Chapter 27 Liam
LIAM
My Honda whines as I push it past ninety, rattling like the whole damn engine is about to shake loose, but it still feels like I’m crawling.
For once in my life, I wish I had one of those flashy cars the other guys drive, which would be fast enough to tear the asphalt off the road and get me to Emma before the next minute destroys her.
My hands won’t stop shaking.
I’ve lost control in a way I never have—not on the ice, not in a fight, not even all the years dealing with my dad’s debt.
This is different.
Emma’s safe for now, but her sister and her son are gone.
Every passing second feels like claws raking through my ribs.
This is my fault.
All of it.
And I don’t know how the hell to make it right.
I hit Nik’s number. He answers on the first ring.
“Nik, it’s bad,” I choke out. “They took Emma’s sister and her son.”
Silence. The deadly kind.
“Where are you now?” Nik demands, voice like steel.
“Heading to Emma’s. She’s alone and freaking out.”
There’s another beat of silence, then a burst of sharp, fast, vicious, commanding in Russian. He’s yelling orders at someone, or multiple someones, and it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
“We are on it,” he says. “I’ll call or text as soon as we have information. Go to your friend’s. Do not leave her side. Do you have a weapon?”
“I… don’t.” I glance around the car as a gun might magically appear in the cup holder.
“Lock the doors. Do not leave the apartment. Put me on speed dial in case someone realizes the mistake and comes back.”
“Got it,” I grit out. “Thank you.”
The call ends.
And suddenly there’s nothing but the groaning of my Honda’s engine struggling under my foot.
The sound is weak.
It pisses me off.
My thoughts race even faster, violent, frantic, and useless.
I’m a hockey player—a good one. But I’m not a soldier. I’m not trained for this shit. I don’t have the tools to fix it.
My jaw clenches so tightly it aches.
My chest feels like it’s going to split open from fury, from fear, from the knowledge that Emma trusted me enough to let me back in, and I still failed to keep her family safe.
I slam my fists into the steering wheel.
The entire car jerks. Pain shoots up my arm, and the dash cracks under the force, splintering right down the middle.
It doesn’t help.
Nothing I can do feels like enough.
I let out a raw, broken, furious scream until my throat burns and my vision blurs.
I want to burn the Browning family off the map. I want to tear their entire operation apart with my bare hands. I want to hurt the people who took them. I want them to feel every ounce of fear Emma felt when she found her apartment empty.
I want blood.
But the truth slams into me just as fast as my fists hit the wheel:
Right now, all I can do is get to Emma.
And pray that Nik gets to them before I completely lose my mind.
By the time I pull up to Emma’s building, I’m vibrating.
My heart’s pounding so hard I’m lightheaded.
My jaw aches from clenching it.
Every instinct in me is screaming to turn the car around, find the Brownings, rip the door off its hinges, and kill every single one of those bastards.
But Emma needs me.
Of course, there’s no fucking parking. I curse blue streak, swing into a lot two blocks away, and sprint back through the wind—down the sidewalk, up the stairs, down the hall.
The door flies open the second I knock.
Emma stands there, shaking so badly she has to hold the wall to stay upright.
Her eyes are wild. Red. Swollen. Haunted.
She told me earlier she wanted to punch me. Honestly, I wish she would. I deserve a hell of a lot more than a punch.
She looks at me like I’m the only solid thing left in a world that’s suddenly tilted sideways.
“Liam—” she breathes, and the sound of my name nearly knocks me flat.
I step inside without waiting for her invite, shut the door behind us, and lock every lock.
Then I pull her into my arms.
She collapses against me instantly, fists twisted in the front of my coat, face buried in my chest.
Her whole body trembles.
I wrap my arms around her and press my cheek to her hair, trying to shield her with every part of me, like I can block out the entire damn world if I just hold tight enough.
“It’s okay,” I whisper, though we both know it’s not. “I’ve got you.”
She sobs into me, raw, shaking, and gutted, which makes me fractured internally. I stroke her back, her hair, the side of her face. Anything to anchor her. Anything to keep her from falling apart.
