Page 7

Chapter Four

B y the time Kenna reached Fulcher Park, the sun was high in the blue sky, not a cloud in sight. A haze of heat bubbled off the asphalt of the parking lot as she walked the path over to their meeting spot.

Clouds sounded good right now. Nice and pleasant fifty degrees, and a hot cup of coffee.

She’d been drinking it iced since she got married.

Jax had pointed out they both needed to make compromises .

Which was fine for now, but this winter, he’d be compromising somewhere with three feet of snow.

If she had to deal with Arizona palm trees and relentless warmth at Christmas?

Nah. That was just wrong.

She brought her iced coffee and found a shady spot under some trees where there was a memorial bench for a fallen police officer who’d been shot in the line of duty. About as soon as she’d settled onto the bench, Bruce appeared from behind the trees and sat beside her.

“You left the doctor’s office.” She stared across the kids’ playground.

The splash pad area was bustling with children in bathing suits and swim shorts, their parents standing watch around the perimeter.

She could see all the way to the expansive parking lot and across it to where there were a few restaurants on the other side of the street.

“I had things to do.” He stretched out his knees, shifting in his seat until he found a comfortable spot.

He’d sat beside her with at least two feet of space between them. So CIA. Clandestine meetings in public. Handoffs and vendettas. “You left the medical center.”

He ignored that. “What did the doctor say about your test results?”

“You don’t want to know that the cops are taking care of those two kids? Maybe I don’t like how it escalated so fast and so violently”—or what she’d done to resolve the situation—“but you did the right thing in protecting them.”

He shrugged, and his craggy face and that few days of gray stubble shifted. “I know I did the right thing. Like how I know that…woman? She probably won’t make it. Very sad. Those kids will be better off without her.”

“If she succumbs to her injuries, it’s going to be me who is held responsible.” Didn’t he realize they’d arrest Kenna for injuring her in a way that led to her death? She wanted to reach over and wring Bruce’s neck, but she’d already used a lot of energy today. There wasn’t much left in the tank.

“Turns out I know a good lawyer.”

Whatever that meant. Kenna let out a long sigh.

“What did the doctor say?”

She explained the short version that she was getting older, probably had anxiety, and was likely overinflating the entire thing, considering the test results only showed elevated calcium. “How can there be nothing wrong with me?”

He shook his head. “Doctors don’t know everything.”

“They did something to me.” Saying it out loud sent a tremor down her spine.

What she wanted to do was curl up in a cold room with hot coffee and cry herself to sleep. But what would that serve? Feeling sorry for herself had never been her thing. Self-pity wasn’t going to help her, but she needed to say something out loud. In a way, it would be like exorcising the thought.

“The minute I get even a hint of happily ever after, it gets taken away.”

“Is it really going to change things between you and Jax?”

“I don’t want to be useless. He deserves the woman he fell in love with.”

“In sickness and in health, remember? It’s a part of life.”

Kenna pressed her lips together and made a face. “I don’t like it.”

He chuckled, shaking the bench. “Good thing there’s nothing wrong with you because you make a terrible patient.”

She gasped. “You take that back!”

He laughed.

She listened to it, enjoying the moment.

In the middle of being certain they’d done something to her—because why do nothing when she’d been in their grasp?

—she could take a second and appreciate what she had.

Kenna had never been the kind of person who was always waiting for a better tomorrow.

Now that she had what she hadn’t even admitted she wanted for a long time, and she was finally enjoying her happily ever after…

“I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. And it might’ve happened with that woman.” She winced. “I caved her chest in with just my shoulder. How could I do that?”

He patted her shoulder. Left his hand there and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Doesn’t feel odd to me. Maybe they did surgery on you. Put in metal joints and stuff. Like Wolverine.”

Kenna rolled her eyes. “I don’t think I’d have been walking around the next day. I was achy; I wasn’t superhuman.”

“I guess there’s no point in telling you that you shouldn’t let what you don’t know destroy your happiness.”

“Maybe I need to hear it anyway.” She glanced around, watching other people enjoy a warm day.

Even if she was sweating and wanted to get inside to some air-conditioning.

