Chapter 27: Daddy’s Dirty Little Secret: Chapter 27

I hadn’t meant to fall asleep. The car was like a furnace by the time I came to—stifling hot, my shirt clinging to my back, the leather seat radiating warmth through my jeans. I pushed the door open partway and leaned against it, blinking against the sunlight that had shifted to a hazy late-afternoon angle. The windows were already down, but it hadn’t helped. The air inside was stale and dense, the kind of heat that clings to your skin even after you step out of it.

I sat up straighter and squinted down the street as a car turned the corner and headed toward the driveway. My pulse jumped before my brain caught up. It was Amelia’s car. My hand went to the door handle, breath already caught halfway in my chest. She’d finally come home. I didn’t care what she had to say—I just needed to see her step out of that car and know she was okay.

But it wasn’t her.

The driver’s side opened too hard, and Laurence stumbled out. He looked wrecked. He barely got the door closed before pacing in a frantic, disjointed loop near the curb. I was already out of the car and walking toward him when he saw me.

“Xander—God, okay. Okay. You’re here. That’s good.” His voice was too loud, too fast. “I’ve been driving since this morning. I just got back. They let me see her. I saw Amelia.”

I stopped short. “What do you mean you saw her?”

“She’s alive, but she’s not free. They’ve got her. Hayes has her. I went to Vegas. They brought me into this room—I don’t even know where—and I tried to offer them everything I had. Twenty thousand in cash. That’s all I could get. I got the car insurance money. Took from the warehouse job. Emptied the last of my savings.”

He kept pacing. He wasn’t making sense.

“They laughed at me,” he said. “Said it was a down payment on a funeral. I told them I’d get more, I told them I had someone⁠—”

“What are you talking about?” I snapped. “Where is she?”

“They’re holding her. And they know. They know, Xander. Hayes told me himself. They were in her apartment. They went through her things. He said … he said congratulations.”

I stared at him, not following.

He froze. “She’s pregnant. With your baby.”

I stepped forward. “What?”

“She’s pregnant,” he repeated, eyes wide. “And Hayes knows. He saw the appointment card. Her vitamins. Her mail. He said it like it was a game.”

“You’re not making any sense,” I said. “Why would she be with Hayes? Why are you the one coming out of her car?”

“She came to my house,” he said. “Found my emails. Started asking questions. And when I didn’t come home, they got to her first. She’s being used, Xander. As leverage. Because of me. Because I owe Hayes a hell of a lot more than twenty thousand dollars.”

“You’re rambling.”

“I know,” he said, voice cracking. “But she’s in danger. Real danger. And it’s not just her anymore.”

My fists clenched before I even realized they had. I stepped into his path and grabbed him by the shoulders. “You’re telling me you left town with her car, left her unprotected, and now you’re standing here rambling about cash and Vegas and leverage like I’m supposed to know what any of this means?”

“I didn’t mean for it to happen like this,” he said. “I didn’t think Hayes would go this far. I didn’t even know about the baby until⁠—”

I didn’t think. I just reacted.

The slap landed hard across his face, my hand stinging from the contact. He staggered a half step back, blinking at me, stunned.

“Get it together,” I said. “Right now.”

He brought a hand to his cheek but didn’t swing back. “I deserved that,” he muttered. “I do. But we don’t have time. They gave me forty-eight hours. Less now.”

“To do what?”

“Come up with half a million dollars,” he said. “Or she disappears.”

My mouth went dry. I couldn’t feel the heat anymore. Couldn’t hear anything outside the sound of my own breath and the blood pulsing behind my eyes.

“You’re telling me Hayes is holding Amelia hostage. And now you’re dragging me into this because you’ve run out of options.” Laurence didn’t argue. He just stood there, breath uneven, hands half raised like he didn’t know what to do with them.

