“He is,” Elle says. I lift my eyes and find she’s walking down the hall toward us with a little girl in her arms. The kid has curly, dark brown hair and big brown eyes, and she’s got her head resting on Elle’s shoulder. She’s watching her surroundings like a baby hawk waiting for breakfast. “And you don’t really have much of a choice now, do you?”
Amber’s eyes shoot from Elle to me where she stares at me, pleading. Fuck. I don’t want to be in other people’s business, but I keep fucking ending up smack dab in the middle. First with Nic and Duke and all that shit. So much for being a good guy. Then with Cheyenne and Jeremy—goddamn kids—and all hell breaking loose there. Now this. For fuck’s sake. I’m not doing it again.
“It’s bad enough I’m here without any of my brothers knowing. I can’t go back and keep this from them.”
“I know,” she says quietly. “I just don’t know how I’m going to explain Piper.”
Amber hides her eyes from me by tilting her head down. Elle crosses the room and hands the little girl over to her mother. I put two and two together and realize there’s a piece to this puzzle I haven’t asked about yet.
“Who’s her dad?” I ask with a head nod in Amber’s direction. She shifts her daughter to her hip, her eyes lock on mine, and she takes a deep breath.
“Wyatt.” She doesn’t redirect her gaze or flinch. There’s not a bit of shame in her features. I’m silent for a long while, searching for some kind of response that doesn’t include shooting myself in the fucking head.
“How the fuck does that even make sense?”
She shrugs her shoulders like I’m asking how she got a stain on the ceiling instead of how she has two of my brothers’ kids and he doesn’t seem to know about either one of them.
“Love doesn’t always make sense,” she says and then turns away from me. She walks across the kitchen and starts preparing breakfast with one hand while Elle makes herself a cup of coffee. They move around each other like they’ve been doing this for years. Just when I think Amber’s done speaking, she comes back to the table and sits down with the kid in her lap, feeding her breakfast. “I’ve screwed up a lot—especially with Wyatt—but I love my kids, and I don’t regret them or how they came into this world. I’m too selfish to feel bad, and I’m okay with you, the club—even Wyatt—hating me for it. Just help me get my boy back, and I’ll face Wyatt. I will. But for now, I just need my son back.”
Elle comes to stand beside me and places a hand on my shoulder. As small as it is, her touch calms me down a little. It grounds me.
“We’ll get him back,” I say.
Elle’s mobile rings from her pocket. She answers it quickly, says very few words to the person on the other end, and hangs up within thirty seconds of answering.
“We got him,” she says. “Rawlings Camp Grounds in Huron National Forest.”
“You sure?” Amber asks. Her voice is shaky and she looks scared. Scared to hope this could all be over soon, maybe. Scared to find her boy hurt.
“Pretty sure. Beats sitting around here with our thumbs up our asses,” Elle says.
“Then we better get going. I’ll have my neighbor watch Piper,” Amber says. She grabs her mobile and arranges for her neighbor to come over as soon as she can. Elle and I stand from our seats and head down to the basement to get the duffle full of weapons and ammo. We need to head out soon if we’re taking this motherfucker down today.
“We got more important shit to do today, but we’re revisiting this topic of fingers in your ass, babe.”
“Get my nephew back and you can put whatever you want in my ass,” she says with a wink. I immediately go to thinking about Candy Castle and my strategy the next time I have a few minutes to play, because if I don’t, I’m going to be sporting a chubby, and I really don’t have time to get off right now.
Chapter 7
The front door chimes as it opens, making me cringe. I hate those stupid security features. They don’t actually do anything useful, but they sure make it hard to sneak in and out of places—something that can be dangerous in my line of work.
The woman behind the counter lifts her head and taps the worn laminate countertop with the tip of the pencil in her hand. A crossword puzzle is open in front of her, about half filled in, with eraser shavings scattered everywhere. She’s got a face full of lines—worry, laugh, and age—and a cynical eye. This could either work in my favor with a no bullshit approach, or it could go the other way with a no bullshit response. Going with my gut, I pull out the most recent photos of Rig and Zander that Amber could find and place them on the counter on top of her crossword puzzle.
“Sorry to bother you, but I need to know if you’ve seen either of these guys.”