Total pages in book: 32
Estimated words: 30011 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 150(@200wpm)___ 120(@250wpm)___ 100(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 30011 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 150(@200wpm)___ 120(@250wpm)___ 100(@300wpm)
Grace finally raises her head and looks me in the eye. “Thank you for coming for me, and I’m sorry that—”
I put my finger to her lips again and follow that with a gentle kiss. She offers me a small, sheepish smile, and I know there’s nothing I can say that will alleviate her guilt for my blown second chance. I kiss her forehead.
“I will always protect you,” I tell her. “And believe me, you are my second chance.”
Her eyes shimmer with tears. “I love you, Griffin Harris.”
“And I love you, Grace Hill.”
EPILOGUE
GRACE
Three Years Later
“Yeah, so we had no idea at the time who Dan Bryson was,” Griffin says. “We found out who he was and what they believed he did after the fact.”
“What was going through your mind when you stormed into his house? Weren’t you afraid for your own safety?”
Griffin casts a look over at me, silently pleading with his eyes to rescue him. I smile and blow him a kiss. This is his time in the spotlight, and I want him to take full advantage of it. He deserves it. He deserves all the shine they want to give him. I twist the small ring around my finger. It’s platinum with a gorgeous diamond setting. It’s the ring he put on my finger when we married last year, and inscribed on the inner band, it says “Daddy,” so I always have a reminder of him and the bond we share. He sees me twisting the ring around my finger and smiles.
He turns back to the reporter and shakes his head. “The only thing going through my mind was getting to Grace. To stop whatever was happening to her and to pull her out of there. I was more worried about her safety than mine.”
As it turns out, Dan Bryson was a suspect in more than a dozen other disappearances—something we found out well after the fact, as Griffin had said. He worked at other schools in half a dozen other states, and when investigators started looking into it, a disturbing pattern of co-eds from those schools going missing emerged. The bodies of a couple turned up, but the majority of them were never found, and he certainly hasn’t given up their locations.
After the story about how Griffin saved me and single-handedly took down a potential serial killer, the news has been all over him. For three years now, they’ve been hounding him for interviews. He does some, usually when I batter him into it, but for the most part, he prefers staying out of the limelight, wanting the media to focus on the victims instead of on him.
But with Bryson’s trial date fast approaching, the media scrutiny has intensified, and I’ve twisted his arm to give a couple of interviews. I think people should know about his heroism. He doesn’t see that he did anything special or noteworthy. To Griffin, he was simply trying to save the woman he loved. And I love that about him.
He doesn’t know it, but I made sure his story got out. I felt like everybody needed to know what he sacrificed for me and what a hero he really is. He’s been embarrassed by the outpouring of support from the public and always rejects the hero label, but the people have spoken. And continue to speak. Although no offer to fight in the pro circuit again has come his way, some folks started a GoFundMe for him, and the donations came pouring in—many from well-known fighters and pro boxing luminaries.
All told, the donations amassed totaled almost three hundred thousand dollars. Griffin, of course, didn’t want to take it initially, not believing he deserved a penny for doing what he said anybody else would have done. Not everybody would have done what he did, though. He still doesn’t believe that, but I finally managed to convince him to use the money donated to him for something good. Something that allowed him to give back.
It took the better part of a year, but a few months back, Griffin opened up his own MMA training center. It’s a state-of-the-art facility, and would-be pro fighters have been flocking to it to be trained by Griffin Harris. He’s been so busy and having a hard time juggling all the clients, so he’s brought in some additional trainers to help handle the overflow. He still works with all the fighters who come through the door, but he’s learning to delegate a bit.
Being able to hand off some of his duties to other trainers allows Griffin to indulge in what has become a nearly all-consuming passion for him. He has opened up his training center to kids who want to stay off the streets. He runs after-school programs focused on fitness and learning the MMA game. The early results are good, and he’s being lauded by local politicians and political groups for giving back to the community. In typical Griffin fashion, he brushes that all off, saying it’s what anybody who’d been gifted all he had by others would do. Many others in his same position, though, haven’t, nor would they deign to.