Women who didn’t give a shit if I called.
Women who followed orders and didn’t touch me.
Women who liked to be paid for being nameless.
And I wanted Macayla to be nameless. Forget that she had a name. That she was fuckin’ real.
But I’d given up that idea years ago. Because no matter how hard I tried, I could never forget her name. I could never forget her.
And now she was living in my backyard, and I wanted to know every single thing about her. Except I played it off in my head that I needed to know because of the simple fact that I was careful. And being careful meant finding out everything I could about her so there were no surprises, like some ex-husband showing up with a shotgun.
My cell vibrated in my pocket, and I pulled it out, glancing at the screen. I swiped my finger across the device and placed it to my ear.
“It’s a girl,” Deck said, his voice breaking on girl.
I leaned up against the side of the truck. Fuck. “Congrats. Really, that’s great. Georgie good? Baby healthy? You agree on a name?”
“Yeah. Frankie. She looks like a Frankie. Tough as hell and refused to come out for fifteen hours. It was exhausting.”
“Oh, you’re exhausted?” I heard Georgie shout in the background.
Deck cleared his throat and his voice was muffled, sounding as if he was holding his finger over the speaker. “Babe, you were amazing. Beautiful. And our baby is fuckin’ beautiful.”
I heard Georgie’s hoarse voice in the background as she said, “She’s been out of my body for one hour and has already heard her first swear word.”
There was a rustling and what sounded like Deck briefly kissing his woman before he said, “Don’t wait until she’s walking before you get back here and meet her.”
“Can’t say when.”
“It’s all good. You need anything?”
Yeah, I needed a woman who has haunted me my entire life extricated from my cabin A.S.A.P.—and her kid with her. “No.”
“Nothing pressing here. Tyler is following up on a lead in Greece. Kai’s meeting him there in a few days.” There was a bustling sound in the background, and women’s voices overlapped it with a slew of “Ohhhs” and “Ahhhs.”
“Christ, all the women are here.”
The women were likely Alina, Georgie’s sister-in-law who was married to my teammate Connor, and Kai’s wife, London, as well as the wives of the rock band Tear Asunder, who were friends with Georgie. Kai I wouldn’t call a teammate. He was more of an associate.
The women’s voices grew louder. “Congrats again to you both,” I said. “I’ll be in touch.”
I pocketed my cell, pushed away from the truck, and walked to the back. I lifted the latch and dropped the tailgate. I leaned in, slid out my toolbox, and unlocked the two latches, then opened the lid.
The top tray held a serrated five-inch blade in a leather case, a switchblade, a small flashlight, and a lockpick. I took out the lockpick and slipped it into my front pocket. Jaeg had the only key to the cabin, and now Macayla had it, so I was going to have to break into my own goddamn place.
I slammed the lid closed, pushed the toolbox back, and shut the back hatch closed.
After Jaeg rode out, Aderyn had soon followed, and a half hour later, Macayla and the kid left as well. I had no idea where she was going or how long she’d be gone, but I’d grown up breaking into places, and I’d learned how not to get caught.
I strode through the trees and down the hill toward the cabin. I moved silently through the brush, avoiding twigs and bending under low-hanging branches. There was no one to hear me, but it had been grated into me to always be silent. Never let them hear you.
You stupid shit. Make a noise again, and next time you’ll both spend a week in there.
My stomach twisted and a cold tremor shot from the top of my head down to my toes. But it didn’t stop there. It was as if the ground was spongy and wet, threatening to suck me under the surface and suffocate my lungs with its ugliness.
I counted to five. That’s how long I’d let it have me.
Five seconds before I spit it out.