The pounding of his head and the churning of his stomach had less to do with the mass quantities of alcohol he’d consumed than he would’ve presumed.
Even if he’d been drinking pure water, the hangover of discovering that his whole past was a lie would have been sickening enough.
Trey shook his head as he sat on the deck behind the house he’d bought when he became leader of the Shadows. His under-the-table private security gig—and Lars’s flair with investments—had gained them enough capital to need a home base.
It was simple. An old stick-built shack, really, in a rural area of Durham County. But it was surrounded by woods. Solitude. And with Wolf’s construction background, it was now in much better shape.
The coffee in his hand and the sun high overhead competed for control of Trey’s headache. He squinted as he leaned his head back against the Adirondack chair.
His mother. Mom. For so long that person had been a demon in his head.
But now? Now?
The memory of just two nights ago sucked him in, and he replayed it in his head as he’d done almost incessantly ever since.
* * *
Trey thumped his fist on the table, the loud sound drawing more than a few sets of eyes his way.
“Ginger,” he barked, and the waitress immediately came over. “I need somewhere private.”
“Sure. You can use the office,” she said, her gaze darting from Trey to the stranger and back. “Let me know if you need anything else.”
Trey gave her a terse nod and beckoned to Wolf and the stranger. The trio walked through the beat-up door marked “Office—Employees Only.”
Trey didn’t pay a lick of attention to the junk strewn around, the boxes of liquor, the tacky decor that Ruby had placed about the room like a tchotchke-obsessed Martha Stewart. He rounded the desk and sat down, Wolf sticking to his side like a huge, bearded guard dog.
“Say your piece,” Trey growled. “And no bullshit.”
The investigator smoothed his wrinkled pants with a quick motion. “Yeah. No problem.”
He looked around for somewhere to sit, but Trey was in the only available chair. With a shrug, the PI pulled over a stack of empty plastic egg crates and plopped down. “I was hired to find you.”
“How do you know it’s me you’re looking for?” Trey wasted no time.
“Because you were a suspect in a violent crime four years ago.”
Trey sat bolt upright. “I had nothing to do with that murder. I was in the same club that night, but I was nowhere near that fight when it went down. The evidence didn’t lie.”
The guy held up his hands. “Not saying it did. Even though you weren’t charged with anything, your DNA was taken and put into a state database. You came up as a match when we did our search.”
Sagging back into the chair, Trey felt curiously light-headed.
“Why does she want to see me now?” Suddenly the fight seeped back into his veins. He launched out of the chair, bracing his palms on the desk and sending a cup of pens flying to the floor. Gritting his teeth, he stared the investigator down. “She abandoned me. She left me in a gas station bathroom stall, with nothing but a ragged blanket, a dirty shirt, and a spare diaper. Why does she suddenly give a damn now?”
“Because you were kidnapped.”
Trey’s elbows were locked, which was the only reason he didn’t fall back into the chair again. Wolf had moved closer to the desk, and his right hand’s presence reminded Trey that this was reality, not just another of those stupid dreams he’d had over and over. The ones where Mommy Dearest wasn’t a drug addict who’d abandon him without a second thought.
“Your mother is Dolores Yelverton. When you were born, you had some problems. Difficulties with feeding, gaining weight, that kind of thing. Your parents hired a nurse to help cope with your special needs. Unbeknownst to them, that nurse had her own issues. And one night she took off with you.”
Wolf’s hand appeared on Trey’s shoulder, guiding him back into the chair. Trey was grateful, but he was too stunned to do more than shake his head slightly as the investigator continued.
“For months, there was a manhunt for the two of you. The Yelvertons were desperate. But then the nurse’s car was found by the authorities in a lake in Roanoke County. Her body was recovered after dragging the lake, and there was a car seat in her vehicle. It was presumed she’d freed you from the car seat before you both drowned.”
The investigator smiled. The expression was so at odds with the emotions swamping Trey that he nearly launched himself at the guy.
Control. He had to get control of himself.
“I was found in Michigan. Where is my…” Trey cleared his throat. “Where are the Yelvertons from?”
“Wake County. Southwater City. Steven moved away after the divorce, and unfortunately passed away about three years ago, but Dolores still lives there.”
Trey’s whole body turned to stone. He couldn’t even draw breath.
All this time, his mother, his family, was a single county away from him. A town that was only a fifteen-minute drive from his front door.
Fate could be so incredibly cruel.
“If they’re from around here, how’d I end up in Michigan?”
The PI looked down at his hands. “The nurse was suspected to have participated in human trafficking. She was posthumously connected to several other mysterious disappearances of infants and young children. You were presumed dead then. I think she passed you off to another middleman who was being investigated by the cops. He was tipped off and dumped the evidence.”
“Me,” Trey said without a hint of emotion.
The PI nodded.
“So why’d Dolores keep looking for me?” Trey’s voice was the barest whisper.
The investigator’s expression turned wry. “Because she never believed you were truly lost to her.”
* * *
Those words had haunted him for the last forty-eight hours.
