Page 57 of Keeping Kasey (Love and Blood #3)

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Logan

The phone falls from my hand. I think I hear the screen shatter, but I don’t look to check.

If I do, I’ll see those pictures again.

Kasey, held by her hair with a bruised jaw and cut lip.

And an ultrasound.

An ultrasound .

A vision of Kasey pregnant with our child etches itself into my brain, and I can’t think of anything more beautiful.

And right now, Leon Diaz has her.

I only just stepped out of the shower after returning from the cellar.

Scott’s a stubborn bastard, and it’s a shame he chose to follow Mason over me.

Two hours of torture finally got me the answers I needed—that he sold the shipping container’s location to a few low-life arms dealers who were willing to pay a lot for the weapons and ammunition, not realizing who they belonged to or what stealing them would ultimately mean for them.

I’ve already sent my team to deal with them.

With any luck, I’ll have my shipment back by the end of the day.

I’ve been itching to see Kasey all morning, but since I figure blood-covered knuckles aren’t a look she’d appreciate, I forced myself to shower before going to see her.

I was just about to leave my office when my phone rang.

“Consoli, how are you these days?” Leon had asked.

I didn’t recognize the voice, but not just anybody can stumble upon my number.

I knew the second he told me who he was that something very bad had happened.

Leon Diaz is one of the few people who can make me look like an upstanding citizen. I will do what it takes to protect my family and maintain my power, but Diaz enjoys the cruelty his power allows him to inflict on anyone who gets in his way.

I may operate in the gray area, but Diaz dances in the black.

He has no boundaries or regard for anything aside from his own sick gratification.

“I have no business with you,” I told him, tempted to hang up right then and there.

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” he said, almost playfully. “I want the list of traitors. Give it to me, and our business will be concluded.”

“Bold assumption that any such list exists. Even if it did, I’d never hand it over to you.”

“No? Then I guess I’ll just have to settle for a snarky little blonde.”

That shouldn’t have been possible. Kasey should’ve been safely tucked away in Ford’s office. I would’ve known if she left.

Right?

But I knew before my phone even buzzed that he wasn’t bluffing.

Seeing that picture of Kasey’s bruised face, with some soldier’s fist in her hair, turned the fear in my veins into murderous rage.

“Do not touch her,” I’d seethed.

“Oh, Consoli, you have no idea, do you? It’s not her you need to worry about.”

I knew he was baiting me, but I still asked, “What are you talking about?”

My phone buzzed again, and as much as I dreaded what it would show me, I pulled it back to look.

A photo strip with three black-and-white images. Fuzzy gray shading covers most of each picture, but each has a circular black spot in the center, and within that, a small gray figure.

A baby.

“If you want the girl and your heir back alive, you’ll bring that list to the address I will send you. I believe our mutual friend left it for you before making her attempted escape.”

Attempted escape?

What the hell is there to escape from? She has her gun, phone, and privacy. She has to know—especially after last night—that there isn’t anything I wouldn’t have given her if she’d asked.

But it doesn’t matter. Whatever reason she had for leaving me doesn’t matter.

I have to get her back.

Leon gave me instructions to come alone and not tell anyone. He was explicit about not making copies of the list either.

My phone buzzes at my feet with the address and snaps me out of my paralysis.

When I pick up my phone—surprisingly unshattered—and see that picture of Kasey again, it feels like the breath is being violently sucked out of my lungs.

He hurt her.

He hurt Kasey, and I wasn’t there to protect her.

There’s a knock before the door to my office opens, and Damon steps inside with a solemn expression and an envelope in his hand.

The list.

I’m sure of it.

“I tried to stop her,” he says, handing me a picture from his pocket.

It’s of Isabella and me at the reception.

“She found this. She found out about the engagement, and”—he hands me the envelope—“she gave me the list before she left. I’m sorry, Logan, I tried to stop her, I did, but she—”

“I just got off the phone with her,” I tell him, forcing what I hope is a convincing smile. “She asked me to come get her so we can talk.”

Damon slaps a hand to his chest, and a whoosh of air leaves him as his shoulders drop. “And here I was sure you were going to bite my head off.”

“Not today,” I say, grabbing my keys off the desk and discreetly slipping a bottle of pain pills into my pocket. “I’m going to get her. Tell James to take over for the rest of the day.”

