Chapter 5
M y life and career had conditioned me to be prepared for—and desensitized to—traumatic events. Rather, they should’ve . But the past few days had blindsided me in a way I’d never expected and didn’t know how to handle.
Outwardly, I wasn’t sure what everyone else was seeing, but a part of me recognized they’d been giving me a wider berth than usual. Internally, I was struggling to take every necessary step and breath because it felt like I was crumbling.
“Briggs.”
I slowly tore my eyes from my desk and glanced over to find Rush standing there, looking equally solemn and expectant. “What?”
“You need to pull it together,” he said unapologetically. “We have clients asking for you , not the rest of us. The ones we’ve canceled on have understood, but we can’t continue to. No one knows what to do because we’re all here instead of at the office.” He gestured to the rest of my high-rise apartment. “And you’re avoiding something huge.”
The only reason I’d let him list every way I was failing was because he’d been my best friend since middle school. We’d served in the military together and been on the same Special Forces team. Rush had been the first person I’d called and hired when I started my high-profile security company.
But that last part?
My hand slowly curled into a fist as my stare shifted to the glass doors of my home office, searching out the something huge he was referring to. “I don’t know what to do with that.”
“That’s obvious,” he snapped. “But at least you know why her parents aren’t coming back. She doesn’t and hasn’t stopped crying. And you’re the only one she knows, so do something.”
“I can’t,” I admitted and worked my jaw when my throat tightened. “This wasn’t supposed to happen, Rush.”
“I know,” he said, softer than before.
“I tried to help him—to keep him clean.”
“Briggs, I know.”
“Then how did I let this happen?”
“You didn’t let anything happen,” Rush ground out, voice firm but no less empathetic. “I watched you raise your siblings when your mom was too busy dipping out or getting high. I watched you fight Wyatt’s demons head-on when he started following your mom’s path. I watched you drain your accounts to get him into multiple rehabs, even when we were overseas. You did everything to help him. He made his choices.”
“If he’s in the ground, then I didn’t do enough,” I said unwaveringly as I rubbed at my chest, wondering if the hollow there would ever heal.
“Look, man, I respect you, so I’m gonna be real with you,” Rush began, crouching down in front of me so he was in my line of sight. “Your life’s been rough, and I hate that everything always falls onto you, but you are the most selfless and protective guy I know because of it. And now, your niece needs you to step up because she’s innocent in all this.”
“I don’t know how to take care of an eight-month-old,” I said with a humorless laugh. “Not anymore, at least.”
“Figure out a way to remember,” he said as he straightened to his full height. “Because even though none of this should be happening, it is, and she’s lucky she has you .”
“I’d like to remind you I’m not your personal secretary or maid,” my office administrator said as she came into my office without knocking or bothering to wait for either of us to open the doors.
Then again, she’d always been that way.
I was sure she did it just to get a rise out of me.
“Meaning what, Ada?” I asked even as I watched her come toward me, hand outstretched and filled with pieces of paper because she refused to take down any of our messages on our online system.
Again, I was pretty sure she refused only to irritate me.
“I’ve been picking up your dry cleaning and running your errands...”
“I don’t do dry cleaning,” I muttered as she stopped near me, holding the handwritten messages out of reach.
“I’ve been cleaning your dingy little studio apartment and paying your bills...”
“I got it, Ada,” I said irritably as I stood, my eyes rolling since she was clearly pushing for me to join the rest of my team and that something huge I’d been avoiding ever since the social worker had dropped her off the morning before.
Kaia.
My niece.
The last piece of my brother I had left.
Considering what I’d done in the military, I wasn’t a stranger to losing people I cared about. But the call that he’d overdosed hit me harder than any other death before because that was my brother. The kid I’d practically raised and fought to keep alive.
And I’d failed him.
The news that his wife and one of their friends had died the same night had been a lesser shock once I’d learned what they’d been messing with and that a baby had been found at the scene—dirty and hungry, but otherwise fine.
A baby whose only kin that wasn’t deceased or in prison was me and my younger sister, who was halfway across the country, doing everything to forget about the life she’d left behind here—not that I blamed her.
And before I’d been able to figure out how to take a breath around the barbed wire squeezing my lungs, I was told the process and steps I needed to take to get temporary and permanent custody of Kaia if I didn’t want her going into the system.
