And just a few months after that, it was confirmed for real when she was placed directly into my arms.
EPILOGUE
People who live in the country don’t tell you when you miss the exit. They ask ‘where you goin’?’
-Sin to Blaise
SIN
“Daddy!” my seventeen-year-old daughter wailed. “Jackson broke up with me!”
I frowned hard at her. “What the fuck do you mean he broke up with you? You literally just left to go on your date!”
She hastily wiped her eyes, and each tear that fell down her cheek made my heart constrict in my chest.
“What the fuck happened?” I asked.
Or growled.
It might’ve been both. I wasn’t sure at this point.
But seeing my baby girl crying her ass off over a boy was pissing me the hell off.
She wiped her tears and sniffled loudly.
“Well.” She licked her lips, looking as if she didn’t want to tell me.
“I can answer that,” a male voice said from two steps down.
My brows rose.
“Who the fuck are you?” I grumbled.
“Toss.” He paused. “Actually, it’s Seven Tosser.”
I frowned. “What the fuck kind of name is ‘Seven Tosser?’”
I just couldn’t help myself.
But who the fuck named their kid that? Wasn’t ‘tosser’ some kind of bad name in England or something?
“Yes. My mom is… not very fond of my dad. And she named me that to ‘stick it to my father.’ Her words, not mine. Anyway, I can answer your question.” He looked at my girl. “Casey caught up with us at the airsoft course. She arrived with Jackson. Jackson, her, two other boys, and two other girls. It was just me and my friend, Bobbie. Bobbie” —he gestured to the kid that was leaning against his truck with a closed-off expression on his face— “and me wanted to play. So we chose her to be on our team. Anyway, umm…”
“Pretty much,” Bobbie drawled from the sprawl against the truck. “That little bitch she was dating didn’t like that your girl could debate with us on the merits of stacking on a door. My friend and I were having a debate on which one we should do. Dispersed stack, or closed stack. Your daughter got into a debate with us based on what she learned from you. Which was when we asked her to be on our team.”
I grinned at my baby girl.
“Douchebag didn’t like that she already knew how to work all the guns, either,” Bobbie continued. “She actually had to show him how to work the one he wanted. Then when we went to playing, she pied the room like a fuckin’ boss and shot the loser in the heart. Like, five fucking times. And then she’s all talking about fields of fire, what the guy did wrong, things like that. He called her a fuckin’ psycho and left her there. So we brought her home.”
I looked at my daughter. “If he can’t properly clear a building, he’s probably not man enough to be your boyfriend. Just sayin’.”
“Sin,” my wife, who I hadn’t realized had come up behind me until now, hissed. “You can’t say things like that.”
My eyes went to my wife. “I can’t say that the boy’s a pussy?”
“No,” she whispered. “Especially not in front of these men.”
“Ma’am,” Bobbie drawled, “I can assure you, we’ve thought much the same, and relayed that information to your daughter, all the way home. She still didn’t understand, though.”
My Casey looked at me with sad eyes. “I really liked him.”
I shrugged.
“Why don’t you look at the men behind you?” I suggested. “They’re not intimidated by the knowledge that you have. Just like I wasn’t intimidated by the knowledge that your mother had. Do you think that when she drew my weapon and shot that man in the face for pulling a gun on us that I was mad? Because I sure the fuck wasn’t. I was really fuckin’ happy that she knew how to protect herself… and me.”
A few years ago, I’d been on a fact-finding mission that’d turned deadly.
Luckily, the woman at my side had my back, just like she always did, and managed to protect me from getting shot in the head.
Unluckily, yet again, we had to go through a bunch of hoops to make sure that I didn’t lose my investigator’s license due to the legality of the predicament I’d found myself in during my ‘fact finding’ mission.
“Yeah,” Casey breathed. “But still. It’s just… I’m tired of being delegated to ‘weirdo’ because I know how to handle myself.”
Seven started to laugh.
Casey turned on him with a glare. “What?”
“It’s just… you haven’t found the right guy yet.” He shrugged. “Trust me. The right one will love you for you. Not for what you think he’ll love.”
Casey had opened her mouth to say more, but Seven’s awed words had her snapping her mouth shut.
“Holy fuck,” Seven breathed. “Is that Titus King?”
Casey, upon hearing that Titus was here, whipped around and immediately started to squeal.
She and Annabelle were best friends, even though they lived some distance apart from each other.
The moment that Annabelle heard Casey, she whipped around. Then the two were running at each other as if they’d not seen each other in months. Not just days.
Which was why it was surprising. Titus had just been here last weekend.
“Excuse me,” I said as I walked away from the men who were not staring at the two girls as if they were interesting. “I’ll be right back.”
Blaise hurried right along, stopping short when she saw the look on Titus’s face.
“Titus,” I said as I offered him my hand. “What’s wrong?”
His eyes flicked to the girls, the men, then back to me.
“Got some news today on Ames,” he murmured softly. “She kicked the bucket.”
I had to say, that wasn’t something that truly bothered me.
“Yeah?” I asked. “How?”
