Page 11 of Exhale (Out for Justice #8)

The next morning…

J ordan groaned into Owen’s mouth and then lifted his head.

He had woken up a few minutes ago to find Owen gazing at him with those ultra-light blue eyes.

Who could blame him for leaning in and kissing the man’s lips?

Jordan eased back a fraction to smile

Jesus…their kisses were fucking scorchers. Yesterday had been beyond his dreams. They had spent the day in bed and ordering room service. One of the best things about it was that they had talked. Like really talked about important shit.

Owen told him about his rushed marriage to Ginny. She had gotten pregnant, and Owen was old-fashioned enough to put a ring on her finger. He loved that about Owen.

Ginny had lost the baby before the two-month mark, but Owen had tried to stick it out and make it work.

“She was all over the place,” Owen said, shaking his head, and Jordan toyed with the man’s fingers while they lay in bed.

Leaning with his back against Owen’s chest, he listened to the deep rumble of words.

“That’s gotta be hard on you both losing a baby, devastating,” he murmured.

“It was.”

“So why did you call it quits?”

“One day she told me she stopped loving me.”

“What the hell?” Flabbergasted, he sat up and twisted around to face Owen, dragging the sheet with him.

He frowned into the man’s eyes.

Owen’s lips twitched. “I know, right? Hard to imagine.”

Jordan snorted and then laughed, shaking his head. “Conceited much?”

Owen’s chuckle was deep and rich, but then he sobered when Jordan asked his next question.

“What about you?”

“I never loved her. I liked her a lot, we had fun together, and the sex was great, but in all honesty, I would have never married her if she hadn’t been pregnant. So, we parted amicably.”

“That’s probably why she left you as her emergency contact,” Jordan said.

“Probably.”

Jordan crawled up Owen’s body and straddled the man’s hips.

After that, there was no more talking until much later.

Noise in the hallway brought Jordan back to the present and the kisses Owen was showering on his face, and he smiled.

He could stay there all day, but that wasn’t going to happen because it was now a day later, and he still hadn’t come clean about his suspicions.

Drawing back from Owen’s kisses, Jordan’s chest felt tight, his breath nonexistent, and he wanted nothing more than to go back at it, but with the morning brought reality.

A flash of light streaked through the window, followed by a sudden crackling boom.

Jordan lifted his head to glance toward the window.

“Was rain expected?” He frowned.

“Yeah, the weather said a rare summer storm was coming through,” Owen said.

“Looks like the storm broke.” Jordan sat up before he stood and walked over to the window.

Jerking the curtains open, Jordan gazed outside.

Gray threatening clouds covered the sky and the city below was damp. Heavy rain smacked against the patio door.

“It’ll probably be gone in a few minutes,” Owen said, standing and coming to join him.

Jordan took a deep breath; it was now or never.

“Until then, I want to show you something.”

Owen’s brows lifted at the seriousness in his voice, but this was important.

“Come over here.” Jordan pointed to the small sofa that sat along one wall in the hotel suite.

Jordan sat on the sofa and popped open his laptop, and Owen joined him.

Tapping at the keys, he pulled up a program he had on the desktop and opened it to a photo.

“Who are they?” Owen frowned.

“That is an age progression photo of Ginny’s kids.”

Owen’s eyes were glued to the screen, and Jordan wondered if Owen was seeing what he was seeing.

And while he had never seen Owen as a kid, the twins were the spitting image of the man.

“Why did you do this?” Owen’s voice had gone deep and raspy.

“Because the electronic date on the photos are from years ago. Four and a half years to be exact. Add in the nine months it took to be pregnant, and that’s almost five years ago.”

“I also found this.” Jordan pulled up the facial recognition on Ginny’s boyfriend.

“Mark Gumball,” Owen read, his gaze flicking back and forth between the boys and the boyfriend.

“Yeah…so her kids might be with the boyfriend,” Jordan said and sat back on the sofa to cross his legs crisscrossed.

Owen turned from the screen, searching his eyes. “They might be my kids.”

Jordan pointed a finger at the laptop screen and the progress photo. “More than likely.

“Can you find me their birth certificate?”

“I can.”

“Thanks. Do you have an address on Gumball?”

“I do.”

Owen leaned in and cupped his face and then kissed him on the lips.

“Thank you.”

“For what?” Jordan frowned, he hadn’t done all that much.

“For being here.”

Jordan swallowed around a lump in his throat.

“I’ll always try to be here.”

It was a promise he intended to keep.

Mark Gumball’s place was a run-down house located in a really bad side of town, and not far from Ginny’s apartment.

Through Jordan’s research, the man had found that Ginny and Mark had only been dating for five months.

Owen’s heart sank when he spotted crime scene tape on the front door of Gumball’s house.

“Shit,” he muttered.

Jordan jumped out when he parked the SUV, and Owen hurried out and around to join the man as they walked up the walkway.

