By the time I left the house—after checking the security system three times—some bit of sense was coming back to me. This wasn’t a Sunday drive through the country that had me leaving the most tantalizing woman in the world tied up and desperate to be fucked. That thought sobered me though; at least enough that I could slide into the driver’s seat of my car without worrying about breaking my cock.

It was time to secure Scar’s future. As I drove out of the driveway, the image of her leaning over the toilet this morning flashed through my mind. Fuck, I was not looking forward to that conversation with her. But I let myself think for just a moment what it would be like if I actually survived this. Would she choose to keep the baby? Would she want me to have any involvement in raising the child?

Fuck, what the hell did I know about babies? Fathers were supposed to teach their children all the things they knew. What was I going to teach the kid?—how to shoot a gun? How to tear a person apart? How to take an innocent woman like Scar and put her through hell?

Yeah right. Obviously, I had no business teaching a child anything. I’d make sure Scar and the child never wanted for anything, but I’d leave the parenting to her. She would be a good mother. I could so easily picture her with a baby in her arms. But what would that baby look like? Like me? Or would it look like one of the fuckers I’d killed? How would I be able to look at the child if it looked like one of them? And would it be a constant reminder to her of what I’d let happen?

Maybe it would be best if she didn’t keep the child. Vicente could take care of that. Except, I already knew she wouldn’t want that. And maybe, as fucked up as it sounded, I didn’t want that either. Whatever else this baby was, it was half Scar. How could I want to destroy that?

Nearing the meeting spot, I forced every ounce of attention on my surroundings. I had to make absolutely certain I wasn’t being followed. Mateo had to have no idea what I was up to. So, taking a convoluted route, I wove in and out of streets, looking for any sign of a shadow. Nothing.

That wasn’t surprising, I supposed. Mateo wouldn’t be expecting me to seek outside help. Hell, the cocky son of a bitch probably thought I had no idea what was going on. Still, I drove past the meeting spot, looking for any signs Michael had been followed. Still nothing.

Circling back, I pulled off the road and into the wider cluster of brush that would keep us hidden from the main road. Michael was already there. I knew he would be, which was why I’d passed by to look for a tail.

Two deep breaths and I got out of the car. Michael was standing by his driver’s side door, windows not tinted and his hands visible. He was doing everything to show me he wasn’t up to anything, and now it was my turn.

I pulled the guns out of the holsters on my chest and tossed them onto my seat before approaching him. Since I wasn’t the trusting type though, the gun at my ankle was staying where it was.

“Hello Derek,” he greeted when I stopped four feet away.

“Michael,” I nodded back.

“She’s still alive?—she recovered?” His concern seemed genuine.

“She’s alive. The recovery is a work in progress.”

He nodded. His eyes looked guilty as hell, but I understood it. At times I still wanted to rip him apart for standing idly by while they’d tortured her, but I couldn’t. We both knew he wouldn’t have been able to do a god damned thing on his own. They would have killed him for trying, and then he wouldn’t have been there to help me get her out.

“Then, pardon my bluntness, but what’s going on?” he asked.

Blunt was good. I didn’t have time for anything else. “Marcos Caballero—he wasn’t the top of the totem pole. I killed him, and his boss wants me a little bit dead.”

“I never knew Caballero answered to anyone.”

“That was the idea. No one was supposed to know.”

“So, where do I come in?”

I explained the basics of my plan, that I was planning to walk into the trap, but I needed him to be getting Scar the hell out of here at the same time.

“I want to help, Derek, but you should know I’ve ended up with a few shadows the past couple of weeks. Not everyone has liked what I’ve been up to.”

“That’s why you’re going to come home with me now, and stay there until you take off with her.”

It wasn’t actually part of the plan, but hearing he might end up with people following him, I couldn’t take the chance. It was going to complicate the time I had left with Scar, but it was the only safe option. He’d seen her there in that basement though, and she had to know it. This wasn’t going to be easy on her.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

I scoffed. “Of course not, but what choice do I have?”

He nodded again, though he didn’t look any happier than I was. “When I was in that room…watching on the monitors…I’d never seen them like that before—not brutal like that. The things they did to her…she looked so much like my wife…” The man’s voice was cracking and his eyes were brighter than they’d been a minute ago. “Derek, does she know…about me…the monitors?”

“She’s never asked, and I haven’t told her, but…”

He nodded once and then dropped the subject. Neither of us wanted to be remembering Scar in that basement.

“All right, let’s do this then,” he said. He opened his car door, grabbed a bag off the passenger seat and then moved to the trunk.

When he opened it, I couldn’t help but laugh. This was definitely a man after my own heart. The entire trunk was filled with a small arsenal.

