Chapter 6
Six
Gage
I had been a fucking idiot.
I knew better than to allow myself to slip around Julie, but I couldn’t help myself.
Last night, when she let me hold her while she cried and then fell asleep in my arms, it changed something.
Something inside of me snapped, and I was no longer just her brother’s (ex) best friend.
I was a man on a mission to protect what was mine, and I felt a ferocity that ran through my blood, knowing I would do anything to keep her and Daisy safe.
The problem was that she wasn’t mine to protect.
She was the one woman I wasn’t supposed to fall for—ever.
Patrick had made that abundantly clear during our teen years when my attraction to Julie reached an all-time high.
But pushing him aside, I knew that it wasn’t right to fall for her right now.
She didn’t need someone stepping in and trying to seduce her—she needed someone who would keep her safe.
Someone who would lay their life on the line to make sure no harm ever came to either of them.
Instead, I decided to let my dick talk this morning, and he was quite the chatty bastard.
There was no doubt that Julie had felt my erection this morning, given how close I had gotten to her.
But trying to stop it was like trying to tell a man not to drink the water when stranded in the desert—it was stupid and didn’t make sense.
Then again, when it came to Julie, nothing made sense at the moment.
I pulled out the stuff I needed for the pancakes I was making for Daisy and tried to focus on cooking instead of thinking about Julie and how good she smelled as she walked through the kitchen with her hair wet from the shower.
“Did you convince Gage to make you pancakes?” she asked Daisy, ruffling her hair as she passed by, smiling at her daughter as she handed her a unicorn stuffed animal.
“He offered,” Daisy replied with a shrug as she squeezed the toy and smiled.
“That is true,” I said with a wink as I added way too many chocolate chips, ignoring the ping from my phone sitting on the counter beside me.
“You’re going to have to learn to say no,” Julie teased, raising her eyebrows and giving me a look that was meant to be scolding but was adorable and playful instead.
“I thought I made myself clear this morning that when it comes to you and Daisy, I will never say no.” I swallowed hard, allowing myself to taste the truth in the words I had spoken.
Julie’s cheeks flushed the slightest shade of pink as she blushed and looked away.
“I would have made breakfast,” she said, changing the subject. “You don’t have to keep cooking for us.”
“Like I said, I don’t mind. I would be making food for myself regardless. Making extra isn’t as big of a deal as you seem to think it is.”
“So you typically make yourself chocolate chip pancakes and twenty slices of bacon for breakfast?” She put her hand on her hip and tilted her head as she studied me with a knowing grin.
“As a matter of fact, I do. I like to enjoy the weekend and sometimes indulge in a fun breakfast, thank you very much.” I made sure to use my most playful tone as I shook my head at Julie, earning a giggle from Daisy.
Fuck, I loved the way that little girl laughed. Almost as much as I loved the smile on her face. She was such a happy child, and it was contagious because there was no way anyone could be unhappy around Daisy.
“You’re so full of shit,” Julie whispered, but loud enough that Daisy heard her.
“That’s a bad word, Mommy,” Daisy said, moving the unicorn on the island as if it were walking around.
Just then, my phone dinged again on the counter beside me. I looked down and frowned, my blood running ice cold when I saw the alert: AirTag Detected.
My head whipped around as I stared at the toy in Daisy’s arms, the panic etched deeply on my face.
“What’s wrong?” Julie asked, looking from me to her daughter, who was still oblivious to the fact that anything was wrong.
“Nothing,” I lied. “Breakfast is ready. Why don’t you take Daisy to the couch and put on a movie while I make her a plate?”
Julie nodded with her brow still furrowed. I didn’t want to scare Daisy and freak out before I could confirm what was happening, so I couldn’t just come out and say it.
“Make sure she leaves the stuffed animal on the island,” I whispered in her ear as I leaned around to grab a plate.
She let out a soft gasp as her eyes darted to the toy.
“Why don’t we go put on a movie?” she asked Daisy, turning the chair to the side and helping her down as she set the toy on the island out of her reach.
“I want to take Uni,” Daisy objected, reaching for the toy.
“We don’t want to risk getting her dirty. You can have her after breakfast, okay?”
