Hell Bent (19 page)

“We had the test run twice to make certain, and yes, that’s what I’m saying, Mr. Winters.  You are a half-sibling to your sister, but the baby is a half-sibling to neither of you.  I’m—ah—sorry,” she said with a whimper, before the line disconnected.

Cade’s heart beat too fast, his head swam with confusion as he dropped his phone to pull his knees up to his chest and hugged them.  He rocked, tried to sort out his thoughts, but his brain wouldn’t work.  He rested his forehead on his knees and rocked harder, pressure built in his chest and moved up to his throat to choke him.

“Cade, are you okay?” Cecelia asked, as she knelt down beside him and wrapped her arms around him tightly.   She held him and rocked with him for a few minutes.  A hot tear landed on his shoulder, streaked down his chest and he stopped.

“No, I’ll never be okay again,” he croaked, his throat raw.  “Ronnie isn’t my sister, well she is but only a half-sister, and that baby isn’t our brother.  I have no fucking idea who my father is, nor do I care, as long as he isn’t Phillip Winters.  The only thing I know now for sure is that my mother is a lying whore.”  He also still knew in his heart that Amelia’s baby was Phil’s child, even though neither he or Ronnie were evidently. 

God, this whole situation was a mind bend, a mind fuck of epic proportions.  His world was effectively a different place since that confusing phone call, but a better place because he would never have to call himself Phil Winters son again. 

Being a bastard was preferable to that.

Relief washed through him to sweep away the confusion, but then Cade wondered how Ronnie would feel when he told her? 

How in the fuck could those two live with themselves and all of those secrets?  They didn’t have skeletons in their closet, they had a whole fucking graveyard.

“
What
baby isn’t your brother?” Cee Cee asked with a shake of her head.  “Why isn’t Ronnie your full sister?”

“The baby I delivered at the shelter,” he replied.  “When Ronnie told me that Amelia wasn’t like the other women, she hadn’t been trafficked, that Phil set her up at the shelter, I got suspicious.  He was making large donations and that man would not turn loose of a penny if it didn’t benefit him somehow so we had a paternity test.”

“Oh, my God—what a fucking
douchebag
,” she railed, throwing her arms around him again for a tight squeeze. “That man needs to have his dick cut off and fed to him.  Some people in this world just shouldn’t be allowed to procreate.”

That explained why all his life Cade never felt connected to that man in the least.  But that wasn’t totally attributable to the lack of genetics.  He felt the way he did because Phil was absolutely a douchebag—a man who’d, when he wasn’t trying to control him, either ignored him or made his life absolute hell.

There was most likely a reason for that too. 

Phil probably knew Cade wasn’t his son as much as he also knew that Amelia’s baby was his offspring.  The way he dumped her off at the clinic told Cade it didn’t matter if they shared genetics or not.  He was just a cold, unfeeling and irresponsible bastard.

Tonight, that was going to change. 

Phil Winters was going to admit the truth straight to his face—that he knew Cade wasn’t his son and he’d spent a lifetime torturing him for it.  Then he was going to acknowledge that Amelia’s baby
was
his son, and he was going to make damned sure Phil did right by that kid.

Or Cade might just kill the man and do the world a favor like he had with Jorge Tovar.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

“Wow, I’m having a James Bond moment,” Cecelia said, fanning herself as she watched Cade lean over the dresser to adjust his tie in the mirror. “And I think I want to be a Bond Girl and stay in the moon capsule with you tonight, James.”

“You could definitely pull off Bond Girl in that dress, Brat,” he said, his eyes drinking in her gold-encrusted curves in a slow tour down to her toes.  “Now where’s my martini—shaken not stirred?” Cade asked with a smile he didn’t feel.

He absolutely did not want to have the talk with Ronnie he knew he had to have before they went to this party, because what he had to say could crush her.  She’d always been closer to Phil than he had, had bowed to the pressure he put on her, thrived on it and the competition with their fath—with Phil to become the success she was today. 

Thank
God
she finally realized she needed more in her life to make her happy, and aspiring to be Phil wasn’t a worthy ambition.

Cade looked back in the mirror at Cecelia, who was now sitting on the bed sliding on a pair of five-inch come fuck me heels.  That is exactly what he’d like to do right now, he thought, as his eyes streaked up the inside of her thigh to see she wasn’t wearing panties under that tight, cut-to-there thin gold dress.  If that thing swished the wrong way every man at the party would probably realize the same.

“Aren’t you ah, forgetting something, baby?” he asked gruffly, as he turned to lean on the dresser as she stood.

“What? A good luck kiss?” she asked, slinking over to him Mata Hari style to put her hand on his chest.  She tiptoed, just a little in those shoes, and put her mouth to his.  When she pulled back, her eyes widened. “Oh yeah, my pistol!”

“You can forget that,” he growled, grabbing her arm when she spun away.  “I was talking about your underwear.”  From the bounce of her breasts a moment ago when she walked to him, he knew she wasn’t wearing a bra either.

