"So did you," she said.
I squeezed her tighter to me, and she rested her head on my chest. "Harder than ever in my life."
I also slept hard that night, waking only once the alarm went off. It was the first night in many that a nightmare hadn't woken me. Feeling grateful, I snuggled against my wife and kissed her neck.
"I never want to let you go," I whispered.
Mumbling something incoherent, Kinsley pried one eye open and squinted at me. "What?"
Chickening out, I said, "I'm lucky to have you."
With a smile, she stretched enough to kiss me back. "That's nice to hear."
Finn's wailing came through the baby monitor, and Kinsley jumped up to throw on clothes. I followed her to the nursery, entering the room right as she picked up our red-faced baby.
"I think he's getting a new tooth." Kinsley put her finger in his mouth, feeling around the gums. "Poor little man."
I held my hands out, and Finn leaned in my direction. Kinsley passed him over and headed down the stairs to the kitchen.
"Parker, do you have any of those teething rings in the freezer?"
For the next half hour, Kinsley and I took turns helping Finn hold the icy ring to his gums. Parker brought us breakfast, and Kinsley gulped down several cups of coffee.
"It feels like it'll be one of those days."
I looked down at Finn, who was drooling down the front of his shirt. "His head is warm."
"That happened with the last tooth, remember?" Kinsley replied. "I'll get the fever reducer."
I took Finn into the office to entertain him on the spinning desk chair while we waited for Kinsley. Considering how much drool I was covered in, I was thankful I hadn't put on a suit yet. Finn held another frozen ring, occasionally offering it to me. Again, I counted my lucky stars that I was blessed enough to be in my son's life, which I credited solely to Kinsley. Even on the hard days, he was so worth it.
Logan slammed into the room with a thunderous expression on his face. "Burke, I have awful news."
Startled at my friend's unannounced entrance, I looked at him with a scowl. "What is it?"
"Carson dodged his shadow."
"That's impossible," Kinsley said from the doorway.
"It gets worse." Logan stalked to the window, glaring out the rain-soaked panes. "Anna is missing."
I stood so abruptly that Kinsley hurried over to take Finn from me. "What the fuck do you mean, my sister and father are both missing?"
Tugging at his hair, he said, "I don't know, Burke."
"What the fuck happened, Logan?"
"I don't know!" Throwing his hands up, Logan spun to face the office. "I had to give her an ultimatum last night. She was all over the place, telling me I was disloyal to her if I didn't demand you let her back into your good graces. She insisted I should understand where your father was coming from when he lied about Kinsley and Finn." He shook his head. "Anna is no longer the woman I married."
I clenched my hands into fists, but I had no one to use them on. The person I wanted to hit was in the wind, and it appeared my sister was his accomplice. "She helped Dad?"
The expression on Logan's face was one of a man tortured. "I can't be positive, but it sure as fuck looks like it."
"We have to get our men on top of this. The Navarros won't hesitate to accept whatever my father wants to offer them."
"I know. I called Caden; he's on his way, but I didn't tell him what happened. I asked Noah to send him back and not bother announcing him."
"This will take more than just us," Kinsley said. "We need every man in the organization on the lookout. They need to be camped out in front of the remaining Families' known headquarters, their homes, their favorite bars. All of it."
