Chapter 3
Tate Madden
The next few days were a blur. Plans changed, vacations turned into missions to stay up-to-date on the latest news, and our kink community morphed into a support group.
Kingsley called just when I hit the dirt road leading up to the house, so I answered and put him on speaker.
“We’re almost there,” I said.
“Hi, Daddy!” Kaley hollered from the back seat.
Zoe chimed in too. “We gonna swim wiv Daddy Tay in the big house!”
“Hey, my darlings—that sounds fun.” Kingsley’s warm voice filtered through, and I took a deep breath. “I’ll join you in a few hours. I just wanted to check in.”
As he had way more frequently since…
Goddammit. Shay stayed at the forefront of my mind. That was impossible to change. I tried and fucking tried to distract myself. If I hadn’t had the girls, I would’ve signed up to teach summer school.
“Nothing’s changed in the last three hours, Sir.” I checked the rearview, and as if on cue, the girls giggled. They jokingly called Lee Sir sometimes, much to his amusement.
They’d seen photos of him in his uniform from his Navy days, so it’d been easy to say that was why I occasionally called him Sir in front of the little ones.
“Yes, sir,” Zoe laughed. “No, sir!”
Kingsley let out a chuckle. “My dorks. Okay, I’ll try to get off work early. Be safe in the water, girls.”
“We gots our floaties,” Kaley responded in her “You’re silly, Daddy” voice.
We wrapped up our conversation, and I was torn between wanting Lee with me at all hours of the day and wanting him to work extra.
Like, I needed him glued to my hip, at the same time as he made it impossible for me to pretend like the world wasn’t royally fucked.
Yesterday, when my mom had watched the girls again, he’d literally beaten my ass till I’d sobbed my heart out.
But I didn’t fucking want to cry. I wanted to hold on to the immense anger welling up within me.
I could function on anger. I couldn’t function on fear and heartache.
Pulling into the carport, I noticed Master Walker and Ash talking by their cars. I assumed they’d just arrived too. And Walker hadn’t arrived alone. He was carrying Savi, Ty’s granddaughter.
“Do you remember Savi, girls?” I asked.
“Wiv Uncle Lane and Uncle Macklin?” Zoe asked back.
“That’s right.” I undid my seat belt. It’d been a while since we’d had a playdate. We sometimes got together when Macklin or Lane watched Savi, usually with Ivy too. But given her iron deficiency with her latest pregnancy, she was mostly on bed rest.
I helped the girls out of their seats and said hello to Ash and Master Walker.
“Just the guy I was hopin’ to see,” Walker said, returning to his car. “I have something for you, Tate.”
Oh?
“It’s Ash!” Zoe exclaimed. Yeah, she loved anyone who was fun in the water—as Ash had been the other day.
Ash squatted down and grinned. “It’s li’l Zoe! I think! Yeah, it is.”
He was so good with kids. I’d asked if he and Nathan were bringing out any of their children, to which he’d chuckled and said, “Hell no, they’re old enough to ask questions. One of them’s old enough to be a member. Luckily, his kink is golf.”
Kaley was a tad shyer, so she plastered herself to my leg and didn’t let go.
That was okay.
Walker reappeared with two small paper bags with the Westwater Hotels’ logo on them.
“Macklin said you’d appreciate this,” he said, handing them over.
I accepted the bags and peered inside. Whoa. That was a lot of tiny bottles of shampoo, conditioner, body wash… I rummaged through the contents. Shaving cream, soap, and lotion.
“My team just finalized the next lines of products for a few of our luxury resorts,” he explained.
Hot damn. It was one part luxury brands and one part artisanal, organic, and chemical-free.
“I love your job,” I replied. “Thank you so much.”
I knew his main job was to find issues and deal with them.
He was equally data-driven and psychology-focused.
He knew how people functioned, what sold well, and how to—as Macklin called it—maximize profits on minimum efforts.
And it meant he inserted himself into every step of the process to create successful hotels for his bigwig boss, evidently including the products they put in the bathrooms.
“You’re very welcome.” He repositioned Savi on his hip and gestured to the house. “I take it we’re all headin’ for the pool?”
Yes. The girls were going to have fun, and I was going to pretend.
“Actually, Tate,” Ash said. “I can throw these little princesses in the water while you sit down with Nathan. He’s waiting for you in KC and Lucian’s cabin.”
Oh God, no.
No. Fuck that. I’d seen Corey, Noa, and Macklin come out of sessions with Nathan.
