Sidney and Angie watched the puppy confidently stroll over to their SUV then barked at the mother and daughter. Based on the shape of his face, body and short-haired coat, Sidney knew that he was a pitbull mix. His chest, chin and paws were white while the rest of him was black.

After she parked the car, she removed a small bag of dog treats from the front passenger's seat back pocket and unbuckled Angie from her car seat. She held Angie's hand as they followed the puppy into the backyard. In the rundown dog house was his mother and two siblings. It took a couple of minutes and the entire bag of dog treats but they gained the family's trust and carried them to the car. They brought the family of four to their vet.

According to Dr. Ward and two vet techs, the puppies were eleven-weeks-old, slightly underweight and were in dire need of a bath, just like their mother. Other than those issues, they were healthy. Dr. Ward called a local rescue group and was able to get three of their volunteers to foster two of the puppies and the mother. After a phone call with Mark, Sidney agreed to foster the puppy that had initially approached them. An elated Angie named him Oreo.

Following their trip to the pet store for supplies, they picked up dinner from In-N-Out Burger. The minute they returned home Poppy and Koa greeted them in the kitchen. Sidney set down the plastic carrier and released Oreo from it. All three dogs curiously sniffed each other before they started playing around.

"There are my girls!" Mark said with a smile as he walked in carrying Elle in his arms. He set her down and bent over to welcome their newest family member. "And this is Oreo! Hey buddy, welcome to the family!"

The friendly puppy pressed his head into Mark's large palm as he happily wagged his tail. Elle started stroking Oreo's back and laughed when he licked her face.

"Mark, I have more things in the car, including dinner." Sidney placed her purse on the island.

"All right; it feels good to have you two back home." He pecked her lips and touched Angie's face.

"I'm glad that the puppies and their mom are going to good homes. But I'm also relieved to finally be home! This day didn't turn out the way I expected." She touched his mouth with hers and gave him a quick hug.

"True, but it had a happy ending, especially for those puppies." His hand cupped her face, "They were lucky that you and Angie came along."

Her mouth formed into a sweet curve as she savored his touch, "Oreo found us; but Angie spotted him and I'm proud that we could help him and his family. Now, I'll get the girls and myself ready for dinner since they're now covered in fur and puppy kisses. While you get dinner and unload the car."

"I'm on it!" Mark kissed her cheek then smirked when he felt her playfully slap his backside as she giggled.

"Eww, Mommy touched Daddy's butt!" Angie made a disgusted face as she petted Koa and Poppy.

Elle was hugging Oreo before she remarked, "Mommy don't be yucky!"

They simply laughed at their children's cute reaction.

Mark was in bed watching a late-night show when Sidney walked out of the bathroom. Using the remote, he turned off the television once she slid under the sheets and placed his arm around her waist.

His lips curled up, "We're keeping Oreo, aren't we?"

With a slightly irritated sigh, she told him, "We told the girls that we'd care for him until the rescue group finds him a forever home."

"Yeah, but I saw the way you were looking at him during our evening walk. He's so gentle with our girls and Koa and Poppy. You're smitten, Sid. So am I." His lips brushed against her shoulder.

She knew that he was right but wasn't going to admit it. "This is just the first night. We'll see how things are after one week."

He nodded, "Mmm, I always thought we'd unexpectedly have another kid instead of a dog…but life throws us curve balls whenever we least expect it."

"Me too and thank God for birth control. But I'm happy with how things are now. Our girls are great, they keep us on our toes but they're worth it…" Her fingers began running through his thick soft hair.

The feeling of her touch caused him to release a small content breath. "You're not wrong. And with two dogs and one puppy, we have enough on our plate, for now."

Cupping the back of his head, she flirtatiously smiled at him, "We do. But like you said, sometimes life throws us curve balls. Maybe down the line, one of them turns out to be another kid."

His mouth turned into a soft smile, "That would be a really incredible and beautiful surprise."

"Yes, it would. But for now, we should seize every moment that we have to ourselves." Her eyes ran down his perfect body before meeting his gaze again.

With a small chuckle, Mark closed the distance between their faces, "I'm so damn lucky that you kept me around."

It only took less than a week for Sidney to admit that Oreo belonged with them. She and Mark took the sweet canine to training classes during the weekends. Sharing the experience of raising and training him helped strengthen their bond as parents and as a couple. Several weeks later he graduated with flying colors.

