Page 14 of Kade

“Tell the fucker I’ll see him in the morning at the office.” His cock twitched in agreement. They had a very long night ahead of them.

“Kincaid, get your ass out here. I don’t care what shit is going on in there. This is important.”

He let his head drop in the hollow of Angel’s shoulder. Fuck, fuck, fuck. “I’m sorry.”

“Tell Dylan I am going to twist his balls until they go blue and fall off.” Angel winced a little when he pulled out of her.

Kade stood and covered her with the same throw he had earlier and then pulled on his pants. “I’ll be back as quick as I can.” Kade shot his wife one last longing look then stalked out into the living room, ready to beat the shit out of Dylan.

The look on the man’s face shriveled up every ounce of anger in his body.

“Office.” Dylan didn’t wait for a reply, but instead made a beeline for Kade’s home office.

Kade followed him, his fear rolling back full force, as he braced himself for whatever had Dylan looking like death who came a-knocking and didn’t leave emptyhanded.

Dylan paced the room like a caged cat, ready to strike as soon as he was offered freedom. Kade had never seen him like this. Granted, Viktor knew him better, but still, it was odd behavior for the man.

“What happened?”

Dylan stopped pacing long enough to scowl at him. “Give me a minute. This is serious shit. I need to calm down long enough to explain it.”

That didn’t sound at all good. Had something happened to one of their clients? Was any of their team injured? These and a dozen other questions waited on the tip of his tongue, but he kept quiet. Dylan would speak when he was ready. Kade had gotten no panicked texts or voicemails, so he hoped it wasn’t as serious as he feared.

Several minutes later, Dylan finally sank into one of the office chairs, giving Kade a sense ofdéjà vufrom earlier this afternoon. The folder in his hands was bunched and looked the worse for wear.

“I went to see my contact over at the hotel.”

Kade’s spine stiffened. He thought this was about one of their open cases, not the child. He hadn’t expected results on that for at least a few days.

“I have pictures.” He thrust the file folder at Kade, who took it grudgingly.

Carefully, Kade opened the file and stared at photos of the child, taken from several angles. Dylan must have taken them on his phone and printed them off. The tilt of the child’s head in one photo caught his attention. It reminded him so much of Nik when he was this age it felt like someone had just sucker punched him. All the breath went out of him as he studied the child.

Angel was right. This is exactly what Matthew would have looked like, right down to his mother’s eyes.

“I…I don’t…how…”

“It’s a lot, I know.” Dylan let out a slow breath. “It could be coincidence.”

“It has to be.” Kade gripped the picture of the boy staring straight at the camera, Angel’s cat eyes jumping off the page. He didn’t know what to say, to think, to feel. His gut twisted, everything inside of him urging him to get up and go look at the boy for himself. Just to assure his heart what his mind knew. This wasnotMatthew.

“Chucky told me the child’s name is Mateo Ramirez. His father is Juan Ramirez.”

The name tickled a memory in the back of Kade’s mind, but he shoved it aside as he stared at the photo gripped so tightly in his hand, it might disintegrate.

“I got so many good photos of the kid because they were on their way to the airport, heading back to Miami. If I’d been ten minutes later, I’d never have seen him.”

Kade’s head swiveled up to stare at Dylan, his mind going blank for a second as the shock seeped in. “Miami?”

Dylan nodded, a cold and deadly tint to his eyes. “Are yousureyour son died?”

The question startled him so much, he lost his grip on the photo, and it fluttered to the desktop. Of course, he was sure Matthew died. The baby hadn’t been viable at twenty weeks. It was impossible.

“The doctor told me…”

“I don’t care what the doctor said. Did you see him? Physically hold him?”

“No,” Kade whispered, his voice rough and hoarse. “The placenta ripped, and he was stillborn. They told me babies that small almost never lived.”

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