Fuck that noise hard. I wasn’t seeing a damn counselor.
Ash had a smile for Zoe but gave me a pointed look. “Kingsley thought it would be a good idea for you to talk to someone.”
Damn you, Master!
Lucas Carter
It was possible I checked the rearview a bit too much, but I couldn’t help it. Kit and Noa were sitting in the back quietly, practically unheard of, each one staring out of his own window.
We’d just stopped by Shay’s aunt’s place to water the plants and clean out the fridge.
Melanie didn’t know when she and the boys would return from San Diego, so I’d offered to do what little I could.
Ty had given me a spare key from the Tenleys’ house, and I’d found Melanie’s number in Reese’s office at Mclean.
I slowed down and sighed as traffic came to a standstill. Fucking figured. I’d found a parking spot in town so quickly yesterday that I was being punished now.
Drumming my fingers along the wheel, I checked the rearview again.
I could barely handle the silence.
“Penny for your thoughts, baby boy?”
Kit met my stare in the rearview briefly before he looked out his window once more.
He let out a breath. “I laughed at a joke this morning, and now I feel guilty.”
Oh fuck. No—that wasn’t okay. “Kit, you have absolutely no reason to feel guilty. What’s happening with Shay is horrible, but we need those little breaks in the sorrow. Okay? I want you to find moments of joy even when life sucks at the moment.”
“Daddy said that also,” Noa admitted quietly. “Like, we need energy and dopamine hits to go on.”
“He’s right,” I agreed. “Please don’t feel bad about laughing—either of you.”
Kit’s eyes welled up a little, and he didn’t respond.
I’d let him process until we got to Mclean.
Goddammit.
I had this anger festering inside, and it grew every time I thought of Shay and every time I saw the suffering around me.
Lives had already changed irrevocably. We couldn’t focus.
We hated feeling helpless. We worried. Greer was apparently ready to go off and hunt down bad guys, something I was still trying to wrap my head around.
Sloan had told me last night on the phone.
Greer had packed a bag the evening after we’d watched the first press conference. It stood in the hallway, just waiting.
Colt was struggling too. He worked in security, and it was taking all his strength not to turn our house into a fortress.
That was precisely what Kit’s parents had done.
They’d sheltered him to the point where he’d had his personal driver take him wherever he needed to go.
First time he’d used the Metro had been with us.
I cleared my throat and eyed Noa next.
“What about you, little one?” I asked. “What’s on your mind?”
He sighed. “Other than Shay? I’m writing a mental list of the pros and cons of having a bunch of kids all over House Mclean.”
Oh. All over might be a stretch, but sure, the downstairs area and the front yard and backyard showed no signs of kink. It was simply easier for the parents who wanted to be here, or had shouldered responsibilities in our crisis mode, if they could bring their kids.
“So many kids,” Kit whispered.
“Any pros on that list?” I wondered.
Noa shrugged. “They’re kinda cute in a way, I guess. And it’s fun watching Uncle Lucian make faces. He turned around in the bathroom door with a look of horror on his face the other day when Tate was in there helping Twin One and Twin Two with their swim diapers.”
My mouth twitched, having witnessed some of that myself. Lucian had all but hugged a wall when Greer’s toddler had run through the lobby. Little Dylan was a runner, fearless, and loved it when Greer and Archie had to chase him.
It wasn’t like we were running a day care, though.
Lucian exaggerated when it came to kids.
We were talking six kids who’d visited, and not all at the same time.
Archie helped Macklin in the kitchen a whole lot, so he and Greer brought their two youngest. Ash and Nathan didn’t bring theirs.
Like Sloan, they felt they’d rather not face the kids’ questions about what kind of place this was.
August had stopped by for ten minutes with his and Ivy’s son to drop something off, and I knew Walker and Macklin were watching Ty’s granddaughter today.
Then Kingsley and Tate’s daughters. That was it.
Truth be told, I was enjoying the vanilla break for the house, at least with what was going on.
Macklin couldn’t find his focus in his restaurant, so he was experimenting for his fall menu at the house, where he had friends going through the exact same thing.
Greer and Archie were staying in their cabin with Kyla and Dylan, finding some comfort in having all kinds of news sources ready for them in the club area.
Colt, Kit, and I were here from morning till night too.
Same with KC and Lucian with their two. It was nice, having so many loved ones close by, not for kink, but surviving this hopeless hell together.