She turned back to give him a smile that wrapped around his dick.  His eyes fell to her mouth, which was glossed with red lipstick.  He wouldn’t mind her wrapping those beautiful red lips around him again like she had in the shower earlier. 

A little more stress relief would be welcome, but Cade didn’t think twenty blow jobs, even from this woman, would do that for him.

“I don’t want panty lines and you never know when they might get in the way.” Her eyes heated, as she trailed finger down his shirtfront to where his lapels met.  “We have a few minutes you know.  The party doesn’t start for an hour.”

“I have to talk to Ronnie before we leave,” he said, with a huffed breath and Cecelia’s sexy smile faded, her eyes darkened.

“I’m so sorry, Cade—this has to be awful for you.”

“It’s a lesson for you to appreciate your
normal
family, Brat,” Cade replied.  Cecelia needed to make an effort to reconcile with them very soon, he’d even go with her to help.  “I’m actually relieved things worked out like this, but I’m not sure Ronnie will be.”

“Do you want me to go with you for moral support?” she asked, her voice trembling.

“No, I’ve got to talk to her alone, but thank you.”  Cade pushed off of the dresser to stand, leaned down to drop a kiss on her mouth, then swiped the back of his hand over his lips coming away with a red smear. “I think I like you better without makeup,” he said, but leaned in for another cherry taste of her.

“Blame your sister, she did this to me,” she replied with a laugh.

“I’ll thank her when I see her because you look gorgeous, but you always do—with or without all that war paint.” 

Her smile was like sunshine to his soul, and Cade soaked it up, because right now?  He needed all of it he could get to do what he was about to do.  He walked to the bedroom door and went out to find Allison and Ronnie on the couch chatting. 

“Ronnie, can we talk in the bedroom for a few minutes?” he asked and his stomach lurched when she stood and her low cut, but loose-fitting black dress swooshed to the floor.

“Sure, what’s up?” she asked walking over to him. 

He took her arm to pull her to the bedroom, opened the door and led her inside before locking it and turning to face her.

“You need to sit down on the bed,” he said, walking there to sit himself.

“Ut oh—I have a feeling this isn’t good news,” she replied, easing down beside him.

“Depends on how you look at it really.”  He huffed a breath and turned his body to face her more.  “I’m happy about it, but you might feel differently.”

“What’s wrong? What happened?’ she asked, her eyes narrowing.

“The DNA clinic called and said they couldn’t substantiate that Phil is the baby’s father,” he replied, hedging like that woman at the clinic had.

“Why is that?  The manager said they could if they isolated Phil’s DNA from our moth—” her eyes widened, and she gasped then put a hand over her mouth.

“He’s not your father
or
mine so they had nothing to compare to the baby’s DNA to so they could come to a conclusion.”

Ronnie shot up from the bed and paced the room for a minute, her face as horrified as he knew his had been when he got that call.  She turned too fast on her circuits for him to gauge her reaction, so he got up and stopped her.

“We’re still brother and sister, right?” she asked, her lower lip trembling, her eyes glassy.

“Yeah, we have the same mother,” he replied, unable to stop his lip from curling in distaste.

“Oh, thank
God
,” she said on a long breath as the tension left her body.  Cade’s tension eased too when she pulled him into her to hug him tightly.  “I love you, Cade, and if I didn’t have you—I—I would—” she sniffled, and he hugged her tighter.  “I worry so damned much about you in those godforsaken places.  You really are the only family I have.”

“Me too, sis—you’re my world,” he mumbled into her hair.

She pulled back from him.  “Then don’t go back.  Stay here—you and Cece—”

“Have made strides, but have a long way to go.  I don’t know what I’m going to do when this is over, those godforsaken places are where my career takes me.”  Her eyes fell to the space between them and her lips pinched.  “I can tell you this, though.  I will do everything I can to make sure you’re
permanently
safe before I leave.”

“Well since Trace says my mouth is constantly writing checks my body can’t cash, that could be a long time,” she said with a watery smile.

Cade’s hand drifted down to cover the roundness of her stomach.  “You have to work on that, because you’ll have more than you to worry about soon.  That mouth could get your daughter in trouble too.  Don’t forget about that when you’re writing those checks.”

She sighed long and hard and nodded, and Cade pulled her in for one more long hug, then pushed her away. 

“I retract that promise not to punch Phil tonight.  If he doesn’t man up and admit he is Amelia’s baby’s daddy, I might do worse than that.”

“Ask him to submit a sample—no—
force
him to do it.  Since he’s such a pillar of the community, I’m sure if his friends knew that neither of us is his children, that mother is a two-timing whore and he’s a philanderer, they would knock him off his pedestal quick.  He’s worked very hard to climb into that catbird’s seat, so it might be good incentive.”

Cade’s grin was very real this time as it stretched his face. 

“I’m so damned glad you’re an attorney, but I would
never
want to be on the wrong side of the bench from you,” Cade said with a laugh.

