Page 4 of Queen's Ransom

“Apparently,” Celia said, shooting judging glares at both her brother and son, “the lack of manners is contagious.”

“Yeah!” Marco said. “It’s Uncle Dante’s fault.”

“Judgment free zone,” Hawes said with a bemused smirk.

Celia chuckled. “Let’s see how you feel by Sunday.”

“He’s stuck with us now.” Gloria rose on her toes and kissed her future son-in-law’s cheek. “Thank you for having us.” She’d been a fan of Hawes since their first meeting. The Madigan patriarch turned on the charm any time she was around, belying the lingering chill about him Celia could never quite put her finger on. Even if Hawes were outwardly chilly to them, Celia didn’t think Gloria would care. Hawes had given Chris a reason to come home and stay home; that’s all that mattered to Gloria. And to Celia. Their family whole again after ten long years—and it was expanding.

“We’re happy to have you,” Hawes said. “Go eat.” He gestured at the bags. “We’ll get all this sorted after.”

Gloria and Mia followed Marco into the dining room, and Celia was glad the ruse had worked. Her family was safe and on the way to being satisfied, at least where their bellies were concerned.

“Is Brax with you?”

She turned to find the biggest Madigan had emerged from the living room with the tiniest one—his daughter, Lily—in his inked right arm. The dichotomy between Holt and Hawes always gave Celia a second’s pause. While Hawes shared many physical traits with Helena—cool blue eyes, pale skin, lighter hair, and sharp features—his fraternal twin was all bulk and muscle, freckled skin, tattoos, warm brown eyes, and a mess of wavy hair that was closer to auburn than blond, especially in the winter. Ditto his full beard. And it wasn’t only the physical differences between the brothers. There was no sense of cold about Holt Madigan. For all his bulk, he reminded Celia of the flannel-dressed stuffed bear Mia had once created at a Build-A-Bear party.

Those usual differences, however, were not what made her almost gasp. With pronounced bags under his bloodshot eyes, his skin an unhealthy pale, and his Raptors tee and jeans days old and wrinkled, Holt looked more like one of those sad teddy bears from movies or internet memes than he did the cheery one Mia had brought home.

“He went back to the station,” Chris answered.

Holt’s misery visibly worsened, then plummeted further as Lily spit out her pacifier and demanded “Ba-Ba!”

Celia’s first instinct was to glance around for a blanket or bottle, but then the pain that ghosted across Holt’s face, together with the earlier mention of Chief Kane, made it clear who both father and daughter were missing.

Before any of them breached the awkward abyss, Mia rejoined them, oblivious to the tension. “There’s my birthday twin.” She ruffled Lily’s auburn curls. “I’ve missed you.”

“Sorry about that,” Holt mumbled. “We’ve been at—” He caught himself, like he wasn’t supposed to say something, then corrected. “Out at the coast. Project there.”

“Can I hold her?”

“Mia,” Celia lightly chided. Her daughter loved spending time with Lily, and Celia loved that for her, but she also sensed the toddler was one of the few things holding her father together right then.

Holt, though, smiled, his inner warmth cracking through the outer misery. “She’d like that.” He shifted Lily into Mia’s arms, and Mia cradled her close as she wandered back to the dining room. At a loss for what to do with his hands, Holt raked one through his hair and skirted the other over his beard, making a bigger mess of both. Only Helena appearing from the living room with his tablet seemed to give him purpose again. “Footage downloaded?” he asked.

She nodded, handed him the tablet, and cut a glance through all of them in the foyer. “We need to talk.”

The happy family veneer dissolved and the real reason they were there zoomed again to the forefront of Celia’s mind.

“Go on,” Gloria said from the end of the dining table. She knelt, a small piece of cheese in each hand, to lure the cats circling Helena’s ankles into the dining room. “Come here, girls.” Once Daisy and Tulip were in her thrall, enticed by their favorite food, Gloria stood and wiped her hands on her jeans. “I’ll hold the fort here.” She knew something was up, but she wouldn’t pry. She’d had to learn that lesson with an ATF agent for a son.

Celia had had to learn the same lesson, which was another reason why tonight was so head spinning. She was on the inside for a change, and she didn’t like it one bit. She and the family business had been directly threatened. Her mom and her kids could be next. She eyed the mansion’s street-facing windows. “Are they safe down here?”

“Yes,” Holt said, a certainty in his voice that had been lacking a minute ago. He tapped the tablet screen a few quick times, then handed it to Celia. Displayed onscreen were a dozen different views of the house—interior and exterior—including the street out front and the corners at either end of the block. “We’ll know if any danger is coming.”

She handed the tablet back. “Thank you.”

“We can talk in there”—Helena jutted a thumb at the living room—“or upstairs.”

“Upstairs,” Celia said with a glance toward the dining room. “I don’t want to chance them overhearing.” While she was okay knowing certain aspects of the Madigans’ business, she wasn’t okay involving the rest of her family. Instinct—and Chris’s life the past six months—cautioned against it. “If that’s okay with you all?”

Chris and the gathered Madigans nodded.

Helena smirked. “Your chance to peek behind the curtain.”

Celia didn’t mention that The Wizard of Oz was one of her least favorite movies of all time. Instead, she popped into the dining room, kissed the tops of her kids’ heads and her mother’s cheek, then followed the others upstairs, steeling herself for whatever she was about to see or hear. As with Chris’s job before, and with Helena’s and the Madigans’ now, she tended to test the limits of how much she could or should know. She’d pushed too hard in the past, pushed her brother too far. She didn’t want to risk that distance again, didn’t want to put any more strain on their reunited and growing family, but she also had to trust the Madigans and Chris to decide how much she needed to know.

No amount of trust or mental coaching, however, could have prepared her for what she saw when she crested the stairs into the bonus room at the top of the Madigan family home. Helena had often referred to the room as “the lair,” but Celia had written that off as hyperbole or a teasing joke. Setting foot in the room for the first time, Celia quickly decided lair was a massive understatement. One half of the space was what you’d expect of a bonus room often inhabited by a toddler. A crib and mobile were tucked in the window alcove, a rocking chair sat where a desk chair should in the corner of an L-shaped desk, and toys were scattered on the floor around a seating area comprised of a plush couch and two high-backed chairs. And then there was the other half of the room. The entire right wall looked like one of those massive computer setups in a blockbuster action movie. An industrial desk ran the length of the wall, keyboards resting on its ledge. Beneath it were multiple computer units, and above it, almost to the ceiling, stretched a wall of monitors and speakers.

---