“Can you give me a hand?”

I nodded and grabbed the duffel bags of guns and ammo nearest me. My own weapons filled my trunk, but there was plenty of room in the back seat. Between us, we could easily fend off a small army.

“Who’s Caballero’s boss?” he asked as he slid into the passenger seat after we’d finished loading the back seat. If we got pulled over, we were fucked. Fortunately, my car could outrun just about anything else on the road.

“Mateo Lopez,” I answered. There wasn’t any reason to hold the name back. He’d have every one of my contacts soon. But the way his shoulders stiffened had me wondering about his response. That name meant something to him. Not that it mattered. Whatever Mateo had done to piss off Michael was too fucking bad. That kill was mine.

Back on the road, my thoughts turned to what was waiting for me at home. Heat flared through my body, but I tamped it down. Now that Michael would be there, my plan to keep Scar out of trouble didn’t seem like such a wise one. She was going to be beyond delirious with arousal when I got home, and there would be a strange man in the house.

Fuck it. I’d keep him locked in the garage if I had to. I now had less than four days left with her and filling my head with thoughts of what I was going to do to her super-charged body sure as hell beat thinking about all that had happened to her.

The meeting spot had only been thirty minutes from the house, so even with taking a convoluted route just to be safe, we were pulling up to the outer gate forty-three minutes later. I was curious how much Michael knew about me, so I watched surreptitiously as I scanned and typed, and proceeded up to the house.

He didn’t look the least bit fazed by the property. Had he researched me? How much did he know? And why had he been looking into me? An image of the young woman who’d been his wife flashed through my mind. I was in this man’s debt. Did I perhaps owe him this?

I paused in front of the garage and shifted to neutral. “Michael, I know you put a lot on the line to help Scar…to help me the way you did. I’m not used to being indebted to someone. Actually, I make it a rule to avoid it, but…”

“Derek, it’s fine,” he cut in.

I was not used to being cut off, but I swallowed my aversion to it. “It isn’t fine. Alicia…she was delivered to Caballero eight years ago. If she looked as much like Scar as you say, then I’m certain of it. I tried to help her, but it wasn’t enough.”

Michael was silent for a moment, but then he looked me directly in the eyes, “You were just a kid, and Caballero was a monster. There isn’t anything you could have done. Thank you though. I could never be certain where she ended up.”

I sat there. I knew I should open the garage door, but it felt like there was more to this conversation than had been said. And by the sudden stunned expression on Michael’s face, I’d guess I was right.

“Derek, why did Marcos have you take Scarlett? Did he ever tell you?”

“He didn’t have to tell me,” I sneered, remembering the scene I’d walked in on what felt like a lifetime ago—Marcos, with his whip raised behind Scar and deep lashes cut into her skin. “He let me think it was for me, for my revenge against James Garcia, but it was never about me. He’d wanted her all along. He wanted to torment Garcia for running off with a woman he’d claimed as his own—Scar’s mother. The twisted fuck apparently didn’t give a damn that it was his own daughter he was torturing to try to make Garcia pay.”

Michael closed his eyes and put his head back against the seat. I wondered why that particular information was affecting him—until the pieces started to come together. Scar’s mother. Scar. Alicia—a woman who bore a striking resemblance to Scar.

Fuck. None of it had been random. Marcos had known exactly what he’d been doing. The mother. The daughter. The aunt—Scar’s aunt.

“Eight years ago, Scar’s mother was already dead. He couldn’t have her back, so he went looking for the closest woman to her—Alicia.” I put the puzzle pieces together out loud.

“Alicia was Scarlett’s aunt,” Michael said slowly. “Maybe only by marriage, but that means Scarlett is…my niece.”

Yeah. Hopefully, Michael wasn’t the fanatical uncle-type, or else he really wasn’t going to approve of the way I had his niece restrained on my bed at this very moment.

“Fuck!” Michael shouted and slammed his fists on the dashboard. He managed to collect himself quickly though. “I’m sorry, it’s just…it was bad enough when the girl on the monitors had been a stranger, but now…fuck, it just never ends, does it?”

“No, it doesn’t.” I wish I could have said otherwise, but it would have been a blatant lie.

We both nodded, silently acknowledging the truth.

I shifted opened the garage then and pulled in. Now all I had to do was explain to Michael it would be best if he waited here. Not expecting him to be accompanying me back to the house, I hadn’t even closed the bedroom door when I’d left her there, writhing in agonizing pleasure. I’d wanted to walk in the front door when I got back to hearing her moans and cries reverberating off every wall in the house.

No way was Uncle Michael getting to hear those sounds. They were for me. Mine—and I was a selfish son of a bitch.

All mine.