Take a nap. Call Jax and tell him about her day.

Make dinner so they could eat together when he got home from work. “I have to go to the store.”

“Domesticated Kenna.” Bruce chuckled. “Heaven help us all.”

She frowned.

“You can leave in a minute.”

“What?” She would leave when she pleased, and he had no say in it whatsoever.

He lifted his chin. She looked in the direction he indicated and spotted two women walking toward them.

Slender, wearing professional clothes. Completely out of place in a city park.

Maybe they were on an outing on their lunch break, getting some fresh, extra-hot air before going back to the office.

Except they were headed right for her.

“Is there a meeting on the calendar I’m not aware of?”

“Hear them out.”

She glanced over at him, figuring there was no point in arguing now. Or making a scene by leaving. These two women gave her a vibe. “Members of the resistance?”

“I didn’t ask.”

Which meant he figured yes but wasn’t about to force them to admit it.

She got up, not wanting to remain seated and be at a disadvantage with them standing over her in their power suits with their professionally blown out hair. They hid their strength well, but she spotted telltale signs in the way they moved.

Signs that they could very well be the children that her enemy, the organization Dominatus , created in their labs.

Crafting genetically superior children and implanting them in high-achieving women whom they had kidnapped for the purposes of breeding.

The whole thing was an insane story that she would struggle to believe if it wasn’t for the fact she was one of those children.

She stuck her hands in her pockets, which drew up her shoulders and reminded her of that woman. The boy and his injured younger sister, Lila. Wishing his mother was dead so the terror and pain could be over.

She slid her hands out just as the first woman approached, sliding sunglasses to the top of her head. She carried a leather briefcase. The woman with her seemed to be an associate, or she was a bodyguard with a fantastic ability to come across as unthreatening.

The first woman stuck her hand out. “Lisa Romeo.”

“Kenna Ban—Jaxton.” Maybe she should double-barrel her name, so she could be Kenna Banbury-Jaxton. They shook hands.

The woman’s eyes widened. “That’s quite a grip you have.” She motioned to her friend. “This is my associate, Beth Potter. We’re from Hann, Anthony, and Associates.”

“Lawyers?” She glanced at Bruce. How had he found these women? Or had they found him? “What can I do for you?”

“Typically, we specialize in corporate law, but once in a while, we take on specific cases.” Ms. Romeo opened her briefcase and drew out a file.

“Several years back, we were working one involving a medical research company and the cutting-edge work they were doing with genetic modification. Our client’s information will remain confidential.

However, it’s pertinent that you know she was all set to testify against the company and disappeared the night before. ”

“Disappeared?” Kenna would take a missing person case right now.

Even if she had the cold case that Jax had given her this morning.

Anything she could work from her laptop while she rested in bed sounded great.

Like ordering a pizza and falling asleep halfway through the third slice while snuggling against Jax’s warm chest?—

She cleared her throat. “Do you have any idea who took her?”

There was a chance the witness got cold feet and left of her own volition, but if they were talking to Kenna, it was far more likely she’d been taken. Probably killed, since it had been several years.

Ms. Romeo continued, “Despite the fact she was under guard and at a safe house, our security was breached, and the guards were murdered. The witness has never been seen since.”

“And you want me to find her?”

Ms. Romeo shook her head and handed over the file. “Actually, we want you to testify.”

Kenna opened the front cover and found a photo. A grainy black-and-white image of a Caucasian man in a lab coat with no hair.

Her mind recalled events from just a few weeks ago.

She was held captive by a senator, who had been part of Dominatus , until her friends killed him and rescued her, along with Jax’s sister and mother.

She’d seen this bald man. For a few moments, she had woken up in a hospital bed with him standing over her, surrounded by other medical personnel.

“You’ve seen this man?”

Kenna lifted her head and looked at the woman. “Do you know who he is?”

“Everything we know is in that file.”

Kenna’s chest tightened, her breaths coming faster now.

Bruce took the file from her hands. “She accepts.”

Kenna wasn’t going to be told what she was doing. None of them got to decide that for her. “I’ll think about it.”