Except I didn’t want custody of a baby. After watching my mom destroy her life, leaving me to raise my younger siblings along the way, the last thing I’d ever wanted was a family, so I’d focused on my careers. But the thought of letting Kaia go into the system? Well...I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself.
Even in my grief, the irony of all this happening just minutes after the settling down conversation with Rush hadn’t been lost on me.
So, my team had spent the two days before Kaia arrived babyproofing my apartment while I’d had countless appointments with social workers, pediatricians, and detectives between cleaning out my brother’s apartment.
Not that there’d been much in there.
And it had only made my guilt burn hotter. If I would’ve gone there more than once a month, I would’ve known he’d relapsed. The missing furniture and empty fridge would’ve told me everything I’d needed to know.
“What do you really need, Ada?” I asked as I followed her and Rush into my disaster of a living room where the rest of my team was doing everything to make Kaia stop screaming.
The sound was like nails on a chalkboard.
I hated it.
I rolled my neck, stopping halfway and struggling to catch the paper Ada carelessly flipped at me.
“‘ Aaaah ,’” she said dryly before tossing another paper. “‘ Waaah .’ And this one was from someone saying something I can’t quite remember—oh, yes: ‘ Aaaah .’”
“Really?” I ground out when she tossed the remaining papers into the air, letting them fall everywhere.
I picked them up, flipping through to see they were all blank but one.
You’re welcome.
“What am I supposed to be thanking you for?” I asked as I held up the paper.
“For putting up with you.”
I lifted the papers higher to prove a point when I countered, “Sometimes, I think it’s the other way around.”
She tsked and gave me one of those looks she thought was intimidating—pursed lips paired with a raised, graying brow—as if to remind me she had one foot out the door because she was more than ready to retire.
As if any of us would let her leave.
“ You’re welcome for saving you and that sweet baby from your hurt.” She swatted at the papers, snatching them from me as she explained, “You need someone to help you take care of that little girl, so I hired a nanny.”
“I’m sorry?”
“You heard me,” she said with a stubborn lift of her chin.
“You can’t just—” I forced out a harsh breath that bordered on an exasperated laugh when my voice came out sharper than I intended, drawing the shocked gaze of every member of my team.
They got on me enough about my cross personality to let me know I wasn’t the nicest guy out there, but raising my voice wasn’t something I did often. It was just this week and the loss that felt preventable and the screaming that hadn’t stopped in over twenty-four hours.
I shifted so my back was to the living room and muttered, “You can’t just do that, Ada.”
A mocking laugh left her as she once again swatted at me. “Oh, but I can—I did.”
My lips had been parted to respond with something along the lines of that isn’t your call , but I pressed them together and forced myself to take a steeling breath because Ada wasn’t entirely wrong.
I could barely make myself look at Kaia, and even if I could, I didn’t know how to take care of a kid anymore. Six of us hadn’t even been able to get her to stop crying.
Still, I shouldn’t have been surprised. It was just such an Ada thing to do—interfering in everyone’s lives and mothering us and my company as if it were hers to do with as she wanted. Honestly, it was a miracle she hadn’t gone behind my back to hire her replacement yet.
“You can’t hire someone for me , Ada,” I finally said, subtly reminding her of her position. “Especially for something like this—for a baby I only have temporary custody of. We need to hold interviews and run background checks. We need?—”
“No need,” Ada said dismissively. “If you trust me, you’ll trust her.” Just as a bemused laugh started building in my chest, she added, “It’s my great-niece.”
“Even worse.” At Ada’s surprised look, I explained, “I’m not giving handouts to a teenager whose main concern is the latest social media trend. Does she even know how—” I faltered as I thought of what people needed to know when looking after a baby.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but she just received her master’s in early childhood education, so she’s perfect for this,” Ada said with that intimidating look from earlier. “And she’ll be here any minute.”
As if our conversation conjured Ada’s great-niece, a ding sounded that indicated someone had just arrived on the elevator.
Considering I hadn’t approved anyone to be let up, my eyes narrowed on Ada in time to see the victorious smile spreading across her face. “If you don’t fire her, I will.”
