In His Keeping (Slow Burn #2)

“Ari’s mother and I were selected to participate in a program for the development and research of psychic powers. We both possessed unusual talents. Ari’s mother was dirt poor and struggling just to make ends meet. They hired her to be a surrogate mother, not really explaining that the baby wasn’t going to an actual family. They posed as a legitimate adoption agency specializing in surrogacy. They played on her vulnerability and she agreed to carry a child because they offered her a lot of money, free housing, bills and expenses paid.

“I was the sperm donor. Same song, same dance. Only Ari’s mother and I fell in love. And when we discovered, by accident, just what this organization really was and what their plans for our child was, we ran. And we kept running. Each brush was more difficult to escape than the last, and we knew when Ari was born, there was simply no way for us to be able to keep running when we had a baby to support. So we went to . . . your father for help, and he directed us to the Rochesters, who by all accounts were unable to have children of their own.”

Beau’s response—reaction—was explosive. “What the hell? What does my father have or rather what did he have to do with any of this? You better damn well explain yourself.”

Beau was struggling to take it all in. It was like a bizarre science fiction movie, but it was chillingly real. All of it. It fit too well with the background information they already had on Ari and her parents. But now it was suggested that his father was in some way involved? And then he remembered Gavin Rochester’s vague association with his father. His blood chilled in his veins. Gavin had been the last person—to their knowledge—to have seen their father alive. Had Gavin silenced him in order to protect Ari? Or had he done it to protect his own selfish interests?

To Beau’s seething frustration, the other man completely ignored Beau’s impassioned demand and continued as though he hadn’t just dropped a bombshell.

“They found Ari, or rather found out who had Ari, because they caught up to us and took my wife.” Pain radiated from the choked words. Grief was tangible through the phone connection and Beau automatically tightened his grip on the cell and glanced up at the monitor just to reassure himself that all was well with Ari. “They tortured her,” he said hoarsely. “They did unspeakable things for three days until she finally broke and told them who she’d left our daughter with. Then they killed her and dumped her body where I’d find her with a note that this is what happens to people who cross them. So you need to know who you’re dealing with, Mr. Devereaux. You need to know they mean business and they will not simply give up and go away. It was four years ago that they murdered my wife. And they systematically began to put the wheels in motion that would allow them access to Ari, and believe me when I say that them being thwarted just makes them all the more determined to succeed in their objective.”

Shock echoed through Beau’s mind as he grappled with the ramifications of what Ari’s biological father had just revealed. God, if they’d done that to Ari’s biological mother—a defenseless woman—then they certainly would do no less to Ari’s adopted parents. He couldn’t face Ari, if one of her parents appeared on their doorstep or in a place they knew the body would be discovered by DSS. They’d want Ari to see—to know—exactly how serious they were and it only made Beau that much more determined that they would never get their hands on her.

There was background noise and then the man spoke hurriedly. “I have to go.”

“Wait!” Beau quickly spoke up. “How do I get in touch with you?” There was a damn lot more he wanted to know from this man, particularly how his own father was involved in this complete clusterfuck.

“You don’t,” the man said tersely.

And then the call ended just like that, leaving Beau frustrated, even more questions than ever vibrating through his mind.

“Goddamn it,” Beau swore, flinging the phone toward one of the leather chairs in the security room, where it landed with a soft thud.

Once more he glanced up to the monitor, fear seizing him as he watched Ari sleep the sleep of an innocent. Someone who didn’t live in a world where women were tortured and then discarded like yesterday’s trash.

The question was whether he should tell her what he now knew to be truth. Or at least what he’d been led to believe was truth. Because it seemed his—and her—lives had been a tangle of lies from the very start.





NINETEEN

“THE first thing I want to do is inject an undetectable tracking device on Ari as a precaution,” Beau said to the gathered members of DSS who had been called in the moment Beau had gotten off the phone with Ari’s “biological” father.

Ari had slept, very likely exhausted from the events of the last forty-eight hours, and only when his brother, Zack, Dane and Eliza had arrived on the heels of Beau’s urgent request for their presence had she stirred. He had gone to the bedroom and told her to take a nice long bath and relax, that he’d call her when breakfast was ready.