Nate, Page 3

  “Fuck you.”

  I didn’t let her finish talking. She, whoever the fuck this was, didn’t deserve that. I asked her, “She’s your daughter?”

  Her chin raised. “As I said before, Valerie died and left me half guardianship.”

  “Valerie doesn’t get that option. If I’m Nova’s living father, then I decide. Why six months?”

  She jerked. “What?”

  “She’s been dead for six months. Why the wait to contact me?”

  She looked away, her throat moving up and down. “Right. Next time my sister dies, I’ll get right on that, notifying the guy who could take Nova away from us. Forget the funeral, forget the meetings with her lawyer, forget mourning, forget deciding to investigate you, forget all of that. Next time, I’ll just get right on that.”

  She knew sarcasm, that was for damn sure.

  I didn’t reply. I got it. Six months, though. Fuck.

  I was going through everything I needed to do in my head.

  Lawyers.

  A paternity test.

  Private investigators.

  She squared her shoulders, and her face grew hard. “Nova is mine now. Sign those papers, and you can go on and have a child with someone else.”

  Locking my gaze with hers, I saw the steel determination radiating from her.

  I didn’t give a fuck.

  Leaning forward, I spoke slowly but clearly. “This is how it’s going to be. You will bring her to me. I will have my own physician do a paternity test, and depending on those results, we’ll discuss what exact rights you think you may have. Got me?”

  I shoved up to my feet, already knowing I would need everyone to fight this.

  She stood, mimicking my moves, rattling the table. Her hands were in fists, pressing into the table. “You can’t do this.”

  “The fuck I can’t.”

  She was heavily breathing, her chest moving up and down rapidly. “You can’t. Valerie told me you wouldn’t care—”

  “Valerie was dead wrong.”

  She flinched at my words.

  I would care later. Right now, after what blow she just dealt, I couldn't care less about her feelings.

  I held out my hand. “I want your information, and I want your phone.”

  Her eyes grew wary, but she passed me her phone.

  I took it, programming my number into it, and I took everything from her contact info that I could before she’d start balking.

  “Hey.”

  I was still working on her phone.

  “What are you doing?”

  I ignored her, going faster.

  I wanted everything I could get from it.

  “Hey!” She rounded the table, reaching for her phone.

  I held on. I wasn’t done.

  She tried to jerk it out of my hands, and I was in her face. “I will not fight fair.”

  She paled, her eyes growing big, and her hands went slack.

  Not for long, though.

  Right as the fight blazed in her and her hand tightened back over her phone, I added, “I will fight dirty. I will fight nasty if that is my daughter. I don’t care what Valerie wanted, or what her fucking lawyers, or whoever else has an opinion on the matter, says. If she’s mine, then she’s mine. Not yours.” When I let go, she fell back a step, holding her phone.

  I leaned forward, ignoring the pulsating vein sticking out from her neck or how wide and fiery her eyes were. I promised, “You might’ve done your research. Your PI might have a file on me. I’m telling you right now that whatever you’ve read or been told says nothing about me or the lengths I’m willing to go. Your mistake was informing me about my daughter. Your second mistake was assuming I’d simply walk away, when and if that’s verified. If she’s not mine, I don’t even want to know your game. But if she is and you fight me on Nova, I won’t just destroy you. I will destroy your family. I will destroy everything and everyone you love except for Nova.”

  I’d said enough.

  If I said any more, I could get in trouble with my own lawyers.

  I was already gearing up for a fight, but damn her. She came expecting this fight.

  I said one last thing. “To me, you are standing between myself and potentially my daughter. I’d highly recommend your lawyer reach out to mine at the earliest hour so we can start these proceedings. Got me?”

  She didn’t answer.

  I didn’t know if she was capable of responding.

  I nodded to her phone, which she was grasping with white knuckles. “If your PI wasn’t thorough enough to give you my contact information, my number’s in there. I’ll be in touch.”

  6

  Nate

  The knock on my door wasn’t surprising since I’d made some calls as soon as I left her in the hotel bar downstairs.

  What was surprising was the time. Six in the morning.

  I went over and opened it. I didn’t need to look.

  Mason Kade stood on the other side with a backpack slung over his shoulder, and that was it.

  Mason had been my best friend for so long, then there was a group of us who were family. He’d been playing professional football with one of the best teams in the league, so not only was traveling alone a challenge for him, he didn’t have the time for it either.

  The fact he arrived less than twenty-four hours later meant a lot.

  His head had been down, but he straightened, looking me over. His eyes flickered once before he nodded. “You look better than I would.”

  I grunted, stepping back.

  He came inside, tossed his bag onto the couch, and took the bourbon that was still in my hand.

  I should protest—no. No, I shouldn’t.

  He tossed it in the sink, then set the glass down and moved to the coffee machine. Fingering through what contents I had, he frowned and went to the phone. He ordered a whole pot of coffee from room service before turning back to me.

  “So.” He leaned back against the counter behind him, crossing his arms over his chest. “Tell me what you know.”

  Right to business. That was Mason.

