His Son. Her Secret.

Chapter 2

Beth’s pulse pounded in her ears. She had to be imagining it, right? What would a baby be doing in this place in the middle of the night? Was there a homeless mother squatting between the boxes away from the cold with a baby?

“Beth?” Avi’s voice crackled urgently through the earpiece. “Talk to me. What problem? Do you need assistance?”

Beth didn’t answer right away. Mostly because she was still trying to listen and confirm what she’d heard. Part of her brain told her it wasn’t her business and she shouldn’t get involved, but what kind of human being would she be if the cry of a child didn’t at least warrant her curiosity?

A handful of seconds later, her body decided before her brain caught up. Taking the earpiece out of her ear so she didn’t get distracted, she carefully moved toward the sound, each step measured, her boots barely whispering against the concrete floor.

The cry came again. Weak. Fraying at the edges. God, it wasn’t just a baby. It was a baby that had been crying for too long. A cold knot twisted in her stomach even as anger slowly slipped into her veins along with worry.

Desperate to know what was going on, she quickened her steps. The sound led her past the towering shelves and toward a narrow metal staircase tucked between stacks of crates. A dim light flickered below, casting long, uneven shadows up the walls.

A basement. Of course. For the first time, Beth considered turning back and pretending she’d never heard anything. Nothing good ever came out of basements. Just ask every crime documentary ever made.

“Beth?” She heard her name called through the earpiece now hanging on her collar. s**t! This was stupid and certainly not the plan. She should head back to the maintenance room, get in the vent, and find that safe with the watches she was there to steal. She shouldn’t be contemplating going down into a basement because she heard a baby cry.

A beat passed. Beth didn’t turn away. Instead, she crouched at the top of the stairs, pressing herself against the wall as she listened, the drumming beat of her heart almost drowning out every other sound.

But another sound reached her ears. Voices. Male voices, and they didn’t sound pleased.

“…I’m not spending hours listening to this. Just put the damn kid in a box or something.”

Beth’s breath caught. Her grip tightened on the edge of the railing. Okay, so no homeless mother squatting in a shipping warehouse for the night.

“Yeah? And you will explain that to the boss?” the second man shot back. “You wanna be the one to tell him we killed the kid by abandoning it in a box?”

A pause. Then a scoff. “Doesn’t matter anyway. The kid's fate is sealed. The boss will either sell it or put a bullet in it. Either way, the kid will disappear. We both know that.”

The words hit like ice water dumped straight down her spine. Beth drew a breath and held it like the only anchor keeping her body still and stopping her from rushing down those stairs to grab the child away from these monsters.

Below, something scraped. A chair, maybe. Or a crate being dragged. “You talk too much, and it’s pissing me off,” the other replied. “Just do what you are told or quit.”

“Not funny. You know I can’t quit.”

“Then shut the f**k up! Your voice is more irritating than the kid’s.”

The raised voices seemed to cut off the crying, and that angered Beth more. The kid had to be terrified. She needed to do something.

Hoping the men’s conversation was enough of a distraction, Beth shifted slightly, peering down through the gap in the railing. She immediately spotted the two men. Much like the main floor of the warehouse, the basement was made of shelves and crates. One man, who looked like a Javier Bardem look-alike, leaned against a crate, arms crossed, irritation written all over him.

The talkative one was way younger and would have passed for someone's high school sweetheart if not for the tattoos on his neck. He paced, flipped open his phone, huffed, and then shoved it into the pocket of his dark jeans. “I had plans for tonight,” he grumbled.

The man against the wall didn’t bother to respond. Instead, his gaze fell on something on the other end of the basement out of Beth’s sight. Judging from the whimpers, she guessed that’s where they were keeping the child.

“Five minutes,” the pacing man suddenly said. “I’m stepping out. I need a smoke before I lose my mind in here.”

“f**k, please. Go. You whine like a bitch.”

Flipping the man the bird, the younger man started for the stairs. Beth’s heart started racing faster. s**t! She was still at the top of the stairs and a second away from being discovered.

Beth reached for the small bottle of pepper spray she kept and took several quick steps back, not caring for the noise she made. Lucky for her, the man was too busy grumbling to himself to hear her, and just as he reached the top, Beth took a step behind a crate.

She didn't let out a breath until she heard him open and close a door on the other side of the building. Back pressed to the wall, Beth gripped the front of her hoodie and tried to calm her heart.

What now? She could still hear the heartbreaking, quiet whimpers of the child, and there was still one man left in the basement. She was sure her friends were on the verge of busting into the warehouse for a rescue, obviously assuming the worst after she went radio silent on them.

The logical thing to do was to put her earpiece back on and head back to the maintenance room and see if they could still pull off the job. Unfortunately, logic had left the building around the same time she discovered a crying baby being held by two heartless men.

Keeping her steps light, Beth made her way back to the top of the stairs. She immediately spotted the man, who now sat right at the bottom of the stairs on top of a bucket of paint. He seemed preoccupied with his phone, foot tapping impatiently, not paying attention to the child.

Beth’s fingers curled. She didn’t think. She acted. From her quick assessment, the stairs were ten steps maximum. Not too high, but not short either. If she stepped wrong, she would get injured, and neither she nor the child could afford that. Still, she didn’t have many options on how to do this.

Daring to take only two steps down the stairs, she drew a quiet breath, sent out a prayer in the universe, and leaped into the air. For a second, time seemed to pause, and Beth questioned all her life decisions. Then, just as the man twitched with awareness, she fell on top of him.

The collision was hard. Painful. More for him than her since she landed half on top of him, and she heard the distinct sound of his head hitting the concrete. Still, the move knocked the air out of her lungs, but that didn’t stop her from quickly climbing the man’s back like a possessed monkey and wrapping her forearm around his neck.

Oh, God! Oh, God! What was she doing?