Page 65 of Knight's Journey

And Bridget had heard enough.

Storming into the living room, she stood toe to toe with Ivy Williams, glaring straight into the older woman’s eyes.

“Your son is dead. He is not coming back. You cannot replace him with Mathias. Mathias may resemble his father and have some of the same interests, but he is not his dad. He is his own person, and you would do well to remember that.”

“How dare you!” Ivy spoke with such force, her spittle landed on Bridget’s cheek.

Bridget swiped it away, her anger growing. “I swear if you had anything to do with those precious kids being kidnapped and traumatized, I will move heaven and earth to see you prosecuted and buried under the jail. As far as me being a bad influence, how terrible of a person do you have to be to spend your time and money worrying about my affairs? I’ve done my best when it comes to Mathias and Marlowe, and I would lay my life down for those two kids. Can you say the same?

“I love them more than two petty people like you could ever understand. We could have been raising them together, but no, you could only think about yourselves and your own pain. We’re hurting too. We lost Dean and Jennifer too! But we leaned on each other. We didn’t turn on each other!

“I’m begging you. If you have any idea where Marlowe, Mathias and Maggie are, tell us. Don’t waste another minute of putting their lives in danger to get your way. You’ll end up losing more than custody of the kids. I can promise you that.”

“You don’t deserve them!” Ivy screamed, her composure slipping. “We can give them anything. They will never want for a single thing with us. You leave them alone to pursue a career which will take you from them more often than you can be there for them. You involve yourself with these people who have questionable backgrounds. Don’t you realize your involvement with them is what led to my grandchildren being taken? It’s your fault they’ve been traumatized. You did this to them, you shameless, promiscuous bitch!”

Bridget reared back and swung her arm with all her might. Her palm almost connected to Ivy’s cheek when Zane’s hand grasped her wrist and pulled her back. Before she could protest, he dragged her back into the kitchen and forced her to sit. He kneeled in front of her.

“Damn. I knew you were passionate, baby, but I never thought you’d come out swinging. Remind me never to cross you.”

Bridget’s body shook with barely contained rage. She was on the verge of tears as she met Zane’s concerned gaze. “I hate them. I truly hate them with everything that is within me. They treated my sister like she was nothing. Then they came after me, and now they’ve done this to my kids and your mother. She deserves more than a slap to the face. You should have let me hit her.”

“I would have if they weren’t looking for an excuse to arrest you. Don’t worry. If anyone can get them to admit what they’ve done, it’ll be Jay. We’re the best at what we do, baby. You can trust us.”

“You guys aren’t just security guards, are you? The way you’re handling this, the secretive cases you work, the fact you had to go undercover for something which got you stabbed. Are they right? Is the fact I’m involved with you and your friends the reason my kids were kidnapped?”

She couldn’t have taken him more by surprise if she’d punched him in the gut. He knew he’d have to have this conversation with her if they continued to see each other — even if all they did was sleep with each other. He did not expect to have this conversation in the middle of the search for her niece and nephew and his mother. He was acutely aware of the people who surrounded them, trying to appear inconspicuous but probably hearing every word they said.

Zane stood and grabbed her arm to help her to her feet. “Come with me. Let’s talk outside. Sam, you call us when Jay gets a lead?”

“Copy that.”

Zane led Bridget out to the patio, his mind instantly recalling their conversation from two nights ago. The conversation which led them to her room, to have sex on the floor and in the bed and in the shower. The night was one of the best he’d spent in a long time, and he was about to implode his relationship with her with the truth that was his life. Sometimes his life sucked.

“Please don’t lie to me, Zane. I can’t take it. Not now. I’ve trusted you with all of my drama and baggage. Was my trust misplaced?”

“No, but I’m afraid you’ll think so.”

“Just tell me. I promise my imagination will make it much worse if you don’t.”

“Almost six years ago now, I was finishing my last tour in the Army. I don’t regret a single day of serving my country, but I was ready for something new. I wanted to come back home, to reconnect with my family. Tristin made me a job offer which was what I was hoping for. KSI was getting off the ground, but he had a vision he was determined to make work.

“There are two sides to KSI. We do have private investigators and bodyguards, as you call them. We handle typical PI and private security cases. That is all true. But the other side to the company is where I work. We have two teams called Alpha and Delta. I serve with the Alpha Team, along with Panther, BB, Wings and Jay. We’re considered a covert ops team. We take operations and cases which are high-risk and highly confidential. The PI side of the company allows us to fly under the radar. We partner with law enforcement and government agencies for a lot of our cases. They are the cases traditional agencies can’t close for a lot of reasons, so they contact us. We’ve been highly successful because we can operate on that fine line between legal and illegal.”

“So you’re like the A Team. Like a commando group of veterans or something?”

He bit back a smile at her knowledge of the ‘80s action-adventure show that as entertaining as it was unrealistic. He and Zaida used to watch reruns and dream of forming their own version of the vigilante team who worked outside the law.

“We’re not criminals and have never been accused of a crime. Ever. What we do is completely legal, but we keep it quiet for our own safety and the safety of the people in our lives. There aren’t a lot of people who even know what we do.”

“So what Oran and Ivy said is true, isn’t it? They aren’t behind the kidnapping, are they? Someone came after your mother to get to you, and my kids got in the way. My kids are in danger because of you and some secret case. That’s it, isn’t it? That’s what happened.”

“I don’t know. Honestly. I haven’t figured this out yet, but yes, it’s a possibility. But, Bridget, you have to know I would never—”

He reached for her as he spoke, but she pulled away and put distance between them.

“I can’t believe this,” she said, almost to herself though he heard every word. “It is my fault. I trusted you and your friends. I believed you when you said we were part of the family. I believed you when you said you would keep me and my kids safe. If I hadn’t trusted you, if I hadn’t let you into my life, none of this would have happened.”

“Stop it! None of this is your fault. You are not to blame for any of this.”

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