“Oh,” she began with a click of her tongue, shaking her head in feigned sadness as she backed away, “no...no, you won’t.”
I watched Ada shuffle across the open space, my irritation growing the closer she got to the closed-off foyer.
I didn’t hire family—Ada knew that. My team knew that. Even when my brother had been clean for two years straight and had begged me for a job, I’d helped him find work somewhere else. Things got messy when family worked together, and I hated any kind of mess—physical, emotional, and metaphorical.
Which meant the current state of my apartment had me feeling like bugs were crawling under my skin.
“What’s happening?” Rush asked as he made his way back to where I stood, his eyes trained on where Ada’s excited voice could somehow be heard over the screaming.
“She hired her great-niece to be Kaia’s nanny,” I explained as my phone began vibrating.
An amused huff punched from Rush. “And you’re okay with that?”
I slanted an answering glare at him as I reached for the device in my pocket. “I don’t hire family.”
Even though Rush was already aware of that, he considered the words for less than a second before countering, “Ada’s been trying to retire for at least six months.”
“No,” I mumbled.
“If you let her, that’ll take care of the whole family thing.”
“No,” I repeated more firmly.
This week was stressful enough; I didn’t need the reminder that Ada was actively pushing for me to find her replacement. For as much as she enjoyed tormenting me, I trusted her. There were few people I could say that about, and every one of them worked for me.
That didn’t mean she could step into my role and hire someone.
Glancing at the screen of my phone, my body went still when I realized the social worker was calling. “I gotta take this,” I muttered, then gestured toward the front of my apartment. “Fire the girl.”
“Mr. Briggs,” the social worker began once I was back in my office and had answered the call, “in these types of extreme scenarios, I like to check in after a day to see how everyone is getting settled. From the sound of it, it seems like things are going well.”
I rubbed at my jaw at the dry sarcasm dripping through the phone and forced myself to take a deep breath before responding. “Babies cry.”
“I’m aware, Mr. Briggs.”
“We’re doing fine,” I finally answered. “Just getting adjusted.”
She hummed doubtfully. “And what about your schedule?” she asked after a moment. “You mentioned that was something you’d need to figure out. Have you looked into childcare yet?” When I didn’t immediately answer, she made a sound that was as disapproving as it was expectant. “I see...Mr. Briggs, I’m not sure you understand the gravity of the situation?—”
“Ma’am, I’m gonna stop you before you can keep tapping on that tablet of yours,” I said over her. “I haven’t slept most of this week. Kaia hasn’t slept since she arrived. You’re the fifth call I’ve had in the last hour, and Kaia’s potential nanny just arrived, so I need to go meet her.”
Meet her. Possibly re-hire her. Thank Ada for her incredible timing.
“Nanny?” the social worker asked with a whisper of surprise and even more doubt. “Then you should get to that meeting; I’m sorry for keeping you. Oh, and don’t forget...I’ll be stopping in soon.”
How could I?
She’d told me no less than a dozen times before she’d left yesterday, every time sounding more like a warning. Every time sounding more confident that I wouldn’t be able to handle this.
I’d already failed my brother once. I refused to do it again.
“Looking forward to it.” Ending the call, I turned and stormed out of my office, stopping cold when I walked into a completely different living room than before.
It was still a wreck, but there wasn’t a person in there, and it was silent.
Slanting my head as I soundlessly moved through my living room, I listened for any indication of what could be wrong and found my team gathered in the far hallway, peering into what was now Kaia’s room.
“You might wanna rethink firing her,” Rush said when I stepped up beside him.
I narrowed in on the back of a petite girl, unruly blonde curls messily piled on top of her head and tugging at a memory I tried to keep buried, subtly rocking back and forth as she spoke to Ada. “She got Kaia to sleep?”
“Almost immediately,” Rush whispered. “Said we were overwhelming Kaia, then scooped her up and walked away. By the time we followed them in here, Kaia was out.”
A grunt rumbled in my chest as my gaze involuntarily trailed over the girl’s figure again. The subtle flare of her hips and dip of her waist that emphasized with each sway and had my heart racing as flashes of a short, chance encounter from nearly a year ago barreled through my mind.
“Then again...” Rush went on, slanting his head in my direction and lowering his voice even more, “maybe she won’t be the best fit.”
