Not even Etienne or Aodhan being with my only friend Morrigan could make me go out of the way for him like I had for Kobe.
Why did I want the world for Kobe?
Well, in one true act of kindness, he’d literally saved my life.
He didn’t have to.
Not even being the one and only person that I should stay well and truly as far away from as I was capable of could make me leave him alone.
Why did I need to stay far away from him?
Because I was the woman from his cold case. The one person that had “gotten” away from him.
My case—and JP’s case—was handed to him when I was at my lowest.
After hearing Lisbeth and Farrell’s plan to take my daughter—the girl that was genetically half me—away from me the moment I birthed her, I’d run. I’d gone into hiding and had done what I do best—hacking—to hide my trail.
It was them hiring Kobe that changed my life.
I’d seen him coming from a mile away.
He was good, yes. But he wasn’t better than me.
He was everything that I was not—good, sensible, and ultimately respecting the law.
Meanwhile, I was a pain in the ass, went out of my way to stick it to anyone who would let me, and I was so gray that you couldn’t tell whether there was more white than black.
The day that Kobe got assigned the case, I became obsessed with him.
However, the night that I’d gone into labor, it was pure happenstance that he’d found me at that bus stop.
I was waiting for a ride out of town, using his friends’ business to get where I wanted to go—they were men who saved women from dangerous and or abusive situations and gave them a new life when they needed it most—and I’d taken advantage of them.
They’d said someone would be there shortly to take me to my new life.
However, something had happened and they’d been all pulled away. Meanwhile, there Kobe was, a knight in shining armor, there to save the day.
When my contractions had hit me out of nowhere, I’d had nowhere to go.
I’d sat on that stupid park bench for an hour, laboring and realizing that I’d fucked up completely.
Then I started to feel bad, as in something was wrong bad.
I’d passed out multiple times and was seconds away from delivering whether I wanted to or not, when Kobe had arrived.
He’d saved me that night.
He’d saved JP.
And he didn’t even know it.
So yeah, I would protect him with everything that I had. And help him whether he wanted me to or not.
Which was what led me to right then.
“Listen,” I said as I packed up my things. “I’m helping him. It’s his friends—friends that had also helped me whether they knew it or not—and I’m going to do what I can to make sure that they’re okay.”
Morr rolled her eyes and waved her hand at the table. “I got it. And your girl. I’ll get her from school and then take her home with me for the weekend. You go.”
So I did, blowing her a kiss as I left.
There were three people in this world that I trusted with her. Morrigan, an elderly neighbor woman that I’d done extensive background checks on named Grace and Kobe. Whether Kobe knew I trusted her with him or not.
I had a go bag in my car—that was the kind of thing you did when you had someone that was after you and your kid—meaning that all I had to do was head straight to Kobe’s place.
I knew exactly where he lived.
I made sure that he’d gotten the listing because it suited his needs the best.
I also had the code that would get me into his door. Though, I didn’t use it.
I waited for him to exit, and sure enough, he did minutes later.
There was one pastime that I always loved.
That was arguing with Kobe.
Something in which he always did well, even if I could tell he was irked with me as he did it.
Long moments of arguing with him on the merits of going with him later, I smiled at him. Which I knew would piss him off.
Then I said, with that same smile on my face, “Well then, it’s time to get over it, Kobe Sano.”
I knew the words I’d just uttered set his teeth on edge.
Literally, anything that I said to him set his teeth on edge.
I wasn’t sure what it was about me—or my daughter—that set his fur to ruffled, but it did.
He literally couldn’t stand me—us.
One day, I would figure out why.
Sadly, his mind and his psyche weren’t really something I could hack. Plus, Kobe wasn’t the kind of person to put his personal feelings down on paper—or computer, for that matter.
Not that I would be quite that invasive.
“Why are you making that face?”
I blinked, surprised to find him staring at me from the driver’s side of his truck.
“What face?” I feigned ignorance.
He rolled his eyes. “The face that says you’re thinking hard about doing something illegal.”
I snorted.
I was always thinking about doing something illegal.
Hacking definitely wasn’t for rule followers.
“I was thinking about why you hate me so much,” I admitted to him. “I’m not sure why.”
He didn’t say anything, letting me know rather quickly that whatever it was, he wasn’t going to share it with me.
I changed the subject.
“Tell me everything that you know,” I encouraged. “What happened?”
He shrugged. “I told him to email it to me.”
Just as he said that, he pulled up to Wake’s house, which happened to have its own private airstrip and helipad.
The helipad was where we were headed a few seconds later.
I got inside while he did a preflight checklist.
While he was doing that, I got onto the computer I’d brought with me—I always had one on me, no matter what I was doing or where I was going—and went to work.
He got inside and did some more checking; meanwhile, I read through the notes.
“The child taken was the third child of Phoebe and Bayou.” I paused as I read. “Video surveillance was sketchy in the parking lot of the supermarket. I’m going to look through surrounding businesses,” I said.
He took off, and we were flying toward Texas seconds later.
Once we were halfway, I had not just one but seven surrounding businesses’ camera feeds.
“I’ll bet that the police already have all of that. So does Free,” Kobe murmured.
Free was the organization that had helped so many women and children get out of their poor situations.
“They do,” I said as I went through everything. “But this porn store. They didn’t give all of their feeds,” I said as I started to go through their private feed. The one that allowed them to let in men who were then serviced by women that worked there. Whatever the hell it was called—selling themselves or a fuckin’ brothel—they weren’t supposed to be doing it. Hence them not sharing this particular feed with the authorities.”
“Fuckin’ stupid,” Kobe said. “Did you find anything?”
I turned my computer. “All I can see is a car. This young person, a guy I’m thinking, runs toward it. Gets in. Then they all leave. I think that bulge underneath his shirt right there is the kid. What do you think?”