Page 2 of Brick (Chosen Few #5)

“I need to find her.” The command came out rushed, without hesitation and without common sense.

Thank god they had the power to do that.

Probably had more capabilities than the authorities.

Backcountry Protection Services, run by Brick’s bosses Rami Mitry and Toth Holmes, was an A-list team of retired military men. All of them had served in black ops.

Backcountry was equipped with facial recognition software, along with many other types of surveillance and hacking technology.

Their complete services were what made their team the best bodyguard company on the West Coast. He’d been with Backcountry almost a year and a half, and so far, they’d never not found someone they were looking for.

Natalie wouldn’t be any different. He’d bet his life.

“You sure you want to do that?”

“Why else would you send this to me?”

“Ah, well, I figured you’d pined over her for a while. Didn’t realize you were still in that rut.”

“I’m not in a rut. I want to find her because there’s no way these allegations are true.

” Okay, so he really didn’t know a damn thing about Natalie—everything she’d told him had likely been a lie.

But he’d seen the softness in her eyes. Though she’d run from his bed in the middle of the night, he didn’t suspect her intent had been malicious.

“Any other reason?” Ghost taunted.

“Like?”

“Like the brown-eyed kid who looks more like you than her,” he retorted.

Brick blew out a breath. “The kid looks like me. I see it, too.” He’d already done the mental calculation.

If the photo he stared at was recent, as the caption indicated, then he was about two and a half years old.

Counting back nine months... well, there was a glaring possibility the child shared more than a resemblance with him.

But dammit. He wasn’t jumping to conclusions. Not until he spoke to Natalie.

“I just need to find her.”

“All right. Now that I’ve got a picture of her this should be easy. Last time you gave me a fake name to go with ‘blond hair,’ which is about as generic as you can get.”

“Just get on it, would ya?” he barked. Ghost might be an ass, but he was usually a helpful ass.

They clicked off. Brick dropped his head into his hands and the pain in his chest intensified.

Over three years of wondering. Of worrying. Of thinking he’d hallucinated the woman and the sex.

Out of nowhere she’d come crashing into his life like a fucking tsunami. And maybe made him a father.

***

Natalie paced the motel room. Back and forth, back and forth.

That bastard. That sonofabitch.

She’d kill Keetan with her bare hands if he touched one hair on her baby boy’s head. Warm tears raced down her cheeks. Her eyes were raw and swollen from crying, her mouth was as dry as cotton from yelling, and her skin was gritty from scrubbing her face.

Her cheek still throbbed from Keetan’s fist, and her heart ached at the memory of Bray’s cries.

“Momma! Momma!”

Her knees buckled, and she dropped to the worn, thin mattress. A sob tore from her chest. My baby.

She’d known leaving Keetan would cause an uproar. That the bastard would come after her, threaten her. She hadn’t expected something this extreme. She’d been no match.

Not only had he taken the person she loved most in this world, but he’d also made it nearly impossible for her to get Bray back.

Her name and picture were on every news channel and had been shared thousands of times on social media.

If by some stroke of luck she didn’t end up in prison, it’d still be months before she got Bray back.

Her heart palpitated. She clutched her chest, keeling to her side on the bed. Her breath hissed sharply through her teeth.

God, don’t have a heart attack. You can’t. You fucking can’t.

She breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth. Slow and steady. After several minutes, her heart rate returned to a less-dangerous speed. She couldn’t fall apart. She had to think. Keetan was a monster. A brute. A stupid, motherfucking—

Point was, he wasn’t extremely smart. He thought with his dick more than his head.

If she had to grovel, she would. The one good thing was that the all points bulletin had mentioned she’d be traveling with a two-and-a-half-year-old boy.

Which she wasn’t because Keetan had taken him.

Clearly his anger had gotten the best of him.

That little slipup might ensure people didn’t look at her twice.

She might have some time before the police found her.

She knew Keetan’s wrath well. A normal deranged ex-boyfriend would have just dragged her from her rented apartment and forced her back to his house.

But that’s not where Keetan wanted her. He was furious that she’d left—for the second time in just over three years.

He wanted to hurt her. He wanted her behind bars. He wanted Bray and her to suffer.

But there might be time to persuade Keetan to drop whatever bullshit can of worms he’d opened and let her return to his house, where she’d lived before she left him two weeks ago.

She should have just killed him in his sleep. Although, contrary to what everyone in the country currently thought, she wasn’t a murderer. If she’d known he’d do this, though, that he’d try to send her to prison and take Bray away...

Well, hindsight was twenty-twenty, and arsenic couldn’t be that hard to find.