Page 94 of Drifter’s Heart

“I told them,” I whisper brokenly.

“And I’m sure they’ll check.”

I glare at him. “Don’t you gaslight me.”

His mouth forms a hard line. “Winnie⁠—”

“Don’t you Winnie me, Wilder West. I want my daughter back. But going there and breaking down a door⁠—”

“I wasn’t going to break a door down.” West looks affronted I’d suggest something so uncivilized.

“No, just him.”

West says nothing at all.

“Right, so where’s your ‘Winnie’ now?” I keep glaring.

“Winnie!”

I frown at him. “I said⁠—”

“Winnie!” My name comes from the living room, but not in West’s voice.

It’s my brother’s.

“What? Are they here?” I dart out of West’s embrace and past him to find Cord consumed in a mass of red hair. “Is she okay? Where’s Sally? Where did you go?” I coo at the back of Lanie’s head, desperately reining back the need to screech those words at the top of my lungs. I’m kind of glad that the cops aren’t here right now to see the domestic disturbance in progress that’s about to unfold in my living space.

“Winnie,” Cord murmurs. His voice is strained.

“Oh, yeah. Right. Baby. Stress. Not good for it.” I’m reduced to single syllables.

“Call me an ambulance, please.”

“Oh.” My phone is in my hand as I dial, automatically putting the call through as I pull hair back from Lanie’s face.

Her swollen face that’s full of scratches and cuts.

My phone drops from my hand mid-call. “Lanie? Where’s Sally?” I’m vaguely aware of West calling the ambulance and then the police again behind me. His deep voice is calm and steady, our constant constant. The Rand family protector.

I choke as her eyes widen and she shakes in Cord’s arms.

“I’m sorry, Winnie. He told me to go and get you.”

I don’t need to know which he she means. “Where’s Sally?” I plead.

“His house.” Her voice trembled. “He wants—” Lanie’s gaze darts to Cord. “He wants the ‘two-million-dollar baby.’”

Cord scowls. “Fuck him for holding our child for ransom. Unborn or otherwise,” he seethes.

I want to slap him for the oversight. Slap him for giving Sally so much. For making her a target and not understanding the enormity of his gift.

West speaks up when I can’t. “She means Sally.”

He gets it. Of course he does.

Cord looks across at me, indescribable pain in his expression. In his life, the only hurts that have touched him have been his alone. Never someone else’s. Not someone he loves.

Never someone so close to home.