Delores Fossen - Dade

And with that done, Kayla hurried to Dade and practically wrenched Robbie away from him. That didn’t make her son or Dade happy. The baby immediately started to cry, and Dade winced when she bumped against his wounded arm.

“Sorry,” she mumbled. Kayla eased Robbie’s head against her shoulder and began to rock.

Dade gave her a flat look after he was done wincing. “I wasn’t going to kidnap him.”

“I know. It’s just …” But she had no idea how to finish that explanation. At this point it would sound petty if she admitted that she didn’t want her son in a Ryland’s arms. “Misty didn’t answer her phone, so I left a message.”

Dade waited a moment, his stare drilling through her, and she earned another of those impatient huffs. “You do realize I’ll be around the baby and you while you’re in my protective custody?”

Kayla was sure she blinked. “But you’re injured. I thought someone else would guard us.” Preferably someone who wasn’t a Ryland.

“No…. ” He stretched out the word. “This isn’t an injury. It’s a scratch, and it won’t affect my aim if I need to take out another gunman.”

Another gunman. That sent an icy chill through her. Thankfully, it was a chill her son didn’t seem to notice because he finally calmed down and started to go back to sleep. But Kayla knew there would be no sleep for her in the immediate future.

And she knew who to thank for that.

“I need to make another call,” she told Dade, and she didn’t wait for his permission to use his cell. Nor did she have to try to remember this particular number. She’d seen it countless times on her own phone.

Charles Brennan answered on the first ring.

“Dade Ryland?” Charles greeted, though he sounded more amused than concerned. “Why would the deputy sheriff be calling?”

“No, Charles. It’s me,” Kayla informed him.

Dade rolled his eyes and reached for the phone, but she moved away from him and held on tight to both Robbie and Dade’s cell.

“Did you send someone to kill me tonight?” she demanded from Charles.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

She listened for any differences in his voice. Anything that would confirm that he was behind this attack. But he sounded like his normal arrogant self.

“Someone hired a gunman to come after me,” Kayla clarified, even though she was certain he already knew what she meant.

“And where are you exactly?” Charles asked. Still no change in his inflection.

Even though she doubted Dade had actually heard Charles’s question, he got right in her face, and his scowl intensified. Something she hadn’t thought possible.

“I’m at a place where I won’t be much longer,” Kayla answered. “And I want you to stop this now. Robbie could have been killed tonight.”

“What?” Charles barked, and it had a cold, dangerous undercurrent to it.

“You heard me. The idiot you hired could have killed us all. Call off your dogs, Charles, and take your punishment like a man.”

“I wouldn’t have sent an idiot after you.” And there was the change of inflective. It sounded as if he were telling the truth.

Sounded.

But Kayla had learned the hard way that Charles was capable of deception in its purest form. He certainly hadn’t denied that he’d hired a hitman.

“The gunman phoned one of your goons,” Kayla informed him, even though Dade gave her a have-you-lost-your-mind look. “I want you to call whomever it takes to make this stop.”

Charles didn’t answer right away. “I’ll get back to you.” And he hung up.

Dade threw up his hands and winced again. “Did it occur to you to ask me before you made a call to our number-one suspect?”

“I thought I was your number-one suspect,” she snarled and thrust his phone at him.

He opened his mouth, probably to confirm that she was, but he didn’t. Dade just shook his head, snatched his phone from her hand and stuffed it into the front pocket of his jeans. “That call accomplished nothing.”

“Well, it made me feel better,” Kayla fired back. It didn’t. Nothing would make that happen, not with her bodyguard dead and the body of a hired assassin on her front porch.

Dade mumbled some profanity. “Don’t do anything else that might end up helping your father-in-law, understand?”

Oh, that stung. She would never help Charles. Never. “Look, I know you don’t believe me, but we’re on the same page when it comes to my late-husband’s father. It’s possible Charles was responsible for your sister-in-law’s death. Likely, even. But you couldn’t possibly want him in jail more than I do.”

Dade met her eye-to-eye. “Wanna bet?”

Kayla didn’t dodge him. She held her ground. “As long as Charles is free, I’m not. And neither is my son.” Because she needed it, she brushed a kiss on Robbie’s forehead. “It’s not my fault that Charles isn’t behind bars. If you want someone to blame, blame the cops who investigated Ellie Ryland’s murder.”

Dade didn’t flinch, but it was close. Probably because his brother had been in on the investigation. Heck, all the Rylands had, even though it hadn’t been their jurisdiction. In fact, the case had gone to the FBI when the lead investigator had uncovered some evidence of Charles’s money laundering that was linked to a federal case.

“The FBI’s search warrant was screwed up. It didn’t include the storage facility at his estate,” Dade reminded her. “And that meant all those files and records that were seized there couldn’t be used to convict Brennan. To add insult to injury, there was no more proof to arrest him, much less get a conviction.”

Kayla knew all of this by heart because she’d read the reports too many times to count. “Then blame the FBI. Blame Charles’s team of lawyers who challenged the warrant in the first place. But know this—if I get the chance to put Charles away, I’m taking it. Not for you. Not for your late sister-in-law. But for my son. When are you going to believe me?”

The fit of temper and energy went as fast as it came, and Kayla felt beyond drained. Maybe that’s why she hadn’t heard Mason come back into the house. And he wasn’t the only one to reappear. Grayson was at the top of the stairs, a suitcase in each hand, and all of them were staring at her again.

“Maybe we’ll believe you when there’s proof that you’re innocent.” That came from Mason—the dark and dangerous Ryland. The one who made her more nervous than even Dade. “Your phone wasn’t in the car. I searched every inch of it.”

Kayla wearily shook her head. “Then I must have lost it or left it at the condo where I was staying.”

“Convenient,” Mason mumbled.

“No, it’s not,” she argued, knowing it wouldn’t do any good. “I wish I could produce the phone so you’d know I had no part in this.”

“Call her cell,” Grayson said, making his way down the stairs. “The number is there on the dead gunman’s phone.”

Kayla huffed and was about to tell any Ryland who would listen that calling her on the missing phone would be useless. She didn’t have it with her in the house, and she honestly had no idea where it was. But she decided just to let them have their way.

Mason lifted the gunman’s phone so he could see the numbers through the plastic bag, and he used his own cell to make the call.

Kayla’s heart nearly stopped.

Because the moment that Mason finished pressing in the numbers, the sound shot through the foyer.

While the rest of them watched and while Kayla held her breath, Mason followed the sound.

He didn’t have to go far.

Just a few feet away from her.

There, under the foyer table, at the edge of the pool of blood, her missing cell phone was ringing.