"Is she okay? Is she hurting you, Isabella? Tell me what's wrong!" he prompts, standing to his feet, every muscle rigid with readiness.
Several long seconds go by before Cash lets the phone drop from his ear. He turns his black eyes to me, a mixture of hell and hurt in their depths. "She's gone."
My stomach flips over again, but this time not in nausea, but in fear. It flips over and then clamps down. Not only might this little girl be Cash's, but I've come to really like her. I certainly don't want to see anything bad happen to her. Especially not at the hands of her despicable mother.
It only takes me about ten seconds to decide what to do. I throw back the thin blanket the nurse brought me shortly after we arrived and sit up. "Let's go."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Cash warns, stepping back over to me and gripping my shoulders when I would've stood. "You're not going anywhere. You're exactly where you need to be."
"But Isabella … " I argue.
I can see how torn he is. He wants to help her, but he doesn't want to leave me either, even though I'm out of the woods. Woods that I was never really in.
"I'll call Gavin. He can find out what's going on."
I can tell that it's hardly the same thing, hardly a satisfactory option. Cash wants to go to her. He wants to tear into whomever has caused little Isabella such terror.
"Call him, but tell him we're on our way, too."
"Absolutely not. You can't-"
I give him a withering look as I interject. "Cash, I'm pregnant. Not dying. Isabella might be your daughter. You'd never forgive yourself if-"
Cash interrupts me. "She's not," he says flatly.
"She's not what?"
"She's not mine," he explains quietly, his expression clearly disappointed.
I search his eyes. While I can't say that I'm as disappointed as Cash-now I'll be the woman to make Cash a father, and that makes me happier than I even know how to describe-I'm disappointed for him. I hurt for him. I know he's grown attached to Isabella and I think he wanted her to be his so that he would have the legal right to help her.
Now he doesn't. She's nothing more to him than the child of an old friend.
Only he doesn't feel that way about her. After thinking of her as possibly his for the last little while, he'll never see her as "just" Sophie's daughter again.
"So he called?" Cash nods. "It's definite?" Another nod. "What else did he say?"
Cash's disappointment and pain shifts into fury. "She's been drugging her. Probably for quite a while. And now there's not a damn thing I can do about it."
We both know that's not true, but he won't make a decision like that without at least talking to me. My guess is that's why he came home when he did.
I yank out my IV (they gave me fluids because I was dehydrated from so much vomiting), tear off my hospital gown and slip into my shirt. As I'm pulling my hair out of the back, I take my husband's hand. "We can talk about it on the way. We've got a little girl to save."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Cash
I hang up the phone. Gavin was out, but I left him a message. Despite my urge to hit the gas pedal, I don't. My wife and our unborn child are in the car. The best thing I can do for Isabella is to arrive in one piece.
"Maybe something just scared her," Olivia says into the quiet cabin, curling her fingers around mine in a comforting gesture.
"Maybe," I agree, not feeling any better about the situation. I won't until I can see with my own two eyes that she's okay.
"You know, we could probably buy Sophie off. With her history and the way she's conducted her … personal business thus far, I think we have a shot at it at least. Don't you?"
"Yes, I do. That's why I was coming home today. I wanted to talk to you about what I'd found out and what you thought about maybe trying to adopt Isabella. If Sophie can be bought, that is."
Olivia smiles over at me. "I think that sounds like an amazing idea." I see her hand rub her belly. She might not realize she's doing it, but she's touched her still-flat stomach at least a dozen times since we left the hospital. I don't blame her. I want to touch it, too. I want to get down on my knees, wrap my arms around her and hold our child close, with nothing but its mother's flesh and blood between us.
But that will have to wait. Another child needs my attention right now. And this one is in distress.
Gavin returns my call when we are only a few miles from the club. When I tell him what happened, his response is quick and definite. "On my way," he says and then the line goes dead.
The first indication I have that something is dangerously wrong comes when I step quietly through the front door of Dual and find Jason King with a knife to someone's throat. I don't recognize the guy he's holding, but I recognize the look on Jason's face. It's death. Or the close proximity to it. And not for Jason. For the guy he's holding. I see it like a shadow on the wall or a dark corner in an empty room. There's no trace of the fairly friendly acquaintance of Gavin's we were introduced to not so long ago. No, that guy's gone right now. That Jason King is nowhere to be found. He's been replaced with this man, one who is obviously quick and capable and lethal. With one flick of his wrist, he could slit his captive's jugular wide open. One look at his face tells me that there's not much standing between him and doing exactly that. My guess is that what little is standing in the way has everything to do with information.