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twenty-nine

“What?” The word came out strangled as she launched herself off the desk.

Oh, God.

She was half-dressed, her panties soaked, the taste of Davey’s cock still on her lips, need still thrumming through her veins.

She searched the floor for her pants. She needed clothes. She need to—focus. Relax. It wasn’t a video call. Dad couldn’t see her, didn’t even know she was there.

She dragged her hands through her hair, trying to smooth away the evidence of just how sex-mussed she was. “Why’s he calling you?”

“He wants an update on my progress tracking you down.” Davey leaned back in his seat, completely at ease despite his erection still standing at half-mast. Cool. Calm. Unbothered. “What do you want me to say?”

She stared at the phone in his hand, at a complete loss. Her mind went blank, her pulse hammered in her ears. For months, she had avoided this conversation, convinced that keeping her distance was the only way to protect her family.

And now?

Now, her father was waiting on the other end of that call, thinking she was still lost, still a ghost he hadn’t been able to track down.

“Ro. Look at me.” Davey set the phone down and rose to his feet, crossing to her in long, quick strides. He caught her chin between his fingers and turned her head until their eyes met. “I’ll tell him to fuck off if you want me to. He doesn’t need to know you’re here. He doesn’t need to know anything about what’s happening or why. Just tell me what to say, and I’ll say it.”

The temptation was there—to let Davey tell her father off, to put off dealing with the truth for just a little longer. But… she couldn’t hide forever. And now that she knew staying away hadn’t kept Rue from falling into Atlas Frost’s orbit, it was time to face this head-on.

She held Davey’s gaze, drawing strength from the steadiness in his eyes. Then, she inhaled slowly. “I’ll talk to him.”

Davey studied her, like he was checking for any last hesitation, then gave a slow nod. “Do you need me to step out?”

“No.” It came out a little too quickly, and she reached for his hand. “Please stay.”

“Come here.” He hooked an arm around her waist and guided her back toward the chair, pulling her down with him as he sat.

No hesitation. No second-guessing.

She settled against him, and there was nothing sexual about it this time. Just warmth. Just solid, steady reassurance.

Davey reached for the phone and held it out. “You sure you want to do this now?”

She wrapped her fingers around his, took another steadying breath, and nodded. “Take the line off hold.”

He hit the button.

She raised the receiver to her ear. “Dad.”

There was a beat of silence. Then, a quick, sharp inhale of surprise followed by a gruff exhale. “Well, I’ll be damned. You do still know how to pick up a phone.”

Rowan swallowed. She had prepared herself for anger, for disappointment—but not for this. Not for the rough-edged relief in his voice, like he’d been waiting half a year for this exact moment.

“I’m sorry, Dad.” Rowan closed her eyes, focusing on the feel of Davey’s arms around her, steadying her. “I should have called sooner. I should have...” Her throat tightened, the words sticking.

“You’re damn right you should have.” Gabe Bristow’s voice was gruff, as usual, but there was no real heat behind it. Just an aching weariness that made her chest constrict. “Do you have any idea what it’s been like, not knowing where the hell you were or if you were even alive?”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered again, though she knew the words were too small, too inadequate to make up for the months of heartache she’d caused her parents. “I had to leave. If I stayed, you’d have all been in danger because of me. And you had just had surgery and— I thought leaving was the only way to keep you safe.”

Gabe made a sound—something between a snort and a scoff. “Safe from what? You think a missing leg makes me any less capable of protecting my daughter?”

Rowan swallowed. “You couldn’t protect me from this, Dad. Or from the things I’ve done.”

There was a pause, a slight hesitation before he spoke again, softer this time. “Tell me, then. Help me understand, Rowan. Please.”

God, that please nearly broke her. Her father was a brusque, sarcastic, hard man. He didn’t say please, much to her mother’s constant annoyance.

She hesitated, but she owed him the truth. “I was hired to kill Davey. I took the contract to protect him and figure out who wanted him dead, but I haven’t always been that noble in the past. I have taken other contracts, and I have carried them out.”

Dead silence.

Then, Gabe let out a long, slow breath.“Huh.”