“Dare I ask about the cons?” I glanced at Noa in the mirror.
He knitted his brows. “The Mini Greer tried to steal the fruit Daddy cut up for me. He wouldn’t take the veggies I tried to get off my dinner plate, but sure, yeah, go on and steal my strawberries and banana and apple?
I don’t freaking think so.” He huffed. “Like, if you won’t eat my broccoli while Daddy’s not watching, I don’t need you in my life. ”
I cracked a grin at that, and I locked eyes with Kit in the rearview. He was fighting his own amusement.
“Smile, baby,” I mouthed.
He unleashed a tentative one, at least. It was a start.
“Do you know the difference between a kid and a sticker?” Noa asked. “The kid isn’t quiet.”
But…both were sticky, got it. I chuckled. “I’d imagine kids are also more expensive than stickers.”
“Another con,” Noa agreed with a nod. “They leak too. They’re little snot fountains—to borrow Uncle Lucian’s term.”
Safe to say, nobody would ever ask the Leroux-Hayles clan to babysit.
KC was half an exception. He was actually very funny around children.
He had patience, he liked to make the little ones laugh, and he had that paternal instinct.
That said, he was also clear on the fact that he’d never been interested in having kids of his own.
Noa had been an exception. A complicated exception, considering how their relationship had evolved.
So, while he didn’t plaster himself to a wall like Lucian if a kiddo waddled by, KC was definitely only the kinky variety of Daddy.
“Do you remember when Colt and I were watching our nieces last year and Lucian stopped by?” I asked Noa.
I’d include Kit in the Babysitter Unit, but let’s face it, he was on the girls’ side in giving us grays. He riled them up and taught them about pranks whenever we were on uncle duty.
“He said, ‘I didn’t even like myself as a toddler. Why would I like children that age today?’” I finished.
Both Noa and Kit snickered, and it felt amazing to hear.
I might use Lucian’s distaste for children more if it brought the boys some relief from the misery.
Greer Finlay
“Hold on, baby—hold on.” I looked closer and scrolled on the laptop.
We had six of them lined up on the bar in the club area, where we could dump articles and browse for news.
Which wasn’t easy when you had a wild toddler bouncing in your arms. My boy was supposed to go down for a nap, not host a rave.
I scanned the news article and narrowed my eyes. The police had picked up on the different ways cartel affiliates were ending up dead in Los Angeles. Simple gunshots to the head and chest were one thing, but it took a professional to break someone’s neck.
I hadn’t mentioned it to anyone other than Colt, but I was 100% sure Reese was racking up victims on the West Coast. In his and River’s hunt to find Shay, they’d stop at nothing.
“Dada!” Dylan picked that moment to smash his pacifier against my mouth and laugh hard.
To be young and free of all worries…
I mustered a smile for him. “You think Daddy should have the pacifier?”
He giggled and nodded.
“All right. You’re not gettin’ it back. It’s mine now.”
“Noooo! Mine, Dada!”
I snorted and let him steal it back.
“Food coming!” I heard Macklin holler from the kitchen.
Christ, he needed to take a breather. And possibly stop making weird food.
He soon appeared in the wide doorway with a tray of…something.
Archie had made it his project to try to get through to Macklin, who had spent the past few days essentially just cooking.
He wouldn’t rest. He wouldn’t listen to Walker—who had resigned himself to letting Macklin work until he passed out.
In short, Walker stayed close. He’d taken time off work and didn’t leave Macklin’s side much.
Today, he’d picked up Ty’s granddaughter in hopes of thawing Macklin out.
Cam, Gael, Santiago, and Penelope looked up from their phones, all seated on some of the couches and cushy chairs we’d dragged closer to the TVs.
“Honey, you’ve been feeding us nonstop,” Pen said patiently. “Nobody’s hungry.”
Macklin gave her a brief stare. “Do you speak for everyone now?”
“Oi.” I jerked my chin at him. “Fuckin’ manners, boy.” I had limits.
“Oi!” Dylan echoed.
Maybe he’d heard something, because Walker came in from the patio, with little Savi in his arms. And he nodded for Macklin to follow him.
“Come out here,” he ordered.
Macklin clenched his jaw but did as told.
I suppressed a sigh and glanced down at my son.
He grinned. “Oi, oi.”
“Oi, oi.” I kissed his forehead. “Let’s go find Daddy A. I think we all need a nap.”
“Nooooo!”
Yeeeees.