Page 7 of Engaging his Enemy
He opened the door, then turned around. “Tell Wyatt I’ll be back.”
A burst of nervous energy danced in her stomach. He wasn’t going to give up on their son so easily, and the first flicker of hope lit in her breast. She nodded. “Dinner’s at seven. Don’t be late.”
4
It was pouring, steam rising from the hot pavement as rain fell hard on Moto’s windshield. It was all he could do to keep from flooring the gas and flying through the rain-drenched streets like a speedboat on a collision course with disaster. How could Ben do it? Conspire with Davina to keep his son a secret from him, even offer to raise the child as his own? Yet even as he asked the question, he already knew the answer.
Ben wanted Davina for himself. He always had.
“Fucking bastard.”
It was the wedge that had driven Moto away all those years ago, the image of his brother with the woman he loved too much for him to bear. It was his most vulnerable moment, his soul gaping from the deaths of his parents when he’d found the two of them like that, betrayal springing Zach into motion just as fury was doing now.
Damned if he hadn’t reacted to her nearness today, the soft curves of her body calling out to him to touch, grab, hold against him. There’d been women through the years, beautiful women, smart women, but none of them had been Davina. He’d lost his virginity to her, coming into her body as he came into manhood, and she still held a grip on his emotions like no other woman ever could.
Shit. He prided himself on his independence, his lack of need for others. He had total control of his life and his choices, and he liked it that way. Since he’d left the SEALs, his brothers at HERO Force were the closest thing he had to family, but he could trust they would always be on his six—and not with a knife waiting to stab him in the back as his real brother had done.
He was going to fit his hands around his jealous brother’s neck and squeeze the very life out of him, for this was far worse than anything he’d done in the past. Ben had kept his child’s existence a secret from him, while situating himself into the boy’s life in his place.
Turning onto another road, he nearly ran into a little girl with a bike, walking it across the road just past the intersection. He slammed on his brakes, heart racing, as the girl looked at him, wide-eyed beneath a pink and green helmet. She must have gotten caught in the storm. Jesus Christ, he needed to slow down.
Pulling to the curb, he put the transmission in park and squeezed his eyes shut. He took several deep breaths as the rain pounded on the roof. His emotions were running the show, and that was never a good game plan. He needed to get control.
Lightning flashed. The image of a tiny baby wrapped in a pale blue blanket appeared in his mind, a nurse handing the infant to Davina. In his mind’s eye, she was as young as she had been back then—just a kid, he could see now—the new life in her arms bearing the full weight of adult responsibility.
He should have been there, damn it. If that was his kid, he should have been there. How could she not have told him right then, right after he left? The Navy had been his life’s dream, that was true, but he would have given it up in a second if he’d known.
Instead, she’d kept the child a secret, raising the baby in the very house Moto had grown up in, and Ben had been there the entire time. They never would have called him if Ben hadn’t needed his help, no matter if it was a fresh grave Ben had likely dug up himself.
“Fuck you,” he said quietly, the very idea of helping Ben suddenly too much to tolerate. The only thing he truly wanted to do was beat the ever-living crap out of that man. He put the car back in drive and headed down the road more slowly than before, making the turn onto State Street.
Old mansions lined the road, their monstrous floor plans long since divided into apartments of various sizes. Number two-eighteen was a tudor-style castle-looking thing with a wide driveway. There was a small lot in the back, and he pulled his rental car in beside a late-model Ferrari with dull red paint. He had a car just like it back home, but his was the current model year and shiny as the surface of a pond, and he knew instantly the car belonged to his brother.
That was the way they’d been. Two peas in a pod, their parents used to say. Both of them had wanted to enlist in the military. Both had a lust for computers, fast cars, and beautiful women.
The same woman.
He ducked into the rain, making his way to the door. Stickers with last names demarcated seven doorbells, and he pressed his brother’s. Lightning flashed and he counted to four before the thunder boomed. The door opened, and Ben stood before Moto for the first time in ten years.
A grown man stood where a young one had been. Ben strongly resembled their father, the shock of it like a punch to the solar plexus. They appraised each other, neither moving or saying a word. When Ben turned and headed upstairs, Moto followed. The hallway smelled like an Italian restaurant, with distant sounds of people talking and someone playing music.
On the third floor, Ben opened a door and held it for his brother. Zach walked in, scanning the open space with its dormered ceilings, ornate dark woodwork, and modern decor. A window air conditioner hummed beside a leather couch, the rain pelting its metal exterior. Moto turned to face his brother, the muscles of his arms flexing in preparation for the battle ahead.
Without a word, he punched Ben squarely in the jaw, sending him backwards into the closed door. “How could you do it?” Zach barked, grabbing a fistful of Ben’s shirt and hoisting his brother toward him. “How could you keep my own kid from me?” He pushed Ben hard in the chest, throwing him back against the door once more and advancing on him again.
Ben slunk to the floor, one hand holding his jaw and the other held up to ward off another attack. “You talked to Davina.”
“And my kid. What the fuck, Ben? Who in the hell do you think you are?”
“You should be thanking me. I took care of the mess you left behind. I raised that kid like my own—”
“Nobody fucking asked you to do that! Did it ever occur to you I might like to know my own child? Be a father to the kid I helped create?” He turned and paced, returning to Ben and enjoying how the other man cowered. “And you tried to marry her. Take the girl I loved and make her your wife.”
“I did what I thought was best.”
“Best? How in the hell is keeping my child away from me in anyone’s best interests but your own?”
Ben glared at him, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth as he got to a stand. “You’re a self-centered, egotistical ass.”
