Prologue II
Some people won’t admit their faults. I would if I had any.
— Shasha to Maven
SHASHA
“Listen,” Cayden McCloud, head of the Irish Mafia in Houston, said. “I don’t give a fuck. Get your men off of my turf.”
I rolled my eyes. “Cayden, we’ve played this game before. It’s getting old.”
“I don’t really give a flying feck,” his Irish brogue deepened.
That brogue that only came out when he got lazy, and forgot to contain his accent.
“Cayden,” I sighed. “Listen. I know you don’t want me there. Hell, I don’t want to be there. But we’re looking for a couple of men that have disappeared. Lev led me to a set of warehouses that are in the district that you literally don’t control. Foreskin controls it.”
Lev was my expert with computers. He’d learned from the fuckin’ best and had a vendetta against all things straight and narrow.
He’d spent the last eight years locked up for a crime he didn’t commit, and the moment he got out, he’d come to find me, letting me know that if the offer was still there, he’d take me up on it.
That offer had been extended years ago when I’d lived on the East Coast, not Dallas, but I’d still taken him on.
I liked a good second chance. I liked it more when they wanted nothing to do with the law because it served my purpose better.
“The Forsaken,” he corrected me.
“Whatever,” I grumbled, feeling the beginnings of a headache between my eyes. “I literally don’t care. I’m not anywhere near your turf. If I was, I’d have called to let you know that I was near it.”
“You know that my turf now extends to The Highlands,” he complained.
“I know, but I’m not anywhere near The Highlands. I’m almost to fuckin’ Galveston, for Christ’s sake,” I said. “I’m just following up with my contacts that show that their last known location was there. I’ll be out of Houston as soon as I check out this lead.”
“No you won’t,” he grumbled. “Hey, you want to go to a golf tournament next week? I was invited to one at the Cowboy Golf Course next weekend, and you’re the only one I know that can play golf.”
I had barely enough time as it was to sleep at night. Plus, I hated fucking golf.
But you didn’t say no to the head of the Irish Mafia and not piss him off.
And since I had a feeling he was very much aware that I had some men missing, and who had been involved with it, I chose not to get on his bad side.
Cayden McCloud was ultimately a decent guy, if a bit off his rocker.
It wouldn’t kill me to play an afternoon of golf with him.
“Sure,” I said. “Shoot me a text on when and where.”
“Lots of hoity toity uppity rich bitches will be there,” he mused. “Maybe you can rub some knuckles with your new funding.”
“Sounds like a fuckin’ blast,” I grumbled. “Bye, Cayden.”
“Get out of my territory fast, Semyonov.”
I rolled my eyes and hung up.
The fact that he wasn’t throwing a shit fit about my surprise arrival in his town—me being on his turf or not—meant he wasn’t really mad that I’d shown up unannounced, and he’d expected it.
Honestly, he was probably the one that’d tipped Lev off in the first place.
Shooting off a text to Lev to tell him to look in that direction, I placed my phone face down on my desk and rubbed my face with my hands.
It was well past midnight, and I was tired as fuck.
If I could go to sleep right now, I’d have a solid six and a half hours of sleep before I had to get up in the morning and have breakfast with my sisters.
Of course, the universe laughed at my getting any extra sleep and interrupted.
The moment I dropped my hands to push up out of my chair, the door opened.
“Sir.”
I looked up from the paperwork that was on my desk to find Artur, one of my guards, standing in my doorway.
“Artur,” I said, sounding as tired as I felt. “What’s up? I thought you were gone for the night.”
“I was,” he admitted. “But I was driving down the street and I spotted something at the gate that I thought you might want to see.”
My brows rose. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I didn’t bring it inside the gates, though. Wanted to see what you thought before I brought it in.”
I stood up, smoothing my tie down my chest and buttoning my suit buttons.
Moments later I was out the front door of my house, my pistol tucked into my kidney carry holster, and heading toward the gate.
The guards that were left at the guard shack were standing at the gate.
The moment I was in sight of them, they parted, and I saw a car seat on the ground in front of the gate.
“It’s a baby,” Artur said as I walked up and came to a stop on the opposite side of the gate as the baby.
As if I couldn’t find that out for myself.
“I see that,” I said. “What is it doing outside my gate?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I was leaving and saw it there. Glad they put that little visor thing up, because it started raining.”
I moved so that I was hovering closer to the car seat.
I stared inside at the baby that was no more than a week old.
The baby was fast asleep.
There was a bottle of milk on her lap, and she was snuggled in tight with a blanket made of a rich purple.
