The second I turned off the car to the overbearing silence, I decided to run to the restaurant to make sure things were going smoothly. Or maybe it was just that it made me sick to think of going into the vacancy of my little house.
Nauseous to think of returning to the way things had been before I’d left here two weeks ago.
Only things would never be the same, would they? I’d forever be marked with Ryder’s love and eternally scarred by his betrayal.
I pulled Kayden out of his seat and carried him into the café. Everyone always fawned over him whenever he came in, and Beth took him while I went into the office so I could print out the recipe for the breakfast special tomorrow so the cooks would have it first thing in the morning.
I found I wasn’t settled being in the restaurant, either, so I quickly worked through a few tasks and headed back out into the main dining room, promising my staff I would see them in the morning.
By the time I stepped back out, the sun had begun its descent toward the west. The air cooled even farther, a gentle breeze gliding through that tickled across my skin.
Somehow, it churned as an unease in my senses.
A sticky sensation that nothing was right.
Or maybe it was just what was waiting on me that sent queasiness rushing through my body.
A dread I’d all but forgotten over the last couple days.
Because when I opened the gate, I found Trey sitting on the single step of my stoop, resting his elbows on his thighs, bent over like he was torn between two worlds, too.
I froze while his head snapped up. He blinked through uncertainty while I fought the urge to turn and run. To refuse him the right to Kayden because I didn’t think I could handle losing anything else right then. Not moments or days or peace because I didn’t know this man at all, and I had no idea what kind of father he would be.
But I couldn’t move, and it felt like my feet had grown roots as I stared across at him for the longest time. But his attention wasn’t on me. It was on Kayden who pointed at him from where he was in my arms. “Look it, Mommy. A man.”
And that man slowly stood, itching, roughing a hand over the top of his head. “I’m sorry to show like this. I just…took the chance you might be home.” He let go of a self-deprecating laugh. “Of course, I’ve been sitting here for the last three hours after I knocked and no one answered.”
I finally got myself together enough that I moved, though I inched down the pathway like I was tiptoeing through landmines. “You should have gotten in contact with me first.”
He dipped his head, scruffing a palm over his face before he returned his gaze to us. “I know. I just…couldn’t stop thinking about him. Couldn’t get him off my mind. And I knew I had to meet him.”
Reservations gusted, but I still kept walking. Two feet away from him, I stopped, staring at the stranger’s face. “Okay. But anything beyond this has to be planned if we’re going to figure this out.”
“Thank you.”
My throat felt thick as I wound around him and took the one step onto the stoop where I pushed the key into the lock and opened the door. Emptiness echoed back, and I had to brace myself against the impact of it.
I stepped in and Trey came in behind me. He shut the door, and I frowned when he reached out and locked it. Disquiet pressed at my senses, the blunt force of a dull, rusted blade.
“I always knew you were the key,” he rumbled when he turned back to me.
I took a step backward, hugging Kayden tighter against my chest. “What are you talking about?”
“I couldn’t have hoped for a better outcome when you got pregnant,” he continued. “I figured the day would come when you became useful. I knew Ryder would forget the warning I’d given him that day. You know, I just had a sense that he was about to get up to no good. I’m good with foresight like that. Can tell when people are questioning their loyalty. It’s why no one can touch me. So I sent one of my guys to sniff things out over here. Stir things up to see what Ryder would do.”
Sickness clawed as realization sank down deep. All the way to the bone.
It was one of his men who’d broken in here?
They’d been…watching us?
“I can tell by the way he’s acting that he’s getting foolish enough to think about double crossing me, and I think the two of you are the only thing that can remind him of the mistake he would be making.”
All the uncertainty and reservations had bled from his features.
In their place was malice.
Without hesitating, I turned on my heel and darted through the small space toward the door on the opposite side of the kitchen.
It was our only chance of escape.
I made it across the room, frantic as I tried to turn the deadbolt.
But he was already there, taking a fistful of my hair and yanking me back. I cried out, and Kayden wailed, and a second later he had Kayden ripped out of my arms and I was shoved to the floor. I landed hard on my hip. Pain fractured up my side, but I scrambled onto my hands and knees, ready to push to my feet, only I stalled out when I was met with the barrel of a gun.
Terror pinned me to the spot. A glacier that had frozen me over.
I looked up at him where he had my squirming son held against him in a vise grip.
The man who’d manipulated Ryder. One who’d manipulated me. Some random guy who’d talked me up in a bar.
And I knew. And I knew. He’d followed me that night. Used me. A pawn to be exacted whenever the time arose.
It was time that had just started for Ryder and me.
Time we never should have wasted.
Time I was terrified had just run out.
FORTY-SEVEN
RYDER
“You have to lie low, Ryder.”
Ezra’s voice barely cut into the mayhem that had infiltrated.
Heart and body and mind.
I couldn’t sit still. I kept raking my hands through my hair as I paced my shop, trying to calm the disorder. But it didn’t matter what I did, I couldn’t shake it.
Agitation ran through me on a circuit.
It’d been racing since the moment Dakota had left my house Friday night. It’d only grown into something insufferable after Caleb had texted to let me know she’d left the ranch to return home.
It wasn’t like I expected her to take up residence there, but fuck, I couldn’t stand the thought of her on her own right then.
Not when the evidence of how quickly things could go south was clear. The proof of it was in the fact my body was covered in bruises from that fucking metal rod. The left side of my face black and blue. The warning one of Dare’s men had issued in my ear.
But at least any time the subject of Dakota had ever come up between me and Dare, I’d maintained that she was just my best friend’s little sister. Played it off like she was more of a nuisance than anything because I couldn’t take the risk that he might know that she was more.
It left me sick that her staying at my house for the last couple weeks might have made it obvious.
“Fuck, it was stupid for me to insist that she come to my place,” I spat, pacing the other direction.
I should have known.
I should have fucking known.
It was the whole reason I’d stayed away from her for all these years.
“We have two days until this goes down, Ryder, and you need to keep your shit together between now and then.” Leaning forward, Ezra clasped his hands together where he sat on a metal chair at one of the desks. He’d been trying to talk some sense into me for the last hour when there was no sense to be found.
Worry hunted me. Stalked me. But it was me who felt like the beast.
“The best thing Dakota can do right now is return to her normal routine,” Ezra said. “Go home. Work the restaurant. If you don’t want to draw more attention to her, then you have to stop giving it to her.”
I bit out a sound of disgust. “It’s not like she wants anything to do with me, anyway.”
And I deserved it. Deserved it after what I’d done.
“You kept something from her that was huge, Ryder. Something that she’s likely feeling guilty for. You need to give her time to process through it and understand why you did it. And you need this time away from her. We can’t afford this thing falling apart.”