“What do you want?” I mumbled.
The old man shrugged. “Hey, you guys are the ones who were looking for me.”
I frowned and looked up at Sebastian. He had an equally puzzled look on his face. He took his hand off the guy’s shoulder and moved to his side so he could look him in the face. “What are you talking about, buddy?”
After another sip of his drink, he finally turned and made eye contact with Sebastian. “I said, you guys were looking for me. I decided it would be better to come on in and see what you wanted.” He turned his eyes to mine. “Figured I needed to show my face before your PI friend found me and blew my cover.” He nodded toward me. “You know, you look a lot different from the little bundle I dropped off at that adoption agency all those years ago.”
I sucked in a breath, my eyes widening in surprise and shock. Kenneth? Was this the social worker? The man who’d brought me to my parents and disappeared? “Sebastian,” I whispered. “Call Nico.”
Kenneth grinned. “Ah, the boyfriend. Yeah. He needs to hear the whole story.”
Sebastian was gaping at the man, but pulled his cell out and dialed. “Nico? Get your ass to the bar. We have a lead…no, bro, Maddy is fine…yeah, yeah, just get the fuck down here.”
Kenneth took another sip and smacked his lips together. “Hot damn, that’s a good drink.”
NICO
My SUV almost rocked over onto its side as I slammed on the brakes in the parking lot. Most of the cars had already cleared out, due to the late hour. Sebastian had been cryptic as hell on the phone. He’d said Maddy was safe, but I had no idea what was going on.
I jogged across the pavement and into the bar. There were still a half-dozen customers milling around, finishing their last drinks, but no sign of Sebastian or Maddy. I was on the verge of a panic attack when I saw Abi.
She waved to me and nodded toward the rear of the building. “Back office. They told me to tell you when you got here.”
I sighed in relief. “Okay, thanks.”
I jogged through the kitchen and past the dishwashing area. Bursting through the door to Maddy’s office, I found her and Sebastian sitting at her desk, and an older guy sitting to the side. “What’s going on?” I didn’t like how panicked my voice sounded.
“Well,” Sebastian said. “Nico, meet Kenneth. Kenneth, meet Nico.”
Kenneth? The name erupted up from my memory. The name of the social worker who’d dropped Maddy off as a baby. He was here? “No shit?”
“I shit you not indeed,” Kenneth said, giving me a humorless grin.
Sebastian pushed a chair toward me, and I gratefully took it, collapsing onto it. “Okay…what’s, uh…have we found anything out?”
Kenneth sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “We were waiting for you to get started. Now that you’re here, I can tell you everything I know.”
“Please,” Maddy said.
Kenneth nodded. “Okay then. Your friend Luis is pretty good at his job. I have little ears everywhere.” He fluttered his hand around the room. “Word got back to me that a shifter was looking for me. Asking about my last-known whereabouts or known associates. He was starting to get close. I couldn’t have him blowing my cover, so I decided to come to you. Get this little conversation out of the way. Then I can go back into hiding.”
“Wait, why are you hiding in the first place?” Maddy asked.
Kenneth smiled at her. “Because, just like you, I shouldn’t exist.”
“Huh?” Sebastian asked dumbly.
Kenneth pointed at Maddy. “You, my dear lady, are my niece. Your father and I were half-brothers. I carry the blood of Edemas as well.”
My jaw dropped. What? I shot a glance at Maddy, and she looked equally shocked. Sebastian had a hand to his forehead and said, “I knew you smelled weird.”
Kenneth nodded at Sebastian. “Yes. You probably scented the partial shifter blood within me.”
“My father had a half-brother?”
“Yes. Our father had…appetites, I guess you could say. I was a love child he had with a co-worker. I was never acknowledged as a true member of the family; however, my father did tell me about my lineage. He told me how powerful the blood in my veins was and that there were people who would love nothing more than to see me dead.
“I met your father when we were…I don’t know, I guess I was thirteen and your dad was maybe eleven. My dad paid off my mom every month to keep her from spilling the beans to his wife. Your father and I still became friends. We were both only children, and finding out we had a sibling-even a secret one-was pretty exciting. I have no idea how Dad got David to keep quiet about me to his mom, but as far as I know, she never found out who I really was.”
I held my hands up, still reeling from the new information. “So…you know what happened to Maddy’s parents?”
Kenneth’s face grew somber and he nodded. “Yeah. Dad got cancer, and on his deathbed, he told me and David that we needed to go into hiding if we were ever discovered. That we had to protect ourselves and run. He was very adamant about that. The royals would do anything they could to kill us if they found out about us. After Dad died, David met Gabriella. They fell in love and one thing led to another. Things happened,” he said with a shrug.
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