Page 1 of Dark Reunion

CHAPTER 1

ONE YEAR AGO

DEAN

The swing creaked as it rocked back and forth. Isabella’s giggle carried high into the afternoon air as Tate and Aiden took turns pushing her. Dean stretched his legs out across the grass, soaking in the rare stillness. The twins were locked in their usual battle, each demanding their turn to push Isabella longer, their identical green eyes narrowing in fierce determination.

Dean smiled faintly. Four years old and stubborn as hell…just like him, but they also had their mother’s fire. For as sweet as Yasmine was, when angry, it was best to run for cover.

He leaned back on his palms, letting the sun warm his face. For a moment, he allowed himself to believe this was what peace felt like. The life he’d never thought possible. The children were safe, Yasmine was happy, and another child was on the way. Four kids…it had seemed completely impossible for so long that most days he still shook his head in disbelief.

He didn’t hear the gate open.

He didn’t hear the footsteps on the stone path.

What he heard was Yasmine’s strangled cry.

Dean’s head snapped up, the world narrowing to a single, searing image…his father, Carlos Ramírez, immaculately dressed in black, one arm locked around Yasmine’s throat, a pistol pressed against her temple. Her pregnancy suddenly more pronounced as she struggled for air.

Behind his father, guards fanned out, rifles raised, spreading like shadows across the yard.

Dean was on his feet before he registered moving, every muscle locked, blood flooding hot and cold all at once. He reached behind his back for his gun but grasped nothing.

Fuck.

He hated having the gun around the kids and had gotten complacent in carrying it around. He genuinely thought that enough time had passed and this part of his life was over. The threat long gone.

“Let her go,” he growled, voice lethal.

His father’s mouth curled into that same smile Dean had seen in nightmares for the last fourteen years. A predator’s smile. The Devil’s smile.

“Ah, Mercurio,” the man crooned, tilting his head against Yasmine’s hair as if this were a family embrace. “Is this how you welcome your father home?”

Dean’s fists clenched. “You’re not my father.”

The man’s grip tightened on Yasmine’s throat, making her choke. Dean took a step forward, rage ripping through him. The sharp click of a gun’s safety snapped his focus back. His twins had gone silent, staring wide-eyed at the circle of guns surrounding them.

One wrong move. That was all it would take.

“Dean,” Yasmine gasped.

Dean’s heart tore at the sight. His wife and his unborn child pinned by a monster he’d run from since he was eighteen. The twins, despite their age were protective over their sister, and small trembling hands gripped the chains on either side of her swing.

His father’s eyes glittered from behind his sunglasses. “Fourteen years. Fourteen years you thought you could outrun me. Build this…” He looked around, the disgust at Dean’s home and what he’d built evident in his eyes. “Pretend life. I mean can you even call it that? Mercurio, this is a joke. You live in a dollhouse, you are pretending to be a peasant when you are meant to be royalty.”

Dean’s teeth ground together. “Don’t call me that.”

The old man’s smirk deepened. “But that is who you are. Who I made you. I will say that I’m impressed with...” His gaze slid toward the children. “The beautiful heirs, and this sexy wife of yours. And you even have another child on the way. She is a good breeder.”

Dean’s stomach twisted, every old scar ripping open at once. He saw himself at four — his father’s hand gripping too tight, his voice promising pain if Dean disobeyed. He saw the belt. The fists. The woman screaming, his mother disappearing. The blood. The abuse. And the fear that tasted rancid on his tongue.

Now he saw his children standing in that same shadow as it stretched across the grass.

This couldn’t be happening.

“No,” Dean rasped, stepping forward, his voice like broken glass. “They are not yours. They’ll never be yours.”

His father only chuckled, pressing the gun harder against Yasmine’s temple until she winced. “You will not decide that. I will.”