Louis looked at me, stunned.
“Have a seat,” Trouper ordered. “You’re going to need it.”
“I don’t have to fucking do any…”
“Sit. Fucking. Down.”
That was my mother.
I turned to see her standing there, looking pissed.
And I knew that Troup had told her. Everything.
I wasn’t sure when he would have had time. But the moment my eyes met hers, I knew that she knew.
“Blake, you don’t understand…” my father started.
“No,” my mother growled. “There are things you don’t know, Foster Spurlock. Things you have no fuckin’ clue about. Now, sit your ass down and listen to what your daughter and your son-in-law have to say. I’ve been passive about your attitude with Trouper for far too long. It’s time for it to end. They’re not teenagers anymore, Foster. They’re adults. Now, let them tell you what happened.”
“This man’s been to jail,” Dad tried to explain, but my mother interrupted him before he could get any further.
“Do you know why he went to jail, Foster?” my mother snarled. I reached for the wastepaper basket and threw up all over again. “Because your daughter was kidnapped, violated, and nearly sold into sex trafficking. So, being justifiably pissed way the hell off, Trouper beat the holy hell out of the man responsible for it until he was paralyzed, and then admitted to it. He went to jail because he wasn’t given a fair trial.”
I threw up again.
My father made this low, moaning sound in the back of his throat, and I knew that the words had finally penetrated.
He knew.
My brother knew.
I threw up again as memories assaulted me.
• • •
“Come on, let me touch her,” the grossest man I’d ever seen said.
“No,” the one that looked like he didn’t belong said. “Boss wants this one untouched. Cop bitch is going to pay, and he’s going to be the one to make her pay it. That means that she can’t be ruined by you.”
The gross man that I’d dubbed ‘Eww’ sighed, long and loud.
“This is ridiculous. He doesn’t usually care if we sample the product before we deliver it,” Eww replied.
“Listen,” the man who didn’t look like he belonged said. “You can touch her, but you can’t fuck her. Okay?”
Eww looked at me with a leer in his eyes. “Okay.”
CHAPTER 24
I do what I want, when I want, where I want! Except, I gotta ask Beckham.
-Text from Trouper to Sammy
TROUPER
I walked over to my wife and pulled her into my arms.
Behind me, Blake spoke softly to her man, and Louis stood at the door looking as if he’d been punched in the gut.
None of that was my concern at that moment in time, though.
My concern was my wife, who hadn’t stopped dry heaving in two minutes.
“Every single one of those motherfuckers are dead,” I told her as I pulled her into my arms, still dry heaving. “Dead. Every single one of them.”
She shuddered in my arms.
“I’m here. You’re safe. Nothing ever again will touch you,” I promised.
She drew in a shaky breath.
“Y’all got there in time,” she whispered.
I’d never heard the whole entire story from her kidnapping.
First, she hadn’t remembered it.
Then, when she had remembered it, she hadn’t wanted to talk about it.
Now, I was deathly afraid that if I did hear it, I’d hate myself for not protecting her from a friend that she’d come to trust.
I knew the gist of what had happened. She’d shared just enough that I could piece things together.
But I didn’t know the whole story, and I had a feeling I would never know, because she wanted to protect me.
“There was a knock on the door right as he was about to start doing the really bad stuff,” she whispered.
I closed my eyes as emotions rolled through me.
“I’ll never, ever let that happen again, baby,” I told her. “Not ever.”
“If those women, Cannel, went through even a tenth of what I went through, then I’m not sure, even if we get them back, that they’ll be fixable,” she whispered.
I had a feeling that she was right.
But I wouldn’t stop helping her look for them. Not ever.
• • •
“You mind if I talk to you outside?” Foster asked carefully.
I stood up, Hiro in my arms once again because that was where he for some reason continuously fell asleep, and made my way outside while Beckham slept exhausted on the couch.
When I looked back at her, it was Blake who smiled softly and said, “I’ll watch over her, I promise.”
I nodded once, stomach still tightening the farther I got away from her.
And not all of that was because of what she’d gone through today.
Some of it was due to the fact that I’d had to walk away from her too many times over the last year.
Or hell, if we wanted to get technical, the last nine years.
I always seemed to be walking away. Never staying.
This time, I knew that I’d be reversing my usual role in her life. I would be staying.
There was no more trying to push her away.
She was it for me, and I was it for her.
That was final.
When the door closed softly behind me, I walked to the swing that was set up on her parents’ front porch and took a seat.
Foster leaned against the railing about four feet away.
He looked at the baby sleeping in my arms.
“Beckham used to do that,” he said softly. “Fall asleep any time that I was holding her. Used to drive Blake crazy. But I couldn’t stop myself from holding her while she slept.”
I looked down at Hiro, then raised a hand and ran my fingers over his hair.
“I love her,” I told him bluntly.
“I know,” Foster sighed. “I’ve known that for a very long time.”
I blinked and looked up at that.
“At first, my annoyance with you was the fact that you were a seventeen-year-old kid, living on his own, and taking an interest in my baby girl,” he explained.
My lips twitched. “At this age, I can see how that was rough for you.”
Foster rolled his eyes. “You won’t have any clue how it feels until you have a little girl.” He shook his head. “But you grew on me, kid. That time where you protected her when that asshole tried to touch her in high school? That was the day that I knew that y’all were meant to be.”
I shook my head. “If that was the case, then why were you always trying to keep me away?”
“Would you have left if you’d known that I approved? Would either of you have done what you were meant to do?” he asked.
I had no clue.
I would’ve definitely tried to take her with me.
There was no telling whether or not things would’ve worked out the way that they did.
“I never really wanted to keep y’all apart. What I wanted was for y’all to find your dreams first.” He paused. “When I first found out that Beckham wanted to be FBI, I thought I was going to keel over.”