Page 80 of Reaper Released

He frowns. “That’ll never happen!” He pulls me down so I’m straddling him.

“Do you wanna talk about it?”

He nods. “Where the fuck do we start?”

“So if I tell you what I know, you can fill in what you know, and if we don’t have the full picture, my pas will. Well, I suppose our pas will.”

I shrug, and he laughs. It's a start. “Okay, so my dad, Steven and JJ were in the SAS in their twenties. They were sent on a joint Ops mission with a team of American Navy SEALs. Sebastian, your dad, Cade, and Bernie were among them. They became best friends, thick as thieves, you might say. Anyway, you came along, and then a few years later, my mum got pregnant with Bas and me. Well, his name was actually Sebastian, after your dad!”

“Your brother was named after my dad? Why?”

“When my mum and dad decided they wanted a family, he wanted to leave the SAS, so he talked the others into retiring and setting up the business together, hoping to build the Adventure Centre the guys had been talking about for years. Apparently, they had all been putting money away for it, including your dad.

“They were all going to move to the UK. You were supposed to come live with us all. The other guys left the Navy SEALs, but your dad wanted to do one last mission to gather some more money, so the guys headed to the UK to get everything ready until your dad brought you and your mum with him when he returned.

“The guys were ready to open the centre, and my mum was only just pregnant with me, and Ma had just found out she was pregnant with Bran. Your mum phoned in a panic, saying your dad had come home early, medically discharged, but it didn’t make sense, and he wasn’t himself. He was erratic and confused. They told her to take you to a hotel, and they were coming to get you. Bernie, Cade, Steven, John, and my dad, Daniel.

“Wait, Daniel…? You never said your dad’s name was Daniel!”

“Yep, you were named after him and Cade.”

“This is a total mindfuck!”

“I know. Bear with me, though, okay?”

He nods, but his eyes are glazing over, and he looks pale, hardly surprising.

“They all jumped on a flight, but it was nearly twenty-four hours later when they arrived. When they got to the hotel, your mum never checked in, so they went to your house. It was already a crime scene. They tried to speak to the police, but they wouldn’t tell them anything. They said they were family, and they were here to get you. They were taken down to the station where they were held for questioning, and by the time they got out, you were gone.

“They were told your stepmother had claimed you. They didn’t know anything about another woman or even that she was pregnant until they started digging later. They stayed there for ages looking for you. They found a judge who had signed off on changing your name and signing you over to… I'm assuming… Demi’s mum?

“She must have been pregnant with Demi at the time. Apparently, when Sebastian came back to the house, he found her talking to your mum, and he lost it, had some psychotic break, and it all turned to shit. I’m so sorry, baby!”

“So… My dad wasn’t a bad guy. He was ill or something?”

“Yeah, they think it was PTSD, but the guys couldn’t find out totally as his medical discharge was for an injury to his back, but they think he possibly had a severe head injury too, maybe? By the time they tracked the judge down, he had said you were better off away from their sort, and they had put you all into a type of witness protection thing.

“They changed all your names and set you up elsewhere so you could have a fresh start. They’ve been looking for you for years. Every year, one of them comes back here with everything they have found, and they go to different private investigation agencies and military friends and normally spend a couple of months trying to find a new lead on anything.

“That job Pa Bernie wants Dice and me for, the judge who signed off on changing your name, has contacted Pas security firm asking for security for an event. Pa wants me to go so I can gain access to his laptop, and Dice is creating this gizmo that will allow us to copy it and then let us connect to his servers, hoping we can download the name you had been given to try and track you. All this time, you were right under my nose!”

He takes a few deep breaths. “Well, shit. I don’t know where to begin to process that mindfuck. Guess we’ve been meant to be our whole lives, huh?”

I smile down at him. “I’m so glad I found you, Daniel-Cade Miller, Colby Steel, whatever your name is… you’re mine now! Always and forever!”

He kisses me like a drowning man, and we stay like that for the longest time, basking in the moonlight, held in each other's arms, till someone clears their throat behind us. We turn to face Pa Bernie and Pa Cade.

“You good, son?” Bernie asks. Steel squeezes me a little tighter.

“I think I will be.”

“You wanna talk about it?” Pa Cade asks.

“Nah, I’m gonna need some time to process, then I think we should all talk together, but not today, not now, it’s too… much, ya know?”

“I know, son. We’re sorry we couldn’t find you sooner. We tried; we really have all these years.”

I climb off Steel, and he stands facing the guys. “Come on. I need a fucking drink!”

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