Daisy shrugged and followed Julie into the living room, climbing up onto her favorite spot on the couch as I finished putting her breakfast together. Julie grabbed the remote and put a movie on for Daisy while I put her plate on the tray she had been using, while Duke laid protectively beside her.
“I’ll bring you some juice,” Julie said, not noticing that Daisy wasn’t even paying attention anymore as the cartoon dalmations ran across the screen.
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” she asked quietly as we headed the short distance back to the island where the toy was sitting.
“My phone got an alert that there was an AirTag Detected,” I said softly, keeping my voice low. “It didn’t start notifying me until Daisy started moving the unicorn.”
Julie’s eyebrows rose high on her forehead as she stared at me in disbelief.
“Are you kidding me? You’re saying that there is a tracking device in my daughter’s toy?”
“It appears so. Possibly not the toy, but somewhere in the house.”
“Can you locate it?”
“Yeah,” I said with a heavy sigh. “It should let me pull it up in the Find My app, and then we can see where exactly it is.”
Julie nodded as she chewed her lower lip and folded her arms over her chest protectively.
We both glanced at Daisy, making sure she was okay before I pulled out my phone and clicked on the notification.
The Find My app opened, and I pressed the button for it to continue until I was offered the option to play a sound.
I looked up at Julie, took a deep breath, and then pressed it.
Several short, high-pitched chiming noises came from inside the unicorn, leaving both Julie and me stunned as we stared at it in disbelief.
I set my phone down and picked up the unicorn, examining it to see where the AirTag might have been inserted. Along the bottom of the toy, there was a Velcro closure. I pulled it open, noticing the battery box inside the stuffed animal. My brows furrowed in confusion until Julie spoke.
“It lights up,” she explained, nodding to the battery pack. “I turned it off the other night when we left so it wouldn’t light up in the car while she was supposed to be sleeping.”
I nodded and pushed it to the side, and then moved my fingers around, trying to locate the AirTag.
It was a tight fit, so there wasn’t much room for something to stay hidden, but we both knew it was in there somewhere.
I pulled on the battery pack, trying to see if something could be hidden beneath it, but it was stuck in there.
Just as I was about to give up, I ran my finger along the top by the Velcro and stopped when I felt it. I grinned with satisfaction as I pulled the AirTag out and held it in the air.
“That fucking—” Julie started and then stopped when Daisy turned and asked for some juice.
She shook her head and then hurried off to get Daisy her drink while I went through the prompts on my phone to disable it before opening it and removing the battery.
When she came back, her skin was pale, and I could see how little she had been sleeping lately.
I hadn’t noticed the exhaustion yesterday, but today it was more evident with the worry marring her features.
“How long do you think it’s been in there?” she asked, nodding to the AirTag as she pulled out a chair and sat beside me.
“It’s hard to say. My phone picked it up as soon as you brought the unicorn in here, but I ignored the first alert.”
“I wonder why my phone didn’t get any alerts?”
I shrugged, not sure how to answer that.
“Do you have your settings turned on?”
“Yeah. I made sure they were turned on after Mike’s accident,” she said softly, lowering her head as the memory washed over her. “I promised my parents that I would make sure they could always find me, just in case they needed to.”
“Have you checked your settings lately?” I asked, trying to ignore the feeling in my gut.
She shook her head and pulled her phone out of her pocket before quickly swiping through different screens. She pressed her lips together and exhaled heavily through her nose.
“My location services are turned off, and the Find My feature is off as well.”
“Maybe there was a system update that—”
“Stop. We both know what really happened, so there’s no use in trying to make light of it. That asshole disabled them on my phone so I wouldn’t know that he put a tracking device in the stuffed animal he gave my daughter.”
The anger in her voice only fueled the fire that was already coursing through my veins.
“Wait—what? He gave that to Daisy?”
She nodded and pushed another heavy breath out through her pursed lips. I knew she was struggling to keep it together so she didn’t upset Daisy, but this was too much.
“It was her first day of kindergarten gift he gave to her,” she said with a grim smile. “Right before he started letting himself into my apartment, even when I wasn’t there.”
I inhaled deeply and leaned back against the chair as I stared at the AirTag, realizing this was a whole lot worse than it seemed when she first showed up here yesterday. If he had been tracking her this entire time, then that meant he knew exactly where she was.