Page 21 of Hidden Heir

Once I’m certain she’s deeply asleep, I gently scoop her up into my arms and carry her back through to my bedroom, where her daughter is fast asleep in my bed. I don’t know anything about children, but something tells me Brooke would much prefer to wake up next to her kid rather than in a strange room by herself. It takes some careful maneuvering, but I’m able to get her into the bed and tuck the blankets over her. With a final kiss on her forehead, I leave the room.

Rik is hurrying up the stairs as I step into the hallway.

“Find anything?”

He shakes his head and hands me a device. “I’ve cloned her phone for you. The car is hers, and we’re tracking its last known movements through the city. We know she crashed into a telephone pole, but it’s a bit harder to track the further into the city we go.”

I nod as I turn on the phone and Brooke’s home screen flashes up at me. In her photo album, there are countless pictures of floral arrangements and her daughter, but none of the mysterious man she turned up with.

“Do we know who he is yet?”

“Nope,” Rik sighs. “No ID on him but he’s high as a fucking kite. Looks like he’s on some good shit, too. You think they’re both on it?”

“No, Brooke is clean. There were no marks on her, not from needles anyway, and she didn’t seem high. Do you think he’s a cigar smoker?” Closing the device, I slide it into my pocket and look at Rik.

Rik shrugs. “Didn’t smell like one so I don’t think so.”

That doesn’t rule him out as being the source of Brooke’s pain but it does take him off the top of the list. “Alright. I want you outside that room. No one goes in, but if she wants out, let her. But you stay with her, understand? Shadow her if you have to. I want eyes on her at all times.”

Rik nods. “Understood,” he says, then moves past me to stand at the bedroom door.

I head downstairs to my office, pausing only to inform a few guards that we won’t be accepting any more visitors of any kind unless I’ve personally invited them. In my office, I pour myself a Vodka, draining it immediately while mulling over the sudden turn of events. My mystery woman turned up on my doorstep, drenched and injured, and then threw herself into my arms. I reason she was merely seeking to distract me. I happily gave into it because I couldn’t pass up the chance to experience her once more.

She was everything I remembered and then some. But again, why is she here? And after so many years, how did she even find me?

Reclining in my chair, I link her phone to my computer and begin to go through her socials just as my own phone bleeps to life with an incoming call.

“Hello?”

“About time, Boss, I’ve been trying to reach you for over an hour.”

Selina used to be one of the best assassins this family had ever seen. She recently had a change of heart, however, and now she’s one of my most trusted bodyguards. It was a change in paperwork only. Selina’s still her own woman with her own agenda, but she’s always around when I need her, sometimes with scary timing. If I didn’t know any better, I’d suspect she has a clone ofmyphone.

“Sorry, I was busy. What’s up?”

“The Irish,” she sighs. I hear the click of a lighter before the subtle hiss of embers flaring at the end of her cigarette. “Something has them up in arms, something serious.I haven’t seen movement like this since the cartel moved into the city and started acting like kings.”

“The Murphys?”

“Not yet. The big Irish dogs haven’t moved. It’s one of the smaller families that’s kicking up a stink. They’re on the warpath about something but whatever it is, they’re keeping it close to their chest.”

I tap through Brooke’s Instagram, nodding to myself. “Business of smaller rats is rarely our concern,” I murmur. If it was the Murphys, the head of the Irish families, then I’d definitely be concerned, but there is discourse among thesmaller families all the time. It’s par for the course in our world. Still, things have been peaceful for a while so I would be a fool to completely disregard it.

“Keep an eye on it, see what you can find out. Can’t hurt for us to stay informed if the Irish are restless.”

“Will do,” Selina replies. “By the way, apologize to Rik for me, I blew up his phone when I couldn’t get ahold of you.”

“I will. That was because of Brooke, by the way.”

“Brooke?”

“You remember the woman from the bar four years ago?”

“The woman from the— oh! The mysterious best fuck of your life, woman? The only person I’ve ever seen the big bad Russian wolf pine for?”

“Yeah,” I snort. “She’s here.”

“You serious?”

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