“I will,” he assures me, and his smile is full of relief and… pride?

I can’t remember the last time I looked to Damon for approval, but there’s something about how he regards me now that sends me back seventeen years, to the kid I used to be.

A kid who looked up to his brother as if he could slay dragons with a smirk and one hand behind his back. I felt safe when he was around—like the world was big, but my brother was bigger.

I’m not that kid anymore.

I haven’t been that kid since our mother was taken, and Damon abandoned all responsibility to wallow in self-pity. He chose to lose himself in a bottle over living up to the position that was his birthright. He chose himself over this family.

At least, that’s what I’ve spent the last seventeen years believing.

Now, in a moment where I have absolutely no time to spare, I understand the crucial piece of information that I’ve ignored for years.

Damon was just a kid, too.

A kid who wrongly bore the weight of responsibility for our mother’s death, and simply didn’t have the strength to carry anything else.

Damon didn’t hand me the heir role because he didn’t care about our family—he handed it to me because he did . He always has. He knew the Consolis needed a leader who could give his all, and Damon’s all was stolen along with our mother.

He trusted me when I was only thirteen to do what he couldn’t.

A million emotions threaten to choke me, and I realize that in going after Kasey, I very well may never come back.

So, I do something I should’ve done a long time ago.

I close the distance between us and pull Damon into a hug for the first time in… maybe ever. He stiffens, every muscle braced like I’m actually about to tackle him—a fair enough response.

“I, uh—what’s happening?” he asks, even as he relaxes and apprehensively returns the gesture.

“Thank you,” I tell him, straining to speak past the lump in my throat.

“For telling James to cover for the day?”

I shake my head, step back, and settle one hand on his shoulder. “For getting sober. For staying sober. And for trusting me to do this, when we both know you would’ve done a damn good job.”

Tentative confusion melts to a warm understanding. When Damon swallows hard, I know he’s just as uncomfortable with the emotions as I am.

That helps.

He curls his lips with a slight wince. “Is this a bad time to admit I thought I was telling James to be the heir?”

I roll my eyes and shove his shoulder as I move to the door—I don’t have any more time to waste.

Leon was explicit in his instructions, but I take the risk anyway.

“Why don’t you bring everyone to the hotel tonight for drinks around eight? We can have a do-over for dinner at the manor.”

He smiles. “Sounds like a plan.”

“I’ll see you tonight,” I say, and hope like hell it’s true.

I get to my car as fast as I can without drawing suspicion, but the second the car is on, I fly out of the garage.

According to the GPS, I’m only forty minutes away, but I’m determined to cut the time in half.

It helps to know I have every police precinct in my pocket, at least for getting out of something as trivial as a speeding ticket.

The entire drive, all I can do is alternate between picturing Kasey hurt and imagining her with a swollen stomach, ready to have our child.

I knew I needed heirs, but that was always the extent of my desire for children. I need a strong line of succession to stay in power. More players for the chessboard, just like my brothers and I were for our father.

But a child that is half me and half Kasey?

That is a human who will be cherished, loved, and wanted for no other reason than that they are my child .

It makes me wonder—just for a moment—what life would’ve been like if our father loved our mother. Would Damon have fallen into alcoholism? Would Mason have betrayed us? Would Elise have grown up with us instead of on her own?

I never realized I wanted Kasey to be the mother of my children until I saw the ultrasound with her name on it. It’s not just the idea of a child, either. It’s Kasey’s child.

Our child.

She’s it for me—she always has been.

The coordinates lead to an abandoned white truck on the side of the road, and I pull up behind it. The roads are a disaster. The snow is coming down hard now, and no one else is out here because only an idiot would voluntarily drive in this.

I park my car behind the truck, but I don’t go to it right away. At some point, hopefully not too late, my brothers will know something is wrong. They’ll track my car, and I need to leave them a hint.

The best I can come up with in my hurry is scribbling down the truck’s license plate number on the back of a car maintenance receipt. I add a short note in what little space I have to write.

Diaz has her. Find us.

With that, I take my phone and run to the car, which, predictably, is unlocked. The keys sit on the driver’s seat, and the GPS is already set to a location half an hour from here.

It takes several minutes for the car to defrost and for the windshield to clear off, but since the car isn’t absolutely freezing, I’m willing to bet it was left here within the hour.