“The don’t call me the Shark Lady for nothing, baby brother,” she replied with a lifted brow.  “Phil taught me well—but I think that’s going to backfire on him tonight.”

Two hours later, Cade wondered if his plan would be what backfired tonight, as he glanced at the clock across the crowded room again.  He rubbed Cecelia’s bare back to calm himself as they swayed to the slow music near the edge of the dance floor.  His pistol grip rubbed the underside of his bicep as he danced, reminding him that his primary purpose here tonight was protection for Allison and Veronica, and the confrontation with Phil just a sideshow. 

But his insides itched for the man to show up so he could unload on him.  Despite Allison and Veronica receiving the black roses garnished with poison ivy at the hotel that morning with a note RSVPing the party invitation, everything seemed to be as it should here.  Cade was bored so that left him with only the confrontation with Phil to think about. 

Please let him show up so I can put this to rest and move on with my life.

A flash of movement at the door caught his attention and Cade tensed.  Cee Cee’s fingers dug into the arms of his jacket, so she must’ve noticed too.  The crowd near the door parted like the Red Sea and as if he’d summoned the devil, there he stood looking as arrogant and slick as he always had, just much grayer and more wrinkled.

“It’s party time, dear brother,” Ronnie said, with a laugh as she danced her husband over to them.  Trace Rooks had scowling down to an art, Cade thought.

“I saw him,” Cade replied, as he stopped dancing and his arms dropped to his sides.  Cee Cee slid her arm through his and latched on. “What are you doing?” he asked, frowning at her.

“Going with you, of course.  You’re my date, so you can’t just leave me here,” she replied, and Cade saw the determination in her eyes.

He didn’t want an audience for this meet-n-greet, but it looked like he was going to have one, Cade thought, with a sigh.  He started toward Phil, who had stopped a waiter for a glass of champagne.  He downed it and grabbed another from the tray, before he let him walk away, then rocked back on his heels while he sipped it and casually scanned the room. 

Phil’s eyes slid right past Cade without stopping and he wasn’t surprised or insulted.  He looked a lot different now than the long-haired boy who left Texas and that asshole behind him six years ago.  He was a man now with a purpose, he thought, as he stopped right beside him and waited for him to notice.  The facial flash, the violent body jerk and the champagne that sloshed down the front of Phil’s tuxedo made Cade want to laugh.

“Hello, Phil,” he said, but didn’t extend his hand.  If he touched the bastard, he might reach for his throat instead of his hand.

“I didn’t even—um—you’re looking good, son,” Phil said, but his eyes weren’t on Cade, they were on Cecelia’s cleavage and Cade wanted to punch the old man’s lights out.  Phil dragged his eyes up to hers and stuck his hand out.

“I don’t think we’ve—” he started, but she cut him off.

“We’ve met—I’m Cecelia Logan,” she said sharply.  His forehead creased for a minute, before his wiry brows shot up and he gave her another once over. 

“Well, I’ll be damned.  It looks like the military whipped you both right into shape.  I’d have thought you’d come back more…um, well…welcome home.”  Phil’s face flushed, and Cade heard the wolf whistle in his mind as surely as if the man had puckered up.  It was right there in his eyes as they dropped to her cleavage again, and he’d had enough. 

“Yes, you are damned, but I don’t think you realize just
how
damned,” he said gruffly.  “Let’s talk so I can fill you in.”

“You don’t waste any time do you, boy?  Never let the social niceties get in the way of your mission, right?” Phil asked, and the jovial mask he wore vanished.

“I’m not a
boy
anymore and social niceties aren’t something I have to worry about in my line of work.  I’ll leave the smarm to you and your legal cronies,” Cade shot back.

Cade saw Allison making her way through the crowd toward the bathroom at the right end of the room.  He was having this talk with Phil, but he wanted to make sure it didn’t prove to be the distraction that left Allison vulnerable.

“Can you go watch out for her, Brat?” He looked down at Cecelia and her eyes said she did not want to leave him, but she nodded and he watched her disappear into the crowd on the dancefloor before he turned back to Phil.

“I need to talk to you, Phil, so you pick the place—here or somewhere a little less public,” he said and Phil frowned.

“I knew I shouldn’t have come to this damned party,” Phil growled, as he grabbed a passing waiter, downed what was left in his glass, and grabbed a third.

You should’ve listened to your intuition old man, because I’m about to rock your fucking world
. 

Cade followed him and his anger built with every step he made as Phil angrily shoved people aside to make his way toward the rear exit.  Phil was in such a hurry to get outside, Cade barely had time to catch the heavy metal door before it closed.   He pushed it open, and walked out, then took his time strolling over to where Phil stood pacing by the dumpster. 

The perfect place for trash like him.

“So what’s our argument for today going to be, son?” Phil asked, going on the offensive as soon as Cade stopped and shoved his hands into the pocket of his trousers.

Cade just stared at him a minute, let him stew and wonder.  Those were the tactics lawyers employed to make people squirm on the stand, weren’t they?