“I was trying to protect you,” he whispered.
“Your father is the one who has been feeding the Breeds information through the Engalls and Brandenmore companies for the past several years, though he remained anonymous until he contacted Jonas a few days ago,” Creed informed her. “He knew I was a Breed, Kita. Just as he knew the horror your uncle was attempting to create.”
Her father swallowed tightly. “For your mother. For you.” He gave his head a hard shake. “I just wanted to protect you.”
From the monsters of the world. Creed loosened his hold and helped Kita to her feet, rising as he watched father and daughter.
Horace Engalls moved slowly across the room, his face lined, heavy with the decision he’d been forced to make.
Even Creed hadn’t been aware of what Engalls was doing until after the chaos in the garage. Only then had Jonas revealed the full measure of the other man’s involvement and the information he held.
Bastard. Marriage sure as hell hadn’t done anything to cure him of his manipulations.
“Kita.” Horace paused in front of her. “I wanted you safe.”
“You should have trusted me.”
And Creed could do nothing but agree.
Horace nodded. “I should have. But the father manual didn’t come with all the answers to the hard questions, sweetheart. It said follow your heart. And all I wanted to do was save you the knowledge of what your uncle was doing. Of how evil the world could be. That’s what fathers do for daughters, honey. Or at least, that’s what they want to do. Just protect them.”
Kita trembled, and Creed could sense her tears. But these weren’t tears of anger or sadness; rather, they were tears of release, of reconciliation, and maybe even of joy.
“I love you, Daddy.”
Father and daughter.
Creed stood back and gave Horace his moment. A chance to right any wrongs, to be the father, and for Kita to be the child.
Tomorrow would be time enough for him to claim his mate again.
Now, he gave the other man a nod and a smile. Now was the time to lay that foundation.
A foundation on which to build a life.
EPILOGUE
THREE WEEKS LATER
Tall, wide windows spilled brilliant light into the spacious bedroom of the Manhattan apartment Phillip Brandenmore had owned. A property his niece, Kita Claire Engalls, would soon possess once the courts ruled the missing owner as dead.
Once the authorities had arrived at the cabin after Brandenmore’s attempt to kill Kita, her uncle had been transported back to Sanctuary, his mind almost broken. He’d been animalistic, incoherent growls and snarls leaving his lips as spittle gathered on his lips.
“I found it.”
Creed turned from the impressive view of upper Manhattan as Kita all but whispered the words.
Her voice was filled with tears, the scent of her pain filling his senses and drawing him to her to stare at the files she had unlocked.
They had been stored, innocuously, on a hidden hard drive inserted into a digital video frame of family videos at Brandenmore’s penthouse apartment.
Sitting in clear view on his desk, it was a device Creed knew for a fact had been checked.
“The hard drive was very cleverly hidden,” she sighed tiredly as they stared at the files continuing to pop up on the computer the device was attached to. “It didn’t show up with normal search parameters, or even those used to uncover hidden files. He was a genius.” She rubbed at her face wearily. “I remembered the file when he was talking about Mother and the fountain of youth. I came into the office and surprised him days before Jonas captured him. He had the frame, and he was muttering about the fountain of youth. That was the second password.”
Creed stared at the files. They hadn’t even known there could be a second password.
“How did he hide it?” Creed stared at the proof that he had indeed hid it, in amazement.
“As I said, he was a genius.” She gave a small shrug, though he felt the disillusionment that tore through her. “And he told me how to find it. He told me to always remember my mother the day I was born.”
Minimizing the files, she pointed to the picture of her mother holding a newborn child. With a roll of her finger over the mouse pad the little arrow touched the very tip of the corner of the picture, and there, a thumbnail appeared. The mouse then moved to her mother’s left eye.
“He told me I was the apple of my mother’s eye.” She clicked, and there, the message showed up, a request for the password. “Type in a password that has been found on any other file, and this is what you get.” She typed in one of the more well known passwords the Breeds had uncovered.
A series of hidden files came up documenting the life and death of Kita’s mother. Canceling those, she tried again.
“Type in the right password, Fountain of Youth, and you get the files you were looking for.”
And there they were. Labeled by date as well as Breed. Hundreds of files hidden on a hard drive so minute it had been overlooked, because it had never been done before.
It was their last hope to learn what Brandenmore had done to the infant, Amber Broen. If the answers weren’t here, then they faced a future of losing her, as they were losing Brandenmore, if the serum reacted the same as she became older.
He watched as she carefully copied each file to the epad Jonas had given him before disconnecting the frame and laying it carefully on top of the electronic pad used to connect enforcers with the bureau when needed.
Creed sent a carefully worded, encrypted message to Jonas to pick up the package, then lifted his mate from the computer and turned her to face him.
As he suspected, tears whispered down her cheeks. They were tears of regret, of acceptance. There was no longer any denial left inside her, no illusion of anything good left within her uncle.
“He loved you,” Creed whispered. He was convinced of that. “Your uncle loved you and your mother, Kita. Loved you so much that the need to protect you from her fate drove him to the lengths he went to.”
She nodded before laying her forehead against his chest, her breathing hitched from the sobs she tried to hold inside.
“There was no life more important to him than the life of the daughter his sister loved more than anything on this earth.”
During one of the few coherent moments Brandenmore had had over the weeks, that information had come out. It was easy to kill, he had screamed, sobbed. Easy to torture, to maim and to destroy if it meant finding the secret of the fountain of youth. An elixir that halted aging, that cured all diseases, that could save his sister from death. And later, nothing had mattered but saving his niece from the same fate.
The experiments had begun the month Brandenmore had learned his sister had one of the few incurable cancers that still existed. Remission was possible, but the doctors had warned her family it would never last for long.
He’d accepted an offer the Genetics Council had made him that week and begun his research. For massive amounts of money he was given the Breeds needed, then the few mated couples he had been able to acquire. From there, it had snowballed and a monster had been born.
Then, he had learned he had the same cancer, years before his sister had died. Not the niece, but the brother was to be cursed with that fate. It had been more than Phillip Brandenmore could bear.
“He was selfish,” she whispered. “A monster is born, Creed, they’re not created. He was born a monster.”
Unfortunately, Creed agreed with her.
The pain of realization was a strike of agony slashing at him as it tore through her.