Her mouth gets real disrespectful when she’s mad. That’s why she doesn’t like to argue.
-Text from Trouper to Sammy
TROUPER
“I want you to do it.”
I looked at my wife.
“I can’t,” I shook my head.
“I know you think you can’t, but you need to,” she whispered pleadingly.
I looked over at Lynn, who listened to everything with a quietness to him that was disconcerting at times.
“Tell her.”
“The trial will mean that he might go back to prison,” Lynn said. “I have him out right now. I have him living his life. You have him. He has you and his child. Another trial could mean that he could go back. He’d have to do the rest of whatever sentence they saw fit. I wouldn’t have any control over that.”
Her shoulders deflated.
She wanted me to have my life back. She wanted me to have everything that I ever wanted. I knew that.
But she was hoping for a miracle when there wasn’t going to be one.
She wanted me to file for a mistrial, so I could possibly go back to where I’d once been, but there was no going back. Not anymore.
“You need this not hanging over your head anymore,” she whispered.
She was thinking of my Air Force career.
“Baby,” I said softly. “I know you think that that means something to me, but it doesn’t. Not a single thing. I have you and Hiro. That’s all that matters to me anymore.”
Her head thunked down on my chest, right between my pecs.
“It does matter to you,” she whispered brokenly.
She was right.
It did matter to me.
But there was nothing that I could do about it.
There was also no other route that I would take.
Because, no matter what, I wanted to be right where I was, living the life that I’d been given.
“I’m happy,” I told her.
Just as I said that, the thunk-thunk of car doors had us all turning to survey the driveway.
We were all out on the porch where we’d gathered to wait for Kansas and Toot.
The moment I saw Kansas, my heart panged.
Kansas had brought his wife Traci, and they were both looking up at the house in surprise.
It was the man that was driving out of the back of the van that held my attention, though.
Murderous rage once again rolled through me as Toot got out of the car using his motorized wheelchair.
His eyes came to me, and they were narrowed, as if he didn’t like what he saw.
His eyes went wide as he saw what was behind me.
Then he was moving toward her. Thankfully, Cannel got to him before he could get too close to me. Meaning I missed the first part of what was said between them as she threw herself at him.
“What’s going on?” Cannel asked, pulling back from her fiancé while wiping away her tears. “Why are you in a wheelchair, Toot?”
Toot’s glare turned to me.
Beckham’s arms stiffened around me at the accusing glare that Toot sent my way.
“Just get in the car, darling,” Toot urged.
“Not until someone tells me what in the hell is going on.” Cannel stomped her feet. “Seriously, something is going on and I want to know what.”
Well yeah, it was more than obvious that something was going on.
Between Kansas and Toot staying down there, and the tension in the air, it was more than obvious that something bad had happened.
“Please, just get in the car,” Toot urged. “I can’t take you there anymore.”
“What do you mean anymore?” she asked. “This is permanent? What happened?”
She twisted around, her face going from me to Toot and back.
I crossed my arms over my chest, or tried to.
I’d forgotten that Beckham was hanging onto one of my arms.
“Toot went fucking crazy after you were abducted,” Kansas said, startling us all. “One night he decided to take matters into his own hands. It ended up being that Toot decided the best way to get you back was to trade Beckham for you. Only it didn’t work out like he’d planned. The FBI found Beckham, and she was hurt. Badly. I’d decided we needed to go to the hospital to offer moral support for Troup, but what I didn’t know was that Toot was behind the abduction of Beckham. When I got to the parking lot, Trouper then decided to beat the holy hell out of your man until he stopped fighting back. Fast forward a few months, Trouper went to jail and your man found out that he’s paralyzed from mid-hip down.”
Cannel took a giant step back.
“Toot,” she breathed. “Is that true?”
“I’d do anything for you, Cannel. Even trade someone else for you. I just wanted you back.” Toot sounded desperate now.
He should be.
Even I could see that Cannel was no longer on his side.
Even with how non-descriptive Kansas was, how he’d only skimmed the top of the surface of things that had happened after Beckham was abducted, I could tell that she’d already chosen.
“I’ll ride home with you but only as far as my parents in Alabama. I’m sorry, Toot, but I don’t think that I can be with you anymore. Not after having to deal with my own hell for the last year. I can’t… I can’t believe that you would put some other woman into that position. Even for a half a moment,” she whispered.
Then she was walking toward Traci.
Traci pulled Cannel into her arms, and together they got into the car.
Toot looked pissed as hell.
I turned my back on all of them and walked back into the house, taking my wife with me.
But, just before I could close the door, Toot yelled out.
“You ruined my life, asshole!” Toot yelled. “She was only at that store because of you! She just had to go get you an engagement present. Fuck you!”
I turned stiffly in the doorway, my body vibrating with rage.
“If we’re playing the blame game,” I said. “Maybe you should think about the fact that I almost lost not only my wife, but my unborn child.”
Toot blanched.
“What?” he asked.
“My girl was pregnant when you took her to that hellhole,” I said. “Do you want to know what sex trafficking places do to women that are pregnant?”
Toot swallowed. “I didn’t know.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Yeah, well, that’s not an excuse.”
With that, I tossed Kansas a glare, clearly telling him to get Toot the hell away from me and walked back into the house.
“I don’t see how the hell Toot can still be in the Air Force,” Six said. “I mean, didn’t he do something just as bad, if not worse, than Trouper?”
“Because Toot has a lot of fuckin’ money,” Beckham grumbled as she walked over to the couch and sat down, causing Sin to bounce next to her.
I grinned when he tossed her an amused glance.
He moved over, allowing me room to sit beside her.
“Meaning he was able to afford a really good lawyer. And since the undercover operation is still going strong there, they were able to keep a lot of it quiet since Toot could be a great person to testify against the outfit if they ever found the men responsible for abducting all those women off base,” Beckham explained.
Six sighed. “Well, that just fucking sucks. But at least you have your life back now. Everything worked out in the end. Even if it took you a couple of rocky months to get to that point.”