Gambling with Gabriella (Menage MfM Romance Novel) (Playing For Love Book 2) Read Free

dad. This is my problem. I got into this crazy situation without any help. Now, I need to figure out how to get out on my own.

2
    Carter:
    I t’s been seven hours since my nephew, Noah, was kidnapped by his biological father.
    I’ve spent most of those last seven hours here, in my office, on the penthouse floor of the Grand River Casino, where I work as the head of security, pacing the plush grey carpet till I’m convinced my shoes are going to wear the pile out. Monitors on the wall flicker with images of the casino floors and elevators, but I’m not watching.
    I fight the urge to smash my fist into one of them. To scream and yell, to do anything to dampen my fear for my nephew. Sweet Noah, who is obsessed with Legos, who has just started to learn to swim. I promised him I’d teach him to ride a bike this weekend, I remember absently. The shiny cobalt blue bike still sits in the corner of my suite. Blue is Noah’s favorite color. He’s only five.
    Dominic Crawford, my best friend and owner of the Grand River is hunched next to me, his ear pressed to his phone, his eyes unseeing as he looks out of the window onto the bright lights of Atlantic City. “When was he released?” I hear him ask whoever he’s talking to. “Why wasn’t I notified?”
    Ed Wagner, Noah’s biological father, was released from prison yesterday. We should have been informed. I had protocols in place when Ed got out, plans to protect Noah from his father. The father that hasn’t set eyes on his son since Chloe’s death. The father who was never any kind of parent at all, but is still listed on the birth certificate because my sister, Chloe, was stupid and sentimental that way.
    Chloe’s gone now. Noah’s the only member of my family left alive.
    Somewhere, a link has failed. I fight the sneaking suspicion that I’m to blame for this. Ed Wagner had parental rights that I should have terminated, but I hadn’t acted, secure in the knowledge that Wagner was too busy surviving his jail sentence to pay attention to his son. I had warned the daycare never to release Noah to anyone other than Dominic or me, but I hadn’t accounted for temporary summer care workers who hadn’t known what to do. I should have hardened my heart when Noah asked me where his daddy was, and I should have never shown my nephew photos of his father.
    “Noah called him daddy,” Olivia, the woman who runs the daycare explained earlier, almost in tears. “He ran towards this man to hug him. Patty didn’t know…”
    What can I say to that? Can I tell Olivia that my drug-addicted sister had no sense of judgment, and she’d been convinced that her boyfriend Ed was father material? Can I tell her that I’m terrified that the courts will rule in favor of the biological parent over the uncle who has always been there for Noah?
    At my side, Dominic has finished his conversation. Judging from the way the phone is flung onto the couch, I’m assuming his attempts to locate Ed Wagner have gone no better than mine.
    “No luck yet,” he confirms. He holds my eyes. “We’ll find the fucker, Carter.”
    “I know.” I have to hold on to hope. I have to believe I’ll find Noah before Ed Wagner starts using again. My sources tell me he was clean in jail. But outside? He’ll get sucked in again, like he has before, time and time again. The same way my twin-sister Chloe was sucked in, until she died of an overdose.
    “Carter,” he repeats. “Calm down. Noah’s not in danger. As much as I hate to admit it, Ed was a good enough father before Chloe died. And he’s not doing drugs anymore. All our sources tell us that.”
    “And then he walked away,” I point out. “He disappeared and left me to take care of Noah. Are you forgetting that?”
    “I’m not.” His voice is calm. “I’m not defending Ed Wagner. But you are only choosing to remember what you want. Ed called Noah every week. He didn’t abandon the kid - he left him with you while he went and tried to get