“Of course, it’s a yes, you dopey sod. I would love to spend the rest of my life with you.”
Pulling her down to kiss her, I rolled us so that she was on her back and took my weight on my forearms. “Thank you for giving me your love and beauty,” I whispered against her mouth.
“Thank you for being my strength and for giving us our daughter,” she whispered back, tears starting to fall down either side of her face.
Leaning to the side to wipe them off, she saw the time on the Alexa sitting beside the bed, pushed me off and out of her, and almost onto the floor.
“We’ve got the call in ten minutes. Go get dressed and get the surprise ready,” she squealed as she hurried over to the wardrobe.
It was as I walked past her to the bathroom that she caught sight of the perfect copy of her new ring on my right ass cheek.
“Elijah Townsend-Rossi,” she snapped, overtaking me at the bathroom door. “I’m going to wash this ring with soap at least two times, and you’re taking that to the grave with you. I don’t want people to know that your arse was the cushion my engagement ring sat on while you waited to propose to me.”
Holding onto the door frame, I burst out laughing and watched her scrub her hand and the ring with hand soap.
I was fairly sure that at some point, the story would come out. So, leaving her to it, I walked back to where my phone was and took a picture of it so that I’d have proof.
“Well, you’re killing me here,” Gramps snapped, ignoring Grams when she elbowed him.
Thanks to Remy, we had a secure connection to everyone as we stood in the yard with my laptop's screen and camera facing us. It was hard to see everyone because there were about ten mini screens on the call, but they were all there, and that’s all that mattered.
Standing next to my fiancée with my arm around her waist, I waited for our families to give us the thumbs up that they were all ready.
“It’s a go here, mate,” Sadie’s friends and family in the UK yelled.
One by one, everyone followed suit until it was time to share the news with our family.
Grinning at each other, we held up the canons filled with pink confetti.
“Remember, just twist the two tubes in opposite directions, and they’ll burst,” I murmured to her as she checked the tube in her hand.
“Just making sure I’ve got it the right way round. I don’t want to shoot myself in the thigh.”
“We’ll start the countdown,” MeeMee yelled, getting a responding scream from Wick. “Three, two, one… Show us that baby!”
Twisting the ends, I burst out laughing when Sadie’s exploded pink confetti everywhere, but mine failed to go off.
Ignoring the taunting coming from my brothers, I gave it one last ferocious twist. There was a pop, and then I was on my knees as a burning pain went from my crotch up to my throat. It felt like my balls had been ripped off, and a hot poker shoved in the gap, all the way up into my brain.
Feeling a small hand pat me on the back, I choked in some oxygen and prayed for it to end.
“I think you had it the wrong way round, honey,” Sadie whispered, explaining what the hell had just happened to me.
Glancing down to make sure there wasn’t a void where my favorite part of my anatomy used to be, I saw pink confetti and dust stuck to the front of my jeans.
“Well, it’s just as well you’re knocked up, ‘cos that might just be the only baby y’all are ever having,” my brother Wes shouted through his laughter.
“Is he okay?” a soft voice with a British accent asked, one that I recognized as belonging to Sadie’s nan.
As I breathed through the pain and felt it start to recede, I listened to everyone excitedly making plans. Was I embarrassed or upset that it’d played out this way? Fuck no. Even with the agony, I was proud as hell that we were getting to share our daughter's news with everyone we loved, all at the same time.
Getting to my feet took me a moment, but I finally managed it and held my thumb up to the camera to let them know I was okay.
“Glad to have you back, bro,” Jackson snickered. “Congrats on my niece. You make sure you look after her beautiful momma.”
“Considering she agreed to marry me today, I’ll be doing that every day for the rest of my life,” I croaked, smiling over at Sadie, who was holding her hand up so they could see the ring.
My best friend would be laughing his ass off in heaven right now at how this had played out. As someone who liked things to go smoothly and without a hitch, this was the opposite of what I’d wanted to happen, but it fit in perfectly with how he’d have done it.
Coop, you asshole, you totally set me up!
Somehow, that thought just made it even better. And when Sadie looked over at me, happiness and laughter in her eyes, I considered what’d just happened a gift from him to us. The pain was worth every second of it.
Two days later…
“Kills me that I’ve got to tell you this,” Connor, the police officer in Gonzales County who’d been helping us out with shit, sighed. “Shonelle Bell’s body was found this morning. Her mother went to her apartment to look for signs she’d been back and found her on the couch.”
I was staring blindly at the counter where I’d been making two cups of weak coffee as the words registered.
“Didn’t anyone think to check there before now?”
“Uh, yeah, man, that’s the problem. We searched the place after Shonelle was reported missing, and her mom’s been going in daily, too. There hadn’t been any signs that she’d been back at all until this.”
“Jesus,” I hissed, pushing my hand through my hair as it sank in.
“There’s more. The preliminary cause of death appears to have been strangulation, but there will be an autopsy on the body. There was also a bottle of Rohypnol found in her pocket, which we’ve lifted some fingerprints from, and strangely enough, we found a suicide note, too.”
“A suicide note? When she was strangled?”
“That’s what I’m saying. The bruises around her neck are clear outlines of two large hands. You can even see the fingers.”
