Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 57099 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 285(@200wpm)___ 228(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57099 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 285(@200wpm)___ 228(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
I returned to my desk, staring at the e-mail. The DNA service offered a messaging system. Assuming Brynn was Lavender’s Brynn and not some other random Brynn Leahy meant Lavender would have been the one to send in the sample. There could be no other reason for her to put our child’s DNA out there than for me to find her. Lavender knew the old me better than anyone. She’d have made things as easy for me as she could have if she’d wanted me to find her and our daughter.
Like I did every night, I hovered over the email button for a long while. What the fuck could I possibly say? “Sorry I didn’t know you existed?” “Sorry I pushed your mom away?” “Sorry I’m a felon who rides with an outlaw MC and has nothing to offer a kid?” Somehow, I doubted any of that would be adequate enough.
I wanted to close the email like I had every day since I’d received it. Instead, I sighed and hit the message button through the service to reach out to Lavender. Whatever she wanted, whatever had prompted this search, I needed to know. Even if it destroyed the life I’d built.
But, Goddamnit. No one in my life -- no matter how much they meant to me -- was more important than Lavender. And Brynn. Even if I hadn’t known she existed.
I spent the next three hours trying to write a Goddamn email. Me, Knight, resident finance genius and master hacker, sat paralyzed by a blinking cursor. My first attempt read like a police report. Second one turned into a fucking apology letter. Third one just said “What do you want from me?” but nothing felt right.
“Fuck this,” I muttered, shoving away from the desk. My chair hit the wall with a dull thud. I grabbed the bottle of Jack Daniel’s from the counter, bypassed a glass, and took a burning swallow straight from the neck. The whiskey did nothing to ease the tightness in my chest or quiet the circus in my head.
I took another pull from the bottle and set it down hard on the desk. The few personal items I kept shifted from the impact. A photo frame wobbled and nearly fell. The only picture I had from before. Me at eighteen, arms wrapped around Lavender from behind, both of us laughing at something forgotten. I kept it to remind myself of everything I’d lost through my own stupidity.
I didn’t straighten it. Instead, I started typing, addressing Lavender directly even though the account had Brynn’s name.
Lavender. Why are you looking for me?
I hovered the mouse over the send button. This message opened a door I’d spent a decade making sure stayed locked. Once I clicked, there’d be no going back. Whatever Lavender wanted, whatever had driven her to find me, I’d have to face it. I’d have to face her.
The compound below had quieted, most brothers either passed out or gone home to their Old Ladies. In the new silence, the click of my mouse seemed unnaturally loud as I hit send.
I leaned back in my chair, a strange calm settling over me. The waiting would be the hardest part. Whatever came next, I’d deal with it the same way I dealt with everything -- head-on, no bullshit, no apologies.
If Lavender needed something from me, she’d have to take me as I am now. Not the Rhys she remembered, but Knight. The harder, colder, more dangerous boy she’d once loved.
I turned off my monitors, plunging the room into darkness. Tomorrow would bring whatever it brought.
And for the first time in eleven years, that included a daughter I never knew I had.
Chapter One
Lavender
The steady beep of the heart monitor had become the soundtrack of my life over the last year. Sometimes I woke up in the middle of the night hearing that sound even when I wasn’t at the hospital. My back ached from the uncomfortable chair recliner that had been my home for too many hours each day, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave Brynn’s side for more than a bathroom break or a coffee run. My hair felt grimy, even pulled back into the poofy ball of curls I’d restrained in a hair tie three days ago.
I shifted in the chair, my body protesting with a symphony of pops and cracks. It was times like this I felt every one of my thirty-five years. The antiseptic smell had long since burned itself into my nostrils, becoming as familiar as my own scent. Cincinnati Children’s Hospital had an excellent reputation with children’s health. Everyone had been nothing but kind and compassionate, but right now it just felt like an expensive prison where my daughter and I were serving time for crimes we never committed.
My phone sat heavy in my palm as I scrolled through the DNA service apps for the thousandth time. My thumb moved mechanically, muscle memory guiding it through each site’s interface. I thought I might be getting a callus I’d scrolled so much since first submitting Brynn’s DNA. So far, nothing but the occasional random “eighth cousin.”