Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 74898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 374(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 374(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
“But what about the hospital?” she asked. “I filled out employment paperwork.”
“Tommy Tom took care of that,” I answered. “You’re now under my alias name as Mina Lane. Sienna is now Sienna Lane. For the unforeseeable future, until we can nail my parents to the wall.”
She looked at me skeptically.
“It’s been six years, Tunnel,” she stated. “What’s going to change?”
I didn’t disagree. She was right, of course. I’d been at this for six years now, and now I was no closer to nailing than when I had first started.
“I’m going to fucking kill them if I have to,” I said. “I was trying to shut down the entire operation. If I don’t completely eliminate them and just cut them out of the picture, there’s going to be just that many more taking their place. But, at least, they won’t be after you or Sienna anymore.”
She ground her teeth.
“Why haven’t you already done that?”
She sounded so freakin’ brokenhearted about it that I wanted to do absolutely anything to take that pain away.
But I knew she needed to hear the truth. She needed to know exactly why I did this.
I pulled out my phone and pulled up an app. It was one that only law enforcement was allowed to have.
“This shows the number of kids that are missing in The United States right now,” I rumbled, pulling up the list of missing children. “I know for a fact that at least fifteen of these children have gone through my parents’ operation over the last six months.”
Her eyes widened, and a tear spilled over her cheek, and trailed all the way down to her chin where it fell down onto her pants.
“Shit.”
“How could I do this, bring myself back in your lives by taking my parents out, only to have this continue?” I asked, not expecting an answer.
“You couldn’t,” she whispered.
No, that was what I’d thought, too.
It wasn’t my baby that was being hurt, but it was somebody’s baby. Somebody’s Sienna.
And I wouldn’t sit here and allow that to continue.
“We’ve foiled almost all of their shipments,” I said. “They’re being very, very careful. Each time it happens, they wise up just a little bit more.” I trailed my finger down her face. “But Josh fucked up.”
Her eyes widened.
“He gave me an in and he doesn’t even realize it.”
She watched me avidly. “This blackmailing thing…it works both ways.”
Then I grinned manically.
“I think I missed that smile, that mischievous smile, the most.”
Chapter 18
Bless your stupid heart.
-Coffee Cup
Mina
My husband was alive.
Those words kept repeating in my head, dropping like a bomb each and every time I thought them.
I should be furious.
I should be, but I wasn’t. I should be pitching the biggest fit to end all fits, but I wasn’t. I should be screaming at him for putting me through the last six years, but I wasn’t. I should be crying still, but I wasn’t.
Why?
Because I’d made a promise to God. I told him that if he, somehow, brought Tunnel – Ghost – back to me, that I wouldn’t waste a single second. I wouldn’t stay mad. I wouldn’t scream and cry. I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize the time we had together.
I’d already broken some of that promise by crying for half the damn morning. Each time that Ghost touched me, I cried. I couldn’t help it.
My husband was alive.
I shivered as I pulled my car into my driveway.
When I’d left this morning after seeing Tunnel, I’d been totally and completely lost.
I didn’t know what to do, think, say, or feel. I’d driven to the house, the one that Ghost Lane owned.
When I’d done a search on the appraisal district’s website for that man, I’d been looking for a reason to dispute the musings that had started to filter through my head.
Everything about ‘Ghost’ had started setting off little tiny alarms.
First, it’d been the way he smelled at that baseball game. Then, when I’d arrived at the house that was set up for me on such short notice, I started having my doubts.
Why would a house, one like the one I was walking into right now, be the exact house that I’d always wanted to live in? Sure, the exterior wasn’t what I’d wanted, but the interior, it was my house. My dream house—the one I’d wanted to share with my husband. The one that I’d told him about hundreds and hundreds of times over our many, many walks we used to take together.
Over the next week or so, I’d found myself suspicious.
So I watched, and the more I watched, the more suspicious I became.
Ghost…he didn’t like burgers.
Ghost stood like my husband—like a man who was confident in himself and didn’t care what any other person thought of him. But it was the leaning that got me. The way he never sat down, and when he became tired, he’d lean his hips against a wall or a tall counter, then stack his foot one on top of the other.