Page 43 of Fierce Love (Tucker Billionaires)

Chapter Thirty-Five

Nathaniel

O wen, Cal’s brother who owns the security company, has every piece of damning evidence he and his crew have gathered on Mickie over the last four weeks laid out on the kitchen island of my apartment.

It’s substantial—drugs, money laundering, illegal gambling, physical abuse, and torture—but I don’t know what’s admissible, what we can use to take her down.

Hollyn got the restraining order but decided that formal charges would only enrage and embolden her mother.

Maybe she was right, but it hasn’t stopped me from doing everything I can to get Mickie Davis out of Hollyn and Kinsley’s life.

Hollyn hasn’t said it, but I feel like any chance I have of convincing Hollyn to stay on the island when production ends is at least somewhat tied to her safety. She can’t go around with a security detail for the rest of her life. I hate that she has to have one now.

“Can we feed this to Stephen Foster or someone else in the police force?” I ask.

“I can get it into the right hands,” Owen says, brushing back his dark-blond hair from his forehead before planting his hands back on the island to survey all the printouts, “but you have to be sure this is the path you want to take. With her prior convictions, this will be a life sentence for her.”

“You didn’t get anything on Niall?”

“You asked for the focus to be on Mickie, so that’s where I planted my people.”

Niall would be a bonus, but he’s been Mickie’s sidekick in everything, rather than the instigator. The scars still lightly visible on Hollyn’s arms come from her mother, not her father. He was the cheerleader, and while I’d love to take him down, too, Owen is right that Mickie is the priority.

“And none of what you’ve gathered could be considered entrapment?”

“ I don’t think so,” Owen says, “but that’s not my part of this process. We give it all to the cops, and we see where the chips fall.”

“I wish a company like yours had been around when I needed a private investigator.”

“We don’t normally do surveillance like this,” Owen says. “Not unless it’s tied to a specific client—stalking or some other crime that requires it. This is the cousin’s special.” He gestures to the pages. “Satisfied?”

“Yeah,” I agree, stepping back. “I just hope it’s enough. If it’s not, I’m going to keep going for her. I don’t care how long it takes or what I have to do. I’ll get her out of Hollyn’s life.”

“When did you hire a PI?” Owen asks.

“A long time ago.” Fourteen years ago . “Hired some guy in New York City.”

Owen squints in thought. “You remember his name?”

“No, but he must have been ill-qualified. The person I was trying to track down was literally in New York City.”

Owen sweeps all the printouts and photos back into the envelopes he brought with him, and he seems lost in thought for a beat. “Your mom has a lot of ties to a lot of people.”

“Yeah, I know,” I say with a sigh.

“Do you really know, though?” He stops what he’s doing to look me in the eyes. “She’s got her fingers in a lot of pies across the island.”

“Her currency is gossip.”

“Maybe that’s what you thought it was as a kid, but her currency is lives , man.

Your mom makes and ruins lives. That’s not even an exaggeration.

” He shakes his head. “You and Sawyer and Maren are out there trying to make people’s lives better, and your mom is out there covering up some things, digging up other things.

A dog with a bone that she’s constantly burying or revealing.

It’s fascinating to watch and scary as shit. I would not want to cross her.”

“Sounds ominous,” I say, though I’m not as surprised as I wish I was.

She’s always been one to trade in information, but I don’t think I ever really thought enough about the consequences of that—who gets helped, who gets hurt.

Much of what she does has never touched me, and in cases like Gage, where he got into trouble with the government, her ability to wield information often proved helpful to the family overall.

At times, I’ve even gone to her, knowing she’d get something done that I’d find distasteful or that I wasn’t sure how to approach.

Less now that I’m older, but there were definitely times when I asked for help and didn’t question how she solved my problem.

“I suppose that’s why Celia and Jonathan are still together,” Owen says. “I bet she knows all the skeletons in his closet.” He lets out a little laugh. “I wouldn’t even be surprised if she was the one who buried them all there.”

“She’s never deliberately set out to hurt any of us kids.

Neglectful, in a lot of ways. Self-absorbed sometimes.

Since she got sick, she’s been a bit better.

