“Yes, you are,” Felix countered. “In fact, I think I’m going to keep you for your skills, all of them.”
“Dani now,” Agent Ross said as Felix moved towards her.
Dani stepped back, turning to shield her daughters in case he lifted the gun. She saw the agents tackle him to the ground and then she nothing but a wall of darkness as the other two stepped in behind her and quickly led her away. She tried to fight off the feelings that their closeness brought over her, and she lifted the girls higher into her arms as they reached the car.
“Dani!” Luke shouted pulling her into his arms when she slid in. He hugged her and the girls tightly as the car began to move, and she struggled to get out of his hold. “Dani, baby, it’s okay.”
“I…need air…Luke,” she said quietly as her head roared with noise.
“Ah hell Dani, baby, look at me,” Luke stated seeing her parlor fade.
“What’s wrong?” the agent in the car asked.
“She’s claustrophobic; she’s heading towards a panic attack,” he answered.
“Why didn’t someone tell us that before?” the other asked. “We wouldn’t have crushed in on them as much if we had.”
“That doesn’t matter now,” Luke replied bringing her gaze back to his. “Dani, it’s okay baby. Just breathe, that’s it baby…see…you’re okay…you’re all okay.”
Dani felt her heart rate return to normal and she glanced down at their daughters still in her arms.
“You’re home,” she whispered kissing the top of their heads as they pulled into the hospital.
The pediatrician met them at the back door and hurried them into an open room to check on the girls as the rest of the family came down to see what was going on. Dani didn’t argue Luke’s hold on her as they checked the girls head to toe and let herself fall apart when the doctor declared them fine.
“Shh, baby, it’s okay,” Luke whispered to her over and over.
The tears finally stopped, and she moved back to the girls who were sleeping in the crib. She dropped the side down so she could touch them and let herself know they were really there.
“When can we go home?” she asked the doctors who were attempting to check on her.
“Let us make sure you didn’t damage your ribs more and then we’ll discuss that,” Nick said trying to get her into a wheelchair.
“I’m not leaving them.”
“Bring them with us,” Nick instructed past the point of arguing.
Dani reluctantly let them put her back in the hospital bed once they were finished with her exam on the condition that the girls stay with her. She even took the pain pill they brought her along with the food then slept for more than a few minutes at a time, for the first time in days with her hand resting on the girls’ in the crib.
“Would you like to tell us the rest of the story now?” Wren asked Luke as they watched her sleep from the corner of the room.
“Like what Dani meant by you forcing her to marry you to keep the truth of what happened to Chance quiet,” Tyler added shooting glances between him, Dani, and Dean.
“I think I’d like to hear it too,” Dean agreed.
“You’dlike to hear it?” Luke asked turning on Dani’s brother. “You put her here; I think you should start.”
“Fine, I graduated got a job then got a promotion to work for you,” Dean said knowing he had to protect Dani now. “I met Mona the first week I was in town and by the end of the month we were married, and by the end of the second she was pregnant with Kara. That’s when Dani felt something was off about her and she found out the truth. Mona was Felix’s daughter but by then I was already in love with her and our unborn daughter. Felix’s rival found us, tried to run us off the road and Mona knew it wouldn’t be the last time. We started talking about leaving, running, erasing our tracks entirely but we didn’t have a clue how to do it.”
“So, you asked Dani to help you?” Luke questioned.
“No, not until after I’d started siphoning money from the accounts at work. The first time we tried to run Felix’s man found us and nearly killed us. That’s when Dani brought us new papers to travel with, a connection to get out of the city quietly, and then out of the country. She got the job with your company to hide the trail; it was supposed to be long enough to get us settled in. I had no idea she’d used your money to do it Luke. She never said a word to me. If I’d known, I’d never have let her marry you to save me,” Dean stated. “She told me what Chance did to her and then I found the story about him being killed during a break-in; she never let on that you knew about the missing money. When the engagement came out, she swore that it was real that you’d realized that you loved her and didn’t want anything to happen to her ever again.”
“She lied,” Luke scoffed. “Nothing new there.”
“Actually, it was,” Dean said, the shock in his tone that even Luke believed him. “I guess that’s why I believed it so easily. Dani hates lying; she hates it more than she hates violence. She was the world’s best hacker, but she hated that she could do it so well. She set us up with emancipation papers after our parents died when we were fifteen and then got us both into MIT with computer magic. When she realized just how impossible that was and how easily she did it without anyone catching the slightest hint of her hack, she was horrified with what she could do, that it came so naturally to her. She wanted to come clean about it all, but I knew we’d be kicked out, so I convinced her not to, and she nearly died because of it.”
“What?” Luke asked.