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Izzy pointed to the sequins on the pink dress Roberta had made for her. “Look, they sparkle.”
“I see. I bet when the lights are off, you’ll glow in the dark.” Mila’s heart swelled with love.
Izzy bobbed her head up and down. “That’s what Bertie says,” Izzy said. She had a difficult time saying Roberta’s full name and had shortened it when she’d first started talking. Roberta didn’t seem to mind.
Izzy raced over to the table and picked up a silver glittery wand. “Look, Bertie made this, too, so I can do magic.”
“I can’t wait to get home so you can show me your magic.”
“Home?” Izzy ran around in circles. “Soon?”
“Mommy will be home in a little while.” Mila’s heart warmed at the sight of Roberta taking a pan of cookies from the oven. “Looks like you and Bertie are making yummy treats.”
Roberta smiled from the bar, where she set the hot pan, and Izzy climbed up on the stool beside her. A bowl of chocolate frosting sat on the counter, and she jammed one finger in the bowl, scooped up a glob, then licked it off.
“Yummy!” Izzy squealed.
Mila rubbed her tummy with a grin. “Save me some, sweet girl.”
Suddenly the back door into the kitchen at home flew open with a bang. Roberta startled and nearly dropped the second pan of cookies as two men in black stormed in, waving guns.
Mila clutched her phone, her heart pounding. “Roberta, Izzy—”
Roberta screamed and tucked Izzy close to her to protect her as one of the men aimed the semi at her. “Please, don’t hurt us!” Roberta cried.
“Izzy, run!” Mila shouted.
But it was too late. Another bear of a man snatched Izzy.
“Put me down!” Izzy kicked and pounded the man’s beefy arm with her fists.
He jerked her over his shoulder, then faced Mila. “Dr. Manchester, do what they tell you or you’ll never see your daughter again.”
They? What was he talking about?
Mila opened her mouth to plead with them, but a loud noise in the back of the clinic made her jump. She clutched her phone with clammy fingers and spun around as the door to the break room opened.
A man wearing all black stood in the doorway, a gun in his hand. “Get rid of the other people in the clinic and do it quietly.”
She glanced at her screen again to see if Izzy was okay, but the call had ended. Panic shot through her. Battling the terror gripping her, she crossed her arms and struggled for calm. “You...have my daughter? Why?”
The man in black shrugged, thick brows puckering as he approached. “Do what we tell you and she won’t get hurt.”
Fear choked Mila. “What do you want?”
“You’re going to give our leader a new face. Then we let your family go.” He jerked her by the arm and shoved her toward the door. “Now, clear the clinic. The boss wants this done quickly and quietly.”
“Who is your boss?”
“No names, Doc. It’s better that way.”
Mila sucked in a breath. “How do I know you’ll keep your word and won’t hurt Izzy?”
The man’s cold eyes met hers. “You’ll just have to trust us.”
She didn’t trust them at all.
He gestured toward the door, the gun aimed at her chest.
What else could she do? They had her daughter. She had no doubt they would hurt her if she didn’t cooperate.
She stepped into the hallway and spotted one of her nurses frowning from the nurses’ desk. She must have heard the noise.
“Unless you want her and your other staff to die, you’d better be quiet,” the man growled behind her.
Mila nodded and stepped forward to get rid of her staff and the patients in the waiting room.
* * *
BRAYDEN HAWK WAS done with women. Especially with fix-ups.
His partner at the law firm, Conrad Barker, had told him Penny Lark was gorgeous. And she had been.
But he’d failed to point out that she had a hole in her head where her brain was supposed to be. That all she cared about was her beauty regime and money and being the focal point on the society page.
Of course, Conrad didn’t care. He didn’t date women for their brains or because he wanted a future with them. He simply wanted sex.
Tension eased from Brayden as he drove onto Hawk’s Landing, the family ranch. The wind whistled through the windows of his SUV, trees swaying slightly in the late fall breeze.
At one time he’d been like Conrad. Not that he wanted a woman for her money, but he hadn’t wanted a relationship either.
The last few months with his family had changed everything.
For nearly two decades, the ranch had been a sad, lonely reminder of his missing little sister, Chrissy. And also of the fact that his father had deserted them shortly after her disappearance.
Thankfully, Chrissy’s murder had finally been solved and the family had closure.
Shortly after, his oldest brother, Harrison, the sheriff of Tumbleweed, had married Honey Granger.
And a few weeks ago, the next to the oldest brother, Lucas, an FBI agent, had married Charlotte Reacher, a victim in a shooting by a human trafficking ring Lucas was investigating.
On the heels of adding two wives to the family, his mother had opened the ranch to four foster girls, Charlotte’s art students, who’d needed a home after Lucas had rescued them from the trafficking ring, an operation known as Shetland.
Unfortunately, the ringleader of the operation had escaped and was in the wind.
And now Honey was pregnant, due in just a few weeks, and the house was alive again with family, with talk of babies and the next generation of Hawks.
Odd how that conversation had sparked thoughts of settling down himself.
