by Evelyn Glass
“I’m okay,” she nodded cautiously. I could still see the burn scar on her hand where she had grabbed that white–hot door handle, and it made me flinch every time I remembered it was there. “How are you?”
“Yeah, pretty good,” I replied, the smile turning more genuine when I remembered the news I had to deliver to her. “Uh, actually, really good.”
“Oh yeah?” She cocked her head, her voice lilting slightly. I wondered how long it had been before she came here since she had a conversation that didn’t revolve around her murdering someone for cash. She still didn’t seem that used to this, and it was kind of endearing to watch a woman as powerful as her tiptoe her way around the conversation as though it was a bomb that was about to go off at any second.
“It was the court case this week,” I went on. “They all got put away. Every one of them.”
“Really?” Her eyes bugged out of her head. “All of them?”
“That’s right,” I nodded proudly. I had last seen her when I’d come to take her statement about the case, and I could see then that she was doubtful that it was going to turn out the way we both wanted. I supposed, that’s what happened when you spent the last ten years getting beaten down at every turn. She raised her eyebrows and looked down at her hand for a moment, as though trying to center herself.
“How long?”
“Probably more than a century between them,” I replied, and the two of us exchanged a look; I wasn’t sure quite what it meant, but I knew it was something. An understanding. Both of us had been through the same thing, to some extent or another, and now both of us were out the other side of it. Yes, we were at different sides of the glass right now, but she was getting better with every day that passed. She already looked younger, with the pitch–black dye growing out of her hair in chunks and her eyes devoid of the heavy make–up she used to slather on.
“That’s amazing,” she blurted, and immediately clamped her lips shut. She wasn’t used to expressing that much emotion. I paused for a moment, letting her gather herself again, before I went on.
“And it was…your testimony, that was a big part of it,” I went on gently. “Between that and my father’s old file, we’ve got enough to keep them away for a long time, and hopefully take down some more people once we get our hands on them, too.”
She flinched at the mention of my father, but I didn’t. I spoke his name with pride, acknowledged everything he’d done without a second thought. Because he deserved it. I knew she was flinching more for me than for herself, worried that coming out with the word would be enough to send me down a spiral of sadness. But I had seen too much in the last few months to believe that sadness got you anywhere. I needed to act. It’s what my father would have done, and it’s what he would have wanted me to do. Rose smiled at me, nervously.
“That…that’s incredible,” she murmured, the crackle of the phone hiding the slight waver in her voice. “I wish I could have done this all sooner, Angel. Before everything with your—“
I held my hand up. I didn’t need to hear another apology from her. She had offered me enough over the course of her arrest and sentencing, and the mere fact that she had handed herself in and helped finish up my father’s work was enough for me to find some way to forgiving her. She stopped dead in her tracks, already knowing what was going through my mind. I couldn’t find it in my heart to hate her for all of this, no matter how justified I was in doing so. I’d felt the fear she had in the moment I woke up in that place. God knows what I would have done if I thought it would have given me some agency back. I didn’t even want to consider it.
“What’s been going on with you?” I asked, changing the subject. I placed my chin in my hand, and cocked my head at her, and for a second it felt as though we were far away from here – a coffee shop, maybe, or a bar, catching up like a pair of old friends. And yeah, as Rose began to outline the work she’d been doing in the prison kitchen, I knew that we would never have a conventional friendship. But what in my life was conventional now? Instead of the beat cop I’d been trained to be, I was heading up taskforces to end sex trafficking. I was dating an ex–con and police informant who seemed as set on ending the horrors in the darker corners of the criminal world as I was. And here I was, talking to the woman who’d killed my father, because I had found somewhere in my heart to put my forgiveness for her. Life went on, that was all I had learned. Just not always in the way you thought it would.
THE END
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HIS BABY’S KEEPER: Desert Marauders MC
By Evelyn Glass
I’LL KILL ANYONE WHO LAYS A FINGER ON MY DAUGHTER.
Someone hurt my baby girl.
And I’ll tear down heaven and earth to find out who it was.
But I need someone to watch Ella while I’m on the warpath.
And the sexy social worker fits the bill nicely.
Mona thought she was knocking on my door for a simple welfare check.
But when she stepped inside, she stepped into my world.
And the rules are a lot different here.
Because I won’t be content just to watch her care for my daughter.
Not until I have a taste of her for myself.
She can try and resist me with every excuse in the book.
I’m too rough.
Too brutal.
Too close to the edge of the law.
She may be right.
But none of that’s going to stop me.
I’m coming for what’s mine.
And I won’t leave until I’ve had her mouth.
Claimed her body.
And put a baby in her belly.
