Chapter 26
Noah’s eyes popped open a second before his phone beeped. Silencing it before it woke Leia, he read the message.
Terrace. Now.
Tugging on his jeans, he didn’t bother to speculate on how his PI had gotten inside his condo. But he fully planned on tripling his security asap. Right after he tore a few heads off at the concierge desk in the morning.
Paddy sat in one of the deck chairs, cradling a glass of bourbon.
Noah took a seat across from him. The sky above was an inky black with a smattering of stars.
“Since you’ve helped yourself to my expensive booze, I’m assuming you have news?”
“You assume correctly. The cops actually came through. They found the delivery guy. Traffic cameras caught the idiot parking his motorcycle in an alley two blocks over. The plates were registered in his name. ”
The red rage threatened again. “We know who sent him?”
“He said some guy paid him two hundred bucks to deliver the package. He’s been taken in for questioning. I have a friend at the precinct. We should have a description of whoever sent the package by morning.”
“And if it’s Willoughby?”
“Then it’s good news. It means he’s still in Florida and easier to track. It’s likely he has very little cash and can’t really go anywhere without the payday he was expecting. Unless…”
“Unless?” Noah demanded.
Paddy knocked back the rest of the drink and set the glass down. “The other thing you asked for. I have some info on that too. There’s definitely a connection.”
Noah tensed. Snyder. “Yes?”
“That name you gave me? He didn’t always go by that name.”
“What?”
“Who didn’t go by what name?”
They both turned around.
Leia was leaning against the door, her arms folded crossed her midriff.
She’d put on his Vassar T-shirt and her skirt from earlier, but her hair was tousled and her mouth was red and swollen from the greedy kisses he’d demanded from her.
He’d kissed her for a straight hour after they’d made love, and yet his need was as intense and insatiable as ever.
He held out a hand and she joined him, perching on his lap. His fingers drifted over her ear and she relaxed against him.
“You know much about Snyder’s history, specifically when he met your dad?” Paddy asked.
She sat up. “Warren? My dad met him in college, I think. They were roommates.”
“Your dad went to Yale, right?” he probed.
She nodded and glanced at Noah. “What’s this about? ”
His gut churned. Despite what Warren had done, he knew Leia still held out a tiny hope that the man who’d taken care of her after she’d lost her family was redeemable. Noah had a feeling his suspicion that Snyder’s actions hadn’t been selfless right from the start was about to be confirmed.
Paddy stood and paced the terrace. “Snyder was a freshman at McGill University in Montreal two years before he transferred as a sophomore to Yale.”
Noah’s nape tingled. “Are you saying you don’t know where he disappeared to for a whole year?”
“Oh, we know where he went. He was living on a farm in Montana with a family with the last name of Willoughby.”
Leia paled. She swayed in his arms. Noah caught her before she slipped off his lap.
“Oh God,” she whispered, over and over again.
He pressed a hard kiss to her mouth, swallowed her horrified words. “Shhh, baby, it’s going to be okay. We know what we’re dealing with now so?—”
“Do we?” Her face creased with pain. “He fooled us all. My dad, my mom… He brought that… that monster into our lives, and he sat back and watched him destroy my family.” Her eyes widened into large, tormented pools.
“Oh God, what if he was responsible for my dad… Warren was on the boat when the accident happened.”
Noah tilted her face to his. “If he was, we’ll find out. I give you my word.”
Paddy cleared his throat. “Without evidence or Willoughby’s corroboration, we won’t have anything concrete against Snyder.”
Pain ripped at his insides when her eyes filled with tears. Tucking her head against his chest, he looked over at Paddy. “Then find the asshole. Now! ”
The older man gave a message-received nod and silently retreated.
Leia burst into tears.
His insides shredded at the sound of her sobs.
Knowing she needed the release didn’t make it any easier.
He held her until her sobs turned to sniffles.
Picking her up, he undressed them both and stepped into the heated tub with her.
He cradled her in his arms until the sun rose and she woke from a light doze.
He suffered through watching her eyes cloud over as memory returned. Cupping her jaw, he stared down at her. “Do I have your permission to destroy the motherfucker now?” he rasped.
