As she and Bliss cleaned, Natches and Chaya outlined the weaknesses and strengths in security around the property, as well as the security training of Harley Matthews and Natches’s adopted son, Declan, until the kitchen was finished and Chaya sent her daughter to the living room.
“Dawg, Rowdy, Graham, and Dawg’s brothers-in-law will be here later this evening,” Natches informed them as Angel poured herself a fresh cup of coffee before carrying the pot to the table to refill the other cups. “They’ve been working on the search for the men that hit the house. They haven’t located them yet, but what they did manage to find was a black gear bag hidden behind some shrubbery at the back of the house.” Natches shot his daughter a worried look where she sat in the living room in front of the television. “The only information we found in it was a picture of Bliss and Angel. There was a red X drawn on Angel’s forehead with the message on the back that Angel would have to be dealt with.” He shook his head as he gripped his wife’s hand. “Whatever’s going on, whatever they want, you’re the one they consider a threat,” he told Angel quietly. “Do you have any idea what it could be?”
“There’s no way anyone could know who I am,” she assured him. “And I rather doubt Duke told anyone.” She shot Duke a narrow-eyed look.
“Not me,” he snorted. “It was all I could do in the course of five years to prove it myself.”
“How long have you known for certain?” Chaya asked, her voice carefully modulated, reflecting very little emotion.
“Now is the wrong time to worry about that,” Angel suggested.
“Like hell,” Chaya hissed, her brown eyes narrowing back at her as her expression tightened angrily. “He could have told us long before now, couldn’t he? How many additional years did I lose with you?”
No one could say her mother didn’t have sheer nerve.
“None, because I could have told you long before your dutiful husband sent him nosing into my life,” Angel pointed out, then widened her eyes in false surprise. “Oh wait, I did try to tell you. You didn’t believe me.”
Chaya’s nostrils flared, her lips parting.
“Enough.” Duke and Natches seemed to speak at the same time.
Natches drew in a heavy, patience-gathering breath as he shot his wife a silencing look.
“I suspected for several years, Chaya,” Duke answered her as Angel rolled her eyes in disgust. “Proof was another matter. I didn’t have much evidence. Nothing concrete that I would have brought to you and Natches until the past year, and I had to verify it first. And I still had no idea why no one knew about Jo-Ellen’s child.”
“The birth took place in Canada,” Natches said, still keeping his eye on Bliss. “Jo lived and worked in Canada, and they’d sort of lost touch.”
“How?” Angel couldn’t stop the question. “How do you lose touch with your sister? One you were raised with? I’ve known about Bliss since I was fifteen years old and I’ve been checking on her and making certain she was safe since I learned she existed.”
She couldn’t understand that, couldn’t make herself accept it. Chaya and Jo-Ellen’s parents had died years before Chaya had married. They had only had each other.
Chaya pushed her fingers through her hair, a momentary flash of grief shadowing her expression before she seemed to push it aside. When her eyes met Angel’s, there was regret there, sadness.
“I was taken into Army Intelligence for training the first week I joined ROTC at sixteen, because of an aptitude I showed in questioning others.” Chaya’s voice seemed to shake. “Jo was four years older, already in college. . . .” She looked away for a moment then shook her head. “We were just never close. You and Bliss are closer now than Jo and I ever were.”
And that still wasn’t something she understood. She was eight years older than Bliss, but she could never betray the trust her sister was slowly giving her.
“I hadn’t seen Jo for years when I invited her to my wedding,” she continued. “She returned immediately afterward to Canada, where she was working. According to what Timothy learned, the affair with your father began not long after our honeymoon. I didn’t see her often, but I wanted to be a part of her life.” There was so much sincerity in her voice, her eyes. “We talked on the phone every few weeks. She knew everything about Beth, but I had no idea about her child.”
“According to what I found, the police report of the murder scene mentioned toys and child’s clothing, but all this time everyone assumed they were Beth’s,” Duke interjected.
“I thought she had bought Beth . . . I mean, Angel . . . additional clothes and toys to make her feel less insecure. . . . You were scared. . . .”
Scared? It hadn’t been just fear that had her sobbing for her mother.
“I hated her,” Angel snapped in reply. “Until the moment I met Jenny, all I did was cry. And Aunt Jo hated me just as much.” She inhaled roughly, her hand clenching on the cooling cup of coffee in front of her. “I don’t want to discuss this. We can discuss here and now and Bliss’s protection, the weather, recipes or soap operas, or why you should never be allowed around a stove. I don’t give a damn. But the past is off limits.”
Chaya rolled her eyes as her lips compressed in anger at the reference to the stove.
“And if the past is the reason why Bliss is in danger?” Natches asked, his eyes burning a dark emerald green. “What then?”
“I’ll do whatever I have to,” she answered him coldly. “I’m proving that now, aren’t I? I’m here.”
What more did they want? She could be out in the field searching for the men intent on hurting her sister. Instead she was here,
“For Bliss.” Chaya stared back at her, anger swirling in her eyes as though Angel should feel something more at this late date when Chaya obviously hadn’t.