Rowan winced. “That’s… all you’ve got to say?”

“I mean, I’d yell, but it sounds like you’re already doing a good job of punishing yourself.”

She almost laughed. Almost.

“Jesus, Ro,” he added softly after another beat of silence. “You always did take after me in the worst ways.”

“No.” The protest all but jumped from her lips. “You’re a hero. You save people. I’ve only ever been good at killing them.”

Gabe let out a low, humorless laugh. “I was a SEAL, Rowan, and I fought in a long, bloody, unwinnable war. And when I left, I built a team that pulled people out of hellholes. I’m good at killing, too, baby girl. I got paid to pick up a weapon, same as you.”

Silence. A long, painful silence.

Rowan wanted to argue with him, to insist that it was different, that her father had killed to protect people while she had killed for money. But the words wouldn’t come. Because deep down, she knew he was right. They were more alike than she wanted to admit.

Finally, Gabe exhaled heavily on the other end of the line. “I’ve always known who and what you are, Rowan. There is nothing in this world—nothing you could do or say or be—that could make me love you less.”

Rowan clenched the phone tighter, turning her face away so Davey wouldn’t see the rush of tears in her eyes. But he did anyway, and he gently brushed one from her cheek when it slipped out.

God, she loved him.

And her dad.

And she’d been so wrong to shut them both out for as long as she had.

She tried to form words, wanted to tell them both what they meant to her, but her throat was too tight, her chest too full.

“You hear me, baby girl?” Gabe pressed. “ Nothing. ”

She managed to nod before realizing he couldn’t see her. Her dad was old school and almost never called with video. “I hear you,” she rasped. “But I don’t deserve that.”

“That’s not your call to make, baby girl. You’re family. And family doesn’t just walk away because you screwed up. You should know that by now—after all the shit you’ve seen my men pull. Hell, after all the shit your sister’s pulled. And I’ve kept them all around.”

A laugh caught in her throat—rough, brittle. She wasn’t sure if it was amusement or something closer to grief. Maybe both. “I do know it, Dad.”

“Good. So you can come home now, and we’ll figure out the rest later.” A pause. A breath. And when he spoke again, his voice had lost some of its gruffness. “Just come home, Rowan. Your mother misses you.”

Translation: I miss you.

She closed her eyes and pressed her fingers against her lids to hold back the tears. How easy he made it sound. As if stepping back into the life she’d left behind was as simple as walking through the front door.

But it wasn’t that easy. It never had been.

She wanted to tell him that. Wanted to say that she wasn’t ready, that there were still things she needed to do, that she wasn’t the same little girl he imagined her to be.

Instead, all she managed was a whisper. “I don’t know if I can.”

Silence stretched between them, heavy and knowing.

Then, after a beat, he made a sound that was half grumble, half sigh. “Don’t make me hire Davey again, for fuck’s sake. The man charges too much.”

Rowan huffed out something that was almost a laugh. She tipped her head down, resting her forehead briefly against Davey’s shoulder before turning her face into his neck and breathing him in. “If it’s any consolation, I think he’d do it for free now.”

Davey let out a quiet chuckle, shifting beneath her as he lifted their joined hands. He mouthed, “Damn right,” before pressing a kiss to her palm.

A choking sound crackled through the receiver. “Who the hell was that?”

“Davey.” She let herself sink into him, her body molding against his as she matched the slow, steady rise and fall of his breathing. “If you used video like a normal person, you’d know he’s right here with me.”

There was a beat of dead air, thick with suspicion.

“ With you?” Gabe finally said, his voice dropping into that dangerous, measured tone she knew too well. “Rowan Kendra Bristow, you better not be telling me what I think you’re telling me.”

Why did she suddenly feel like a teenager caught making out on the couch?

She curled into Davey’s chest a little more, and his arms tightened around her in a silent show of support. “If you think I’m telling you that Davey and I are together, then yes. I love him.”

Silence.

Then—a sharp inhale, followed by the kind of explosive sound a volcano might make before it obliterated an entire coastline.

