Engaging his Enemy (Shattered SEALs #4) - Amy Gamet Page 0,7

he demanded.

“This is Zach. He’s here to help Uncle Ben.”

Zach held up his hands defensively. “I wanted to meet you.”

She watched Wyatt’s features for a reaction, any kind of softening, but saw none. She knew what this moment meant to him, knew how much her little boy had pined for his father in his life, but Wyatt’s mouth settled into a sneer. “I don’t give a shit about you.” He shook off his mother’s grip and pointed at his father, just as Zach had pointed at her. “Don’t you freaking touch her. You understand me?”

Zach’s palms were still facing him. “I got it.”

Wyatt turned and left the kitchen, all but storming up the steps.

It was quiet in the boy’s wake, the significance of the moment seeming to hang between them for long moments.

“Where’s Ben?” Zach asked.

She rattled off the address. “Are you going to help him?”

“No. I’m going to kill the rat bastard.”

She could only hope that wasn’t true. The Sato brothers had a lot to sort out between them, and she doubted physical violence was out of the question.

He opened the door, then turned around. “Tell Wyatt I’ll be back.”

A burst of nervous energy danced in her stomach. He wasn’t going to give up on their son so easily, and the first flicker of hope lit in her breast. She nodded. “Dinner’s at seven. Don’t be late.”

4

It was pouring, steam rising from the hot pavement as rain fell hard on Moto’s windshield. It was all he could do to keep from flooring the gas and flying through the rain-drenched streets like a speedboat on a collision course with disaster. How could Ben do it? Conspire with Davina to keep his son a secret from him, even offer to raise the child as his own? Yet even as he asked the question, he already knew the answer.

Ben wanted Davina for himself. He always had.

“Fucking bastard.”

It was the wedge that had driven Moto away all those years ago, the image of his brother with the woman he loved too much for him to bear. It was his most vulnerable moment, his soul gaping from the deaths of his parents when he’d found the two of them like that, betrayal springing Zach into motion just as fury was doing now.

Damned if he hadn’t reacted to her nearness today, the soft curves of her body calling out to him to touch, grab, hold against him. There’d been women through the years, beautiful women, smart women, but none of them had been Davina. He’d lost his virginity to her, coming into her body as he came into manhood, and she still held a grip on his emotions like no other woman ever could.

Shit. He prided himself on his independence, his lack of need for others. He had total control of his life and his choices, and he liked it that way. Since he’d left the SEALs, his brothers at HERO Force were the closest thing he had to family, but he could trust they would always be on his six—and not with a knife waiting to stab him in the back as his real brother had done.

He was going to fit his hands around his jealous brother’s neck and squeeze the very life out of him, for this was far worse than anything he’d done in the past. Ben had kept his child’s existence a secret from him, while situating himself into the boy’s life in his place.

Turning onto another road, he nearly ran into a little girl with a bike, walking it across the road just past the intersection. He slammed on his brakes, heart racing, as the girl looked at him, wide-eyed beneath a pink and green helmet. She must have gotten caught in the storm. Jesus Christ, he needed to slow down.

Pulling to the curb, he put the transmission in park and squeezed his eyes shut. He took several deep breaths as the rain pounded on the roof. His emotions were running the show, and that was never a good game plan. He needed to get control.

Lightning flashed. The image of a tiny baby wrapped in a pale blue blanket appeared in his mind, a nurse handing the infant to Davina. In his mind’s eye, she was as young as she had been back then—just a kid, he could see now—the new life in her arms bearing the full weight of adult responsibility.

He should have been there, damn it. If that was his kid, he should have been there. How could