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"She'll be here any minute. This is so fucking weird. It feels wrong to be sneaking around. We're learning information and keeping Eli out of the loop," Ro says, walking toward the kitchen and returning seconds later with a beer for himself and a bottle of water for me. I'd love a beer, but I've been drinking enough lately, so I think it's time to allow myself to detox.
"Yeah, it feels weird, but that's his fault, not ours. Eli has too many fucking secrets, and secrets are what destroy a relationship. I hate that he acts like he's fucking God and in charge of everything. We have a say in things too." A knock at the door has me grinning like a child.
Rowen opens the cabin door, and in walk my butterfly and Travis, aka Ace, the lying fucker we've employed for over a year.
Tate kisses Ro on the cheek, then skips over to me, jumping in my arms when I hold them out. Her legs wrap around my waist, and her arms drape around my neck. "Hi, butterfly."
"Hi." She kisses my cheek, unwrapping herself from me, and I let her go, setting her on her feet. "King, I want you to meet Ace officially." I glare at the fucker, sizing him up.
I'm looking at him differently now. He's no longer the man who worked for me. Now he's the man responsible for saving my butterfly and keeping her safe when my brothers and I failed her. Knowing that he's the one who saved her from that basement makes me look at him through a new set of eyes and give him a whole lot of fucking respect.
"It's good to officially meet you, Ace. This is a little weird, considering we already know each other. But let's move forward. You saved our girl, and we fucking owe you for that," I say, wrapping my arm around Tate's shoulders.
"Someone had to save her. You guys fucked up, but I wasn't going to allow her to die in that fire. I care too much about her to see anything happen to her." We stand toe-to-toe, Tate to the side of me.
Ace is a tall fucker. He's a few inches taller than me and looks manic. The more I look at him, the more about him I notice. His face is clean shaved, hair dark, and always neatly slicked back. He reminds me of Eli in that way. He, too, always has to have his hair perfectly done.
Unlike my wild eyebrows, Ace's are neatly trimmed, and he's got as many tattoos as my brothers and I, if not more. Several on his face and around his throat.
He's the type of man you take one look at and run the other way, which is exactly why we hired him in the first place. He looks even deadlier when he wears a suit. I would know. I may have asked him to wear one once or twice before just for my own personal pleasure—he looks that damn good in one.
For the first time, I notice his eyes are two different colors. One eye is blue and the other brown.Heterochromia.Something I've never noticed about him before.
"Are you done staring at me?" Ace asks, raising his neatly sculpted eyebrow.
"For now." I nod, pulling Tate closer to my side.
"All right, so tell us what you came here to tell us," Rowen says, breaking us up.
"Right." Tate snaps her fingers, stepping away from me. "Okay, so, like I told King, I know who's been sending those unknown messages."
"How do you know who it is?" I ask.
"Because, when I was in that basement, the guy there told me that the man he was working for was waiting for his little bird," she explains, goosebumps visible on her exposed arms. "There's only one person who's ever called me little bird. Colton Adamson," she says, and the name instantly registers in my mind.
The Adamson family. The family died in the house fire she set ten years ago when she was seventeen—her last foster family.
The gears in my head start spinning as I begin putting the pieces into place.
"Oh my God." My eyes widen as Rowen's squint in question.
"What?" he asks, not having yet put the puzzle together.
"The man that could be Olivia's father," I gasp, understanding more of her story.
Tate nods. "Colton used to call me his little bird from the moment I moved into his home. He was a fucking monster." She sits on the coffee table, and Ro and I sit on the couch in front of her, urging her to continue while Ace stands behind her.
"Colton was older than me. He was in college and working for a tech company as an intern. Whenever he was home, he'd bring me white roses to my ballet recital, then sneak into my bedroom after his parents were asleep. He and his father took turns." Bile rises in my throat, and I swallow it down.
"Once, a stray dog had followed me home, and he told me to get rid of him because he didn't like that I showed an animal more attention than him. I refused. His mom said I could keep it. When I got home from school one day, I found the head on the front steps waiting for me, and the rest was cut up and spread over my bedding." She nearly gags, reliving that memory. "He used to torment me so fucking much. He'd never leave me alone. He'd watch me in the shower, watch me when I slept, and follow me anywhere he could. I was never even allowed to have friends because of him." She scoots back on the table and pulls her legs up, wrapping her arms around them.
"I met a girl in my ballet class. Her name was Ria, and she was a better dancer than me. She got the lead instead of me, and a week before the recital, she was attacked while walking home from school. Both of her kneecaps were busted. She said she didn't know who it was, but I did. I know it was Colton. We remained friends even though he told me to end it, then one day, over the summer, she was found gutted in her bedroom with her eyes cut out and her insides ripped out." She shivers, her eyes in a daze as she shares more details about her nightmare of a past. "I know it was Colton. He even confessed to me. He told me that all I needed was him, and if I dared to befriend anyone else, he'd take my eyes just like he took Ria's. I believed him and didn't want anyone else to get hurt, so I stopped talking to all the other dancers. Everyone started hating me because I kept my head down, danced, and refused to speak to anyone. I couldn't have friends because of him. I was completely isolated." She inhales deeply.
"I was even isolated from Ace. Colton's mom, Willa, was Ace's aunt. That's how I ended up there. Rowen, after you killed Greg, I went to be with Ace because I had nowhere else to go. He was trying to get money, and we thought I'd be safe with his aunt. For a while, I was. But after a few weeks of being there, she told me that Ace called and told her he didn't want anything to do with me and was no longer planning on taking me away." She takes a breath, then continues.
"Meanwhile, she told him I didn't want anything to do with him. He thought I was safe with them, and so did I for a while. Until Colton came home, then he and his father started taking turns coming into my bedroom." Ace places his hands on her shoulders, massaging them gently while she continues speaking.
"After I set their house on fire with them inside, I went to Rachel, who I knew from years earlier from volunteering at a center for foster kids. She let me stay with her, and once I went into labor, I had her call Ace, even though I thought he wanted nothing to do with me. He was there when Olivia was born, and afterward, I told him everything." A tear rolls down her cheek that she quickly wipes away. "I stayed with Rachel for six months until I turned eighteen, then moved in with Ace. After that, I kept dancing, then a few years later, I met Sebastian, and you all know what happened after that."