She never believed you were truly lost to her.
There’d been a funeral for little Samuel Yelverton, which had been his birth name. But his mother hadn’t attended. She’d been too busy fighting to continue the search.
“Boss.”
The deep voice broke through Trey’s thoughts, and he glanced over his shoulder.
Wolf was mounting the steps to the deck, his big, copper Doberman, Pistol, at his heels. At odds with her name, Pistol was the biggest mush of a dog Trey had ever met. It wasn’t unusual to see the pair of them this early—they lived on the other side of the property. Trey reached down and scratched Pistol’s ears as Wolf dragged over a chair and sat beside him.
“So. You gonna call her?”
Trey shot Wolf a look. His second’s dark hair was still wet from the shower, the tattoos just peeking above his plain black shirt’s collar, adding to his dangerous appearance. The screen of the cell phone on the side table between them reflected the midday sun’s light, almost as if taunting Trey.
“Here,” the investigator had said, pushing a piece of paper toward Trey. “She wanted me to give you this. Now that you know what happened, it’s your call if you want to make contact or not. But she never stopped believing you were alive, Samuel.”
“That’s not my name,” Trey barked before he could stop himself, and then he’d stormed out of the room, leaving the folded paper where the investigator had set it on the desk.
“Can’t call her,” Trey said, remembering the shape and dusky-blue color of the folded note. “Didn’t take her number.”
Just then, Wolf stood and reached into the pocket of his well-worn jeans. He tossed a small, pale-blue folded note atop the blank screen of Trey’s cell.
“Now you do.”
Patting his hip for Pistol, Wolf walked away without another word.
Once the jingle of dog tags and the sound of footfalls faded into the distance, Trey looked over at the piece of paper.
Should he?
Could he?
A lot of who he was had been tied up in the fact that nobody wanted him. Hell, it was the reason he’d basically built the Iron Shadows in the first place.
Fuck blood. Blood was who you chose, not who genetics determined.
But then again—
“This is crazy,” Trey muttered and paced along the edge of the deck.
Uncertainty was eating him up. This wasn’t like him. He chose a path and stuck to it. He had to. Indecision got people killed, or worse.
“Damn,” he spat out, then turned and faced the side table.
The edge of the folded paper stirred slightly in the breeze.
His mind made up, he grabbed the paper and the phone in a single movement.
Without any trace of a tremble, he unfolded the page and tapped out the number that had been written in a neat, feminine hand. Then the handset was at his ear, and the call connected.
He swallowed hard before he spoke.
“Hello, Mo—Mrs. Yelverton.”
* * *
His bike rumbled beneath him, his thighs tense as steel girders as he drove down the long, curving, paved driveway. Sunlight scattered beams through branches just spouting early buds, the flickering of light irritating to his already stretched-taut nerves.
He rounded a sharper bend in the drive, and suddenly a run-down Victorian house came into view. Chipped paint and falling-down boards marred the appearance of what once would have been a true showpiece of architecture.
His mother—Mrs. Yelverton, he corrected himself—had told him about it. An old man lived there, with three times as much stubbornness as he had money. As a result, the home was in pitiful disrepair. Trey’s destination was farther down the drive, on the next property.
Past the Victorian, down another quarter of a mile, the drive bent the other way, and the trees opened up to reveal a huge brick home. Three stories, classically beautiful, it had obviously been given all the care and attention that the Victorian lacked.
And in that home, at that very moment, was the woman who had given birth to him.
Waiting for him.
He cut his bike’s engine a good distance from the house, close to the three-car garage. Without getting off his bike, he looked down at the hands that still gripped the handlebars.
Scarred. One of his knuckles was misshapen from a break that hadn’t healed quite right. Tattoos spread across his knuckles, reading “Iron Life.” Further ink disappeared into the long sleeves of his leather jacket.
His jeans were dark, his boots were heavy, and he looked more like he should be there to rob the joint than to meet the lady of the house.
Trey raked his hand through his hair and looked at the puffy-cloud-dotted blue sky.
What was he doing there? He didn’t belong. He belonged back at Ruby’s, or riding the highways looking for trouble.
This wasn’t him.
And then he closed his eyes and remembered her voice.
The soft catch as she drew in a shaky breath at realizing who she was talking to. The sound of her tears as relief spilled through her words, cascading in a rush of love long suppressed.
“My son. My son.”
His throat had felt curiously thick too, as she’d said it. She hadn’t called him Samuel, and he was grateful for that. He could pretend that it was really him she was longing for, really Trey she cared about.
He looked at that house again. In another lifetime, maybe, this could have been his home, where he had grown up with a family that loved him.
What was the harm in pretending for just a moment? He’d go in, meet her, show her that he was the farthest thing from the perfect son she was imagining, and then beat feet for the door.
He owed her that much, he supposed. Since she’d spent nearly thirty years looking for him.
His footfalls were extra heavy on the brick front steps. His shoulders lifted with tension as he raised his finger to the doorbell.