“So why write a suicide note?”
“Maybe it was an agreement with whoever strangled her? We won’t know the exact answer to that unless we find evidence or the person who did it. It’s the content of the note that’s concerning me.”
A feeling of dread settled deep in my bones.
“Tell me.”
“I can’t tell you all of it, but what I will say is that she accuses you of stalking her and harassment to the point she had no option but to take her life.”
“That’s a lie,” I growled, hearing a noise behind me and seeing Sadie watching me worriedly, her hair still damp from the shower she’d just taken. “I never made any contact with her outside of Rebels, and the few occasions I bumped into her in the store or parking lot. I’ll even give you access to my phone records to prove it.”
“Oh, we know. The dates she’s put in the letter coincide with dates when you weren’t even here.”
“What? Why would she be that stupid to accuse me of something but put dates when it was well known that I wasn’t even in Gonzales County?”
“We think it’s so we’ll get you back here to question you, leaving Sadie either alone wherever you are or alone here. There’s also the prospect that the person who wrote it didn’t know that you weren’t in the area on those dates—”
“Because he’s not from around here,” I finished, tilting my head back to glare at the ceiling. “But he’d know that I’d never leave Sadie alone regardless of where I was.”
“I think he’s banking on you coming back with her because he doesn’t know where you are in the country. This is the only area he does know, so he wants you to bring her to relatively familiar territory for him.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“We’ve discussed it, and Sarasota PD is going to set up a video link in a room so that we can question you. At this point, it’s a
formality, but I still need to warn you that there’s a possibility that we’ll find evidence against you, Elijah. If we do, they’ll arrest you, and you’ll be transferred back here and to our PD.”
“When do I have to go in?” I ground out, wondering how the hell something like this could happen.
“This afternoon at fourteen hundred. There’s enough here that you aren’t a chief suspect, but without any other information or leads, we still have to question you.” Connor sounded apologetic, and I didn’t blame him for the situation. I just fucking hated that it was happening.
After agreeing to go in, I hung up and dialed my brother, Webb, who was staying at my parent’s house with Dobby, to get him to come and look after Sadie while I was gone. Then, I filled her in on what had happened and what was about to happen.
“I can’t believe she’s dead. I mean, she was a bitch, but no one deserves that.” She was pacing around the room as she spoke like her legs weren’t able to stop moving. “And why would she arrange for someone to kill her that way? I know suicide doesn’t stick to a set outline, but wouldn’t she just do it herself if she felt she had no way out? Involving someone sets them up to take the fall for it if they’re found out, so it doesn’t make sense.”
That was a valid point and was something I hadn’t considered.
“And why accuse you of doing stuff on days that you weren’t there, and multiple people can confirm you weren’t there?”
“Because it was someone who didn’t know that I didn’t live there who wrote the note?”
That stopped her pacing in its tracks. “Orson.”
Nodding grimly, I pulled her into my chest, breathing in her scent. How did we go from such a high to rock bottom so quickly? We should still be celebrating our engagement and news. “Webb’s going to come and stay with you, and he’s bringing Dobby, too.”
Burying her face in my t-shirt, she mumbled, “I’m more worried about you, Elijah.”
“Well, I’m more worried about you and our daughter, so can you do me a favor and do whatever Webb tells you to do. I need to know that both of you are safe,” I begged. “I don’t like not being able to see it with my own eyes.”
Tilting her head back, Sadie grinned up at me. “We’ll be fine. And if anyone comes near, I’ll have Dobby to back me up.”
There weren’t enough words in the world to describe how much I loved this woman. It was like all of the gravity in the universe pulled me toward her, making the bond between us airtight.
Now someone was fucking with it from the grave.
And from wherever that fucker Riley was right now.
Chapter Twenty
Sadie
It’s funny, I’d been scared of this man and let him rule my life for over ten years, but facing him now, all I could see was a pathetic piece of shit.
Walking around where he was tied to a chair, I glanced at Webb, Jackson, Marcus, and Jesse, seeing the same confused expression on all of their faces.
“This is the guy who has Elijah so worried?” Webb muttered, scratching his head. The action wasn’t dramatic or sarcastic, he was genuinely perplexed.
Roughly three hours ago, he’d driven up with a pissed off Dobby growling in a carrier beside him. It seemed that he was tired of being caged up and driven around, so he’d done a dirty protest while they were stuck in traffic. Poor Webb had suffered for over an hour, knowing Elijah couldn’t be late to the police station interview, and I couldn’t be left alone.
After we’d released Dobby into the house, he’d gone back out and opened all the windows and doors of his Explorer to air it out, threatening to charge Elijah for pain and suffering.
Then, one by one, the other brothers had arrived. They’d come to visit their parents to celebrate the news of the baby, and hearing that Elijah had to go in to speak to the police, they’d made the two-hour drive here to watch over me. I felt really touched by it, especially when the first thing the big men did was to touch my stomach and introduce themselves to the baby.
It’d been agreed that I’d stay inside while they took turns ‘walking the perimeter’ like we were in a movie.
