Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 102731 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 514(@200wpm)___ 411(@250wpm)___ 342(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102731 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 514(@200wpm)___ 411(@250wpm)___ 342(@300wpm)
“Are they okay now?”
“Oh, Theo has turned out to be the biggest daddy’s girl ever. He loves Rose more than he loves anything in this world.”
“But you didn’t want to have a baby this way?”
I looked up at him. “Like Sarah, I got lucky and fell accidentally pregnant to the man I love. But there’s a part of me that’s scared, concerned. I mean, I always thought you and I would have kids before we were thirty, but that we’d have the chance to live a little with each other. To travel. To soak in art and culture and food and music all over the world, to have sex in exotic places … But we did this all backward.”
“I know. But it doesn’t mean we won’t get to do all those things, Callie. I will make it my mission in life to give you all those things. And like I said, that’s what family is for. Do you know how ecstatic my mum would be to have her grandkid for a week while we gallivant around Europe, soaking in the culture and having enough sex to give her another grandkid?”
“I doubt very much she’d be ecstatic to know you’re sexually insatiable,” she teased.
“Uh!” I made a very unmanly, high-pitched sound. “I’m insatiable?”
She quirked an eyebrow. “What does that mean?”
“It means that you’ve almost broken my fucking cock.”
Callie laughed in delight and then rested a hand on my stomach, sliding it downward. “Fucking cock, eh? That sounds like a very useful piece of equipment.”
My huff of laughter turned into a groan as she wrapped her hand around me.
The sound of my phone blaring beside us made me bite out a curse. Callie, however, didn’t stop her ministrations as I reached for it. “Let me go, mo chridhe. It’s my dad and he wouldn’t call for nothing.”
With an adorably petulant twist of her lips, she released me and settled back against my chest as I answered the phone.
“Ah, Lew, I’m sorry, bud.” Dad’s voice was gruff. “Fyfe just called. He checked your CCTV … the house has been ransacked. I think you and Callie should come home. Now.”
It was even worse than what had happened at the cottage.
Rage shuddered through me as I walked through our home. “Well, now we really need to get new furniture,” I offered with a dry amusement I did not feel. But guilt flashed on Callie’s face like a neon sign, and I didn’t want her taking that on. Therefore, I hid my fury as best I could.
The arseholes Fyfe had caught on camera were two men in black, wearing ball caps so we couldn’t see their faces. They’d cut through the sofa cushions with a blade and ripped out all the stuffing. Drawers were torn from the kitchen, out of sideboards, parts smashed, broken. The mattress was sliced open on our bed and in the guest room. Clothing everywhere. Every shoebox upended.
“What the fuck are they looking for?” I turned to Walker, Dad, and Fyfe.
Fyfe winced and apologized for the fifteenth time. “Lewis, I’m so sorry about the delay.”
The break-in happened in the wee hours of the morning and because the system wasn’t fully set up yet, there wasn’t an alarm trigger to my phone or to his company’s system. He was checking in manually for me while I was gone. Fyfe had been asleep.
“Fyfe, mate, it’s not your fault,” I insisted.
“No, it’s not.” Callie patted him on the shoulder, expression wan with anxiety. “But I think we all recognize the common denominator.”
We could, and it scared the shit out of me to think someone was after Callie.
“Do we think it’s Nathan Andros?” Fyfe asked. “You definitely don’t recognize the guys on the footage?”
We’d both looked at the footage before we walked inside so we were prepared for the mess we were about to encounter.
Callie shook her head. “Definitely not. But Lewis is right—what are they looking for? This isn’t mere intimidation or stealing … I mean, this time they left with nothing. They’re looking for something.”
“I don’t like this.” Walker glowered grimly at the wrecked living space. “And for that reason, I’m still leaning toward Andros. He likes to fuck with people. Maybe this is a mind game.”
My dad let out a heavy sigh. “Is there anything you can do about that?”
Walker nodded, a coldness in his eyes that reminded me Ironside was not a man you crossed. And you definitely didn’t mess with the people he loved. “I have a contact who can get a message to him on the inside.”
Callie’s eyes changed from bleak to angry. “I wish Mum had killed him. All those years ago when she shot him in self-defense. I wish he’d died. That’s what he does to you. That’s the kind of hate he instills in you.”
Bridging the distance between us, I pulled her into my arms, and I felt her shake as she quietly cried. I met Walker’s furious gaze and hoped he could read the words in my eyes, giving him instruction to put the fear of hell into Nathan Andros. Whatever that might take.