Redemption (The Protectors #8)

Prologue

Phoenix

“Hello, my girl,” I said while simultaneously signing the words as soon as the door opened.

The little girl beamed up at me as she stood in the open doorway.

Her little fingers began moving lightning fast. So fast that I had to interrupt her with a reminder to slow down.

Her sheepish grin was almost too much for me.

“Phoenix, Daddy Seth is taking me to see Ace. Uncle Magnus says I can ride him.”

I smiled at that and bent down to her level since she had to crane her neck to see me otherwise.

I’d never met the horse Magnus DuCane owned and had recently brought with him to Seattle after leaving Texas, but I’d heard, or seen rather, Nicole asking her fathers if she could go see the big animal often enough.

I suspected the men had a horse-crazy daughter on their hands.

“That’s exciting,” I said as I slowly signed out the right words.

“Phoenix, hi, come on in,” I heard Seth call as he made his way down the hall towards us. I wasn’t surprised to see his and Ronan’s youngest child, Jamie, in tow, the boy’s cherished Spiderman doll clutched between his chubby fingers.

It had been nearly five months since Ronan and Seth had taken in the three orphans as foster children and from everything I’d seen, they’d managed the impossible and made themselves into a family.

I knew they were eager to adopt the children and had already started the process of making the situation permanent.

While the kids had initially been reserved around both men, they’d warmed up quickly once they’d realized they were finally safe and in a home that would give them the love and security they’d lost after their parents had died in a car accident.

I’d been surprised by Nicole’s attachment to me, especially considering both the fact that she was deaf and shy around strangers and that I wasn’t what someone would consider a non-threatening guy.

With my dark skin tone, heavy build and tattoos, I wasn’t the kind of man a kid like Nicole would have gravitated to.

But for some reason, she’d been intrigued by me from the get-go and I was more than happy to return her affection.

Even if being around her was both joyous and painful for me at the same time.

“Hey, Seth,” I said as I rose and moved into the house. “Heard you have a big afternoon planned.”

The young man had his hands full with a couple of jackets, a large tote bag slung over his shoulder and a smaller bag that looked packed full of snacks, sippy cups and several carrots.

And I’d never seen him looking happier.

I’d known Seth for less than a year, and while I hadn’t met him before he’d become involved with my boss, Ronan Grisham, it hadn’t taken a genius to know how difficult the young man’s life had been and how much he’d suffered.

At the tender age of fourteen, he’d lost both his parents in a brutal home invasion which had also left him severely injured and traumatized.

A few months later, his older brother had been stolen away from him when he’d been murdered by a group of homophobic fellow soldiers.

Ronan, who’d been in a relationship with Seth’s brother at the time, had been badly injured in the same attack.

I didn’t know all the details, but I knew enough that both men hadn’t really started living again until they’d found each other .

And now they had it all and deservedly so. It was clear as day in Seth’s eyes every time he looked at his children or his husband. The same could be said of Ronan.

I was happy for them, though their joy was a near constant reminder of my own loss.

“Yeah,” Seth said with a sigh as he looked at all the stuff in his arms as if trying to make sure he wasn’t missing anything.

He looked up at me with a big smile. I liked how he signed even as he spoke so that Nicole could follow the conversation.

It was a habit I was trying to remember since I never wanted the little girl to feel left out. “Ronan’s in the study-”

“I’m here,” I heard Ronan interject as he walked towards us.

While his eyes were on his husband, I didn’t miss the tension in his frame.

I couldn’t help but wonder if his obvious agitation had anything to do with why I was here.

I couldn’t tell if Seth had noticed or not, because by the time Ronan reached us, he’d relaxed both his stance and his expression.

“Have fun,” Ronan said as he leaned down to talk to Nicole. “Daddy Seth is going to take lots of pictures for me and I’ll come next time, okay?”

I had no trouble understanding Nicole’s response.

“Promise?”

“Promise,” Ronan whispered as he signed. Then he was tugging the girl into his arms. Jamie was next, but Ronan stood up with him as the boy clung to him. He leaned in to kiss Seth. “Text me when you get there?”

I was envious of the intimacy between the two men. Every look and every touch they shared spoke volumes. Becoming fathers hadn’t changed any of that.

