Page 107 of Promised to the Cowboy
“How did you find out?” I hold up a hand. “No, don’t answer that. A private investigator? A clinic record bought through the right contact? Someone paid to watch me walk into an appointment and report back? Privacy is a right you’ve never respected.”
“I made certain you were safe. I had professionals gathering the information I needed.”
“About my pregnancy.”
“About my daughter.”
“Your daughter cut you off years ago.”
His eyes harden. “And yet here you are, carrying my granddaughter.”
“She is not yours either.” My words are steady. My hands are not.
Not because I’m frightened, but because he saysmy granddaughterwith the same calm certainty he uses for companies, properties, and anything else he believes belongs to him. As though blood is ownership. As though he can reach through me and put his name on my daughter before she’s even drawn breath.
His eyes return to mine. “The Suttons. How much have they given the FBI?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Don’t be foolish, Evangeline. Vance talked. I’d like to know how much.”
“Then you should have thought about that before you poisoned someone’s water supply.”
His expression doesn't change. “What have they told the FBI about me specifically?”
“Everything,” I say. “Absolutely everything.”
That isn’t true. I don’t know what’s true. But I watch his jaw tighten by one degree, and I keep going.
“Names. Accounts. Shell companies. The runway you’re standing on.” I nod toward the aircraft. “How long does it take to turn a plane on a strip this short? Because I’d imagine that’s not the only thing the FBI is moving quickly on this morning.”
He says nothing. Which tells me everything.
The plane is facing east. Engine note rising. Ready.
The men around us seem to disappear. It’s only him and me now. The father who could have had a daughter. The daughter who stopped waiting.
Behind him, one of the crew members calls out. A single word I don’t catch. Alexander’s chin lifts fractionally in acknowledgment.
“You’re coming with me,” he says.
“No,” I say, proud of how steady my voice is. “You don’t get to decide how this ends.”
His attention moves to the man beside me. “Put her on the plane.”
The man on my right tightens his grip. I let my body sag, enough to make him think my knees have gone weak. His arm shifts around my waist to catch me, and I drive my elbow backward into his ribs.
He grunts and folds.
At the same time, I wrench my other arm down instead of pulling away, twisting toward the thumb of the man gripping me. Mom taught me that when I was fourteen after a drunk owner cornered us in a barn. Fight the weakest part.
His grip breaks. I shove both hands into his chest and run.
I almost slam into Falcon as he steps into my path.
“Don’t,” I say. “Please.”
His eyes meet mine. He stops.