Her voice cracks. “Liam, they took my baby. They took my sister.”
“I know.” The words scrape out of me. “I know, sweetheart. And I swear to God, I’ll do anything, anything to bring them home.”
Her lip trembles. “What if they hurt them?”
“They won’t,” I say instantly. “Not if they want to live long enough to regret it. Nik’s men are already moving. We’re going to get them back, Emma. I swear it.”
A tear slides down her cheek.
“Please don’t lie to me,” she whispers. “I can’t take any more lies.”
Her knees give out a little, and I catch her, guiding her to the couch.
“I’m not lying,” I say. “I swear on my—”
The words die in my throat.
Because when I look up, a framed photo on her entryway wall catches my eye.
A boy about kindergarten age smiles broadly in a school picture, missing his front teeth.
His hair is a light brown, with hints of blonde in the messy flop-top of a cut.
He wears a spring-green T-shirt, which makes his big, striking green eyes stand out even more.
Green eyes.
Like mine.
My stomach drops straight through the floor. A cold, dizzy rush spins through me, and everything slows down—my breathing, my pulse.
Cherub lips.
Freckles across the nose.
Features I’ve only ever seen in old baby photos of myself.
Emma has never told me about her child’s name. Not his age. And I’ve never asked.
I turn to her, questions surely written all over my face as the pieces come together.
“Emma?” I ask. “Is he…?”
She bites her bottom lip. Her face is puffy from crying. She’s still in her work scrubs as she stares at me. When she answers, it’s so quietly that I almost miss it beneath the roaring in my ears.
“He’s yours.”
My heart stops.
Time stops.
Everything just… stops.
“He?” I ask. “Your son?”
“Our son,” she says. “He’s ours. Yours and mine, and his name is Laddie.”
Laddie.
My grandmother used to call me “Laddie-Boy” when I was a kid. She was loud, stubborn as hell, but she loved me fiercely. She died of cancer when I was in ninth grade, the only adult who ever really gave a damn about me.
I swallow hard, my eyes glued to the photo. “He’s… how old?”
“He’s five,” Emma says softly.
Six years.
It’s been six years since Emma Reyes disappeared from my life.
Six years since we were two kids in love, planning a future we thought we’d get to have. She was making art, and I was off to play college hockey.
And then one morning, she was gone.
No explanation.
No goodbye.
No trace.
I was left to pick up the pieces of a shattered heart.
I nod slowly, eyes glued to the photograph of the little boy with my eyes and Emma’s smile.
There’s no denying it.
Not anymore.
The hair. The freckles. The green eyes.
After taking a deep breath and then letting it out slowly, I say, “I think we have some things to talk about.”
“I agree,” she says.
We sit there surrounded by boxes knocked over and toys scattered on the rug. All of it is a brutal reminder of why I’m here, of who’s missing.
I’m torn between panic and disbelief, the shock of what I just learned buzzing through me.
“If I hadn’t come,” I say, my voice raw. “If I hadn’t seen that picture… would you have ever told me?”
Emma sits on the edge of the couch, straight-backed, arms hugged tight around her middle. “I would have. I was going to, the night we went to the game. But you pushed me away.”
I can’t sit. My body feels too wired, too tight, like my skin doesn’t fit. I pace around the small space, feeling too big, like a bull in a china shop.
“Why did you leave, Emma?” I finally ask.
She lets out a shaky sigh and chews her bottom lip, eyes fixed on her hands like she’s afraid to look at me.
“I found out I was pregnant right after graduation,” she says quietly. “You were packing for college… getting ready for pre-season. You were finally getting your shot, Liam. Everything you’d worked for was right in front of you. And I—”
She swallows hard.
“I wasn’t ready to be a mom. Not even close. And I didn’t want to ruin that for you.”
She goes quiet, her voice hitching. “I made an appointment. I thought I could go through with it, but when I got there, I just panicked.”
“You couldn’t do it,” I say gently.