“Just for Bliss,” Angel lied. And she knew it was a lie. “Now are we going to discuss her protection? If not, you’ll have to excuse me, I have things to do.”
She glared back at Chaya, so torn, so angry and filled with resentment, she could barely hold it in. And at the same time, all she wanted to do was ask why.
Why didn’t her mother come get her and Jenny that day?
Why did she have to let her die?
• • •
There were no answers to her questions, but Natches did seem to have a plan of sorts when it came to protecting Bliss.
It was simple enough. They’d keep Bliss in the house, hidden as much as possible while the Mackays and the two SEALs, Seth and Saul August, protected the house and searched for the would-be abductors.
A search that had so far proved fruitless, she knew. Other than a picture of her with a red X across her face, they had nothing. The fact that the pack had been left behind was telling. Someone was trying to warn them of something, though she wasn’t certain what, or why.
Angel made no objections to the plan until they made their way to the safe room between the master bedroom and Bliss’s bedroom.
“The code in is simple enough,” Natches explained, showing her the four sequential numbers on the keypad. Pushing enter, the shelf and hidden steel door gave a sibilant little hiss. Natches pushed it open and stepped inside the room. Wide steel steps led to the sunken room. A landline, table, full bed, television, and easy chair were placed in the steel-lined room.
“There are several hidden caverns about half a mile from here,” Natches revealed. “Water and air can flow freely through the pipes I laid personally. Electric and cable come from underground lines I laid from the work shed outside, along with internet and landline. Once inside, Bliss knows the only way to secure the door from the inside is the pressure plate beside it.” He pointed out the metal plate. “The door closes on its own and secures. And God help the man that thinks he’ll squeeze through. The hydraulics on that door would cut a body in half. There will be no squeezing past. Once inside, Bliss can?
??t reopen the door herself. An alarm is sent to the police, fire department, DHS, and every family member in the county once the door locks. Dawg, Rowdy, Alex, and Doogan each have a code to unlock it. It takes two of those codes to release the door. One of Dawg’s and Rowdy’s, one of Alex’s and Doogan’s. And that’s something even Bliss doesn’t know.”
Still, it was risky to leave his daughter’s ability to get out of the room hinging on the lives of four men who could be killed before ever reaching her.
“Plan A through Z,” Duke murmured.
“Backup in every direction,” Natches agreed. “That way Bliss can’t open the door herself if she believes her parents are being threatened. And she knows our safety is dependent on her being here. There’s an entrance to the room from the hall, our room, and Bliss’s, and each door works the same.”
Clever, Angel thought, impressed. The safe room would have cost more than the house, pool, and lakeside property combined.
“Angel, you’ll join Bliss if there’s a problem,” Natches stated as though it were a foregone conclusion. “If they get as far as the house, then Chaya, Declan, and Harley can’t afford to be distracted by you. Duke will have the hall, the rest of us will spread out and begin hunting. Are we clear?”
Angel stepped from the safe room, her gaze meeting Duke’s perfectly bland expression. Of course he was smart enough to know that wasn’t going to happen. She’d promised to try to play nice, though.
“Do you keep Trudy in that room?” she asked with all apparent sincere innocence.
“Trudy? My rifle?” He gave a short laugh. “She’s my best weapon.”
“Shut up,” Chaya hissed, but Angel only smiled complacently as the warning came too late.
“I didn’t train you or train with you,” Natches informed her as his wife’s warning connected with his brain. His arms crossed over his chest in a classic Mackay-dominant pose as he looked down his nose at her. “You’ll be a distraction.”
“Is that what I’ll be?” She lifted her brow with mocking innocence before turning to the other woman. “I bet you have fun with him.” She flicked Chaya a tight smile.
“More than you know,” she breathed out, resignation filling her tone as her husband shot her a wicked grin.
Angel gave Duke a warning look. The kid gloves were about to be ripped from her hands. And he just gave her that damned blank look.
“Now that we have that settled . . .” Natches stated as silence filled the hall.
“You deal with him.” She glared back at Duke. “Because we both know exactly what I’m going to do. Right?”
She could feel the burn of sheer offended pride as Natches stared at her as though she were Bliss’s age and unable to protect herself.
Twenty years of fighting, surviving, living in hell sometimes since she was three, and this was the respect it gained her with this man?
“And I bet you have fun with her,” Natches growled back at Duke. “While you’re having fun, convince her.”
She laughed at him; she simply couldn’t help it as Chaya slammed her fist into her husband’s shoulder with a muttered, “Enough.”
“Think he’d say that to Bliss’s lover in a few more years?” From the corner of her eyes, she saw Chaya’s look of horror and quick shake of her head.
“Thirty more years,” Natches suddenly snarled with all apparent seriousness. “Bliss will not take a lover until she’s forty-five.”
She laughed again, a sincerely amused laugh, something only Duke had managed to draw free of her. This man was fucking insane, it was just that simple. He’d hit Duke for what he’d seen in the suite the day before. Duke’s eye was still bruised, not that he’d actually admitted Natches had hit him.
“He’s serious,” she told Duke. “He means that, doesn’t he? Forty-five? Have you forgotten she’s your daughter as well? And haven’t we all heard about the infamous Nauti Boys?” She wagged her brows and couldn’t help the laughter bubbling from inside her.
