I darted my gaze back to Keltan. “It’s not my choice to take Robert from this world, I don’t want that choice on my shoulders. That’s for someone different to decide. God, Buddha, Shiva, Isis, or whoever takes care of that kind of stuff. But I know that he’s obviously got a plan here. Robert is a meticulous man. He will have decided, for whatever reason I don’t even know, that he needs Nathan. Not wants.” I swallowed glass but forced myself to keep going. Information was power, all the power I had right now.
“I know he doesn’t want his son,” I said, voice even. “He doesn’t want people. He needs them. For image, personal gain, for punching bags.” I paused as a fresh wave of nausea rushed over me. He could not be hitting Nathan. No. He couldn’t be laying his hands on him. He hadn’t, not before. Because he was a monster, that was for sure. But even monsters recognized things that they couldn’t touch. Couldn’t hurt. That was the lie I needed to tell myself in order to get through all of this.
The thought of my little boy being hurt almost had me catatonic.
I needed to continue speaking. Keltan needed all the information on Robert so he could understand this man.
“I know that when we get Nathan back, he won’t give up,” I continued. “He doesn’t like being bested. He’ll try to retaliate. And he knows where I live now, obviously we’ll have to move. I’m okay with that. But if he knows your company’s involvement and tries to—”
“He’s not gonna touch us,” Keltan interrupted. “And we don’t give a shit if he tries. That’s not something that’s gonna make us hesitate at getting your boy back to you. Don’t worry about that.”
My heart felt heavy, so heavy I wouldn’t be surprised to find it sitting between my feet, bleeding. “You’re going to get my son back?” I whispered, all strength gone from my voice.
His gaze didn’t falter. “We will get your son back. I promise.”
Lance
“You shouldn’t have promised,” he said, closing the door behind him.
Keltan looked up from where he’d been staring at his desk, head in his hands. Lance guessed this was hitting him. Keltan was a tough motherfucker. A hard one. Not much could land on him, because he’d seen it all, death, torture, pain. They’d all seen that too much recently, with what happened with the Sons of Templar. They saw more of it with what happened to Polly. And that shit scarred all of them. Even him, who didn’t think there were any places left on him that were free to scar.
Didn’t even know her well, but you didn’t need to. You just knew. There were people so dark that you felt sick just being around them. Lance knew that because that was all he knew. It was all he was. Then there was another kind of people. The light kind. The kind that made you feel good.
Polly was that.
So yeah, that hit him, hit Keltan, because he and the rest of the men had pretty fucking strong thoughts toward men that put their hands on women.
But this was different. This was hitting him square in the chest.
It was a fucking child.
Lance had dealt with everything. Even shit with children, shit that sickened his fucking soul, but he’d seen it. Considered himself immune to it. To brutality. Emotion.
But seeing that woman in the fucking foyer, it awakened something in him.
Fury.
“What?” Keltan said as he walked into the room, he went to sit across from him, but he paused. This was the chair that she sat in.
He could already smell her in the room. She smelled of coconut and sweat. He liked it.
Too fucking much.
So he stayed standing, as far away from the chair as he could.
Keltan noted it as the fucker noted everything.
“You shouldn’t have promised her that we’ll get her son back,” he continued, folding his arms. “That’s not something you can promise. You know as well as I do, we don’t find that kid within twenty-four hours, we’ve got slim chances. Knowing what we know already about this fuck, chances are already slim. Promising that woman her son is gonna get back to her in one piece is a mistake.”
Lance felt sick even uttering it, which was foreign. He wasn’t usually affected by the uglier truths in situations like this. He lived in the ugly truth. He liked it.
Until now.
Until the woman who smelled like coconuts hit his gut with her bruises and her stupid fuckin’ tank top and her visceral fear and love for her son walked into these offices.
Keltan’s face changed. His whole body. He was out of his chair in a blink, and across the room right in Lance’s face in another one.
He didn’t move. He never was one to back down from a fight, even with a man he respected and liked.