In spite of Oreo's good nature, there were always some strangers who were wary of him because of his breed. In some situations, it worked in Sidney's favor on the rare occasion that someone recognized her while she was shopping or having a cup of coffee at a café and wasn't in the mood to socialize. Any salesperson or Jehovah's Witness who knocked on their door would immediately turn around the moment Oreo appeared at the adjacent window and started barking at them. The sixty-pound lap dog loved his new family and the feeling was mutual.

August 2018

In his time as a detective and now FBI agent, Mark had met confidential informants in a variety of places, but today was a first for him. The dog park was a bit more crowded than usual which worked in his and his new informant's favor. It was their first in-person meeting.

A couple of days earlier, he had a received a letter at his office from a mysterious young redheaded woman wearing sunglasses. Someone in the office had ordered pizza and the woman had approached the delivery man outside. She paid him to hand the letter off to the front desk. On the envelope was a message that read, "Please give this to person who took down the Intellectic cult." In the letter, the woman arranged a time and a place for a meetup, what her attire would be, her dog's breed and coloring, a codeword and a phone number to a burner phone. She claimed to be a member of Paramount Base, a women's empowerment group.

In his right earbud, Mark heard Jae alert him to a woman fitting the letter's description entering the dog park. He and all three of his dogs walked over to her. Standing at 5'2', the ivory skinned woman was wearing a blue Red Sox cap with her honey blonde ponytail hanging out the back's opening. Her curvy figure was sporting black yoga pants, red running shoes and a white t-shirt. Black tinted aviator sunglasses covered her eyes but he could tell that she was in her late twenties. The seasoned agent greeted her and made sure to use the codeword in his comments.

"So, you're the guy who finally took down that crazy cult?" She looked down and saw her fawn-colored French bulldog exchange body sniffs with his dogs. "This is Remy."

"It was a team effort. A couple of my team members are here to make sure you're legit, Miss?" He squatted and held out his hand letting Remy sniff him. The corners of his lips pull upward when the small hound licked his knuckles.

Her mouth twisted into a small smirk before turning into a flat line. "Jayne Hill. I've been in Paramount Base for two years. My little sister, Dani, I brought her into it. She had just gone through a bad breakup. I joined when my boss fired me after I refused to fuck him. A few months after, our father lost his battle with cancer. Those assholes knew that we were vulnerable and that we wanted certainty and answers…"

The despair and shame in her raspy voice was obvious. In a gentle tone, he told her, "I'm not here to judge you or your sister, Ms. Hill. My team and I, we only want to help."

She nodded then revealed, "The detective told me that it was a robbery gone wrong. He thinks that she walked in on the burglars and they shot her. I was working late when-when it happened. She was all…all that I had in this world." Her voice quivered, she cleared her throat and was thankful for her sunglasses.

As much as he wanted to reach out and placed a comforting hand on her arm, he resisted. He imagined how he distraught he would be if his sister was murdered. Then Angie and Elle came into his mind. "You have my deepest condolences, Ms. Hill. I used to be a homicide detective and I've also lost people close to me."

The empathy in voice and blue eyes struck her, she appreciated his kindness and flashed him a grin. "Thanks…Before that night, she had been expressing doubts about Paramount Base and the leader, Timothy Atwalt. I thought she was in a bad mood because she wasn't advancing in the organization like I was, so I dismissed her comments. But after her murder, a mother of a former member told me that she had been in contact with Dani. Her daughter, Trish, died over a supposed suicide; she was hanged but she wasn't depressed let alone suicidal. She had dirt on Paramount and Timothy on her computer…but it magically disappeared once she died.

"Dani was trying to get Trish's mom information on Timothy and his lead followers. On the night the burglary the only things that were taken were Dani's phone and her laptop. Everything I have on Paramount and Timothy, it's on a flash drive, it's in Remy's right compartment. It's not much but it's a start."

Mark petted Remy and discreetly retrieved the drive from the dog's saddle bag. "Thanks, we'll look into it. By the way, my name is Mark Kincaid. I'll text you so that you'll have my number."

"I'll label you as one of my clients, I'm an event planner. I'll use your initials, to keep things simple. I gotta get going. There's a meeting at Paramount Base's headquarters in an hour. I'll contact you when I have more information." She petted Oreo's back before walking away.

