Page 91 of Kylie

Words that didn’t make a lick of sense.

Words that caused the Earth to stop spinning.

As those words sank in, my entire existence tilted.

It. Fucking. Tilted.

Sending me off my axis for the second time in as many years.

I nodded. “Brantley and his team have been lookin’ into your mother’s whereabouts. He had no idea. No one did. Not until that day.”

“Wait. You said he’s been lookin’ into my mother?” Her frown deepened. “Why?”

“It’s a long story. And yes, I’ll tell you everything, but it’s … it’s long.” I took a deep breath. “Anyway. Lookin’ into her whereabouts brought Martin Calloway to their attention.”

Gage spoke up when I stopped. “There were some things that didn’t add up, so they started diggin’. That’s when they learned that the doctor who signed your death certificate had received a payoff. They talked to him, and he tied Calloway in again. It snowballed from there, and the moment they believed you were alive, they started huntin’, and they didn’t stop.”

“Until they found me,” Kylie said.

I stood there, watching her. I was grateful that Gage didn’t reveal that I hadn’t believed Brantley at first. In my defense, I hadn’t been given much information because my cousin hadn’t had any at the time. I’d fought the urge to get my hopes up, knowing I wouldn’t survive losing Kylie again. And that would’ve been what happened if they had been wrong.

“So you just found out?” Kylie asked again, her tone rife with disbelief.

“Yes.”

Right before my eyes, some of the tension in her shoulders eased.

“That’s why he was gonna kill me,” she said, her gaze shifting to the ground. “Kieran realized Martin was gonna either let me die or kill me outright, so he came in and got me. Pretended I was already dead. Kieran and Allison kept me at that house, got a doctor to take care of me. They hid me from him.”

Fury erupted in my veins at the thought of that fucker ordering her death. While I still wanted to pound Kieran into the ground for the part he played in all this, I wouldn’t because he had been the one to save her. Granted, I would never forgive him for hiding Kylie from us. I didn’t give a shit if it was only for a short time or that he believed it was the only way to keep her safe. The asshole had let us all believe that my wife was dead, that the mother of my children was gone forever. All while she’d been in the clutches of some fucking psychopath.

But that was for another day.

“There’s somethin’ else you should know,” Gage said, stepping closer to me, his eyes on Kylie.

She looked up. “What?”

“Allison … he had her killed.”

Kylie’s eyes widened and I saw a hint of pain there. “She said he would.”

I was surprised by that. “She knew he was gonna kill her?”

“Yeah. That’s why Kieran didn’t want her comin’ here. She wanted to tell Brantley and Reese to see if they could help.”

“Help what?”

“Get me home.”

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Kylie

After our morning outing, Travis brought me back to the house. I hadn’t realized how uncomfortable I’d been being out in the open until I walked inside and the door closed behind me. I’d been anxious the entire time we had been outside, fearful that Martin would find me and either take me out or kidnap me again.

Granted, I had hidden those emotions well. To my knowledge, neither Gage nor Travis had picked up on my hypervigilance. At least I hoped they hadn’t.

Once we were back, I’d spent a little time looking around the house, seeing all the things that were different. And there was so much. The furniture was no longer in the same place it had been, the couch and chairs shifted around, some of the smaller pieces of furniture missing, and some of the bedrooms rearranged, probably for preference. My kids had always been independent thinkers. They liked things how they liked them.