“I will,” Seth said softly.

To Jamie, Ronan said, “You have fun with Matty and Leo. Clothes stay on, right?” he said.

Jamie considered him for a moment before saying, “Leo says I can run faster without them.”

I stifled a chuckle. I’d seen Magnus’s young grandson, Matty, and his best friend Leo take Jamie under their wing at Matty’s fathers’ wedding at Christmas.

Between the superhero shoes Jamie was wearing and his insistence that nudity was a precursor to enhanced abilities, Ronan and Seth were out of luck.

They’d already lost their youngest to his hero worship of the two slightly older boys.

Ronan shook his head, but there was no mistaking the grin on his face. “Do what Uncle Dante says, okay?”

Jamie nodded eagerly and then his arms went around Ronan’s neck. “Bye, Daddy Ronan,” he said softly.

“Bye, Son. See you soon, okay?”

Jamie nodded. Ronan put him down so the little boy could put his free hand on the neck of Bullet, the large German Shepherd that was always wherever the kids were.

“Dante’s babysitting?” I asked.

Seth laughed. “He is. He’s called me three times in a panic about what snacks to give the kids and to ask if I thought he and Aleks were enough to handle the three boys or if he needed to bring in backup.”

I smiled. Leave it to Dante Thorne, Magnus’s soon-to-be-husband, to turn babysitting three boys under the age of six into a mission.

“Okay, we should go,” Seth said as he gave Ronan one last lingering kiss. “See you later.”

Ronan nodded and then he was helping Seth get the kids out the door. I wasn’t surprised that the dog was going with them.

The second the door closed, Ronan’s mask of contentment slipped away. It was startling to see the level of anger in his eyes. He didn’t say anything as he turned on his heel and began striding towards the study. I wisely kept my mouth shut because I knew his fury had nothing to do with me.

Though it was undoubtedly why I was here.

“I need you to look into something for me,” Ronan said as he went to his desk and sat down.

He punched the keyboard of his computer while I sat down in one of the guest chairs on the opposite side of the desk.

The printer began spitting out pages and as soon as it was done, Ronan snatched them up and slapped them down on the desk in front of me.

The first thing I saw was a mug shot of a young man with spiky blond hair and light green eyes. I guessed him to be no more than nineteen or so and a quick glance at the arrest record showed my guess was right.

Levi Deming, eighteen.

The arrest report was several years old, putting the guy’s current age at 24.

“Drug possession?” I asked as I read the charge.

Ronan’s group rarely went after people for drugs unless their crimes hurt other people.

There was nothing on the report to indicate the kid had committed any other crimes besides being caught with a minimal amount of heroin, not even enough to warrant an additional charge of intent to distribute.

Ronan didn’t say anything as he turned his screen so I could see it.

The image looking back at me was a still shot of a suburban street.

It was grainy and had been taken at night, but there was enough light coming from the street lamps to make out a couple of houses and a car parked in front of one of them.

I glanced at the date stamp on the image. It had been taken a week ago.

Before I could ask Ronan why he was showing me the image, it changed to one that was nearly identical. The same car was parked in nearly the exact same spot, but the date was different. It was a day later.

Ronan continued moving forward through the images, four in all. Same car in the same spot four nights in a row.

“These are from a security camera from this house here,” Ronan said as he pointed to a spot on the screen across from the house outside which the car was parked.

“Okay,” I said, still confused as to why he was showing me the images. A car sitting in front of a house was nothing. More than nothing, actually.

But one look at Ronan and I knew it wasn’t nothing. He was practically seething. As a trauma surgeon, the man typically oozed calm and collected, but right now, he was anything but .

“The car,” – Ronan pointed at the single car on the screen – “is registered to Curtis Deming, Levi Deming’s father.”

I didn’t respond since the man clearly wasn’t done.

“That house,” – he jabbed his finger at the house behind the car – “used to belong to Seth’s parents.”

Tension crept into my bones as I started to suspect where the conversation was headed.

“I’ve been having Daisy monitor Levi Deming’s movements for the past year.

When he used his debit card to buy gas at a gas station on Mercer Island where the house is located, she hacked into the security system of the house across the street from Seth’s old house and found this.

” He motioned to the image on the screen.

“You sold that house, right?”