The name sat heavy in my head—Hayes. I’d heard it before, a few times. Quiet, offhand references in conversations that dropped off when someone walked into the room. A name people didn’t want to say too loud. I’d never met him, but I knew he had money. I knew he wasn’t the kind of man who forgave mistakes. But I had no idea Laurence had borrowed from him—no idea Amelia had been caught in the crossfire, and no idea I was next.

I opened my mouth, then closed it. I turned away from Laurence and stared down the street, trying to focus, to push my brain into lining up all the pieces. But it was all still noise. Heat, sweat, panic—none of it let me think clearly.

Then one word cut through everything else—pregnant.

I turned back to him. “What do you mean she’s pregnant?”

He blinked at me slowly, dumbfounded. “You didn’t know?” he asked, staring at me like I was a fool. And I was a fool—a complete total idiot.

My chest tightened. Something lodged behind my ribs like a stone. I took a step back and dropped my hands to my sides.

“No,” I said slowly. “She didn’t tell me. When did you find out?”

“Vegas. Hayes told me. He said they found her appointment card, the prenatal vitamins, some other things in her apartment. He said it casually, like it was just another pressure point.”

The edges of my vision felt too sharp, like everything had suddenly gone high definition without warning. The baby—a baby—wasn’t just some threat to throw around. It was real. She’d kept it from me. I didn’t even know what I felt first: anger, confusion, fear, or something worse that didn’t have a name yet.

Laurence watched me like he expected me to blow. Maybe I did too. But nothing happened. I just stood there, cold in the middle of all that heat, trying to remember how to breathe.

“She didn’t tell me,” I said again, mostly to myself.

“She didn’t?” His blank expression enraged me. “Maybe she was scared …”

I almost said I would’ve helped her, but the words stuck. Because help wasn’t what this was anymore. We were way past that.

Laurence shifted, his voice quieter now. “They won’t let her go without the money. Half a million, or she disappears. That’s what they told me.”

I looked at him, really looked at him, and for once there wasn’t anything else left to say. I nodded once. “Get in the car.”

He hesitated. “What?”

“Get in the damn car, Larry. We’re going to the bank.”

“You have that kind of money?” He scurried, two-stepping as fast as he could around the front of my car.

“I don’t know yet,” I snapped, “but we’ll figure it out on the way.”

He didn’t argue again. He followed me without another word, and we both climbed in. The moment the doors shut, the cabin felt too small. My hands were slick on the steering wheel. I turned the key, and the engine caught, the air conditioner kicking on with a slow wheeze that barely cut the heat.

I didn’t wait for traffic. I pulled away from the curb too fast, tires skipping slightly on the hot pavement. The street blurred past as we drove, but I barely saw it. All I could hear was Laurence’s voice on a loop, repeating things I hadn’t wanted to hear. Amelia’s name. A baby. Hayes. Half a million dollars or she’s gone.

Gone.

I pressed harder on the gas.

Laurence stayed silent beside me. He looked hollowed out, like the panic had worn down everything else. But mine was just catching up. It was spreading fast, rising in my throat, settling behind my eyes, locking up every thought that wasn’t get to her.

She was pregnant.

She hadn’t told me. I didn’t even know how far along she was. I didn’t know if she was scared, if she was okay, if they were treating her like someone carrying a child or just another pawn in their game. That thought hit harder than anything else.

My child was out there—at risk. Held by people who didn’t care whether they were threatening a woman or a life she hadn’t even had the chance to protect yet.

I gripped the wheel tighter, knuckles white. We were going to fix it. I didn’t know how. But I wasn’t going to sit back and wait for another message to show up, or for some clock to run out.

I didn’t care what it cost. I would burn every cent I had. I would clear out accounts, sell off assets, mortgage everything if I had to. I was going to be a father. And the person who should’ve been able to tell me that was locked in a room with strangers who knew it before I did.

That was going to change.

We didn’t speak for the rest of the drive. I didn’t need him to say anything else. We were already too far in. And this time, I wasn’t handing it off to anyone else to clean up.

We were going to the bank.

And I was going to bring her home.