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That resemblance had been what Natches hadn’t been able to put his finger on since he met her. That “something” that just bothered the hell out of him.
Halfway through the pages of notes, reports, photos, and proof of a hell a child had lived, he couldn’t take any more.
He stomped away from the pages spread out on the table, his arms crossing over his chest to hold back the pain ravaging his soul.
This would kill Chaya, especially after the confrontation with Angel. His wife, who had nightmares every year on her first daughter’s birthday, who
still bought a present and wrapped it for that daughter every Christmas, who couldn’t let go of her belongings for fear the grief would tear her apart.
He wiped one hand over the side of his face. God, he had no idea how to begin figuring out how to handle this one.
Fuck, as though there was a way to deal with this? He couldn’t even make himself believe it and the proof was right there, spread out on the damned table.
Natches rubbed his neck, trying to ease the tension threatening to snap his spine. He’d known not to let her walk out of that marina, but Chaya’s grief had been strangling him at the time.
“I knew something wasn’t right,” he admitted, hated it, cursed himself for ignoring it. “Especially with Chaya. She knew Angel was hiding something, since the first day they met, she knew. That was what pissed her off so much about the girl.”
And Chaya had fully admitted her anger at Angel was out of proportion. As a mercenary, Angel had no choice but to hide her real name, her family, her private life.
Mercenaries made enemies.
That knowledge would only make Chaya more furious.
A child, she’d ranted after first meeting the girl. Angel was still just a baby at twenty-three, and her parents let her live such a life? Selling herself, her loyalty, to the highest bidder when she should be in college, dating, figuring out what she wanted in life. Not figuring out how to avoid the bullets whizzing around her or the best way to kill a man.
Subconsciously, Chaya had known as well. She’d sensed it, felt it, and had known Angel was hiding that truth from her. Delivering that truth in the same hour Chaya had nearly lost her second child had just been poor fucking timing for all of them.
“What are you going to do?” Rowdy asked, his voice low as all eyes watched him.
Natches turned back to them, grief building, burning in his soul.
“I have to tell her.” He breathed out heavily. “What choice do I have?”
“She’ll want to go straight to Angel, to question her, to claim her,” Duke inserted, his face, his voice, as hard as Natches remembered his own being at one time. “I know this woman, Natches. In the time I’ve been working with her, investigating her, Ethan and I have fought with her and her brothers, gotten to know them to some small extent. She won’t come to Chaya easily. Not after this afternoon.”
“She won’t have a choice,” he snapped. “I won’t accept anything else.”
“And she’ll shoot you the finger as she’s flying into the sunset,” Duke snorted, his vivid green eyes filled with knowing mockery. “She’s not like anyone you’ve known, Natches, and trying to order her to do anything will only piss her off.”
Natches could feel the fury beginning to build, to burn through his senses. Chaya wouldn’t be able to live with that. It would kill her.
“You say you know her,” Rowdy stated, the calm tone of his voice pulling Natches’s attention. “What do you suggest, Duke?”
Rowdy was watching the younger Mackay closely, almost knowingly. That look on his face had Natches paying more attention to him as well.
“She told you she was there today because of Bliss. She tried to tell Chaya who she was, because she wanted to protect Bliss. Angel lost a sister in that hotel bombing and I know she’s still haunted with nightmares from it. The only way you’ll be able to get to her is with Bliss.”
Natches’s eyes narrowed on the other man. There was something almost angry, definitely territorial whenever he spoke of Angel.
“Pull her in,” Natches decided quickly. “You know her. . . .”
The derisive snort Duke made had him pausing.
“Natches, you don’t understand, that woman is a powder keg waiting to explode over any man working with her, besides Tracker and Chance. She doesn’t take orders worth shit, goes her own way, and nine times out of ten ends up with a bullet buried in her somewhere that’s all but guaranteed to kill her. It’s been all Ethan could do to keep her ass alive since joining that team. . . . And they threw us the hell out eight months ago when Tracker somehow figured out we are Mackays.”
It wouldn’t have been that damned hard to figure out, Natches knew; not once Tracker had worked with him, Rowdy, and Dawg a year and a half ago.
“She obviously trusts you enough to allow you to fight with her,” Natches snapped. “Don’t give me fucking excuses, Duke. Make it happen.”
