Page 11 of Dragon Stepbrother's Secret Baby

He murdered my father in cold blood and I was the one who found him torn to pieces in the wreckage of Riley’s mother’s house. I was the one who held him in my arms and listened to him choke out his last words while he died.

He told me to take care of our family and that’s what I was doing by hunting the man who killed my father. No one ever would or could talk me out of it.

I left the room, got in my car, and took off driving across the countryside. I needed to take care of something even more important. I had a son. I needed to make sure I gave him the life he deserved.

My whole life looked different now. I was a father. I couldn’t let Riley take Connor away from me, but I felt differently about her now, too.

I needed to treat her gently. I needed to make allowances for her feelings. I couldn’t just storm into her life and start laying down the law, much as I’d like to.

My head cleared after I left the mountain. I went about my conversation with Riley all wrong. I didn’t see it before, but I realized it now. I should have approached it more cautiously and treated her gently then, but I was too shocked to think straight.

She was right about one thing. I hadn’t been there for her for five years. She went through her whole pregnancy, giving birth, and raising Connor alone. That was my fault. I should have been there and I wasn’t.

I had my own reasons not to be, but that didn’t make it easier for her. I was the one who left.

One thing she said kept haunting me.You abandoned me! You betrayed me! You broke my heart when you left. You disappeared without a trace and you didn’t say goodbye to anyone. I searched for you for three years, but you just vanished off the face of the Earth. I never stopped wishing you would come back….

She searched for me. I was the one who made it impossible for her to find me. She never took Connor away from me. I was the one who did that.

I couldn’t just storm into her life and take Connor. That wouldn’t be the right thing to do for him or for her. I needed to ease back into it. She needed to be around while I got to know him.

More than anything else, I needed to make things right with her. I needed to let her know that I would never hurt her again, even though I was the one who inflicted the greatest hurt of her life on her.

Just thinking that stabbed me in the heart. I loved her more than anything. I loved her to the ends of the Earth. The thought of someone hurting her made me want to tear someone limb from limb, but I was the one who did that. I had to make it up to her, even if it meant she would never take me back.

I parked in front of her apartment building, but one glance up at the front window told me something was very wrong. The apartment door hung off its hinges and the curtain rod angled downward across the shattered front window. Riley would never leave her apartment like that.

I sprang out of the car and dashed up the stairs three at a time. My stomach dropped when I walked into a scene of chaos unlike anything I’d ever seen. Bullet holes pocked the walls, tore up the couch, and devastated the kitchen counter.

Bloodstains darkened the carpet and the kitchen floor. I squatted down in front of the fridge, touched my fingertips to the bloody smears on the linoleum, and raised my fingers to my nose.

Rage consumed me when I smelled the Danes’ scent. They were the ones who attacked this apartment. They went after Riley and they would only do that for one reason. They were after my son.

I stalked down the hall following the trail of destruction. Riley tracked the gunmen’s blood to Connor’s room. Bullet holes tore up the doorway where the gunmen hid from her assault, but that only raised more questions. How did she know? How did she know they would strike? How did she know to plant weapons to defend herself and her son against these bastards?

The bedroom window stood open with the curtains waving in the breeze. Riley and Connor escaped through there, so where did they go?

I peered through the window. Skidding tire marks fishtailed through the parking lot where she drove away. She was still out there somewhere. She was on the run again. Damn it.

What a jackass I was to blame her for running from city to city and changing her identity. I really must be a selfish prick if I thought she did that to keep Connor away from me.

She said she searched for me. She wanted me in Connor’s life, which meant she wanted me inherlife. She still loved me. I knew she does.

So the Danes have been after her all this time. No wonder she was so prepared.

A surge of pride and gratitude overwhelmed me. She’d been fighting all this time to keep my son alive for me. I loved her more than ever for that, but that didn’t get the job done. Now I needed to find her—both of them.

I stormed out of the apartment. All thought of getting revenge for my father’s murder flew right out of my head. I had to find my son and make sure he was safe. He meant everything now.

I reached the bottom of the stairs and went around to the drainpipe leading downward from the window. Riley’s footprints ran away from this spot toward the parking lot. None of the gunmen’s footprints showed up out here. That confirmed it. She got away and took Connor with her.

I turned away to return to my car. My mind wouldn’t stop reeling with all this new information. I went through everything I needed to do when I got back to the Heller stronghold.

I got halfway across the grass when, out of nowhere, a massive black shadow blocked the sun. Before I could move, a gigantic blue dragon dropped out of the sky right on top of me. I barely got a look at it before it slammed me down on the ground and pinned me under its razor-sharp claw.

I glared up at the thing spreading its wings over me. It arched its long neck to peer down at me with flinty black eyes. Its broad scaly wings flexed to beat the air. Spikes ran down its back to the long, deadly tail cracking back and forth.

I blinked once as the truth sank in. I didn’t have to go looking for Cason Dane. He found me all by himself. He really was trying to kill me—just as much as I was trying to kill him.

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