That was until Orson Riley walked, bold as brass, up to the door and knocked on it with a gun in his hand. With all of the security that Elijah had installed, all of the men going in and out of the house, he’d assumed that he’d be able to pull off kidnapping me in broad daylight with none of them stopping it.
At the time, Webb had been in the shower, unable to handle smelling like Dobby any longer, and the others had been in various locations in and out of the house. Maybe he hadn’t realized that they were all here or how many of them there were?
I really couldn’t say because he hadn’t answered a damn question about it since Jackson had walked up the driveway behind him, stopping about ten feet away from where he was standing with a gun pointed at Orson’s back.
“That’s not a gun, this is a gun,” he said in a terrible Australian accent.
Orson hadn’t even flinched. He just kept his eyes on me, not even blinking through the argument between Jackson and Marcus over who’d said it better. I wasn’t paying them any attention either because the look in his eyes was freaking me out.
“Will you guys shut the— Oh, what the fuck?” Jesse yelled as he walked up behind us, seeing Orson still standing there with a gun pointed at me while his brothers argued behind him.
“He’s got the safety on,” Jackson said, not looking away from his brother.
Here’s the thing, being a Brit, my knowledge of guns was basic.
During my vacations here, I’d had the opportunity to learn how to shoot, but that’d all ended after I’d accidentally shot Dad’s computer when I was trying to be Clint Eastwood and spin the gun I’d found in Dad’s safe. Someone had chosen that moment to call him on Skype, and I’d shit myself, and the gun had gone off, killing the call—and the computer—in a matter of seconds.
I’d had a relatively healthy respect for guns before then, but after it, I was fucking terrified of the things. Add onto it the bullet that’d been fired through my leg seven months ago, and even seeing one freaked me out.
And yet again, someone was pointing one at me, except this time it was my daughter’s life that was on the line, too. So the twins arguing over something as inane as an Australian accent and who had said something better was irrelevant to me and my fear at that moment. I also didn’t care if the safety was on or not, I just wanted it not to be pointed straight at my stomach.
“I see,” Jesse murmured, moving to stand next to me. “Sir, I think you should lower the weapon. Accidents can happen with guns, and we don’t want Sadie getting hurt, do we?”
That snapped Orson out of his trance. “Hello, Sadie, love. It’s good to see you.”
I couldn’t say I felt the same way, so I didn’t say anything or react to the greeting.
The corner of his mouth tipped up at this. “We miss you at home, you know. I thought I’d see you after my trip, but you weren’t there.”
“What the fuck?” Jesse whispered quietly enough so that only I could hear it, echoing the question going through my head at that moment.
Orson’s eyes were vacant and laser-focused on me like there was nothing else going on around him. He had zero concern for the fact that there were two men still arguing behind him or the large one standing next to me. It was like nothing else existed except for me.
When I’d been kidnapped with Ariana, I’d seen how quickly the safety on a gun could be flipped off. I’d also seen how quickly someone could just choose to pull the trigger. And I’d definitely felt the pain a bullet caused. It’d just been me then, though, and my only other concern at the time had been Ari’s safety. Yes, I’d been terrified, but that feeling paled in comparison to what I felt now.
I’d only just met my daughter, hadn’t even held her yet, or got to tell her that I loved her. I hadn’t had the chance to memorize all of her features or see Elijah do the same. Four days ago, when we’d found
out she was a girl, I’d felt a love that almost suffocated me for both of them.
Now? I was desperate for those moments, desperate to have the chance to hold my child and see everyone’s faces when they met her for the first time. I was desperate to see Elijah meet her and hold her. I wanted to become his wife and the mother of his kids, even if we had five boys who were all hellions like the rest of his family.
I was grateful for the path that’d led me here, even though I missed Mum, and that’d brought him into my life. And I was so fucking grateful that we’d gone to the baby store and bought stuff for the baby. If he killed me, at least I had that, even though I wanted my daughter to survive and have the opportunity to live her life.
I wasn’t going to let him take that away from her. There was zero chance that she’d survive if he killed me, she wasn’t even near the stage of being able to do that, so I had to do everything I could to get away from him, but also to get him away from the men.
The hold he’d had over me for so many years was gone, and in its place was a mama bear who was going to fight with everything she had. It was refreshing to feel the last bit of his power snap from where it’d been holding me back.
I’d never been great at thinking on the spot, though, so I didn’t have a clue what to do to get the gun away from him.
“You look great, love,” he murmured, and I was grateful for the fact you couldn’t tell I was pregnant yet. My lack of prominent bump had been bugging me for weeks, but maybe everything did happen for a reason because I had no clue how he’d react if he could see it.
Deciding to act blasé, I shot him a grin. “You as well, Orson. How’ve you been keeping?”
Both Jackson and Marcus stopped arguing and stared at me like I’d lost it. While they’d been arguing, both men had been taking small steps to close the distance between him and my nightmare.
Now they were roughly four feet behind him, but still not close enough if he decided to shoot or attack me. I didn’t understand why they’d decided to play it out that way. Sure, the arguing would’ve covered up the noise of their feet on the gravel path, but he’d also have been able to tell they were getting nearer to him.
Great Sass: Providence Family Ties Series Page 21
