Page 41 of Broken Promises
“She knows what she saw,” I replied, raising my voice slightly.
I wasn’t going to have anyone accuse Hannah of lying or being mistaken about something. She pushed herself every day to remember her time with her mother, and any little detail she remembered, she’d tell me so I could put the piece into the puzzle.
“I’m not saying she doesn’t, but what we need to do is connect Martina to Hannah’s mother, to see if there was a record of a birth around that time and try to determine where the baby went,” Devlin reasoned like it was an easy task, “and if that baby was Douche, who was mysteriously absent from the ceremony.”
“That’s all?” James asked, shaking his head. “That’s a lot of possibilities and maybes for us to go off on a tangent.”
“I agree with Devlin that we should at least look into the possibility,” I returned, and James looked at me with wide eyes as if I was crazy.
I never agreed with Devlin, even if I thought he was right. It was a matter of principle and my desire to be a thorn in hisside. But the time for pettiness was over. Somewhere out there, someone thought it was okay to take innocent women and hurt them in their climb for power.
“I’ll get one of my men to start digging while we keep working on our tasks,” Devlin remarked with a shit-eating grin on his face. “Let’s plan on not speaking tomorrow and we’ll meet again on Wednesday. With Lucian and Rylee having the babies and Connor still feeling under the weather, I think we all need a day to recoup.”
“Agreed. I’m around if anyone finds anything,” Skid offered before James disconnected his call.
“Tell Hannah I’ll be returning the money to her this week. We’re enhancing the envelopes to see the faded postmarks, and all the bills have been fingerprinted and the serial numbers recorded, so I want to get it back to her,” James said, then he used two fingers in a salute before his screen went dark.
Devlin glanced to his side as James made some noise, and a moment later, the sound of a door closing came through my speakers. Devlin turned back to the screen and smiled at me.
“How’s Hannah been doing? Is she ready to become part of Callahan Cyber Security.”
Exhaling deeply, I answered, “She’s tired from finishing up the projects at work, and they gave her a trainee starting today. I think she’s excited to start something new, but she’s running herself thin.”
“I’ll make sure she gets a few days off before she starts with us.” He paused and asked, “Are you still coming up in a few weeks? Stella will only be satisfied with video calls for so long.”
“We’re planning on coming up with Regan the week after next,” I replied. He glanced down before looking back at me. “What’s going on?”
“I . . . I want to make sure you’ll bring her around us. I know her relation to us wasn’t what any of us expected, but since we’vegotten a chance to know her, we want to be part of her life.” His pause went on longer than I was expecting before he requested, “Will you make sure to keep her part of ours?’
“I have no control over Hannah, Devlin, but I would never do anything to keep the family apart. I know I’m an asshole, but we’re all related backward, foreword, and sideways, it seems. And the last thing I want to do is shrink Hannah’s world by excluding people from it.”
“I know we’ve bumped heads a few times over the years, but I wanted to tell you that I know you to be a good man, and I believe Hannah and you were meant to be. Just like my lamb and me.”
That was the greatest compliment I could ever hope to receive from Devlin. Elise is his world, and DJ and Connor are wonderful additions. Comparing Hannah and me to him and Elise showed I truly had his blessing with his sister.
Not that I needed it. No one—not Devlin, Lucian, or the devil himself—would be able to keep me away from Hannah. And anyone who tried would be added to my hunting list.
Chapter 18
Hannah
All day long, I’d been eager to finish work. It wasn’t the trainee, who seemed to have little-to-no understanding of what his new job entailed, that made it drag on. It was the fact that Rhys and I had a dinner date tonight, and when we got back to my place, I was finally going to push him out of this sexless rut we were in.
I appreciated him giving me time and space to figure out what I wanted but wants were out the window. I needed him with a burning passion unlike anything I’d ever experienced. We’d kissed, groped over clothes, and the other night, he slipped his hand down my sleep pants and brought me to orgasm within a minute. I thought that would lead to us finally having sex but when he kissed me good night, stood from the edge of the bed, adjusted his hard length, and walked out of the room, I knew I needed to be more aggressive. His chivalry was refreshing, but it was time to move past the petting phase of our relationship and into the hot and sweaty stage.
Samuel and I sat at the picnic table during lunch and chatted about our weekend, and I realized he was the only person I would miss when I left at the end of the week.
“So, you stayed over at his house this weekend?” Samuel asked before taking a sip of iced coffee. “Did you finally get some?”
I shook my head as I finished chewing my bite. “We’re not rushing anything, so it’ll happen when it’s going to happen.”
“Girl, you’ve got to take charge with a man like that. Show him what you want and let his natural instincts take over. Then you’ll get all you can possibly want.”
It was nice to have someone to gossip with. Women my age were more interested in climbing the ladder, getting married and starting a family, or the wild ones wanted to continue living the party lifestyle. I wasn’t any of those, so besides the few acquaintances I had back home, I didn’t have many friends. Regan was a friend, but I couldn’t talk to her about my sex life with her brother.
“Explain natural instincts to me, please,” I requested as I finished my lunch and placed my trash in the takeout bag.
“A man like Rhys wants to control his woman and give her everything. So, if you challenge that power structure by being the aggressor, it’s going to flip his switch and he won’t be able to take his hands off you.” He finished the last of his iced coffee and wiggled his eyebrows before adding, “Trust me.”