  I tossed my phone on the couch, and Mason went over to scoop it up.

  As he sat and began scrolling through everything, I said, “Her name is Quincey Royas. I got that much from her social media.”

  He was reading and reading fast. “Her dad’s name is Duke Royas. Going through her account, I don’t see a lot of pictures of her and Valerie together. They’re sisters?”

  “She said they were half-sisters.” I frowned. “Don’t you have practice today?”

  Mason glanced up. “I talked to the coach.”

  “Right. I’m sure he was fine letting you fly across the country for my emergency.”

  He was putting the phone down, moving almost in slow motion. “Nate, you just found out you have a kid.”

  “Might have a kid.”

  He gave me a look. “You had a fuck-buddy relationship with Valerie, but it was still a relationship. Now the sister shows up asking you to give up your rights. You sign that paper, and she can’t turn around and demand money. It’s smart to be cautious, but considering what else she tried to get you to sign, let’s just assume the kid’s yours. If it were me, nothing is more important than my kids. I’d have a PI on her ass already.”

  I nodded to my phone. “I made a call, and they’re on it already. Once I know when I can see Nova, I’ll get a doctor to do the test.”

  “Good.” He frowned a bit. “I didn’t call Logan. Does he know?”

  The question was valid. When Logan arrived, everyone would know it. He was a tsunami personified.

  I paused, reaching behind me for the counter. I knew this question would come up, but Mason was here without his brother. That told me he already understood. If he hadn’t, fuck whatever I decided, he would’ve decided himself.

  “Not yet. I’m still digesting it, and I’m pissed.” I gritted my teeth. My fingers gripped the counter tighter.

  “I get it.”

/>   I shook my head. “No. You don’t get it.”

  He stood, moving slow. Cautious. “I do, Nate. That’s why I’m here.”

  I expelled a ragged breath. “If you found out your ex had your kid? She’d kept it from you? And she was dead? And her sister tried to ambush you to give your kid—the one you knew nothing about—away? Not to mention, we still have to verify the kid is mine.”

  His jaw clenched, but his words were low. “Well, in that situation, you’re handling it better than I would’ve. I would’ve made moves to destroy the aunt right then and there, even if that’s not what was right for the kid.”

  Now he got it.

  And he eased up. I felt it in the air. He stood, nodding his head just as a knock came at the door.

  He crossed over, signing for the coffee, and brought the cart inside himself.

  “You charge that to the room?”

  He shot me a grin, pouring me a cup. “You can afford it.”

  I snorted as some of the tension eased.

  My kid.

  Man.

  Man!

  “You think she’s mine?”

  He paused, giving me a long and steady look. “Yeah, I do. Normally, no, but I don’t know. I think her plan was to catch you before you could process it. And she’s doing it now instead of waiting, in case you happened to find out at some other point. You could’ve come back at them even harder than you might now. She’s being smart, playing her card, and hoping you’d be too shell-shocked to ask questions and would just sign anything she gave you. You read over the paper?”

  I jerked my head in a nod. “It looks solid, that I’d be signing away my daughter.”

  He swore under his breath.

  I sank down on the chair nearest me and caught my head in my hands. “I have a kid, Mase. I might have a kid. I don’t know the first thing about raising a kid. What the hell, man?”

  “You do, and you’ll have help. I think that’s the last thing you need to worry about right now. Get some of the other roadblocks out of the way first, then freak out.” He brought over my coffee and sat on the couch with his own. He nodded to my phone. “What other calls have you made? What do you know?”

  “I got a preliminary file sent to me thirty minutes before you showed. Quincey Royas, like I said. She’s a principal dancer in the Seattle Ballet Company.”

  Mason whistled.

  “Or she was up until six months ago when her half-sister died in a car accident. Val was driving on the coast when she lost control and flipped her car during a storm. It went into the ocean, and she drowned.”

  Mason winced. “Shit.”

  Shit was right.

  But I was emotionally locked down.

  I wasn’t letting myself think about Valerie right now, thinking about the what-ifs or why-didn’t-I’s.

  “She’d divorced her husband, Nico Mancini, and had filed for a restraining order two months before she died. He was threatening to take her daughter away, but that ended when she told the attorneys Nova wasn’t his. A birth certificate was produced, and she had put my name on it. The guy demanded a paternity test, and that was negative. Guardianship transferred to the godmother, Quincey, and Quincey is now living at her father’s estate. Both of them are raising my daughter.”

  “That was all in the preliminary file?”

  “My PI is good.”

  “He’s damn good.”

  “She.”

  “Right.” Mason grinned. “I forgot. This Nico guy, is he going to be a problem?”

  “I don’t think so.” I expelled a breath. “Restraining order was because he hit her, stalked her. He’s in jail for another case. My PI is looking into it more, but she doesn’t think he’s a problem.”

  Mason grunted. “Wanna know for sure about that.”

  “No shit.”

  “What about the grandad. Who’s he?”

  “He runs Royas Casino, but he also runs a national cleaning company that, dude, we’ve used at the house multiple times.” I had a bad taste in my mouth. “She’s rich.”