Her eyes lost a shade of distress and her jaw flexed against his fingers. “You find the deepest, darkest pit and I’ll bring the shovel.”
Paddy called just after midday. The description given by the delivery guy matched Stephen Willoughby. The detective, probably wanting to prove Paddy wrong for the incompetent dig, went at the case like a dog with a bone.
Not that Noah minded.
He had Tim and Harry on the case too, getting them to use their software to scour traffic camera footage within a ten-mile radius of the condo.
After this was all over, he was going to make those boys richer than their wildest dreams.
For the thousandth time, his gaze drifted to the sofa in his study where Leia was sleeping. His chest expanded at the sight of her relaxed faced and softly parted lips.
He loved her .
Fuck, he loved her so much, he didn’t know how his body wasn’t consuming itself with the force of his feelings.
After this was over…
He laughed under his breath. Yeah, after this was over, he was going to do a hell of a lot of things. Starting with taking steps to make Leia Michaels permanently his.
Until then, he had two assholes to wrangle down.
Sucking in a deep breath, he clawed both hands through his hair, then tensed when his phone rang. Looking at the screen, he cursed under his breath.
Ashley.
He’d signed her up with a private OBGYN and the private chef she’d insisted she needed to maintain a healthy diet during the pregnancy.
Beyond that, they communicated strictly by email because the sound of her voice filled him with loathing.
And he was paranoid enough to imagine his unborn child could be adversely affected by hearing the anger he couldn’t control every time he spoke to his ex-fiancé.
“I thought we agreed on a precise means of communication that did not involve me speaking to you?”
“Please don’t be mean, Noah. I just… just wanted to hear your voice.”
He swallowed his angry retort and took another breath. “Is everything all right?”
“With me or the baby?”
“Take the question at face value and answer it.”
“We’re both fine.”
“In that case, there’s nothing to talk about?—”
“Wait!”
“What?”
“I have an appointment tomorrow. Will you come with me?”
He frowned. The OBGYN had sent him a schedule of everything expectant parents needed to do before the birth. He had nothing in his diary for tomorrow. “Is it routine?”
“No, but I felt a fluttering this morning and I want to check that everything is fine.”
His boulder slammed into his chest. “Define fluttering,” he ground out. He hadn’t asked for this baby, but he couldn’t dismiss the protectiveness he felt toward it.
“I don’t know… A fluttering.”
“You have a degree from Cornell, Ashley, and if you weren’t telling one of your many lies, I believe your dad wasted a lot of money to send you to some fancy bullshit finishing school in Switzerland. Find the words.”
A moment of silence. “Maybe it’s nothing.”
A needle of guilt pierced him, perversely making him angrier. “I’ll call the doctor, tell her to swing by the condo.” He paid enough for Dr. Franklin to make house calls.
“Thank you, Noah, I knew you?—”
He hung up and threw the phone down. Dragging a hand over his face, he looked up to find Leia watching him.
They hadn’t talked about Ashley or the baby since she’d moved in. His heart hammered as her eyes stayed on him.
“I’m sorry you had to hear that,” he murmured, gauging her reaction. “That woman drives me to the fucking edge.”
Without responding, she pushed aside the light blanket he’d thrown over her and stood. Expecting her to come to him, his eyes widened when she caught the hem of the short cream jersey dress and pulled it over her head.
No bra.
No panties.
His heart leapt into his throat. Leia’s body.
The ultimate distraction, panacea and paradise rolled into one.
He stood and walked around to perch on the edge of his desk.
His groin was already hard enough to cause him severe distress, but he stopped himself from reaching for her.
He wanted to savor her, drown in the feeling thundering through him.
“Leia…”
She traced her fingers down her midriff to the top of her thighs. His breath stalled, then rushed out when she slid her fingers into her pussy. “If you come over here, I’ll drive you to the edge, but in a good way.”
His clothes came off in seconds.
Driving into her, he shuddered. “God, Leia… you make me… I feel…”
Her wet fingers drifted to his lips. “I know, baby,” she whispered. “You don’t need to find the words. This is our language. Express yourself.”
Tim and Harry’s traffic-tracking program picked up Stephen Willoughby, returning to a seedy motel in South Beach, just before 8p.m. that evening. After congratulating them on a job well done, Noah left them hi-fiving each other and called Paddy.