” I shrug, but I wonder whether I should be looking into exactly whose lives my mother has been making and ruining.

It’s not a path I’ve ever wanted to go down, because I’m afraid it’ll fragment our family, but it’s also the height of privilege to be able to ignore whatever she’s doing.

Not exactly a great feeling to realize that maybe I’m not as far removed from my rich, entitled upbringing as I’d like to believe.

“When are you turning all that over?” I ask.

“I’ll talk to Stephen to figure out the best way to get it into the right hands. I want to make sure they can use as much of it as possible. You want her nailed to the wall, right?”

“That’s right,” I say, “and I don’t want any possibility that she can hang those nails on a cross. Mickie is not the victim here.”

“Fair enough,” Owen says, tucking the files under his arm before slapping me on the shoulder. “It’s been good to be out of special forces and back on the island.”

“Business is going well?” I ask.

“Palace has hired some of my people for the princes and their babies. We’ve got celebrity clients coming to the island looking for local security.

My bodyguard and security guard training programs are up and running, and my brother Weston built all the tech for the company to keep us secure and state-of-the-art.

Things are ticking along. Can’t complain. ”

Then we stand around talking for a few more minutes about producing television, working with Interflix, and the hit documentary my company put out about Prince Nicholas and Julia Jensen, which was picked up around the world.

When there’s a knock on the apartment door, Owen excuses himself just as Maren enters with a small dog carrier.

“Kinsley is going to bawl her eyes out when she sees he’s gone later,” Maren says, setting the carrier on the island. “You have to give him to her before then.”

“I’m picking her up from school,” I say, “so telling her won’t be a problem.”

“Telling Hollyn?” Maren says, raising her eyebrows.

“Might inspire a fight,” I admit. “But he seemed like a good dog, and I couldn’t take Kin’s tears.”

“Your little marshmallow heart,” Maren says, patting me on the arm.

“Hey, what’s going on with Sawyer? I texted her. She’s dating Dalton Worthington?”

“Yep,” Maren says, her expression tightening. “He’s running for the Advisory Council, just broke up with his wife about six months ago. There’s something about him that rubs me the wrong way.”

While I love Maren, she can be a little prickly sometimes, particularly with men, so it’s hard to know whether her gut feeling is accurate or a knee-jerk reaction to a political figure.

“I haven’t heard anything about his divorce,” I say. “Good or bad.”

“Me either,” Maren says. “I’m tempted to ask Mom, but I don’t want to drag her deeper into Sawyer’s life if I can help it. He is charming, and he does seem to be well-liked at the palace. Brice, Nick, and even Alex, speak highly of him. Fair, funny, personable—which should all be good things.”

“So…” I hedge. “Maybe it’s just you?”

“Maybe it’s just me,” Maren says with a sigh. “Why am I like this?”

“Your ex-husband,” I say. “Ruined your trust. Brice has been working on restoring it, and you’re just not there yet.”

“And I thought my radar was warped when I married Enzo,” Maren says, and the puppy whimpers in the carrier. “Apparently, that ‘bad guy’ radar still might be off-kilter.”

“What do I do with him?” I ask, gesturing to the puppy. Once I’ve got Kinsley, I’m taking her to the pet store to get everything we’ll need. I’m letting her lead the way, but until she’s with me, I’m a bit fucked. I’ve never owned an animal, let alone a puppy.

Maren reaches into her bag and pulls out some folded material. When she sets them on the island, I recognize what they are.

“He’ll pee on those?” I ask, skeptical even though I’ve seen it.

“He’s a pro,” she says. “Honestly, the best pup in the litter. Kinsley has good taste.” She pats me on the chest. “I need to go oversee all the other pickups. Videotape Kin’s response, will you? I’d love to see it. Ten dollars says she bursts into tears of gratitude.”

“I don’t want her crying!” I call after Maren as she heads to the door.

“Too late, brother. You’re going to make her heart too big for her chest with your infinite kindness.”

When the door clicks closed, I put the pee pads down, and I stare into the carrier. For as long as Kinsley is on the island, this little guy will be hers. And if they really do leave us both behind, well, he’ll become mine.