Page 25 of Sire

“So, Turner and Palm Beach are connected,” Axel adds it up. “Alright. We took out Palm Beach; Turner’s next.”

Dear God, I feel a murderous rage.Mix our father with sex traffickers touching my Iron Angel, and no living being with a pulse is safe near me.

I seethe, “I want to know howWrengot caught in their net.”

“Wren?” The smile on Axel’s face is rare. “What a pretty name for a hot woman.”

“You hear how he says it, too?” Nash elbows him. “I hear wedding bells.”

I swear, these fuckers timed that. The bell on my church’s chapel chimes eleven times while their shit-eating grins eat up every strike.

“No,” I snarl once it’s done. “That was my soul being eternally damned for the way I can’t stop thinking about her.”

Nash huffs, “We’re already damned. Might as well get what you want before you go to hell.”

His hypocrisy amuses me. “Will you be taking your advice, Mr. Allen?”

Nash’s face falls. We all know he’s in love with Vale, his daughter’s best friend, but he won’t lay a hand on her. It’s been years, and Vale’s almost thirty, and Nash still lusts for her from afar.

“Besides,” I add. “I just met her.”

“Yeah, and in ten minutes, you sacrificed a finger for her,” Axel corrects. “Sometimes it happens that way. You meet a woman and in an instant you know she’s your future queen.”

Your queen.

His certainty speaks to me.

Each brother must find one; that’s our tradition. Axel tried, but his first queen betrayed him. She left him.

While me? I used to believe I’d find my queen, but my father found me first. So, I made a deal with him, and now I don’t deserve a queen. Especially one too innocent to claim.

No, Wren deserves to be safe.

I give Axel the intel I have on her. “Search child services in Tennessee for the past eighteen years. Find her records. Check the Pigeon Forge area.” Axel looks confused. “Just do it. She sort of mentioned Dolly Parton, and I have a hunch.”

“And you.” I turn to Nash. “Look into this Turner fucker in Hilton Head. Check everyone who played in the Palm Beach tournament to see if any trace back to Tennessee.”

“And you,” Axel slaps my back, “look in the fucking mirror, because I’ve never seen you this worried for a woman.”

Nash slaps my back, too. “You mean … we’ve never seen him falling in love with his future queen.”

My glare shifts between them. “Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother that?—”

“Andhe’s quoting scripture.” Axel pulls away, laughing, “I’m out.”

“See ya.” Nash laughs, turning away, too.

For the rest of the day, my thoughts are swimming. Myconfusion deepens. I’m searching for an answer to what it means as I work my way toward the preschool building, ready to help with pick-up.

But I’m stopped in my tracks at the sight on the sidewalk, standing in the dappled sunlight, under an oak draped in Spanish moss.

Wren Chapel.

Holding a swaddled infant in her arms.

In an instant, I’m convinced Axel was right—you know your queen, your wife, when you see her.

The light flooding my dark heart is like none I’ve ever felt. This is stuff prayers beg for, and it can’t be real.