“Not Eli. I’m not talking about…”
“Dammit, Ivy…then hurt who?”
“Our son!” Ivy shouted before collapsing to her knees. She tossed her head back and wailed, “Our son, Dace.”
The room began to spin with the truths Ivy had just delivered, and he met her on the floor. The truth Dace had been prodding for – begging for. He finally got it, and it was a blow to everything he thought he knew. His world was upside down, and he wasn’t sure which end was right because he couldn’t wrap his head around the implication. Ivy was a mom. The boy in the picture was her child. She was protecting her son.
“You have a child…” Dace was cut off before he could question her further.
“Cash is our son, Dace.” She whimpered with her head buried in her hands. “Your son.”
“In the picture…?”
“Yes,” she answered. “Our beautiful boy has been taken.”
And that was when Dace’s world really began to fall apart.
CHAPTER 16
“We need to call up everyone available,” Dace said as he entered the lair with Ivy.
The brothers each looked at each other before Wylie asked, “For?”
“A rescue,” Dace finished. “By the way, you’re all uncles.”
“That’s been established…like a few kids ago.” Wylie chuckled. “You okay, Dacey?”
All eyes were trained on Eli and Ivy’s emotional reunion.
“I thought you were dead,” Ivy said into Eli’s chest. “I thought they found you too.”
Eli stroked the back of her head as he held her close. “I’m fine, love. I’ve been right behind you the whole time.”
Dace glared at the sight of Eli hugging Ivy. Their embrace was a little too long for his liking. The sense of loathing he felt for Eli at that moment was far from fair or healthy, especially when he considered that Eli had been helping to raise his child all these years, and Eli didn’t have the balls to mention it.
“We can square up, later, pal,” Eli said, sensing Dace’s disdain for him. “I was only trying to be respectful.”
“Now I’m your pal? Not bloke, mate, friend…?” Dace stepped to Eli. “Let’s make things clear, I’m not any of those things to you, got it?”
Eli dropped his head. “Dace…”
“Thank you for watching over my family, but I have it from here.”
Ivy stood between the men. “This really isn’t the time or place for this. I understand you’re upset with me, Dace, but Eli was only doing the job he was hired to do.” She touched Dace’s chin and turned his focus to her. “Okay? This was me, not Eli. Cash needs both of you, right now.”
“Uh, someone want to fill the rest of us in?” Wylie interrupted. “I think we missed something, and this is starting to feel a lot like a soap opera.”
“I’m a dad,” Dace announced. “And my son – it’s a boy, in case you didn’t put that part together – is missing.”
A unanimous what the hell could be heard throughout the room.
“C’mon, Dace…” Eli started.
“No.” Ivy put her hand on Eli’s chest, stopping him. “This is a lot. I deserved that.”
What was once a look of compassion for Ivy was now one of disappointment and hurt. When he saw the picture of her holding a child, he’d considered it could be hers, and it stung. But after years apart, it wasn’t fair to judge or hold her in contempt for moving on with her life. Hell, she’d already moved on without him the day she ran off. But then to find out the child was actually his and not Eli’s, like he’d assumed? There wasn’t a word for how that felt. It was like a roller coaster that never stopped – the earth being pulled from beneath your feet – and it fucking hurt.
A certain guilt came with that hurt. Shouldn’t one feel joy at the thought of being a parent? A surprise child should be just that, surprising. The kind of surprise that brought joy, but this felt like getting hit in the gut over and over. Especially finding out that child is missing, and you’ve never heard their voice, smelled their hair, or witnessed any of the milestones people lose their shit over. Even his brothers got gah over this stuff, and he always wondered why. And now, he may never get to know that why.
“You’ve seen the picture.” Ivy took the burden off Dace’s shoulders and spoke to the group. “From my phone?”
“Ivy,” Dace interrupted.
She stood next to him and wove her fingers with his in a tight grasp. “His name is Cashel.” She smiled as she said his name, then looked up at Dace, and said, “But we call him Cash. He’s…perfect. He’s our son.”
Dace removed his hand from hers and pulled out a chair for her to sit. “There is more to the story, and Ivy is going to share it with all of us so we can accomplish two things. Get to the bottom of this threat that’s been looming and find my son.”
She took her seat, swallowed hard, and told those gathered the same story she’d told Dace just moments before. “I was coming home from the farmers’ market. It wasn’t all that far. I’d walked through the woods on one of our favorite trails since living there.”
“Where is there?” Wylie asked coldly.
Eli chimed in, “We’d been settled in Moss Bridge, Mississippi, for a few months. Small town, Southern, off the beaten path if you will.”
“I’m familiar with it,” Declan said. “We have a safe house there. I used it when my now wife was under our protection. Quiet, easy to stay anonymous despite its small size, near the interstates to anywhere, but not too close…we have a lot of contacts and supports in the area, even a chapter of the MC.”
“That’s it,” Eli said. “Odd we ended up there if you are so heavily loaded there. It doesn’t make sense why we’d be sent there. Is this a new location for you?”
“Not at all,” Dace said. “We’ve been rooted there for years.”
“It’s like we’d been delivered to your front steps, then.”
“Delivered by who?” Dace asked.
“I would move Ivy and the lad anytime I received orders to do so. A team would be sent ahead to secure the area, and I would serve as their protection on the move and after the team left once we would settle.”
“Who gave you your orders?”
“My boss. Her father,” Eli said.
“That has to be a coincidence,” Ivy said. “He’d never put us in harm’s way intentionally.”
“What makes us harmful?” Dace asked pointedly.
“I didn’t mean it that way. He must not have known.”
“We’ll make a note of that, but let’s get to the rest of this story. What led you here. They need to hear it,” Dace instructed.
“I’d come back the way I’d left. It was a beautiful day, nothing unusual – until I got home. It was quiet. Too quiet. When I’d left, Cash was outside playing wildly, and now there was nothing. Not a sound.” Ivy took a moment to collect her thoughts before continuing.