Page 50 of Cash

It wasn’t until we were at my truck when the latest issue presented itself. Cara refused to sit in the back buckled up. Actually, she flat out refused to let go of me—period.

With Jonas driving, Smith in the passenger seat, Easton behind Jonas, and me with Cara tucked on my lap behind Smith we were on our way back to Annapolis.

With a child I didn’t know who wouldn’t let me go.

And for the first time in my life, I had no idea what to do or how to proceed.

But what I did know was, no one was taking her from me—not until she had her Lolo back.

Then, once the reunion was complete, I was going to tan Stella’s ass for not telling anyone about Cara.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I went from being tied to a chair to hanging from a hook.

I’d lost count of how many times my brother’s leather strap had struck my back—twenty, thirty, maybe more.

“Had enough?” Damion snickered.

I didn’t bother lifting my head, nor did I use my precious energy to answer.

Damion would learn soon enough I wasn’t the same cowed girl he’d once been able to beat into submission.

He’d meet Lore.

It was poetic actually.

After all, it was him who’d created her.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I ignored the worried looks my teammates were doing a shit job of hiding.

The side-eyed glances started as soon as I’d entered the conference room with Cara still wrapped around me. They’d intensified when Ivy came in and tried to coax Cara to go to her. The looks became downright concerned when I shut Ivy’s attempts down instead of trying to persuade the girl to go to a much more fitting caregiver.

Now an hour later as I was sitting in a chair with a small child sleeping in my lap, her head resting on my chest while I kept my arms wrapped securely around her, the looks were straight-up irritating. What the hell did they expect me to do, peel her little arms off me and hand her over kicking and screaming? I was dick, not a monster.

“You know this shit would go a lot faster if you all stopped staring at me and read the fu…freaking files,” I pointed out, catching my last curse before it slipped free.

“Holy fuck,” Kira breathed from behind Lore’s laptop.

Lore’s desktop was in Garrett’s office. He was going through her files and hopefully security footage while Theo, Easton, Smith, and Jonas were looking over her paper files from the boxes and I was doing nothing but holding a sleeping child.

Zane looked up from his tablet. “What’d you find?”

“You’re not going to believe this,” she started. “Have you ever heard of the McKnights?”

Whoever these McKnights were snagged Zane’s attention. “The financier?”

“The disgraced financier,” Kira corrected then added, “The one who was murdered, along with his wife, by a disgruntled investor.”

“Yeah, I remember the story about Percy McKnight,” Zane confirmed. “A few years later their daughter Blair wrapped her Bugatti around a pole while she was drunk and died on impact.”

The big, wall-mounted screen lit up behind Kira. A moment later a picture of a gorgeous young woman with long blonde hair appeared. She was wearing a tight red dress, showing off cleavage and lots of leg. But it was her dazzling smile that caught my attention.

“Or did she?” Kira asked, as she zoomed in on the woman’s face.

Holy fuck.