“She apparently found herself in the wrong place at the wrong time.” He paused. “I have to go make funeral arrangements.”
“Funeral arrangements?” Blaise asked. “Why you?”
“Brees asked me to.” He grinned wider then. “So that’s exactly what I will do.”
Thelma, the co-orchestrator of the child kidnapping ring had passed away due to ‘blunt force trauma’ to the head a couple of years after being sentenced to two life sentences.
Her husband hadn’t fared much better, but he’d at least made it four years before someone had knocked him off.
Ames was the sole woman that had lived, though not a very good life, until today.
“Why did he call you?” Blaise shook her head. “Did he honestly think that you would want to do it?”
Brees was a… pain in the ass.
Though, he was a pitiful pain in the ass.
He could barely get around without help, so he spent the majority of his time inside his own four walls, away from the rest of the town.
Needless to say, I wasn’t too unhappy about him being miserable.
In fact, it made me quite fucking happy, if I did say so myself.
“Because he can’t afford to do it.” Titus grinned. “I’m working on the obituary right now.”
“I’m almost afraid to read it,” Blaise snickered. “Please let me help.”
Titus winked at her. “Sure will.”
“And the funeral?” I asked. “Where will you be having that?”
That’s when he started to grin. “The city dump.”
• • •
I was still laughing at his words an hour later as my wife curled into my side.
“That’s just great,” Blaise whispered. “Do you think they’ll allow him to have it there?”
“I do,” I confirmed. “He’s Titus King. He’s won the Super Bowl five times, and he’s the hometown hero. If anyone could get away with it, he can. And it’s not like Ames was a great person or anything. They’ll do it.”
&
nbsp; • • •
Three days later I read the obituary for Linda Ames with my wife in my lap, crying tears of laughter.
My children were looking at us like we were loons.
I, on the other hand, finally felt right in this world.
I had my wife at my side.
My children happy and safe under my roof, and not a single care in the world.
I was happy.
I’d go through every single hardship all over again as long as it led me right back where I was today.
• • •
I hope you enjoyed Sin and Blaise’s story! Up next is Zach and Crockett in Gen Pop.
Turn the page for a sneak preview.
What’s Next?
CHAPTER 1
Fuck.
-Zach’s secret thoughts
ZACH
Six months ago
“I’m sorry, but we’re all out.”
“You’re out of Bud Light?” The customer stiffened. “Who the hell runs out of Bud Light on a Friday?”
The woman behind the counter looked uncomfortable as hell.
“The kind that doesn’t have a delivery truck show up, moron.”
My eyes went to the old man in the corner of the front porch who’d been steadily rocking in his rocking chair since I’d arrived at the store.
He had great hearing if he could make out what was being said at the counter when it was a half a store away from him.
Bud Light guy stiffened.
“Listen,” he said. “This is the only store between here and my house. What else you got beer-wise?”
Crockett pointed to the cooler doors. “That’s literally all we have. Like my grandfather so eloquently said, we didn’t have our delivery today like we usually do. They said they would retry to deliver on Monday.”
I winced, knowing what was coming next.
“Retry?” the man barked. “What the fuck does retry mean?”
“It means that she was out on lunch break when they tried to deliver, at the completely wrong time seeing as they usually deliver around ten in the morning, not two, and she has to eat by a certain time or shit starts to hit the fan for her. So, she missed it seeing as I was napping in the back room at the same time. Shit happens. Now go the fuck away and try not to come back. You’re annoying the piss out of me.”
“Murphy,” the curvy brunette growled, getting more upset with the old man than she was with the customer who deserved her ire. “Please, you’re not helping.”
“Sure, I’m helping.” The old man, obviously named Murphy, sauntered into the room. “You’re just too nice. People like this dolt don’t care that you’re human. They care that you’re out of beer, and they can’t get it, so they’re going to be assholes.”
I snorted.
That’s when her eyes came to me, and my breath caught.
Her eyes.
Though her body was banging—I loved curves, and the woman had a whole lot of them—and her face was beautiful, her eyes were just… mesmerizing.
I’m talking, stare into them and fall into a deep well of nothingness because all you can think about were how fuckin’ out of this world her eyes were.
They were like looking into the bluest of eyes through a crystal. The iris of her eye was like a starburst explosion of crystal blue, bright light blue, almost white, and streaks of darker blue that were just mesmerizing.
Seriously, there weren’t adequate words in the English language that could describe her eyes.
And I was a fucking doctor. I knew my words. Had to have years of school and writing papers to become a fucking doctor.
But yeah, her eyes. Wow.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” She smiled, her straight white teeth only adding to her beauty. “I didn’t see you standing there. Can I help you with something?”
The man that cut me off, Mr. Impatient Bud Light Guy, looked over and saw me.
Then he blanched.
“I’m sorry,” he stuttered. “I didn’t see you either.”
I shrugged.
“I want a burger.” I gestured toward the grill. “Everything on it but cheese.”
She frowned, looking down at her watch.
