Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 121728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
His tight expression proved she hit a nerve. This proposal wasn’t only about needing to find a caretaker for his niece. Something deeper was eating at him.
“Do you want the truth?”
“You have to ask?”
He tipped his head. “Guilt.”
Her heart flip-flopped. “For?”
“For not going to the same lengths as you to save my own sister. Maybe she’d be alive today if I had.”
“You’re blaming yourself for your sister’s death?” Of course he was. Sloane would feel the same way if Sadie died, despite doing her damnedest to save her. A “what if” would always be hiding around every corner.
Guilt was a cruel bitch.
“Let me give you some background. It’s better you know how Val’s life began and Amelia’s ended.”
Her fingers gripped the edge of the dresser tighter. She braced herself because she already knew she wouldn’t like this story about a dead drug addict mother and an orphaned child.
“Like Sadie, my sister had been battling addiction for a while. Of course, like a lot of addiction, it started out with pain pills after she was in a motor vehicle crash. The impact was hard enough to shatter her tibia and break her femur. After surgery, they started her on morphine, then switched her to oxycodone to manage the pain. When she ran out and the doctor would no longer give her a prescription, she began to get pain meds from other avenues. And I’m not talking about our local pharmacy. From there, when pills no longer did the trick, she moved on to heroin.
“Also along the way, my guess was, like your sister, she began to trade sex for drugs. Even dabble in prostitution to get cash. Precautions were thrown to the wind and she got pregnant.” He stared at some invisible spot on the wall behind her for a few seconds before continuing. “She had that baby despite our concerns. Despite our endless pleas to get clean before Val was born. But as you’re aware, getting clean isn’t easy and if the person isn’t ready to do the hard work, nothing will change no matter what you say or do.”
Decker planted his elbows on his thighs and dropped his head into his hands. Even though his jaw worked, no words escaped.
When he finally lifted his head, his dark brown eyes held a mixture of anger and agony. “That baby was born a fucking addict. I should’ve taken her from Amelia the goddamn second she was born. One reason I didn’t was because it was a while before Val could leave the hospital and at least there I knew she was safe and in good hands. During her time in the NICU, I hoped Amelia would wake up and realize her own child was the best reason for her to get clean. Once Val was done with withdrawals and could finally be discharged, I still held hope that Amelia would use that tiny, helpless human as the reason to turn her life around. I honestly believed she was going to do that when she took Val and went home to live with our mother.”
“She didn’t.” Sloane didn’t pose it as a question because she already knew the tragic outcome. She simply wanted Decker to know she wasn’t only listening to his similar struggle but commiserating with him.
“She only lasted a couple of weeks there before she disappeared. I expected her to leave the baby behind if she was going to bolt. She didn’t. My mom called me in a panic and I went on the hunt. With the help of other law enforcement agencies, I finally found her days later at a trap house.”
Holy shit. “With the baby?”
He nodded. “She didn’t know this, but I already had the papers drawn up for emergency custody, just in case. I had those with me when I found her. She wouldn’t give me Val or sign custody over until I paid her. I needed to get the baby out of there and Amelia wouldn’t give her to me, no matter how hard I tried to convince her. I knew Val only had a chance if I could keep them apart. The guilt was crushing me for feeling that way, for wanting to take a child away from her own mother, but I was afraid that Val would’ve been stolen from her while she was stoned out of her fucking mind. My greatest fear was my sister would sell or trade her in exchange for her next high. I would’ve killed my own sister if she had done that and that’s no lie. So instead, I ‘bought’ Val myself. I paid for my own niece to get her out of that squalor and to give her a chance.”
With fingers pressed to her mouth, Sloane whispered, “Oh my God.”
“A hundred bucks. That’s all Val was worth to my sister. A hundred fucking dollars was all it took to buy her baby. Once I had Val out of there and home safe, I planned on going back to urge Amelia one last time to go to rehab. If she didn’t agree, I was going to send her to jail and use incarceration as a last resort to convince her to turn her life around, but that never happened.”