Chapter 23: Chapter 23

NICOLE

I WANT MY KIDS.

Three words that alarmed me beyond words. Our boys sleeping on my lap, my eyes glossy I searched for his gaze in the narrow front view mirror.

“You can’t take them away from me. They are my kids”

“You put them in danger!” his voice sounded like metal being scraped against another metal. Terrifying and so true and I hated myself at that moment.

“I did what I had to do to keep them safe”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

I would fight for my boys. Even if it meant going against the man, I thought of every damn second of the day.

“They’ll never forgive you if you take them away from me”, I almost resorted to tears knowing damn well if Cannon filed for custody I would be separated from my kids.

I’d spent time with Luke’s lawyers to know enough about what was ethical and not ethical.

Case scenario, not telling Callan about his kids. My kids going hungry for two days because I fell into a trap. Let’s not forget the injuries on them. Everything aforementioned being like a big zit about to explode on my face.

“Answer the damn question, Nicole. What the hell happened with pretty boy? Why the fuck were you in Mexico? Why? Why didn’t you—fuck”, he cussed and I stayed mute.

The minute he called his band off and offered to drive me to B&A, I’d known the ride wasn’t going to be a walk in the park.

He wanted answers. Answers I wasn’t courageous enough to give him but still to keep my boys, I had to answer them.

“Lucas and I…are divorced”, I said pausing to take a glimpse of his reaction but he was as stone faced as one of Picasso’s sculptures, “he let us go and before we could leave Mexico, some men tried to attack us, I fought until i was caught. They held us until you found us”

It was part truth, part lie.

I wanted him to hate me not pity me.

I wanted him to despise me because I despised myself all these years for every wrong decision that had brought me and my kids to where we were now.

“What men? And what do you mean he let you go as if he owned you in the first place? You were his wife, not his damn property. Did he know about Jr and Connor?”

He knew.

He wouldn’t have laid his hand on Jr if he didn’t know they belonged to Callan, the man who didn’t give a fuck whether I lived or died.

“He suspected it”

“Suspected enough to send men to attack all of you?”

“I never said Luke sent men-“

“Cut the crap, NICOLE. The bruises on your wrists look too old to have been inflicted by the Reyes gang. You are too alert and conscious about your surroundings and you know how I’m able to see through your bullshit? You have that fucking look my mother had when she was trying to cover up for the mistakes my asshole of a father did”

He’d never talked about his parents if I could remember correctly. Our eyes meeting in the mirror, he didn’t break the eye contact and I wondered whether he knew he was driving or not.

“Do you love him?”

The question came like a thunderbolt hitting grass out of nowhere. Hitting me out of nowhere,

His eyes stormy so much that I couldn’t look away, I gave him the answer I always gave Luke every time he tried to force himself on me.

“I never forgot about you”

“That’s not an answer”, he growled with such intensity my skin turned into gooseflesh.

“It’s the truth”

“A truth I wanted to hear years ago not now. Not while you still have his fucking ring on your finger and certainly not while you still have it in you to lie for him”

I’d kept the ring because it belonged to my dad and not Lucas.

“I NEVER lied for him”, this time the shrill came from the bottomless pit of melancholy in my stomach.

Telling him about the past wouldn’t change a single thing.

Lucas Hawkins was dangerous. A man of influence who had used my father’s money to build himself an illegal underworld empire in Mexico.

If anything, I was protecting the man in front of me from his ultimate death. If Lucas knew I was alive and that my boys were with their father, he’d kill them all and keep me alive to make me suffer.

“Then tell me this Nicole. Did he abuse you?”

Abuse. I had never thought of it that way.

He beat me, that sounded a little less painful but abuse?

That word was heavy, detailed and it cut my insides like a hunter’s blade on fresh meat.

Stoic. Tears withheld back in my sockets, my voice croaked,

“No”

Because saying no was protecting my kids from witnessing a blood bath. Saying no was protecting Callan from Lucas.

If he knew the truth about everything we endured at the mercy of Lucas’ hands, Callan would kill him, killing himself too and now, that I had found him, I wasn’t ready to let him go yet.

I wasn’t ready to lose him.

For the next minutes, he didn’t say a word and I knew every single thing he thought about.

He considered me weak; I considered him my soldier.

He considered me heartless; I knew he had my heart.

He didn’t want to see my face, I wanted to revel in his musky scent alone. Be reminded of old times when he’d offered to make love to me.

When he’d asked me to listen to him even if it was for a second.

The car came to a standstill in front of the twenty something story building I hadn’t seen in a while.

Tall and enormous with lights that matched all the skyscrapers in Miami, the B&A building looked the same as it did years ago.

Callan pulled his keys from ignition, opened his door and stepped out. Before I could do the same, the door to my right opened and he scooped a sleeping Connor from my arms.

Taking Jr from my lap and hauling him to my chest, I stepped foot outside the car.

