Molly’s playing on the floor with Sinclair and Halliday. She looks so happy fussing Monty, and Sinclair’s new puppy,Mabel. I give her a brief kiss and cuddle, not wanting her to pick up on my tense mood and ruin the innocent smile on her face.
Instead, I make my way over to the piano and sit down while I wait for my father to appear from his office.
The keys are cool and comforting beneath my fingers as I hang my head and play. Music doesn’t ask questions. It doesn’t threaten to take your daughter from you. It doesn’t demand anything.
It gives me a release like nothing else.
I continue playing, the stiffness in my neck easing a fraction with each song I finish. But the second I allow Natasha’s threats back in, it all comes crashing back with full gut-wrenching force.
“Damn it!” I curse, slamming my hands down on the keys, making a foreboding crash of notes echo around the room.
I fly to my feet and stride over to where my father has appeared with Uncle Mal and taken a seat with the recently returned Denver, Killian, and Jenson at one of the low tables on the far side of the room, away from where Molly is still playing with Sinclair, Halliday, and the dogs.
Tossing myself into an empty chair, I don’t wait for any of them to greet me.
I simply spit out, “She’s fucking back.”
“Who?” My sister demands, stalking over to our table.
I don’t miss the way Denver’s eyes track to her. I feared he’d left for good after he told my father he could no longer work for our family. We all did. But as it turns out, we felt his absence as much as he felt ours. Sinclair’s eyes meet his and she’s drawn into his gaze for a beat. I never thought I’d see the day my sister looked at Denver in anything other than detached disinterest. But now it’s out in the open that the two fell hopelessly in love while he was her bodyguard, I can’t imagine ever seeing her any other way.
Happiness suits her.
“Natasha,” I hiss, my anger spiking from saying her name.
Sinclair’s eyes go round. “Molly’s mom?”
“Do you know any others?” I grit.
“Don’t speak to me like that.” She whacks me gently on the back of the head, the only person who would ever dare talk to, or treat me in such a way, and not face repercussions for it. “What does she want?” she asks.
All eyes around the table pin on me as I grind the words out with a menacing quietness so they don’t carry across the room. “Molly. She says she wants to take Molly.”
“What?” Sinclair shrieks. “She can’t! Tell her she can’t.”
“I did fucking tell her that. But she’s her biological mother and?—”
“And she’s also an addict who can’t look after herself, let alone a little girl. Shelefther on your doorstep in afucking box, Sullivan. For God’s sake, what kind of mother does that?”
“I know.”
I scrub a hand down my face. But I’m worried. I’m fucking worried. Natasha has never taken it this far before. She went to my office, for Christ’s sake. Molly could have been there. And she’s her mother. As much as I know I can fight her, the fact remains that she’s Molly’s flesh and blood. What if by some miracle she gets a good lawyer? Or a judge who feels sorry for her and thinks a mother and a child shouldn’t be kept apart, even if that mother is a fucking liability?
What the hell happens then?
“She gave up all rights to be her mother when she did that,” Sinclair continues. “We’ll fight her, won’t we, Dad?”
My father nods. “You bet your ass we will, Sweetheart. Molly isn’t going anywhere.”
A burst of hope ignites in my chest as I look around the table at my family, and the security team. Any person sitting at this table would die for Molly. I know that for a fact.
Natasha doesn’t know what she’s up against.
“Just slam some DNA tests at the courts along with her failed rehab stints. Then she can crawl back to where she came from.”
“DNA results?” I echo Sinclair’s words.
“It’ll show you’re her biological father, won’t it?” Sinclair quips.
