Obsessed (The Protectors #13) - Sloane Kennedy Page 0,19

was or what I was doing, if I got any kind of lead on the man, I dropped everything to check it out. Since I worked jobs with Cruz, it meant my brother was often left holding the bag when I took off, but he’d given up on trying to talk me out of it.

Until today.

I sighed because there was no reason to stay. The ramshackle bar in New Orleans had been a long shot.

But I wasn’t quite ready to leave just yet.

“I’ll meet you there,” I murmured to Cruz as I stepped past him.

“Where are you going?” he asked on a sigh, indicating he pretty much already knew the answer to that.

As I crossed the street and headed for the bar’s front door, I simply said, “To leave Bishop a message.”

I was glad when Cruz didn’t follow me. There was no reason for him to see proof of what he already knew.

That I was no longer his hero.

I wasn’t anybody’s hero.

Chapter 8

Sam

“He’s finally asleep,” Elliot said as soon as he entered the kitchen.

I breathed a sigh of relief. “Thanks,” I responded as I dried off another dinner dish. “Let’s hope he has a better night than last night.”

Elliot stepped to my side and put his arms around me. “Let’s hope you have a better night,” he said softly.

I leaned into him a little before catching myself. I needed to be strong for my sons.

Both my sons.

“How are you and Cruz holding up?” I asked as I gave Elliot a pat on his lower back. The soft smile that graced my son’s mouth along with the color that stained his cheeks was answer enough.

My Elliot had definitely found his soulmate.

“Good,” he murmured.

I nudged him a little before handing him a dish to dry off. Elliot was a lot like me when it came to needing to keep busy. I feared it was a habit he’d picked up from me. I hated to think that he struggled with any kind of anxiety, but I’d seen enough as he’d been growing up to know that confidence had never been one of his strong suits. Like me, he’d been good at faking it. My hope was that it was something Cruz wouldn’t take advantage of like some of Elliot’s previous boyfriends had.

I didn’t think so because everything I’d seen of Cruz so far had proven he was a good man. While I wasn’t thrilled that he’d lied to Elliot when initially meeting him just so he could protect my son from an unseen threat, I could see every time Cruz looked at my son that his feelings were genuine.

Thoughts of my son’s boyfriend inevitably led to the one thing I’d been trying not to think about for three days now. I hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Matias, which was how it should have been.

But that hadn’t mattered when I’d spent hour after hour the last few nights staring out my bedroom window in the hopes that a boring gray sedan would magically appear in front of my house. When I hadn’t been watching for the one man I shouldn’t have had any desire to ever see again, I’d been running back and forth to Ryan’s room to comfort him as one nightmare after another had befallen him. I was physically and emotionally drained and yet my brain never failed to cling to every detail of the man who’d become my silent torment.

“He’s on his way back home,” Elliot said.

“What?” I asked. “Who is?”

“Cruz,” Elliot responded. His eyes automatically filled with worry. “Are you sure you’re all right, Dad? The thing with Blake—”

“I’m fine,” I said with a wave of my hand. I turned my back to him so I could collect myself as I rewashed a dish that was already spotlessly clean. “Sorry, you did tell me Cruz was out of town on business,” I added. “So he’ll be back tonight?”

“Yeah,” Elliot responded. The subject of his boyfriend proved to be enough of a distraction because he didn’t press me further on the Blake thing. Not that I would have told him that the run-in with my deranged former personal assistant had left me with nightmares of my own. I hadn’t even had a clue that the man had been infatuated with me until he’d shown up in my living room with a gun pressed against my youngest son’s head. Blake had insisted that we should leave together; that he had enough money for us to run away from everything. I’d been