Duke’s expression was strained but mirth gleamed in his eyes.
“We’ll discuss this later.” Chaya’s warning look only dared her to push.
“She’s a girl,” he snapped as though it made all the difference.
“So?” As though that made a difference. She propped her hand on the hilt of her knife and arched her brow. “So, she’ll be forty-five before she takes a lover, huh?”
She grinned back at the scowl he shot her.
“Forty-five,” he snapped.
“Your doctor needs to change your meds,” she assured him, barely holding back more laughter. “They’re obviously making you delusional. And your daughter is a Mackay. I wouldn’t forget that, if I were you. You have about as much of a chance that she’ll be a virgin at forty-five as you do of getting me in that safe room.”
Did he just pale? Duke definitely winced. Chaya was shaking her head desperately, worry filling her eyes.
“You’re hilarious.” She shook her head, nearly laughing again.
Turning, she headed back to the suite, shooting him another laughing look. She couldn’t help but giggle at the bafflement in his expression and Chaya’s resigned concern as she watched him. Duke just shook his head at her, but his lips were quirked with amusement.
Entering the suite, she closed the door behind her, another laugh escaping her.
“That man’s insane,” she said, shaking her head. “Absolutely insane.”
• • •
As the door closed, Natches shot his wife a glare. “You owe me a hundred bucks. Pay up.”
Her lips twitched and he glared at her harder.
Now dammit, she wasn’t supposed to laugh at him, too.
“Don’t you do it, Chay. . . . Don’t even—” He tried to warn her.
Her laughter escaped, and he swore it sounded just like the impudent, too-stubborn little wretch that caused it.
“Just give me my damned money,” he growled. “I made her laugh for you. You weren’t supposed to laugh with her, dammit.”
But she was laughing, and the sound lightened his heart, even if it was at his expense.
He could only shake his head as she leaned into his chest and he wrapped his arms around her, his lips twitching as he met Duke’s amused gaze.
“I’ll pay the hundred,” Duke promised, almost grinning. “I’ll be damned if it wasn’t worth it.” He chuckled. “Well worth it.”
Natches tipped two fingers to his forehead in acknowledgment before kissing the top of his wife’s head.
He was just good, he told himself, rather proud. Damned good.
But she was wrong. Bliss would be forty-five, maybe older.
He’d make sure of it.
EIGHT
The levity of that evening was forgotten by the time Natches’s two cousins and various family members and children showed up. As the house began to fill, Angel completely understood why Chaya ordered in a stack of pizzas from Janey’s restaurant.
Not that Mackay’s Fine Dining did pizza as a rule, Natches informed her. But Janey’s chef Desmond made some damned good pizza and the circumstances were excuse enough for the chef to come in early and fix them himself.
And the pizzas were damned good. Almost as good as hers, she admitted as she sat at the desk in her suite, ate, and watched the security cameras Natches had set up on the three adjustable monitors he and Duke had installed at the desk.
The cameras gave her an escape from the children, cousins, in-laws, and outlaws, as Chaya called them, that filled the house.
There were so many people packed into the kitchen that Bliss and her three teenage cousins had taken the smaller children and two pizzas downstairs to the basement playroom. Still, the number of adults and competing opinions were too much for Angel.
Finishing the pizza she lifted the whiskey she’d poured herself before sitting down
and sipped at it, her gaze moving to the monitor that displayed the basement as well as a view to one of the hidden night-vision cameras mounted on the other side of the backyard and trained toward the yard’s entrance. She would have expected the camera to be mounted in the yard instead, until Natches explained how easily the wildlife set it off whenever he’d placed it there.
It worked as it was and with the small joystick sitting in front of her she could choose the camera view and turn the camera somewhat if she needed to.
At the moment the girls downstairs held her attention.
Bliss was sitting with Annie, Laken, and Erin, talking as the younger children dozed or watched the cartoon currently playing on the large flat-screen television. Her sister kept her attention on the children, just as the other girls did, but their comfort and easy camaraderie as they talked was readily apparent.
Bliss’s hair was pulled to the top of her head, clipped in place, though several long, loose curls had escaped to hang down her back.
She looked worried, Angel noticed. And a little scared sometimes. Her cousins were clearly concerned, and she knew from what Rowdy, Dawg, and Natches’s sister, Janey, had said, the other girls hadn’t slept well the night before.
“Nightmares,” Janey had sighed.
Pulling her good leg up to prop her foot on the seat of the chair, Angel rubbed at the other leg; the muscle that had taken that knife was aching like a son of a bitch. She had already showered, changed the bandage, and taken her aspirin and antibiotics, but she knew she’d run out of medication before the deep wound was actually better.
For now, it wasn’t infected, just irritated. She’d cleaned it again, then bore the agony of dousing it with alcohol. A last-ditch effort before she’d be forced to have Duke contact his brother, Ethan.
She grinned at the thought of Ethan. He’d pretend fixing her was becoming a job again, probably call her Frankenstein’s Bride because of the scars she carried—and there were a lot of them.