She shakes her head, eyes shiny, and finally meets my eyes.
“No. I couldn’t. I saw the ultrasound, and everything inside me changed.
But after that… I didn’t know how to tell you.
You’d been through so much already. I didn’t want to drag you into it; I didn’t want you to feel trapped, thwarted, or resentful.
I just wanted you to play hockey, get your degree, and go to the NHL.
I didn’t want to make you feel like you had to choose between your dreams and… me. Us.”
My jaw tightens.
“So you made the choice for both of us,” I say, and the hurt in my voice is impossible to hide.
She flinches a little. “I thought it was for the best—”
“For who?” I press. “Emma, we could have figured something out. We always did.”
“Maybe,” she whispers, eyes dropping to the floor. But something about the way she says it tells me there’s more.
I cross my arms, waiting. “What aren’t you telling me?”
She looks up, “I never even told Talia this. The day after the clinic, I went to your mom’s. I was a mess, and I just… needed to talk to someone. So I told her.”
My eyes narrow. She doesn’t have to tell me more. I can imagine just how that conversation went.
Emma’s breath shudders. “She… She called me a whore, Liam. Said I’d ruin your life. She screamed at me. Told me to go jump in front of a bus. Or better yet, get on a bus and never come back. So I did. I bought a ticket and rode it all the way to California, to Talia.”
I stare at her, stunned. “You listened to my mom?” I ask, and I can hear the disdain dripping from my tone.
“My mom, who was drunk twenty out of twenty-four hours a day? Who had a different boyfriend every other week? Who let those boyfriends beat the shit out of her only son? You let that woman tell you what to do or how to feel?”
Emma wipes the tears streaking down her cheeks.“She said you’d end up hating me for fucking up your career plans. That you’d never forgive me for trapping you.”
“You should have told me, Emma,” I say as I move closer and sit down beside her on the couch. “You should have let me decide what I wanted, how I felt.”
“I know,” she says through her tears.
“Did I ever make you feel like I didn’t love you?” I ask. “Did I ever give you any indication that I wouldn’t have wanted a family with you?”
“Not at eighteen,” she says.
“Fuck that,” I say. “Emma. Seriously. Did I not make it clear that I wanted to make a life with you?”
She groans, a pitiful sound. “It doesn’t matter now, Liam. Not when Laddie and Talia are gone. That’s all that matters right now.”
I just sit there, head in my hands, trying to take it all in. The reason she left. The secrets. All the lost years.
I have a son.
My son is missing, taken by the mafia because my dad was a fuck who got himself into a monumental amount of debt and then stuck me with the clean-up.
I didn’t know my son because my mother is a raving alcoholic who scared off the love of my life.
Jesus Christ. What a fucking mess.
After a long, heavy silence, I finally clear my throat. “I have a friend looking for them. He said he’ll call as soon as he knows anything.”
Emma just nods, wiping tears from her face with the back of her hand. She sniffles, then stands, “I need to go clean up. I’ll be right back.”
She heads for the bathroom and closes the door. I sit there, staring at my hands, thinking about everything we’ve just shared. We have to figure out what we are to each other, and for me, it’s obvious.
When Emma comes out of the bathroom, I stand and meet her in the hall. I take her hands in mine and kiss her forehead, holding her close.
“Emma,” I say quietly, my thumb brushing her knuckles, “I need you to hear this. Really hear it.”
She looks up at me, and my chest aches.
“I would’ve stayed,” I tell her. “If you’d told me back then… if I’d known… I wouldn’t have run. I would’ve been scared, yeah, but I would’ve been happy to raise a son with you. We would’ve figured it out the way we always did.”
Her eyes glisten, and I pull her a little closer.
“I didn’t love you the way kids love each other in high school,” I say. “It wasn’t a crush. It wasn’t puppy love. It was the kind of love that settles in your bones and never goes away.”
I breathe out, my forehead resting gently against hers.
“No one has ever compared to you. Not once. Not for a second. I loved you then. I loved you every day in between. And I love you now.”