“Oh, fuck, no. Not a Wilde. Not Jude-fucking-Wilde’s son.”

Rowan could practically see it—the way his granite face darkened, his skin turning a dangerous shade of red, a vein in his temple about to burst. A beer bottle was definitely being squeezed within an inch of its life.

Yep.

This was a full Dad detonation.

She pinched the bridge of her nose. “After everything I just told you, that’s what you’re mad about?”

“I paid him to find you—not to put his damn hands all over my baby girl like he owns her! Like he—” A sharp inhale, followed by a muttered curse. “No. Fuck, no. I forbid it.”

She grinned, and even though her dad couldn’t see her, she slid a hand under Davey’s shirt, fingers gliding over the hard ridges of his abs.

Davey sucked in a sharp breath, his whole body going rigid beneath her.

Oh, she knew that reaction. Knew exactly how ticklish he was.

Her grin widened as she dragged her nails lightly across his skin.

A strangled sound caught in his throat as he barely stopped himself from flinching. His hand snapped around her wrist in a firm grip, his glare searing into her, half warning, half plea.

She bit her lip to keep from laughing. “Maybe I have my hands all over him.”

“Jesus Christ. Why the hell would you say that to me?” The sheer horror in her dad’s voice was palpable before he launched into a string of colorful curses that did his sailor heritage proud. “I should have known. The way he dropped every-fucking-thing to find you, the urgency in his voice whenever we talked about you?—”

A sharp crack, followed by the unmistakable shatter of glass.

Rowan blinked. “Did you just break your after-dinner beer?”

He grumbled like an unhappy bear. “I need another drink.”

“Mom won’t let you. You only get one.”

“She’ll make an exception when I tell her who our girl’s been fu—” He broke off and made a deeply pained sound, something between a groan and a strangled whimper.

Rowan rolled her eyes, but the fondness crept in anyway.

For all his gruffness, all his over-the-top reactions, he was still her dad. The man who had taught her how to ride a bike, how to shoot a gun, how to throw a punch. The man who had always, always shown up—whether it was for scraped knees or a broken heart.

And now, here he was, freaking the hell out because she had fallen for someone he never saw coming.

She pressed her forehead against Davey’s shoulder, letting the warmth of his body ground her.

“Goodbye, Dad,” she said softly. “I can’t come home yet, but I promise I’ll talk to you again soon.”

Gabe didn’t respond right away, and for a second, she thought he might capitulate. Maybe he’d let go of the fight just this once, tell her to be safe, that he loved her, that he just wanted her to be happy.

Ha.

His breath left him sharp and agitated, thick with disapproval. “Yeah, yeah. We’re gonna talk, all right. After I fly there and test my new metal leg on Davey’s ass.”

Rowan groaned. “Dad, no.”

“Decision made. Audrey!” he called away from the receiver. “Book us a damn flight to New York! We’re going to get our daughter.”

The call ended.

She didn’t move right away. Didn’t turn. Just sat there, staring at the dead receiver until Davey plucked it from her hand and placed it in the cradle. Then he pulled her tight against his chest and just held her.

She curled against him, exhaling slowly. “He’s going to kick your ass.”

Davey sucked in a breath through his teeth and dropped his head against the back of the chair. “Yeah, I did hear that part.”

She huffed a quiet laugh. “Specifically, he said he was going to test his new metal leg on it.”

“Well, joke’s on him.” He tapped his thigh, right over the scar she knew too well, where the metal rod reinforced his femur. “I’m half metal, too. We’ll clash like a couple of pissed-off cyborgs. Think we’ll make sparks?”

Rowan let out a breathy, startled laugh and pressed a hand to her face. “Jesus, Davey.”

He smirked, but there was a glint of something else in his eyes. “Look, your dad scares the hell out of me, and I fully expect to suffer for this. But I’d still take the hit.”

Her damn heart went warm and liquid, melting away all her usual defenses. But she refused to let him see it. Instead, she rolled her eyes, aiming for exasperation. “Great. You and my dad are going to fight over me like I’m a goddamn prize goat.”