Chapter One
I ran my hands through my hair and inhaled deeply. I knew this part of the job was going to be far from fun, but I didn’t bet on it sending me into paroxysms of panic as soon as I was parked outside the door.
I reached for my phone, and found my fingers trembling a little—seriously? Was I being that much of a baby about this? I was supposed to have the safety of the kid at the forefront of my brain, not my own stupid sense of fear or panic. This was what I had trained for. I had nothing to be worried about—I just needed to pull myself together and get myself in hand. I dialed Amanda’s number, and held my cell to my ear, drumming my fingers distractedly on the steering wheel of the car.
I mean, it didn’t help that my first job had come on the same day that I heard that my apartment was being fumigated. I’d known it was coming, and yet I’d been too distracted to set myself up with a place to stay. I was looking at forking out cash for a hotel room, just because I’d been too busy to shoot off a text to one of my friends and ask for a couch. Idiot.
The phone rang a couple of times before she picked up, and as soon as I heard her voice down the line, I felt myself begin to relax. There was just something about Amanda, something that made me feel safe and at home and like I could take on anything. That’s what made her such a good supervisor, I guess, especially for work like this—if you couldn’t convince the staff that you were on their side no matter what, then the whole thing sort of went up in smoke, didn’t it?
“Hello?” She answered her phone expectantly, sounding at once as though she had been waiting for my call the whole day.
“Hey, it’s Mona.” I ducked my head so I could peer out the window and towards the house. “I just wanted to double-check that I had the right place. And the right details.”
“You know you can’t call me every time you go out on call,” Amanda reminded me gently, and I nodded, forgetting for a second that she couldn’t see me.
“I know, I know,” I agreed. “I just want to be sure. It’s my first time, cut me some slack.”
“Okay,” Amanda replied, and I heard her rustling about at her end of t
he line. “You should be at forty-eight Linwood Lane. The child you’re visiting is Ella, and you’re just doing a general check-up. The father has had some trouble with the cops over the years, and we want to be certain that she’s being taken care of.”
“Thank you,” I sighed. I knew I couldn’t put this off any longer. This is what I’d been trained for, and I couldn’t pretend that wasn’t the case any longer.
“Are you going to be okay?” Amanda asked, concerned. “If you feel like you can’t carry this out, I can find someone else who could cover—”
“No, no, I’ll be fine,” I cut across her firmly. I wanted to prove myself to her, and running away from my first assignment wasn’t going to make that happen anytime soon.
“If you’re sure…”
“What’s his name again? The father?” I asked, pinching my phone between my shoulder and my ear and gathering my stuff.
“Jasper, but he goes by Jazz,” Amanda answered, and I could hear the hint of incredulity in her voice—she wasn’t very good at hiding it, and I’d known her long enough to understand when she thought she was hearing something intensely stupid.
“Jazz?” I repeated. “Like the music?”
“Like the music,” she agreed. “He’s had some checks before, and nothing’s come of it—he’s been pretty good to the rest of the people we’ve sent down over the years, so you shouldn’t have a problem.”
“What’s his criminal record for, then?” I wondered aloud, then stopped myself. “No, I don’t want to know. I’m heading in now—thanks for talking with me.”
“Good luck,” Amanda replied, and I could hear her smiling down the phone. Maybe it was pride, maybe it was just relief that she wasn’t going to have to bail out one of her brand-new social workers on her first day.
I hung up the phone, grabbed my ID, and strung it around my neck. Okay, this wasn’t going to be that bad. He was a nice enough guy, by all accounts, and the little girl was meant to be a sweetheart. I just needed to get myself out of this damn car and go talk to them. So why did it feel as though my ass was pinned to the seat? I grabbed my clipboard and clutched it to my chest protectively, as though I could put that between me and the world and no one would ask any questions.
It was only my first week on the job, and it had been a pretty steep learning curve. I mean, social work was never going to be an easy line of work—I had known that when I got into it all those years ago. And I had spent long enough tagging along with other social workers to understand that it was okay if things didn’t go exactly to plan as long as the kid was safe.
I was also reminded that not every parent was as open to doing shit for their child’s wellbeing as we were, and that was unnerving in and of itself. There had been some rough cases I’d borne witness to: fighting, screaming, swearing, parents high off their asses on various pills and potions. But this place—this was nice enough, middle-class and pretty and quiet. Not that that really meant anything, but hey, I could console myself with the fact that everything here looked completely normal.
Well, that was until I spotted the little girl clambering out of the window and sprinting off across the lawn.
I wasn’t sure that my instincts would kick in in the event of something bad happening—hell, I wasn’t even certain that I had any instincts in the first place. But as soon as I laid eyes on that little girl tumbling from the window and landing in a little pile on the ground, I was out of the car and on my feet, my blood pumping through my veins as I hurried across the street towards her.