It was ten until closing time, so I knew that it would be a long shot. But I was hungry, my house was empty, and this really was the only place that had food to eat between here and town. A town called Kilgore, Texas that was over thirty minutes away from Souls Chapel, Texas.
My new home.
“You don’t have to…” I started.
But she waved me off. “No, it’s fine. I can make you one. It’s not like I’ve cleaned up all the way yet. How would you like your burger cooked?”
That question threw me off guard.
It’d been awhile since I’d been on the ‘outside’ between holding cells, waiting on trial and actual jail so, I hadn’t been given the option of how to cook anything recently.
It was startling how unprepared I was for the question.
“Just cook it however you want,” I managed to say.
She nodded once and then turned the grill on before going back to the man who’d been asking for beer.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “Is there anything else I can get you today?”
The man hadn’t looked away from me yet.
Why?
Because I was still in my prison uniform.
It was an orange jumpsuit with ‘JAIL’ written down one leg, ‘Bear Bottom Penitentiary’ written on the breast pocket, and so tight around my thighs that it was cutting off circulation.
“In case you’re wondering,” I said to the man. “I’m not a fugitive of the law, and I didn’t escape jail. My clothes no longer fit, and I didn’t want to stay there any longer than I had to. Therefore, I wore my prison-issued uniform out of the gate.”
The man blinked, nodded once, and then took off without another word.
I grinned.
It was weird, getting this blatant fear.
I wasn’t used to people staring at me like I would kill them at any second.
Before I’d gone to jail, despite my overall imposing appearance, people looked at me like I was a savior.
After being locked up, though?
They now looked at me like I was going to rear back and kill them.
Needless to say, that was an adjustment, too.
“You can go take a seat and I’ll bring your order out as soon as it’s done.” She paused. “You’ll have to have chips, though. I don’t have the oil heated up anymore. I turned it off a half hour before you came in.”
I nodded once. “No problem.”
Well, it was kind of a problem.
I’d wanted fries.
But it wasn’t like I was going to make her start all over again for just my batch.
I’d deal for now.
Walking toward where the tables were, where the chairs were already stacked in preparation for cleaning up, I took a chair down and was just about to sit when I spied the clothes on the wall behind the tables.
They were sweats, really.
Sweatpants, sweatshirts, and t-shirts that all said ‘Crockett’s Corner’ on them.
I walked up to them, picked out a pair of sweats, a sweatshirt, and a t-shirt that was a size too small and hopefully would still fit, and headed to the bathroom.
I came out moments later all dressed in the clothes, the orange jumpsuit in my hands because the trash had already been taken out for the day as well.
When I came out, I headed to the counter with the tags in one hand, and a hundred-dollar bill in the other.
Murphy was at the counter, and he took the tags from me, as well as the orange jumpsuit.
“On the house,” he said, waving away my money.
I frowned. “What?”
He gestured to the suit that he’d tossed in the big trash can behind the counter.
“I was you once,” he said.
“Were you?” I asked.
Murphy didn’t look like he�
�d been to jail.
But then again, I didn’t think that I looked like I’d been to jail, either.
Not when I wasn’t dressed in the orange jumpsuit from hell.
He lifted his long-sleeved shirt enough to show me a tattoo on his forearm. One of a clock.
“Served eight years for assault and battery,” he said. “Caught my wife cheating on me with another man in our home. I beat the absolute dog shit out of him. Come to find out he’s some big wig executive with a shit ton of money and little else to do with his time but fuck my wife and make my life a living hell. Funny thing was, the day I went to jail we were still married. She divorced me while I was on the inside and moved in with the big wig. They were ‘nice enough’ to leave me my store,” he pointed to the roof above his head. “And the land that it was on. Thinking they were fuckin’ me over. I didn’t care. I sure the fuck didn’t want the house that she fucked other people in. About three years into my prison sentence this big oil guy comes to me and tells me I have an ass-ton of oil underneath the property that my store is sitting on. I became a millionaire overnight. Then Big Wig, also named Tarrant Beene, comes back in the picture demanding their half. Sadly, for them, I was able to win because they did their end all legal like. Best day ever, them getting told that they couldn’t have any of my earnings.”
My brows had lowered, and I could do nothing but laugh my fuckin’ ass off.
Inwardly, that was.
I didn’t outwardly show emotion.
Not anymore.
Not after what it’d gotten me last time—a prison sentence.
“What did you go in for?” he asked.
For some reason, I’d never had a problem telling anyone what I’d gone in for.
What I’d had a problem telling them was that the reason I’d done it no longer wanted anything to do with me.
“My girlfriend was hit by a rich prick kid. Seventeen-year-old who’d been spoon fed every single thing in his life.” I shook my head. “Never heard the word no. Well, he heard the word no from a friend, and he’d gone after his girl. Only, his girl looked a lot like my girl when they wore hats, and he ran my girl over and nearly killed her. Left her broken on the side of the road. Couple of weeks later when that little asshole comes into my ER, I might’ve not tried my hardest to make sure he didn’t die.”
Kitty Kitty Page 20