I pulled out my phone and placed a call to my second-in-command.
“Alexi,” he answered shortly.
“Alexi,” I said. “Who was manning the guard gate today?”
“Me,” he grumbled. “There was a bad accident down the road. A woman was hit by a car.”
I looked at Artur. “Artur, pull up the cameras and see if this woman is the same woman that was hit by that car.”
Artur immediately started tapping away at the computer in the guard shack.
He twisted the screen toward me, and I snapped a photo and sent it to Alexi. “That her?”
“That’s her,” he said. “She’s dead as fuck. What’s going on?”
“That woman dropped a baby off at the gate with a note,” I said as I picked up the note and read it. “She wrote: This is my baby. I didn’t give her a name because I didn’t want to become attached. I saw you on the news. You’re the scariest man I could think of that might keep my baby alive. Don’t let him have her.”
“The man fled the scene,” he said. “Another bystander stopped. I headed down there when I heard a commotion. Never saw a baby, though.”
“It was there,” I said, pointing at where the baby had been sitting the entire time. “She. She was there.”
“What are you going to do?” Artur asked.
“Alexi, get whatever info you can on the woman. Artur, call and wake Polina up. Ask her to call her daughter.”
“On it,” Artur said as he pulled out his cell phone.
While he was doing that, I unbuckled the baby from the car seat, grabbed the bottle of milk, and picked the baby up.
The baby was tiny.
Much like my newest nephew was when he was born—Brando.
Brando wasn’t a tiny baby anymore like the one in my hands.
Unbuttoning my suit jacket, I tucked the baby into my arms, then buttoned my suit coat up over her, and walked up to the house.
Years ago, when I had this place built, I’d never intended to stay.
I’d thought that I’d follow up a lead on my missing sister, get confirmation that she wasn’t here, and then keep looking.
Turns out, my kidnapped sister was here and had been the entire time. She was being “raised” by the chief of fucking police for Dallas Police Department.
My parents had spent the better part of our childhood years searching for Marina, now known as Maven. They’d even died while still looking for her. They’d followed every lead, turned over every loose paper.
When they’d died, I’d redoubled my search.
So, of course, when she’d been found out because of her friend Athena’s new phone app, we’d been skeptical.
We’d done absolutely everything we could to find her. Legal and illegal.
If you could think it up, we’d committed the crime.
We wanted to find our sister.
So how was it that she’d arrived out of the blue, with none of our help?
Yeah, needless to say, I’d been skeptical.
But blood tests had proven it. Maven was our long-lost sister.
And since we’d found her, we’d stayed.
Over the years since we’d found her again, all of us had grown closer.
I’d also added onto this house multiple times in an attempt to make it more secure, as well as bigger for the family.
That family being a bunch of fuckin’ cops.
If you’d have asked me ten years ago if I would be willingly conversing with a bunch of cops, I’d have called you crazy.
But that was before my little sister had fallen in love with one.
Maven had met and fallen in love with Auden Carter. Auden was one of nine children. Seven of them being cops.
Then, of course, I’d gotten involved with Athena as she tried to find her own sister—the reason that she’d created the missing children’s app in the first place—and in doing so, had inadvertently invited them to be a part of our lives as well.
Needless to say, my life had changed.
And now I was carrying a fuckin’ baby in my arms into my home, and I’d have to hide that from my little sister.
It fucking sucked that I had to keep secrets from her, but it was for the best.
I didn’t want to implicate her in any way.
So again, this would be one of those things that I never told her.
“Sir?” Polina asked as she stood anxiously at the door.
“You call your daughter?” I asked.
Polina’s eyes widened. “Yes, sir.”
“Good,” I said as I turned to the side and showed her the small baby in my arms. “She still searching for a kid to adopt?”
Polina’s eyes widened comically as she said, “Yes, sir.”
“Great,” I said as I unbuttoned my suit coat. “Meet your new grandbaby.”
I handed over the kid and said, “When she gets here, go with her. Take the next two days off. Tell her that I’ll take care of the paperwork. This’ll all be done the legal way.”
“Yes, sir.” She took the child from my arms, her eyes filling with tears. “Thank you.”
I patted her on the shoulder. “I’m headed to bed.”
The moment I closed myself into my room, exhaustion washed over me.
I just hoped that no one woke me until well past daybreak.
I just doubted I’d be that lucky.
I was right.
I wasn’t.
I got a solid four until someone knocked on the door with the news that the men I’d been missing were found dead, with a note pinned to their chests with knives that said, “Go home.”