  That meant power. That meant resources. That meant we were fighting a battle where both parties had a PI.

  “She’s more than rich. She’s wealthy.” His voice sounded clearer. “But so are you. So am I. So’s my family. This family isn’t anyone we can’t take on if we need to. But, having said that, maybe we’re jumping the gun.”

  I looked at him and scoffed. “Mason Kade? Being the voice of reason in a fight? Since when?”

  He smirked. “I’ve matured.”

  “Yeah, well, your brother hasn’t.”

  As soon as the words were out, a different heaviness came over the room.

  “When you want the bomb to explode, you call Logan.” His words were quiet.

  It was almost sacrilegious that we hadn’t called Logan from the jump, but he was right.

  When Logan came in, everything ramped up five levels. He was the dynamite we could send in to mess everything up if that was what we wanted, but right now, in my state, I needed studious and calculating.

  I needed Mason.

  I just hadn’t fully expected him to come right away. I thought within a day or two. He must’ve been out the door within thirty minutes, flying from Boston straight here.

  “Thanks for coming.” My voice was a little raw, but that was how I was feeling.

  “Thanks for asking.”

  I glanced over, and he was watching me steadily.

  There was a message there.

  I never asked when we were younger. He was right.

  “Thank you.” I said it again because it felt right to repeat it.

  He nodded. “You gotta know that the Royas Casino…”

  “Yeah?”

  “Rumor is that there’s a mob connection to it.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “My dad. He looked into expanding up here with a couple of his companies and ran across the Royas Casino. Corporate world is sometimes a small world. I recognized the name when you said it.”

  “He backed away because of the connection?”

  Mason’s face hardened, which it normally did when he talked about his father. “Let’s just say there was a conflict of interest. Don’t give James any credit.”

  I nodded, sipping my coffee as I mulled that over.

  James Kade was not an upstanding businessman, so the way Mason talked about that topic told me there was a whole lot there I probably didn’t want to know. Noted.

  “You know how strong the connection is? If there’s a fight, that’s who we’re really fighting?”

  He let out a sigh, raking his hand down his face. “I don’t know. I hope not because we don’t take on those kinds of fights.”

  “Channing could maybe help.”

  His whole face tightened. “No. He couldn’t. That’s the conflict of interest.”

  I stared at him a moment, letting his words digest. Then I got it.

  That wasn’t good.

  Channing was another friend from high school who had connections to a powerful motorcycle club. If that was the conflict of interest, then he was right. Channing couldn’t help us, but besides Channing’s connections and Mason’s father’s illegal connections, we had nothing going for us if it was a fight like that.

  “Let’s hope it doesn’t go there.”

  Mason sighed. “Let’s hope.”

  “So, then we’re going legal.” I stared at him.

  He stared back.

  Legal was Logan’s world.

  And that meant inviting the bomb early, earlier than I was ready for.

  As if reading my mind, Mason stood. “Let’s get the paternity test first, and then go from there.”

  I nodded, but I was remembering the conversation downstairs.

  How smooth she’d been.

  No.

  She’d been nervous.

  Awkward.

  She needed to take two shots before saying anything, then it came out almost as if she couldn’t sto
p herself. She blurted it out and slid the papers over immediately.

  She’d been very un-smooth.

  Not practiced.

  Which gave me an opening.

  She was nervous about either me or asking me to sign away my daughter.

  Good. She should’ve been more terrified than she had been, but that also told me she knew it’d been wrong. She knew she was in the wrong.

  Or I was hoping. Again.

  “I’ll call the aunt.”

  Mason was scanning the suite. “I had like three hours of sleep before you called. You got a guest bedroom in this fucking huge-ass suite?”

  I covered a grin, nodding to the small hallway. “Take my bed. Sheets were changed, and I didn’t use it.”

  “You sure?”

  I grabbed my phone and gave him a long look. “Like I’m going to be sleeping anytime soon?” I gestured to the couch. “If I need a nap, I’ll grab the couch.”

  His eyes fell to my phone. “You want me to wait?”

  “Nah.” Even thinking about the conversation I needed to have with Quincey made everything inside me lock down.

  “I’ve got it.”

  He clapped a hand on the wall, picking up his bag. “Wake me when we gotta go.”

  He headed to the room, the door shut, and I took a breath before moving back out to the patio.

  Then I dialed the phone.

  7

  Quincey

  I felt like the female lead in The Cutting Edge when the hockey guy was coming to her personal home.

  I had a sudden and fierce empathy for that character because that was what was happening here. Nate called this morning. I’d been up all night, unable to sleep, and when I saw his name on the phone, I knew this was just the start of the war. And that was a deeply unsettling feeling.

  Here…he was coming here, to our home, my home, my territory.

  I was standing in front of the living room’s grand window. It looked out over our entire estate, and since we had a long driveway with a picturesque field of horses right next to it, we could see who was coming almost a mile away. Trees arched over the driveway on the other side as it led to a circle that looped in front of the main entrance.

  If my other opponents were coming here, I’d have an edge of intimidation over them by seeing them first.