She was on her feet and off before I had a chance to get to her—but she was on the ground long enough for me to see the blood smeared across her head. Had that come from the fall, or had that been there before? Jesus Christ. The window wasn’t high, but it was high enough that it could do some damage if she’d landed at a funny angle. I gave chase across the lawn, pursuing her as quickly as I could across the damp grass. She disappeared around the back of the house as soon as she saw me, and I called out to her.
“Please, I’m not going to hurt you!”
I racked my brain for her name. Ellie? Stella? Ella!
“Ella!” I called, hoping she’d at least respond to her own name. “Ella, come here!”
There was a moment of silence, and a few seconds later, the little girl emerged from behind a thick tree trunk that stood about six feet tall at the end of the garden. She observed me for a second, peering at me suspiciously, and I slowly made my way towards her.
Just as I reached her, I heard a noise from inside the house—a door slamming, making me jump. I turned and found myself face-to-face with a man—one of the most gorgeous men I had ever laid eyes on in my entire life.
Chapter Two
The man strode across the lawn towards the two of us, and I stood next to Ella, feeling my knees growing a little weak as he approached. He was stunning, there was no doubt about that. He stood maybe a full foot taller than me, with black hair cut short enough to show off his angular cheekbones and strong jaw. His eyes were dark brown, and he was wearing a grimy wife-beater with a leather biker jacket draped over the top of it, as though he had been in the middle of something else when he was disturbed.
“Honey,” he crouched down as soon as he reached his daughter, “who hurt you?”
His face was wracked with pain, and he ran his fingers through his hair in a panic—he didn’t even glance up at me, not even an acknowledgement, as he examined her for any further injuries. He dabbed at the blood on her head and gently took her by the tops of her arms, steadying her. She stared up at him, but didn’t open her mouth. Something had clearly happened here, and I wasn’t totally sure what it was.
“Hello?” I didn’t want to intervene, but I had to say something. I had been sent out here to do a wellness check, and found the child I was meant to be checking up on falling from a window with an injury to her head, attempting to flee the house. She didn’t seem scared to be in the presence of her father—in fact, after a second or two, she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around his neck. She didn’t make a sound, but he held her tight then scooped her up into his arms and cradled her close. Finally, he seemed to notice that I was standing there.
“Hi.” He nodded at me. “I would shake your hand, but…” He nodded down at the little girl in his arms, and I smiled, finding myself relaxing.
“Yeah, I can see that,” I agreed. “I’m Mona Landing, I’m the social worker who’s been assigned to your case?”
“Yeah, the agency called and said you would be here.” He jerked his head towards the house. “Do you want to go inside? I want to get her cleaned up.”
“Do you know what happened?” I asked, and he shook his head as he carried her into the house.
“I left her in front of the TV watching some cartoons while I went down to the basement to grab something,” he explained. “I was gone for a second, and when I came back, she was gone.”
“And then you came out here?” I checked, making sure he had his story straight.
“Yeah, that’s right. Did you see anything else?”
“When I was in the car I saw her climbing out of the window on the other side of the house,” I replied, and I saw his face turn pale. I could see the pain etched on his face—just hearing this was enough to get him sick with worry.
“Did she have the cut when she came out of the window?” He clutched her tightly to him, daddy bear, all protective—but I shook my head.
“I didn’t see,” I admitted. “I chased her back here when I saw her fall out, but that was it.”
“I have no idea what she was doing.” He peered in at her face as we made our way inside the house. “She’s never usually like this.”
“Is there anything that could have set her off?” I pressed gently.
He shrugged, eyebrows raised. “Nothing that I’m aware of. She seemed fine when I went down to the basement.”
“Right, okay…” I nodded, and made a note on my clipboard. I could see him glance down,
as if on instinct, to see what I had written, and I pressed it closer to my chest.
“I’m so sorry for all this drama,” he apologized as he opened the door for me and ushered me inside. “I promise we’re not normally like this.”
“Don’t worry, I have other reports from other social workers at my disposal,” I assured him. “I know this isn’t normal for you guys.”
“So you’re just here for a routine inspection?” He carefully placing Ella down on the couch. The way he handled her, with such care and gentleness, seemed at odds with the sheer size of him. He stroked her hair away from her face and planted a kiss on her head tenderly. I was having a hard time believing that he had anything to do with her injury or her escape attempt, but I would have to look around before I made my mind up either way.
“That’s right.” I nodded, peering at Ella. She hadn’t reacted to being brought inside, or plopped down on the cushions of the couch—she was staring at her feet, as though she was trying to keep her mind off of something. I would have to have a talk with her by myself if I could, try and figure out what it was that had her so unsettled.