“I’ll take him”, Callan offered and I eyed him with hesitation.

“If I wanted to run away with my kids, I would have done so the minute I laid eyes on them. Give him to me, Nicole”

And I did so.

Walking in silence, I watched as Callan held onto his boys with both arms and the sight was enough to warm my heart.

He would have been a great father.

He was a great father unlike Lucas.

A tank of a man stood by the building but he didn’t say squat as Callan and I charged right into the building.

Every corner with men far built than ordinary men, I could feel the whispers begging to be let out the minute Callan and I stepped foot on the elevator.

“I can help you…carry them”

Though with the kind of muscles he was stacking, he didn’t look like he needed help.

If anything, he looked like he was carrying barrels of tequila without breaking a sweat.

“I’ll not drop them if that’s what you are thinking about”

He replied as if he could read my mind just like he did years ago.

“Callan I could have told you about them. I went to tell you about them years ago but you—”

The elevator doors parted denying me the chance to tell him I’d gone to look for him years ago only to find him fucking a woman on his bed.

It had stung back then like someone stabbing me in the back and leaving me for dead.

Looking back now, I had done the same thing to him the minute I left his apartment.

I’d fucked Lucas without thinking about him.

I’d betrayed him first.

“Fuck, Nance couldn’t believe this shit. Cannon with twins?”

A guy equally muscular like Callan with a less shade of black hair and brown eyes muttered as the other men I could recognize from before stood behind the said man.

“Fuck off, Gunner”, Callan rebuffed him and I stood there like a lost soul.

“What? We have a new member of the father’s club”, the man named Gunner cheered and I could have sworn Callan smiled before he replaced it with a scowl the minute, he turned to talk to me,

“Berkely wants to have a word with you”

“I’ll take her”, Gunner volunteered eyeing me sweetly.

“You do anything stupid and I’ll fucking take Nance and Sy away from you”

Raising his hands in defeat, Gunner slightly smirked,

“I’m a married man”

Married to Nance, Callan’s sister. At least she’d gotten her happy ending after everything I had put her through.

On my tip toes, I kissed Jr and Connor’s heads before I followed Gunner down the hallway.

“So, you are the infamous Nicole Montenegro. Nance talked about you for a while”

I was sure she did.

“I didn’t mean to get her shot”, I replied sincerely.

“She would absolutely flip if she heard this but her getting shot was the best thing that could have happened to her. It got us together”

“Ooh”

Because what could I have said to that?

That you are welcome I got your wife shot?

“Callan is a difficult motherfucker but Nance said you made him less difficult”

“I don’t think that’s true”

I made his life difficult then, I was still making his life difficult now.

“He’s mad, any person would be but he’ll get over it”

This was different, I wanted to add. This wasn’t me smacking him with a pan like years ago but actually keeping his family away from him.

He would never get over it and I accepted it.

Opening the door for me, Gunner left and I warily walked inside.

Seated behind a desk, a little older with grey hairs here and there, Berkely looked a day over sixty.

“Miss Montenegro”

“Berkely”

“Have a seat”

I took a seat across his huge mahogany made desk.

“My men informed me of you and your kids’ ordeal and I’m sorry to hear about what you went through. That put aside, I’m glad to see you after all these years”, he smiled warmly.

“Thank you. If it wasn’t for your men helping-“

“I gave my word to your father that’d protect you whether you liked it or not”

“I pushed all of you away”

“You were young and hurt. You can’t blame yourself for—”

Berkely hardly finished his sentence when the loud blast of something detonating rung sharply in my ears. The walls rumbled, Berkely shouted something incoherent from the other side as I slid from my chair to the ground in panic.

No shots echoed and suddenly I was spooked to the core about my kids and Callan.

“Bryant Knox? What do you mean it wasn’t that fucker?” Berkely spoke into the earpiece in his ear.

“Anyone hurt?”

My ears peaked and I jolted from my hiding place.

“My kids? I need to see them”

“Miss Montenegro, I advise you to get down. Your kids are fine, my men are handling it”

The minute he said that, his door sprung open, Berkely took out his gun.

Callan stood by the door with something in his hands.

“Situation?”

“A mere explosive to give the messenger time to deliver this”

Callan lifted the piece of paper in his hand, his eyes more on me than on Berkely.

“What is it?”

“I’D RATHER Ms. Montenegro take a look at it”

Surprised by what was going on, I took the paper in my hands perusing through the details.

My heart pounded against my ribcage harshly as I glanced at Callan.

“It’s a lie. This isn’t true”

I glanced again at the piece of paper,

99.99%. Positive match.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Thank you all for going through the chapter, don’t forget to vote and comment and please pretty please leave a review.

Bryant Knox is a character from the book I’m still writing about titled ‘Submitting to my Alpha Bodyguard’. It will serve as a second book for the character introduced in this book called Flames.

Lovely time ahead, see you in the next chapter