Before he could push the button, the heavy wooden door opened. There, on the threshold, stood an absolute angel. An angel with his own eyes, soft, curling brown hair with just a hint of gray at the temples, and a smile on her curved lips that belied the shine of tears in her eyes.
“Trey, my son,” she whispered and opened her arms.
And without even realizing it was happening, Trey stepped into her embrace.
Her fingers dug into the muscles of his back; her face buried into the leather of his jacket as tears racked her.
Steady, he told himself as adrenaline and emotion overtook him in a rush.
He wasn’t sure what to do. She hadn’t gotten a good look at him before hugging him, he supposed. She’d probably be disappointed when she pulled back and really took him in, but for the moment, he let himself pretend that this was his first hug from his mother. The first of many. He closed his eyes and rubbed her back, relishing the feeling, foreign as it was, of being home.
Much too soon, and far too late for comfort, she pulled back with a shuddering breath and smiled up at him.
Her cheeks were blotchy and red, but her smiling green eyes, so like his own, were shining with happiness this time.
“Trey, please come in.”
She laced her fingers through his and led him into her home.
She still hasn’t really looked at me, he thought as he followed her through a large living room and formal dining room into a modern, tastefully decorated kitchen. In just a minute, she’ll realize that I’m not what she expected.
“Please sit down,” she said, pulling out the chair at the head of the small table in the breakfast nook. “I’ve made a fresh pot of coffee, if you’d like? Or some soda, or juice, or—”
She stopped, and his chest filled with air, but the breath refused to release. She was looking at him. Really looking at him.
He knew what she was seeing.
A huge man with more tattoos than exposed skin, a bump on his nose from multiple breaks, and a pissed-off resting expression that he could no more change than he could his love of fighting.
A walking, breathing disappointment.
But her expression never wavered. In fact, she broke into a laugh, the sound shooting shocked adrenaline into his heart and making it jump.
“I’m sorry,” she said, wiping her cheeks as she chuckled. “You just haven’t changed a bit.”
“What?” His voice was gravel over concrete, as if he hadn’t spoken in years.
“When you were a baby, you had that same expression. So serious, so studious, as if you were figuring out the mysteries of the universe and weren’t quite happy with the results. Oh God, I have missed you.”
She pressed a quick kiss to his forehead and turned and hustled away before he could react.
His knuckles went white on his knees as she busied herself with clinking mugs and the trickle of pouring coffee.
This wasn’t how he’d pictured this meeting. He was… Well, he was completely befuddled. How the hell was he supposed to manage this?
He couldn’t hit things. He couldn’t threaten. He couldn’t bluster. Navigating this emotional minefield was at more than his pay grade, and while part of him longed to relax into the welcoming, loving atmosphere this lady was offering, another part of him—the part that had been hardened by the worst foster homes and a childhood belief that he’d been abandoned—cautioned him to get out while he still had a chance.
“I guess you’re wondering about me, about all this,” she said as she brought two mugs to the table. “Oh, I should have asked if you wanted milk and sugar.”
“I take it black,” he said, accepting the rustic mug.
She smiled, an expression he was realizing hadn’t really left her face in one form or another since she’d clapped eyes on him on her front stoop. “I do too.”
They sipped in silence for a while. Trey tried to be surreptitious, but he couldn’t help staring at her.
She was tall for a woman. Of course, it stood to reason, since he was close to six foot five himself. Her hair had the same sort of loose curl to it that his did. The way she moved was even similar.
God. He was falling into this without even meaning to.
“I want to ask you so many things,” she said. At her words, he tensed, but she continued. “I know it’s not fair though. I only wish your father could have been here to see this.”
Her expression changed, sadness hiding behind her eyes.
Trey cleared his throat. “I was sorry to hear… The PI told me…” He trailed off, unable to voice the words.
She nodded. “Cancer. About three years ago.” Shaking her head, she wiped her cheeks. “I only wish he could have been here to meet you too. Is there anything that you’d like to know? About your father, your sister? Our family?”
His teeth hurt, he’d clamped them together so hard. His knee bounced beneath the table, little rings spreading in his coffee cup from the movement.
Sister. He had a whole family he didn’t know. A world was opening up in front of him, a world that felt more like a chasm that he was poised on the edge of.
He clung to the only solid thing in front of him.
“You. I want to hear about you.”
Her stare was direct and warm as she nodded at him.
“When you were born—”
“No,” he interrupted. “I want to hear about you now.”
She paused for a moment, her head tilting to the side a bit. He didn’t move, not a muscle betraying the turmoil inside him. His poker face was something he’d perfected long ago, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that she was somehow seeing through it.
“Well,” she said, “I run a community help center downtown. We cater to the homeless, to runaways, provide counseling and job-readiness courses. We teach art classes, provide child care, and try to help people get back on their feet.” She looked down at her cup, her fingers curling around the ceramic body of the mug. “When I started it, I was trying to think of it as a place that you might be able to go to for help. That’s why I named it what I did.”
“What’s it called?” The question came before he realized it.
“Sam’s Place.”