With Angie attending Ayla's slumber party and Elle sleeping over at Melanie's, Sidney had the house to herself. The moment he stepped into the mudroom he was welcomed by the mouthwatering smell of meat pies and three happy hounds at his feet. Sidney had just finished plating dinner when he stepped into the kitchen and greeted her with a kiss on the lips. Coming home to a house full of love was a steady comfort that he never took for granted, especially on long days.

It had been several months since Mark had first met Jayne. The things they had discovered about Paramount Base were shocking, disturbing and disgusting. Most of the time, he was able to separate his personal and professional lives but this particular case felt more disheartening to him. Tonight, Angie was attending Ayla's birthday slumber party and Elle was sleeping over at Melanie's, they had the house to themselves. During dinner, she asked about his day at work. Instead of giving her a vague answer, he talked about Jayne and Paramount Base in great detail.

Sidney knew that Mark kept certain part of his work from her for practical and legal reasons. Whenever he chose to speak about an investigation he and his team were working on, she knew that it was emotionally affecting him. She listened and saw how deeply he cared for Jayne.

Setting his beer down on the island, he briefly clenched his jaw before speaking. "That bastard Atwalt had Dani killed, I know it…but I can't prove it. I mean, she and Jayne had expensive jewelry, clothes, TVs but the burglars ignored all of those things and walked to the other side of the house to take Dani's laptop. She's also wore a diamond necklace, a gift from her late father, it was worth fifty thousand dollars but they only took her phone from her? No. Dani was the target."

"What do the detectives think?" She picked up her glass of wine and took a sip from it.

"The same thing. But that's just one of Atwalt's crimes. We need to find the paper trail and their identities - but Jayne has seen young women come to his compound to give him massages. She thinks they're underage and they're from eastern Europe because she tried speaking to one girl and she only spoke Russian. She's also seen these girls walk out from his massage room in tears and looking disheveled

Sidney didn't hide her disgust and shock, "Oh God…I really hope you take that fucker down."

"I will. Jayne, Trish's mother and all the other victims deserve to see him and his lackeys rot behind bars." He felt her hand clasp his and gripped it. After giving her a thankful grin, he said, "Jayne feels so much guilt, she shouldn't…she didn't know the truth about Atwalt and his cult. They haven't been around for long so there isn't a decades long trail of broken minds, bodies and families like other cults have. And they know how to silence their critics. But-but I get it. She's the older sister, it was her job to take care of Dani, to protect her."

Seeing the anger, empathy and grief in his eyes compelled her to say, "They remind you of our girls."

He gave her a slow nod, "They have each other and there was real love between them. But after experiencing one loss after another, they were so vulnerable to monsters. He's one of the worst because he knows how to hide what he really is with a mask made of charm, kindness and confidence. There's always going to be assholes like him around and I can't stop all of them from hurting other people's daughters."

As she gave his hand a gentle squeeze, she said, "That's why we have to teach our girls that no one person has all the answers. And that anyone who claims to is a liar and dangerous. We'll help them learn how to identify and fight monsters so they won't be so easily deceived by them."

With a proud smile, he remarked, "With you as their teacher, the psychos of this world don't stand a chance against our girls."

Sidney's lips curled up, "True but don't sell yourself short. You're helping me show them how to choose a partner who will respect and love them as much as we do."

Hearing her encouraging comments alleviated most of the sadness, revulsion, frustration and anger he had been feeling that day. The level of honesty, support and love that Sidney gave him was unlike anything he had ever experienced in his past relationships. With his right hand he loosely grasped her neck and tenderly stroked her jaw with his thumb. "I love you, so much!"

She kissed the pad of his thumb when it traveled to her full lips. "I love you too, even though you just took my line."

A devilish smirk came to his mouth, "And what do you intend to do about it, Mrs. Kincaid?"

Instead of using her words, she passionately claimed his mouth with hers as she ripped open his dress shirt. He scooped her up in his strong arms and carried her over to the living room as he showered kisses on her neck.

Note: This story is ending real soon! Please show your support by posting a review! I know there are plenty of Mark and Sidney fans out there. Thanks to everyone who follows this story, has placed this fic under their favorites and reads this story regularly!