Page 33 of Flawed Revenge

A sob burst out of Kate, and then she and Ariella were both flying across the room toward him.

“Enjoy this moment with your family. I’ll call back later, and we can discuss details of what happens next,” Eagle said through the phone, and then his boss was gone, and his girls were in his arms.

Kate was crying, Ariella was crying, and even he shed a few tears. His daughter had just been thrown a lifeline, and he had to pray that it would work, that the bone marrow transplant would cure her, even if she was never one hundred percent healthy. He wanted Ariella to live a full and happy life, have a chance to do whatever her heart desired, and die of old age.

“Thank you for getting tested,” Kate whispered against his neck, where she’d pressed her face.

This morning, when she’d crept out of his room, he’d already been awake, fought with himself on whether he should let her know, and try to convince her to stay. In the end he’d decided not to. He wanted her to be with him because it was what she wanted, what she was ready for. While he wanted to jump all in and try to reclaim what they’d shared a decade ago, he understood it was going to take time for her to trust him again, and she was scared of getting hurt.

“Of course, Katie-Bear. I would do anything for our little girl, for you,” he whispered back.

Pulling back a little, she hesitated for a second, then leaned in and brushed her lips to his in a soft and sweet, but brief, kiss.

“We should celebrate,” Kate announced. “Ariella’s favorite is homemade pizza. We could have that for dinner, maybe make our own ice cream for dessert?”

“Sounds perfect,” he agreed, and the others all echoed those sentiments.

“I think school can be done for the day,” Kate told Ariella, who cheered. “You can go watch a movie, then we’ll play outside for a bit.”

“Thank you, Daddy,” Ariella said. Her eyes were bright with gratitude and love, then she pressed a kiss to his cheek before skipping out of the kitchen, no doubt heading for the living room to continue her Disney Princess movie marathon she’d complained about stopping last night.

Once the little girl was out of the room, Kate kissed him again, a little steamier this time, before pulling back somewhat reluctantly, like she’d just remembered they had an audience.

“I know this isn’t a guarantee of anything, but thank you so much for giving her this chance,” Kate said again, and when she went to move back, he hauled her right back into his arms.

“No other choice I would have made,” he assured her. Even if he hadn't been thrilled that his ex had kept a child at the time he had thought was better off dead, there was no way he wouldn't have stepped up and been tested.

“I've been working on trying to increase Ariella’s chances of the bone marrow transplant being successful,” Whitney piped up. In fact, he knew the former child genius had been working almost around the clock on it.

“Do you think you’ll be able to?” Kate asked. “I know the doctors were already uncertain she was strong enough for it to work when I decided I had to track down Leo. I didn't know what to expect if I found him, but I did know that Ariella’s chances of a successful transplant were already low, even if he agreed to help.”

Ignoring the sting of pain at hearing that Kate quite understandably doubted he would want to help, she couldn’t think anything else, given their last interaction, Lion tightened his hold on her. “Even if we could get our hands on the drug, there’s no way we could give it to her. Grown men and women couldn’t withstand the anger and suicidal thoughts that come with it, let alone a sick child. There are literally only the seven of us out of at least dozens, maybe hundreds, of test subjects who survived.”

Kate shivered against him, and he touched reassuring kisses to the slender column of her neck, soothing her. There was no way he would allow his child to be injected with the same drugs that had blown up his life.

“The versions of the drug that Dr. Gardner messed with wouldn't work. If I could get my hands on some of the earlier versions, ones he hadn't ruined, I might be able to use one of them to boost Ariella’s immune system. I destroyed everything that was in the lab because I was trying to shut him down. If I'd known we were going to need them, I would have hidden them.”

“No way you could have known that,” Kate reminded Whitney. “I'm grateful for anything you can do that might give my daughter a better chance at living.”

“I’m going to try to recreate it. I might have destroyed all my notes and paperwork, but I don’t need them, I have the formulas inside my head. The problem is that it will likely take me months to remake the drugs, and I'm not sure Ariella has that long,” Whitney said gently. “Of course, we can just go ahead with the transplant now, see how she does without the boost to her immune system the original versions of my drug would give her.”

“But this increases her chances a lot, right? Using your drugs. The good version, not the one that almost killed you all?” Kate asked.

“If my calculations are correct, it would increase her chances substantially, by more than fifty percent,” Whitney agreed.

“Only you can't make it quickly enough for her. I should have come looking for you as soon as Ariella got sick.” Fresh tears trickled down Kate’s cheeks, and he hated that she blamed herself when it was his fault he hadn't been part of either of their lives.

“Don’t do that, Katie-Bear, don’t blame yourself, blame me,” he begged, touching kisses to her cheeks to catch her tears as though in doing so he could consume her pain, take it from her so she never had to feel it.

“Nobody should be putting the blame on their shoulders,” Steel said firmly. “Ariella getting sick isn’t anyone’s fault, and we can't go back and change choices that were made in the past.”

“I’ve already started working on calculations,” Whitney assured them. “But I had another idea.”

“What is it, darlin’?” Blade asked, wrapping an arm around Whitney’s shoulders.

“Well, I was just thinking that you would be looking for her anyway,” Whitney replied, shooting apologetic looks Rose’s way. “And if she was involved, she might have some of the samples, which would mean I could get this done quicker.”

“You mean my mom,” Rose said softly.