“Call me once you confirm it’s him,” Noah instructed. “What I have to share with him won’t take too long.” Five minutes alone with the guy was all he needed.
“Understood.”
He went into the bedroom.
Leia was packing her clothes away in the space he’d provided in his closet.
She hadn’t put up a fight when he’d had her stuff removed from her condo to his, thank God.
Crossing to his side, he swapped his jeans and white T-shirt for a black turtleneck and black cargo pants.
Leia’s eyes widened when he opened a drawer and pulled out black leather gloves .
“Are we going out? And why do you need gloves—” Her breath stalled. “You’ve found him?”
He gave a curt nod. “Paddy has a man stationed downstairs. He’ll come up and stay with you until I come back?—”
“No way. I’m coming with you.”
“Hell no. I don’t want you anywhere near that shithead.”
She walked up to him and stared him in the eye. “I need this, Noah. You want me to be able to put all this behind me one day, I need to bring my shovel.”
And there was his fucking conundrum. He loved her so desperately he didn’t want her harmed in any way, but he loved her because of that steely determination and unquenchable fire that blazed through her.
“Okay, you can come, but you remain at my side at all fucking times. Understood?”
A solemn nod. “Yes, Noah.”
He caught her nape and stamped his possession with a kiss. He watched her dress in tight black leather pants, a grey turtleneck and thigh-high boots. She was securing her hair in a ponytail when his phone beeped.
He read the message with a satisfied nod. “Let’s go.”
The motel was two streets south of Collins Avenue. Noah parked his Maserati in front of a closed dry cleaners and handed his keys to one of Paddy’s men.
“Room 332.” The guy nodded at the two-story building across the street.
Noah grabbed Leia’s arm and led her to the motel.
Paddy was waiting and opened the door. They walked in, and Noah stopped in front of the guy seated on the only chair in the room.
Willoughby had dirty blond hair and might have once been passably handsome in a way that Noah supposed could turn heads when he was cleaned up.
And not overweight from eating too much shitty prison food.
The arms restrained behind him showed cheap prison tattoos.
When he saw Leia’s name in red ink down the bastard’s neck, Noah’s stomach roiled.
Paddy had already introduced him to a few fist sandwiches, judging by the thick cut on his upper lip.
An upper lip that curled in a sneer when he saw Leia. “There’s my little baby whore?—”
Noah’s foot, propelled into Willoughby’s chest, stopped him from finishing the sentence.
He crashed into the wall. The back of his head gave a sickening crunch when it connected with hard concrete.
Taking a couple more steps, Noah placed his booted foot on the guy’s throat and leaned over him.
“Now, is that the way to greet your stepdaughter?”
Willoughby’s eyes bulged, and he tried to wriggle away.
Noah picked him up and slammed him back down. “Let’s try again, shall we?”
Wheezing, Willoughby spat out blood and stared at Leia. “Did you feed him the same lies you fed the court?” He switched his gaze to Noah. “She wanted it. Same as her mama, this one. Cock-hungry little?—”
Leia’s boot caught him in the nuts.
Willoughby squealed.
She smiled. “I think I’ll let you get up so we can catch up properly.” She stood back. When he just grunted, Paddy grabbed him by his arms and hauled him up. The moment the PI let him go, Willoughby lunged at her.
Noah moved to intercept, but Leia was faster.
She crouched, spun on her heel and slammed her elbow in her stepfather’s face, followed by a sharp jab in the ribs.
Noah barely managed to stop himself from applauding.
When Willoughby crumpled into a heap, she bent down and spat in his face.
“This time when they lock you up, I hope they throw away the key.”
She was trembling when she walked into Noah’s arms, but the remorseless fire in her eyes made his heart sing.
She would be okay.
And if they were lucky, they would be okay.
He turned to Paddy. “Make sure he hands over every copy of the pictures and videos. Then find out everything he knows about Snyder, whether he sent those dolls, and where we can find him. And do it before our detective friend gets here, in case he decides to play hard to get later.”
Paddy smiled and nodded.
Halfway across the parking lot, they heard Willoughby squealing for mercy.