I backed up against the side of the truck, looking scared as Sin prowled toward me.
It wasn’t hard to do.
I was terrified.
But not of Sin.
Of the two men that were only two car lengths away from me doing a fucking deal over a child.
“What do you have to say, you fucking whore?” Sin bellowed.
His eyes were pleading as he looked at me, and I wasn’t sure if he thought I thought he was being serious, or if it was because he was scared of what was about to happen behind him.
I pressed my hand to his chest to ‘ward him off’ but also drew soothing circles there to let him know that everything would be okay.
Because as we had the two men distracted, the four men behind them were sneaking up on them.
We wouldn’t be waiting for the police.
Thank. God.
Sin got right up into my face, poked me in the chest, and opened his mouth to say more when we heard a pained grunt.
Followed directly by another.
Both of us spun in time to see the duffel bag fall back into the back of the open trunk, and both men go down like lights.
One thanks to Trouper, and the other thanks to Sin’s brother, Jim.
They were both passed out on the ground seconds later, and there was a baby screaming.
“Jim,” I cried, a sob choking up the back of my throat.
Coke was already bending into the open trunk and unzipping the bag.
We all moved as one to look over, and a moan left my throat at what I saw.
Terrified brown eyes stared right at me.
And then they closed as she launched herself at me and didn’t let go.
CHAPTER 22
I’m only going to shave if there’s a 100% chance we’re going to have sex. What’s the point of peeling the potato if you’re not going to mash it?
-Text from Blaise to Sin
SIN
I went and knocked on the door, the little girl still clinging to Blaise’s throat, and waited for the door to open.
The officer that had accompanied us, Officer Tatum, the man that’d done the coordinating for everything, was at my side looking at the door with annoyance.
The very last thing that I wanted to be doing was giving a child back to a person like Brees.
But, according to the officer, I had to.
It wasn’t my choice.
What the hell kind of man deserved a child as sweet as the one currently clinging to my fiancée’s neck when he didn’t even show up to help look for her? Or stay, for that matter, when he’d found out that she’d been taken?
“I don’t like this,” Blaise grumbled.
I looked at her and tugged lightly on her ponytail.
The little girl in her arms was still silently crying as she passed out from exhaustion.
God, my heart hurt.
Her big brown eyes had literally pierced their way through my soul.
“Me fuckin’ either,” Tatum grumbled.
“Boys,” the lovely social worker said. “That’s why I’m here. I’ll judge whether he’s fit to have this baby back.”
Her name was Shiloh, and she was a dream. She was also somehow, someway, related to Blaise but I hadn’t had enough time to ask how or why.
“I want to keep her,” Blaise declared.
Shiloh looked at her with a pity-filled gaze.
“I don’t think they’ll like you raising your attacker’s child,” the social worker said. “I’m sorry.”
I was very sorry, too.
She was right, however.
The court wouldn’t see this as me saving a child that had somehow burrowed her way into my soul to stay.
No, they’d think I had an ulterior motive.
Brees would do anything he could to make that motive stick, too, whether it was true or not.
“I don’t like this,” Sin grumbled for the fifth time. “What if we just keep her for tonight?”
The social worker looked torn. “I’d love for you to. Honestly, I would. But that’s… you don’t have any credentials. You’re not foster approved. You haven’t had any background checks. There’s a system in place for a reason.”
“Yes, they do.” Hunt butted into our discussion. “Check and see.”
The woman looked at Hunt for a long moment, then to us.
Blaise wasn’t saying a single word.
Neither was I.
Not when that girl needed something stable in her life right now.
Needed her hero—Blaise—if only for tonight.
“Sadly, a parent hasn’t been deemed unfit,” she said. “If my superiors approve, and everything checks out, then you can keep her for the night, but only if Brees doesn’t want to keep her like Ames said he wouldn’t. But seriously, don’t get your hopes up on long-term.