Before I could reply, his phone buzzed in his pocket. He glanced at the screen, his jaw tightening as he silenced it.
“I need to make a quick call for the club. Five minutes, tops. Then I want to take you out to dinner.”
I felt giddy inside, but I kept my tone light and teasing. “Dinner? Like a real date?”
His eyes darkened with heat as he cupped the side of my face, his thumb stroking my cheek. “Yeah, a real date. You’ve been cooped up in this house long enough. I want to take you somewhere nice, watch you order whatever the hell you want, and spend the whole meal thinking about how good you look sittin’ across from me.”
I leaned into his touch. “That sounds perfect to me.”
He straightened, and I watched him walk toward his office. When the door clicked shut behind him, I let out a shaky little breath and hugged the blanket closer, a secret smile tugging at my lips.
I had a date with Thayer to get ready for.
10
CAGE
As I closed my office door behind me with a quiet click, my body was still humming from the heat in Hadley’s gaze. I settled into the leather chair behind my desk and groaned, thinking about the shy warmth and curious hunger I’d seen in her eyes. I’d nearly said fuck dinner altogether and dragged her straight to my bed. It took everything in me to pull away and answer Jax’s text.
My cock was still rock-hard, aching against my jeans and demanding release. With a frustrated grunt, I leaned back in my chair and scrubbed a rough hand down my face, forcing myself to focus as I dialed Jax.
He answered on the second ring, and I growled, “Somebody better be fucking dying.”
His voice was clipped and tense. “You sitting down?”
“Unfortunately,” I muttered, shifting in the chair in a failed attempt to ease the relentless pressure behind my zipper.
“Found more shit about Hadley’s birth. And brother, it gets more fucking twisted at every turn. The timeline’s full of gaps and inconsistencies, starting from the day she was supposedly born.” I heard the faint click of his keyboard as he spoke.“Danielle Rivers disappeared from the public eye throughout the whole pregnancy. That alone had alarm bells going off for me. They should’ve milked that shit—perfect motherly image of domesticity—but they didn’t.”
My gut tightened hard, my unease growing as Jax kept talking. “Not one public appearance?”
“Nothing. From the time she would have been about a month pregnant until the day they faced the press with the baby when she was around four weeks old, there wasn’t a trace of her that anyone was able to find.”
“You’re not anyone,” I grunted.
“You bet your motherfucking ass I’m not,” he growled. “Took a lot of fancy finger work into some gray areas, but I finally nailed her down. During the time Danielle was supposed to be pregnant, she was staying at a private residence with zero public connections to the family.”
I didn’t interrupt, just listened, my jaw grinding.
“But what I found real damn interesting was that she wasn’t at a hospital when and where Hadley was supposedly born. Nothing that points to a home birth either. Couldn’t find any evidence that she was under any kind of professional prenatal care.”
Cold rage began to burn through me, my fingers curling into fists on the desk. “Go on.”
“That got me wondering about her medical care leading up to and after the pregnancy and birth. Dug deeper and found fertility treatment records buried deep enough no one from the press has ever touched ’em. Doctor shoulda’ known better than to keep shit like this in her personal files. Made it even fucking easier to get my hands on. Anyway, these records clearly indicate that it would have been nearly impossible for Danielle to get pregnant naturally.”
“What the fuck?” I hissed.
“Doctor also had the woman’s yearly physical records. I think there’s something there, but I want you to look at them. I sent them in a secure email. Tell me if I’m on the right track there, because I also found substantial payments made directly to a doctor—off the books. Could definitely be bribe money.”
Too enraged to speak, I was silent as I opened my laptop and navigated to my email. I skimmed through the documents, including X-rays and other imaging tests. From both before and after Danielle’s supposed pregnancy.
“Motherfucker,” I growled when I finished.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” Jax muttered.
“Her body is exactly the same in pre and post Hadley tests and physicals. There’s no evidence in her body of ever having carried a baby or given birth.”
“Son of a bitch,” Jax cursed. “I was hoping I was somehow wrong.”