Brayden shook off the thought, climbed from the SUV, smiling at the sound of the horses galloping on the hill. Since the girls had moved in, they’d added more livestock, and he’d hired his friend Beau Fortner as foreman of the ranch operation.
His mother swept him into a hug as he entered the foyer. “So glad you made it to dinner, Brayden.”
“I wouldn’t miss it, Mom.” The weekly family get-togethers had meant a lot to his mother during the lean years.
Truth be told, it had meant a lot to him, too. He’d harbored guilt over his sister’s disappearance and had needed his family around him.
Charlotte and Honey and the girls were laying out a spread of food that would feed half of Texas while Lucas, Harrison and brother number three, Dexter, stood by the sideboard sipping scotch. Dexter handed him a highball glass, and Brayden inhaled the rich aroma before taking a sip.
“Thanks, I needed this.”
“Bad day in court?” Lucas asked.
Brayden shrugged. He would have rather been in court than on that damn date. Thank God it had only been lunch.
His mother called them to the table, and they gathered for the blessing, then the meal. Excited talk of the nursery Honey was putting together for baby Hawk floated between the women while Dexter filled them in on the new horses he’d bought.
Lucas’s phone buzzed with a text, earning a chiding look from his mother. She respected all their jobs but insisted they leave their phones and business at the door.
“Sorry, Mom,” Lucas murmured. “It’s about the Shetland operation.”
The room grew quiet. Strained.
Lucas stood and walked to the foyer away from the table. Harrison followed. Tension stretched into a pained silence as they waited to find out if the Shetland ring had struck again.
* * *
MILA SWALLOWED BACK the terror clawing at her as she approached the head nurse in the clinic.
“Rhoda, will you please tell everyone to leave? I have to get home to Izzy. She’s sick.”
Rhoda gave her a worried look. “Is she okay?”
Mila fought a sob, then nodded. “She will be, but she needs her mommy. Just send the patients home and we’ll reschedule.” She squeezed Rhoda’s arm. “You go home, too. I’ll close up.”
Rhoda was a single mother with a ten-year-old son at home, so she didn’t mind an opportunity to take off early.
Mila felt the gunman’s eyes piercing her as she watched Rhoda quickly clear the waiting room, then shut down the computer at the nurses’ desk.
“Anything else I can do?” Rhoda called from the front.
“No, thanks for handling that. Have a good night with Trey.”
Rhoda yelled good-night, then left through the front door.
The gunman motioned for her to lock up, and Mila rushed forward, locked the doors and closed all the blinds. Noises sounded from the back, and she walked toward the exam rooms on shaky legs.
“Why me? Why here?” Mila asked.
The gunman jabbed the gun into her back. “We know you helped some of our girls escape.”
A cold chill washed over Mila. Some of their girls?
She had referred a few lost teens at the clinic to the women’s shelter. And then there was Izzy’s mother...
The back door burst open, and four more armed men strode in, their big bodies shielding another man in a suit who she assumed was the boss.
The guards scanned the interior, their posture braced to shoot. As they parted to search the clinic to make sure they were alone, she got her first real look at the man they called their leader.
Thick black hair framed an angular face that might be handsome if not for the scar running down the side of his cheek and the evil in his black eyes.
Eyes that looked familiar.
Pure panic robbed her breath.
She knew who he was. Arman DiSanti—the man who’d bought and used Izzy’s mother as a sex slave.
Did he know that her daughter, Izzy, the little girl they’d taken hostage, was his birth child?
* * *
BRAYDEN TRIED TO keep everyone calm as they waited on Lucas to answer the phone call. When Lucas returned, he looked antsy.
“We have a lead on the ringleader of the Shetland operation. We think he’s undergoing cosmetic surgery to change his identity.” He pulled his keys from his pocket. “I have to go.”
Harrison leaned over to give Honey a kiss. “I’m going with him.”
As sheriff of Tumbleweed, Harrison had no jurisdiction outside their small town, but he’d caught the case when Charlotte had been shot during the abductions of four students from her art studio. Lucas had been called in then. At this point, the entire family and the girls were all invested in making sure the trafficking ring was shut down for good.
“Need backup?” Dexter asked.
Dex’s PI skills had come in handy when they’d been tracking down the missing girls.
Lucas shook his head no. “This is an FBI operation, but thanks.”
Charlotte stood and touched her husband’s arm. “Where are you going?”
“A clinic outside Austin. Some plastic surgeon named Dr. Manchester is giving the bastard a new face.”
Charlotte’s eyes widened. “Dr. Manchester?”
Lucas nodded. “Mila Manchester. For all we know, she’s on Shetland’s payroll. Her volunteer work could be a cover to give her opportunities to do jobs like this.”
Charlotte shook her head. “No, Lucas. Mila can’t be involved.”
Lucas narrowed his eyes at his wife. “You know Dr. Manchester?”
She nodded. “Her mother is the doctor who removed my port-wine birthmark when I was younger. I met Mila when I was at the clinic. And I’ve read about her volunteer work. She’s a good person.”