“Why’s that?” I tore my stare from the girl when Rush didn’t respond to find him giving me a meaningful look. “She’s Ada’s great-niece,” I reminded him.
“Still hot,” he mumbled.
“And young.”
His head tipped back with a laugh that was too loud, considering we were all standing outside a room where there was a baby who was finally sleeping. “Sure. If that’s what you need to tell yourself.”
I’d use anything to remind myself the girl in that room was completely off-limits.
Because she’d turned at the sound of Rush’s laugh, her familiar, breathtaking features pinning me in place and making me want a dozen things I couldn’t have. Not then. Not with her. Especially not when I was about to rely on her for Kaia.
“There you are,” Ada said when she noticed me standing there, then waved me into the room. “Lainey, honey, this is my boss, Asher Briggs.”
Surprise had flared in Lainey’s eyes the moment she turned, and even after a subtle shake of her head, a stunning smile lit her expression as she stared at me in disbelief.
I knew the feeling.
But considering I’d told Ada everything about last year within minutes of it happening, I had a feeling this wasn’t another chance encounter. And as much as I wanted to hate her for it because she knew better than to do something like this ...right now, I needed her great-niece.
Lainey’s stare quickly darted around before falling as if just remembering the rest of my team was gathered behind me. With a subdued clearing of her throat, she said, “It’s nice to meet you,” as she set Kaia in the crib we’d built the other night. The emphasis on meet so subtle, I wasn’t sure anyone else caught it or the slight darkening of her cheeks. “I’ve heard so much about you over the years that I feel like I already know you.”
My eyes narrowed at the double meaning behind her words because she clearly remembered me, but I also had no doubt Ada would tell anyone who’d listen every terrible thing about me. “I can only imagine what you’ve been told.”
“All good things,” Lainey assured me as Ada said, “She knows what a surly, stubborn, frustrating man you are.”
An acknowledging hum rumbled in my chest, but I forced my stare to where my niece was sleeping when a flush swept up Lainey’s cheeks as if she hadn’t expected Ada’s boldness.
“Do you have experience in this?”
“Nannying?” Lainey clarified once she realized I was talking to her. “No. But I?—”
“Went to school for something to do with early childhood, I heard,” I mumbled before she could repeat everything Ada had already told me. “And you don’t wanna be a nanny, correct?”
“I wouldn’t be here if?—”
“I meant your life goal,” I clarified as my gaze snapped back to hers.
“Oh.” Her blush burned deeper as she risked a quick look at Ada. “No, I want?—”
“Do you have any other commitments?” When her lips stayed parted a second too long, I prompted, “Classes, kids, weekly meetings.”
“No, I?—”
“And you’re not currently working?”
Lainey faltered before a soft, irritated laugh left her. “Well, that depends on?—”
“Yes or no,” I said and watched as her blue eyes narrowed in exasperation.
“But it isn’t a yes or no answer.”
I lifted my shoulders before folding my arms across my chest. “If you wanna work for me, it is.”
She took a slow, deep breath before answering, “No. Do you ever let people answer fully?”
“I just did,” I said pointedly, ignoring the hushed laughs from my team, then released a quick sigh. “You’re here, so I’m guessing you can start today. My office hours are eight to five, so I need you here half an hour before and after unless it’s a day we have a security detail. Those can happen at all hours, including weekends. I’ll pay you fifteen hundred a week, starting. If you have an issue with anything I’ve said or can’t be flexible with your hours, tell me now.”
A baffled sort of breath left her. “Don’t you wanna know about the certifications and qualifications I have?”
“I’m gonna find out everything I need to know with the background checks we’re about to run on you. Besides”—I jerked my chin in Ada’s direction—“she knows better than to forcefully hire anyone who’s less than qualified for something like this.”
Lainey’s eyes widened before narrowing accusingly at Ada, but I just turned to leave before I could stand there long enough to forget who she was, why she was there, and why I couldn’t study her the way I’d wanted to for nearly a year now.
“I’ll be back tonight,” I called over my shoulder. “Ada, if she doesn’t run screaming after I’m gone, have her fill out the employment paperwork, then get to the office.” I met the amused stares of my team and said, “Let’s get back to work.”