Detective Knoll pulled up in a nondescript four-door sedan and got out with Preston at his side.

Owen had called Knoll on his way here.

“What’s this?” Owen gestured to the crime tape.

“Mark Gumball was shot in the head and died instantly five days ago. The body’s in the morgue,” Knoll said.

“This has to be related to Ginny’s death,” Owen said flatly.

Knoll nodded. “I agree.”

The detective unlocked the front door of the house and then motioned for Owen and Jordan to go inside first.

Owen reached through the tape and pushed the door open wider before ducking beneath the yellow strips and entering with Jordan on his six.

Knoll and Preston came in last.

The place smelled like rotten food, mold, and death.

Children’s toys lay scattered about. Empty beer cans and trash cluttered the top of the coffee table in front of a shabby brown couch, and the counters, from what he could see in the kitchen, were in the same sorry state.

“Did they say anything about recovering Ginny’s kids from this scene?”

Knoll frowned at him. “No.”

“Check on it.”

Knoll immediately got on his cell phone. Preston stayed with Knoll while he and Jordan searched the place.

In one of the two bedrooms, they found white lines of drugs on a mirror, along with a rolled-up dollar bill and a thin access card. More beer cans and bottles were spread over the dresser and on the floor.

Jordan made a face and backed out of the room, and waited for him in the hallway. Owen searched the master bathroom quickly and then followed Jordan.

“Did your ex do drugs?” Jordan asked.

“No, not while we were together.”

“I’m starting to suspect that she hung out with the wrong crowd.”

“Me too,” Owen said with a nod and walked back into the living room.

Knoll got off the phone just as they entered and shook his head. “No kids were recovered at this scene, but they have a suspect in the shooting.”

“Who?”

“A William Danner, goes by Billy. He ran an international prostitution ring for a while before moving on to chemical distribution and trafficking weapons. He served four years on weapons charges,” Knoll said, reading from his phone.

“That’s all?” Owen squinted.

Knoll tucked his phone away with a sigh. “Seems like none of the other charges stuck.”

“I’ve been thinking for a while that Ginny saw something that she shouldn’t have and ran for it,” Jordan said.

Knoll cocked his head and slowly nodded.

“That’s if Ginny was here when this Billy shot Gumball,” Preston pointed out.

“It is a possibility, but we have no way of truly knowing,” Jordan agreed.

“Where is Danner now?” Owen asked Knoll.

“No idea, we have an APB out on him and his second-in-command.”

“Who’s his second-in-command?”

“Cody Lowe, a small-time petty thief.”

“So, the same thing Gumball was into,” Jordan said.

“Yeah,” Owen agreed. “It seems like this crowd ran together, and Ginny was right in the thick of it.”

“Let me check something,” Jordan said and slid off his ever-present backpack that carried his work laptop. Perched on a bar stool at the kitchen counter, Jordan tapped at the keyboard.

The database Jordan was in was the Arizona Department of Health Services’ Office of Vital Records.

Jordan had started the behind-the-scenes hacking looking for information on Ginny’s kids way before they even left the hotel room. Whatever Jordan had set in motion, Owen had no doubts it wouldn’t be long before the techie got what he was after.

And even though the computer had a privacy screen, Jordan made sure that the screen was blocked from Knoll and Preston. Owen helped by putting his big body directly behind Jordan to block any accidental views.

An alert came up on the screen, and Jordan bypassed it in seconds. When another one came up, it took a few minutes. After that, Jordan was in and flying through the search criteria.

Seconds later, two documents flashed on the screen with big bold letters that displayed birth certificate in an arc across the top of both.

Jordan zoomed with a tap of his fingers and sat back after a moment so Owen could get a look.

Owen’s breath caught, his heart punched into his chest.

The name under both father sections stated: Owen Marshal Gray.

He was a father.

The twins were his.

Excitement mixed with horror. He couldn’t wrap his head around it and now had more questions than ever. Why hadn’t Ginny told him? He would have been there for his sons.

“Send those to my phone,” he told Jordan gruffly.

“On it.” Jordan made a few clicks on the computer, and Owen’s phone buzzed. He pulled it out, gazing at the birth certificates.

“What’s that?” Knoll asked suspiciously, and Owen held out his phone for the guy.

Taking the phone, Knoll pinched the screen to zoom in on the photos. Preston crowded up behind to get a look at the phone over Knoll’s shoulder.

“Shit, are those your kids?” Preston’s mouth hung slightly open.

“Yeah.” Owen rubbed both hands over his face and raked his fingers through his hair back.

“Now what?” Knoll said, handing back his phone.

“Where the fuck are my sons?” He didn’t even recognize his own voice.

Jordan turned and wrapped a hand around the back of his neck, holding firm.

The techie didn’t need to say a word, Owen felt the love and concern as they stood there.