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“Are you sure you’re okay?” the woman asked again, this time taking a step away from us. Her body was finally listening to the danger in front of her—me—but her mouth wasn’t done. “Because if you’re not, I can get help.”
I laughed—I couldn’t help it—the sound so harsh that it made Bailey jump. “What do you think, that we kidnapped her? That she’s here as a sex slave?” The fact that shehadbeen kidnapped andwasused as a sex slave was the irony of the situation. It was too close to home, but they always said that if you were going to lie, to make sure it had bits of truth in it, right?
The woman’s eyes got big, her arms wrapping around her stomach, a protective instinct that I didn’t miss. My observation skills were something that I’d had to hone and work on. My dad and Romeo were masters in torture, but me, I was a master in reading people, and whatever was going on with this woman went deeper than anyone knew. “I’m just making sure that he didn’t hurt her, that’s all.”
Darkness ebbed away at the edges of my vision as I saw the pain in her eyes. I wanted to reach out to her, to demand that she tell me why she looked like that, why she all of a sudden resembled a broken little doll, but within seconds, she blinked and it was gone.
A mask replaced everything, a mask that it was clear she was used to wearing. My frustration was getting the better of me as I ground out, “You saw her. She’s fine. Now you can go.”
“Fine.” She huffed out a breath. “But here, have this.” She handed a piece of paper to Bailey, but I took it from her, reading the digits and memorizing them within seconds. My photographic memory came in handy in times like these. “It’s my number. If you ever need anything.” She backed away another step. “I’m only next door.” She smiled sadly. “Name’s Peyton, by the way.”
Peyton.I tilted my head to the side as I passed over the piece of paper to Bailey and stared at the woman. Her name suited her.
“I’m Bailey,” Bailey shouted, her voice sounding happy for the first time in days.
If I was honest, I wanted to stand here all day with my only attention on Peyton, watching as she walked back to her car on the driveway. But I was here to do a job, and right then, I wasn’t doing it the best I should have been.
“Get back inside now, Bailey. If Romeo comes home and sees you like this, he’ll blow a damn gasket.”
She backed up without a word and a second later the door clicked shut, but I didn’t move my attention off of Peyton as she opened the back door to her car and a little boy jumped out. He wrapped his little arms around her hips, staring up at her like she was the entire world to him.
Something stirred low in my stomach as I watched her stroke the side of his face, then plant a kiss on the top of his head. I swallowed, cracking my neck side to side as she let go of him and watched him run to the front door. But it was as she pulled a sleeping toddler out of the other side of her car that had me taking a step forward.
I wanted to help her. I didn’t want to watch her struggle with him but…I couldn’t move from my post. I couldn’t put Bailey at risk just because I was having a weird-as-fuck day. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t watch them with my eyes.
I didn’t look away, not as she walked up to her front door, and definitely not as she laughed at something the older boy said, throwing her head back and putting her whole body into it. It was a genuine laugh, one that had a smile lifting at my lips.
Fuck. I could have listened to her laugh like that all day long. So, as she went inside her house and locked the door behind her, I made a promise to make her laugh like that. Just so I could watch her happiness again. Just so I could sayIhad made her have that reaction.
CHAPTER 2
PEYTON
“And then he took the dinosaur from me,” Kian gasped out, his hands animated in front of his face as he told me all about his day at school. “I told Miss but she didn’t tell him off.”
“Aw, baby, I’m sorry. Did you get it back?”
He shook his head with so much force that it must have hurt his neck. “No. He’s so mean, Mommy.”
I reached my arm between the seats and patted his leg. “Some people are like that, baby. You just make sure you stay away from him.” I paused, feeling the mama bear inside of me roaring to life. Every part of me wanted to get us back out of this car and head inside the school, but I couldn’t go in with every little thing that happened. Sending my first son to school was an entire new world for not only him, but me too.
“I will, Mommy.” He smiled wide, the dinosaur forgotten about. And I took that as my signal to turn back around and head off the school grounds.
The school was only a fifteen-minute drive away from my house, but I’d been running late today. I normally did the grocery shopping while Kian was at school and Reed was in daycare, but the daycare had called me as soon as I’d put all the groceries in the car, which meant I had no time to take them home before going there and then picking Kian up from school.
It was a conundrum that only moms thought about: how was I supposed to get two kids and a trunk full of groceries in the house without either a screaming match or one child trying to run away.
My head started to hurt as I took the turn into our street, but the distraction of Kian and Reed talking—although it was more babbling from Reed at this point—was helping. That was until I pulled into my driveway. I turned the engine off, but I didn’t move as I tried to figure out the best way to do it.
There was only one option: keep the kids in the car and do mad dashes to the door. Taking a deep breath, I then pushed out of the car, holding my keys firmly in my palm as I rushed around to the trunk. The boys were still talking away, so I grabbed two bags and jogged to the front door, then placed them down on the ground.
I spun around so fast that I knocked myself off-balance and fell against the wall, my shoulder smashing off the brick building, the jagged edges cutting into my skin. And I knew instantly which brick I’d hit—the same one that I’d reported over and over again. It was broken off, sticking out like a knife, threatening to slice something—my arm, clearly.
“Motherfucker!” I gritted my teeth as I righted myself and grabbed on to my arm, pulling my palm away and seeing the blood there. “Dammit.” My head spun for a second from the sharpness of the pain. Crap, I didn’t feel too good. It was more than a scrape, and now my stomach was swirling and—
“Mommy?” Kian shouted. I blinked, trying to clear my eyes but there was a blurriness around the edges. I was used to pain, so I had no idea why this was affecting me the way it was.
“Coming,” I murmured, but I wasn’t sure he could hear me. I took another step, feeling how shaky my legs were. Swallowing, I looked down at my arm, seeing the blood flowing down to my wrist and dripping onto the ground. How the hell was I bleeding so much?
