Wearing the stain off the floors isn’t going to make this go faster.”
“I can’t help it.” He stopped and slouched against the wall, the pent-up frustration urging him to hit the wall instead. “If he has my kid…”
“If he has my fucking nephew, God won’t be able to hide him. I’ll spend every dime I have hunting the fucker down.” The fury rolling out of his brother matched his own. “When do we get the DNA results back?”
“Dylan promised they’d be couriered over this evening, no later than eight.” The hours were ticking by slower than molasses, as Angel would say.
Max Sheridon, the firm’s tracking expert, knocked then poked his head through the door. “Why aren’t you answering your phone?”
“My phone?” He pulled it out and found the battery dead. He forgot to charge it last night. “What’s going on?”
“Jasper called. There’s a problem. He said to get your ass to Angel’s new bar like your life depended on it.”
“Why?” Fear knotted in his belly, every scenario running like a herd of wild horses through his mind. He’d worked with the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit for too long.
“He didn’t say. He just said to git there.” Max’s Texan drawl came out thicker whenever he was upset. Now was one of those times. Max liked and respected Angel. Jasper had to have used a tone to get Max riled up.
He didn’t waste another second, just flew out of the room, aware both men were right behind him.
“It has to be the cartel.” Kade knew it in his gut. “Can’t you drive faster?” Nik had slid into the driver’s seat before he could. Kade hadn’t argued, figuring he wasn’t in any condition to drive in midday traffic in his enraged condition.
“I’m already over the speed limit. We’ll be there as soon as we can.”
“Jasper, this is Max. We’re on our way. Boss wants to talk to you.” Max handed his cell over to Kade without him having to ask for it.
“What the fuck happened?”
“Someone left pictures for her.” Jasper took a deep, steadying breath. “They’re pictures of her in the hospital. She looks younger.”
“Motherfucking bastards.” He slammed his fist into the dashboard so hard it cracked. “Where is she?”
“In my lap.”
“What the fuck…”
“Calm down. She passed out, and the floor is filthy. If I can’t get her to wake up in a few minutes, I’m calling an ambulance. She hit the floor hard.”
“Don’t fucking wait. Call 9-1-1 now. We’ll be there in five minutes.”
“9-1-1?” Nik honked the horn and hit the gas. “What’s wrong with Angel?”
“Passed out. Some bastard sent her photos from when she was in the hospital in Miami.” At least that was what he assumed. She might have been hospitalized in the six years they were apart, but he had a sinking feeling in his stomach this was the cartel announcing they knew who she was.
They arrived the same time as the ambulance. Kade almost knocked the EMTs down in his rush to get to Angel. Watkins was sitting on the floor, Angel unconscious in his lap. Another man he didn’t recognize stood behind them. He dropped to his knees beside them and took her face in his hands. “Moye serdste.”
She looked so pale. Whoever caused this was going to suffer.
The EMTs forced him to move and let them work. They lifted her to the stretcher and started taking vitals. Watkins followed and handed him the photos. Just as he suspected, these were from the day they lost everything. Bastards took photographs. Sick, fucking bastards.
Rage burst over his skin like a flash fire through a forest. A sound somewhere between a growl and roar left him. Nik took the photos from him and started cursing in a mixture of Russian and English, a bad habit they shared.
“Sir, we’re going to take her to the ER. I would feel better if she had a CT since she hit her head when she fell, and we can’t wake her up.”
He barely heard the EMT, but he nodded. Nik promised to meet him at the hospital, and he climbed into the ambulance, working hard to keep his anger under control.
Los Muertos.
Rage turned into a cold, hard determination.
They would pay for this and for his son if it was the last fucking thing he ever did.