Page 1 of Collision of Winters (Hillcroft Group #4)

The Winters Curse

Wade Winters

H ad I seen that picture on Chris’s desk before?

I picked up the frame while I waited for him to arrive and studied the timid smile on Kayden’s face.

Yaya was hugging his midsection, beaming like the proud grandmother she was to essentially everyone in the family. Well, those who were still with us.

The only thing I wanted to change was the timid part. I much preferred Kayden’s beaming smiles and mischievous grins, even more so because they were rare these days.

The thought of something happening to him put a rock in the pit of my stomach, and it was impossible not to think about the Winters Curse.

Unlike Chris, I had some memories left of our biological parents—and our baby sister. I remembered Juliana had cried a lot. It’d annoyed my five-year-old self to pieces. A newborn sister —what was I supposed to do with her? She hadn’t been able to catch a football, nor had she listened to me.

Chris hadn’t been much better as a toddler.

How untroubled we’d been back then. Life had been all about sneaking cookies, waiting for Dad to come home from another deployment, playing catch, and begging Mom for the next time I’d be able to see my much cooler cousin Quinlan.

Then one night, when Chris and I were at a sleepover at Quin’s house, Uncle Arthur and Aunt Clara told us something bad had happened.

Chris and I never saw our parents or Juliana again, and sleepovers with Quinlan suddenly became permanent when Arthur took us in.

This was bad enough, wasn’t it? The tragedy was supposed to stop there. We’d suffered enough loss.

But fast-forward to the year I turned eleven.

Arthur and Clara were shot dead in broad daylight in New York.

Quinlan joined the orphans club at the age of twenty, and the last sibling of our parents’ generation stepped forward to become our home.

Yaya and Quin had been in the middle of their own grief, but they’d set everything aside to make sure Chris and I didn’t lose ourselves in our rage.

Although Yaya was technically our aunt, she’d earned the nickname of a grandmother long before I’d been born. Her brothers had called her that because she’d acted like a grandma to everyone. She did that now too, and though she’d never admit to having a favorite, we knew Kayden was special to her.

Now, with someone coming for Chris—and possibly Kayden…?

If anything happened to either of them, the damn curse was real, and I was going to?—

The door opened behind me, and I was brought back to the present by Chris entering his office.

“Sorry I’m late. My briefing took longer than I thought it would,” he said. “Why do you look pissy?”

Deep breaths.

I didn’t know what to say, so I just put the photo back on the desk and cleared my throat.

“Ah.” He figured it out when he saw the picture. “Nothin’s gonna happen to him.”

“Or you,” I added.

He smirked. “Or me. This ain’t my first rodeo.”

That was hardly reassuring.

“Just fill me in,” I said. “When do you ship out?”

He winced and rubbed the back of his neck. “You know I can’t tell you.”

I clenched my jaw but said nothing, and I leaned back against the desk. Being on a need-to-know basis didn’t usually bother me. I had my job, and Chris had his. But this was different.

“This is killin’ you, innit?” He cocked his head.

I frowned. “What, being left behind for something like this? What the fuck do you think?”

That seemed to confuse him. “You haven’t seen combat in years.”

It didn’t matter.

Besides, this was personal. “It’s you they’re coming for, Chris. It’s not a random op.”

He inclined his head, conceding.

“Don’t fucking get killed,” I told him.

He deflected with humor, as always. “You’re more likely to get killed once Kayden figures out why we’re keeping him in Alaska.”

Well. He’d learn one of the reasons. It was a two-birds-one-stone situation.

“You get him there, and I’ll make sure he stays,” I said. That was our plan. I was flying up tonight, and Chris would pick up Kayden in Texas next week.

Because of my strange relationship with Kayden, I couldn’t be there when he got out.

I knew he was beyond embarrassed, and he’d never been able to admit weaknesses around me.

He’d proven that he would rather flee the scene, something we couldn’t risk.

But, if given the chance, I knew how to get through to him, and for the first time ever, we’d have the opportunity to get to the bottom of things.

I wasn’t going away for work, and he couldn’t escape.

“Forgive me for sayin’ this, but I kinda wish he’d stay in jail another few weeks,” Chris admitted.

I furrowed my brow and smacked him upside the head.

“I said forgive me!” he hollered, rubbing the spot. “Jesus, bro. I’m just saying he’d at least be safe in jail.”

“He’ll be safe with me too,” I replied firmly. “Any updates on the confirmation, by the way?”

He blew out a breath and nodded, then went to sit behind the desk. “They used his name in the last interaction we intercepted, so yeah.”

Goddammit. The one person in our family we’d kept completely out of the loop, far away from Hillcroft, and now he was a target because of who the rest of us were.

Actually, just Chris this time. At some point, the people coming for Chris had seen him with Kayden; we were guessing it’d happened around Christmas, the last time Kayden had visited.

“How’s Quin takin’ it?” I asked. “He’s been busy lately.”

He shrugged. “Kinda like you, I reckon. He bitched to me about it the other day. He said, ‘I went from Operation Hellfire to budget meetings where I’m trying to reason with the K9 unit that we need to cut their budget in favor of buying more ammo.’”

I grimaced. Yeah, life had changed. More for Quin than for me, so I could only imagine how frustrating it was for him to take a back seat. Especially in this case. Kayden was a son to him.

“All right. Unless there’s anything else…” I rose to my feet, itching to leave his office. I had to go home and pack.

“That’s it.” He rounded the desk once more, and we briefly pressed our foreheads together. “See you in Alaska.”

I nodded and headed for the door?—

“Wade?”

I stopped and looked over my shoulder.

Chris hesitated for a beat. “Do you still think it was a good idea for us to keep Kayden outta Hillcroft affairs?”

I…didn’t know. Given recent events, it seemed it didn’t matter, because hostiles could still put two and two together. That’d been the top reason anyway—to keep him safe and disassociated from at least Quinlan and Chris because of what they did for a living.

Kayden knew Quin ran a private security agency and that Chris worked there too, but we’d always downplayed the risks Hillcroft operators exposed themselves to.

“You remember how he reacted when I was injured in Fallujah,” I pointed out.

That had been the other reason.

As much as Kayden denied it, he struggled with anxiety, and he’d been in and out of panic until I had recovered—and until I had promised I wasn’t going overseas anymore.

“I know.” Chris nodded with a dip of his chin. “I just… I don’t know. Over the years, I guess I’ve reevaluated. Being kept outside of things never did me any good.”

As evidence showed, I hated that too, but… “The difference is, Kayden doesn’t know he’s being kept out of the loop. Ignorance is bliss and all.”