Page 11 of Pieces of You

I wasn’t going to go down with Satan, but I sure as hell felt like I was about to go to war against him.

CHAPTER 3

Tate Madden

The next few days were a blur. Plans changed, vacations turned into missions to stay up-to-date on the latest news, and our kink community morphed into a support group.

Kingsley called just when I hit the dirt road leading up to the house, so I answered and put him on speaker.

“We’re almost there,” I said.

“Hi, Daddy!” Kaley hollered from the back seat.

Zoe chimed in too. “We gonna swim wiv Daddy Tay in the big house!”

“Hey, my darlings—that sounds fun.” Kingsley’s warm voice filtered through, and I took a deep breath. “I’ll join you in a few hours. I just wanted to check in.”

As he had way more frequently since…

Goddammit. Shay stayed at the forefront of my mind. That was impossible to change. I tried and fucking tried to distract myself. If I hadn’t had the girls, I would’ve signed up to teach summer school.

“Nothing’s changed in the last three hours, Sir.” I checked the rearview, and as if on cue, the girls giggled. They jokingly called Lee Sir sometimes, much to his amusement.

They’d seen photos of him in his uniform from his Navy days, so it’d been easy to say that was why I occasionally called him Sir in front of the little ones.

“Yes, sir,” Zoe laughed. “No, sir!”

Kingsley let out a chuckle. “My dorks. Okay, I’ll try to get off work early. Be safe in the water, girls.”

“We gots our floaties,” Kaley responded in her “You’re silly, Daddy” voice.

We wrapped up our conversation, and I was torn between wanting Lee with me at all hours of the day and wanting him to work extra. Like, I needed him glued to my hip, at the same time as he made it impossible for me to pretend like the world wasn’t royally fucked. Yesterday, when my mom had watched the girls again, he’d literally beaten my ass till I’d sobbed my heart out. But I didn’t fucking want to cry. I wanted to hold on to the immense anger welling up within me.

I could function on anger. I couldn’t function on fear and heartache.

Pulling into the carport, I noticed Master Walker and Ash talking by their cars. I assumed they’d just arrived too. And Walker hadn’t arrived alone. He was carrying Savi, Ty’s granddaughter.

“Do you remember Savi, girls?” I asked.

“Wiv Uncle Lane and Uncle Macklin?” Zoe asked back.

“That’s right.” I undid my seat belt. It’d been a while since we’d had a playdate. We sometimes got together when Macklin or Lane watched Savi, usually with Ivy too. But given her iron deficiency with her latest pregnancy, she was mostly on bed rest.

I helped the girls out of their seats and said hello to Ash and Master Walker.

“Just the guy I was hopin’ to see,” Walker said, returning to his car. “I have something for you, Tate.”

Oh?

“It’s Ash!” Zoe exclaimed. Yeah, she loved anyone who was fun in the water—as Ash had been the other day.

Ash squatted down and grinned. “It’s li’l Zoe! I think! Yeah, it is.”

He was so good with kids. I’d asked if he and Nathan were bringing out any of their children, to which he’d chuckled and said, “Hell no, they’re old enough to ask questions. One of them’s old enough to be a member. Luckily, his kink is golf.”

Kaley was a tad shyer, so she plastered herself to my leg and didn’t let go.

That was okay.