Davey dragged his fingers down her spine, slow and deliberate, just to feel her shiver. “Pretty sure I already won, Hellcat.”

She scowled at him, but it held no real heat. “You’re impossible.”

“And yet, here you are, still curled up in my lap.”

She sighed, shaking her head, the last of her tension slipping from her shoulders like a loosened knot.

He watched her for a beat, then reached out, gripping her chin gently, tilting her head up until their gazes met. She should hate when he did that. It was so goddamn controlling.

So why did she melt every time?

He studied her expression, and the worry she saw in his eyes faded. He stroked his thumb across her cheekbone. “But the rest of it went okay?”

“Better than I expected.” The words felt strange on her tongue, and she didn’t quite believe them yet. She’d braced for anger, for blame. Instead, her taciturn, hardass father had just… accepted her. Forgiven her. “I mean, Dad didn’t disown me or threaten to murder you?—”

“Only kick my ass.”

“Right. That’s basically a hug from him. So we’re already ahead of my worst-case scenario.”

“That’s a pretty low bar, Hellcat,” he murmured, his voice warm with amusement as his lips brushed the shell of her ear.

She sighed. It was. But it was also just… the way things had always been.

She’d been raised in a compound full of mercenaries, where bedtime stories were replaced with field tactics, and instead of lullabies, she’d fallen asleep to the sound of her dad cleaning his sidearm. She had an ex-SEAL father who loved her but struggled to express it—a man who could dismantle an assault rifle blindfolded but never quite knew what to do when his daughters cried.

And then there was her mother—warm and wild and full of love but as untethered as the wind. She adored her children with everything she had. But she was an artist first, a dreamer who painted in broad, sweeping strokes, sometimes forgetting that life didn’t always fit neatly onto a canvas.

And Rue. Sweet, reckless Rue, who could charm her way out of anything, lived life like a runaway train and somehow still believed in love and fairy-tale endings.

They had grown up surrounded by gruff, scarred men who gave hugs like they were taking enemy fire and spoke in military lingo instead of heart-to-hearts. Their world had never been quiet. Never easy. It had been built on chaos and adrenaline, stitched together with gunpowder, oil paint, and the steady hum of a life lived on the edge.

Rowan wasn’t sure she knew how to exist any other way. How could she? She wasn’t built for anything else.

“This is my life, Davey.” She tightened her hand in his and drew back far enough to meet his gaze. “I don’t know how to have a normal one.”

“Then don’t. Normal is overrated. Messy, dangerous, chaotic—I don’t give a damn what kind of life you have.” His voice was quiet but sure, the weight of a promise in every word. He lifted their joined hands, pressing a kiss to her knuckles, lingering over her ring finger. “As long as it’s one with me.”

Her breath hitched. She was already there, already his in ways that terrified her. The warmth of his body, the steady strength of his arms wrapped around her, the quiet certainty in his touch—it unraveled something inside her, something reckless and raw.

That was all it took.

She surged forward, gripping his face as she kissed him. It was hungry, reckless, all heat and need. He met her with a growl, his lips crushing against hers, devouring her like he’d been starving for this. His fingers dug into her hips, pulling her closer like he could keep her there forever if he just held tight enough. One hand tangled in her hair, the other fisting the back of her shirt as if letting go wasn’t an option.

A sharp knock sounded, followed by the doorknob rattling and Sabin’s unmistakable drawl. “Y’all done in there, or I gotta hose you down? ‘Cause our Daphne’s about to pin down Brody’s exact location, so you ain’t got time for no post-lovin’ cuddles. We have a Liam to rescue.”

Davey pulled back just enough to rest his forehead against hers. “Guess that’s our cue.”

Rowan let out a breathless laugh, shaking her head. “His timing’s impeccable as always.”

Sabin knocked again, louder. “I swear, I’m gettin’ the hose! In three… two…”

“Jesus, we’re coming!” Davey groaned and stole one last firm kiss before lifting her off his lap. “Thank you for the distraction. I needed it. You ready?”

Rowan nodded and stood, rolling her shoulders back, letting the weight of the moment settle. “Let’s finish this.”