“I don’t—”
“You should care!” he cut me off. “If we go to the FBI, CIA, Chicago PD, or anyone else, people will know they’re in our pockets. If we look bad…if people find out how corrupt we really are, we could lose Helen forever! If we kill him, not only will we kill our daughter’s biological father, and she could hate us, we would be the first suspects. Once again, we could lose Helen forever! I swear on everything that I am, everything that I own, I swear even on you…I will bring our daughter home, but we can’t just snatch her, Cora. Give me time!”
I shook my head and backed away from him, glancing to Liam and Melody, who just stared between us. “If it were Donatella, she’d already be back.”
“It could never be Donatella because her biological father is right here,” Melody replied, her words all but ripping out any shed of…dignity I had left.
“Liam,” Declan sneered. “Shut your wife up before I have to. I will not allow her to speak to my wife like that.”
“Let her say whatever the fuck she wants because until my daughter come back, you don’t have a fucking wife!” I muttered, fighting back the pain in my throat.
“Cora.” Declan’s eyes focused on mine. He stepped closer, but I backed away.
Running my hand through my hair, I blinked the tears out of my eyes. “Why is it whenever I need you, Declan, you’re fucking useless?”
I didn’t wait for his answer. Turning from them all, I walked out the room. Holding the door closed tightly, trying to fight back sobs that broke out anyway. I couldn’t even run away. It hurt. It hurt so much.
“Here.”
I saw the small box of tissues before I saw the hand attached to it. Blinking the tears from my eyes, I saw him clearly. The shoulder-length brown hair tucked behind his ears. His brown eyes with a speck of green weren’t the usual carefree ones. At fourteen, he already stood at a mighty height. He wasn’t as strong as Ethan, but both of them were still growing. He pulled out a few tissues and reached, pulling my hand from the door, handing the tissues to me.
“Thank you, Wyatt, but—”
“You’re right,” he said softly.
“What?”
“The man that took Helen. He’s not a Callahan. So he’s nobody,” he repeated my earlier words.
“Explain that to your parents,” I muttered. Reaching over, I put my hand on his head. “Thanks for the tissues.”
Without another word to him, I began walking toward the front doors, not the back toward my rooms.
“Helen will be back sooner than you think,” he said.
I just nodded. “Until then, I think I’m going to drink.”
TWO DAYS LATER
I’m going to be sick. I groaned, running my hands through my hair.
“Drink this,” Declan’s voice sounded above me.
“I thought I was clear. I don’t want to see your face until you bring our daughter back,” I grumbled, closing my eyes again as I tried not to hurl.
“You were very clear.”
“So why are you still here?”
“Because I enjoy watching my children sleep.”
My eyebrows frowned together. Peeking open one eye, I glanced up to him as he glared down at me, a glass of water in one hand, pills in the other. “Are you making fun of me right now?”
Stone-faced…borderline enraged, he glared down at me. “No. I’m trying to prevent you from puking on our children as they sleep because, like I said, I enjoy watching them like this.”
I heard his words.
I understood them.
And yet it still took much longer than it should have for me to…hope….my heart began to race as I sat up. Feeling a strange weight on the bed, I turned to my left slowly, and there were…there she was…
“Helen?” I gasped, reaching out to touch her face, but she sneezed, rubbing her nose before rolling over and hugging her brother…on Darcy as he snuggled on the pillow. As if I were dreaming, I reached out, running my hands through her curly hair.
“She got here last night after you passed out, and they both wanted to stay with you. Drink,” he said, offering me the water and pills.
I stared at them before looking back to him, and I couldn’t help it. I jumped, ye, jumped out of bed, hugging him, feeling the water in his hand slip a little bit. “You did it! You brought her home—”
“No, I didn’t.” He peeled me off, handing me the glass and putting the medicine on the bedside table. “Wyatt is the reason she’s back.”
“Wyatt?” I asked.
He just nodded, and I followed as he moved out of our bedroom and into the den, heading to his desk chair and grabbing his suit jacket.
“You’re not going to—”
“Yes, Wyatt. He skipped class and flew down to D.C. yesterday, where he broke into Senator Rook’s office, you know the senator Melody handpicked for the Senate. I guess that was the only other senator he knew.”
“I don’t know…what does Senator Rook have to do with this? Helen’s biological father is Senator King—”
“Wyatt kidnapped Rook’s seventeen-year-old daughter,” he interrupted, his face emotionless, “and took her to Senator King’s home, where he proceeded to shoot them both up with over five grams of our uncut heroin, and while they were both overdosing, he stripped them down naked, so they could be found naked and high in bed together.”
I felt my mouth drop and closed it, only to drop it again. My mind was spinning as I tried to piece together the madness that spilled out of his mouth. I replied slowly, “You’re telling me that Wyatt framed Senator King with a minor, not just any minor, but another senator’s daughter, and heroin?”
He sighed, rubbing his forehead as even he could not believe it. “No. Wyatt tried to frame him. Instead, he murdered our daughter’s biological father.
“Senator King is dead?” I whispered.
He nodded. “Apparently, he had a deadly allergic reaction to the drugs. So now everyone wants
