“You’re sure you’re ready?”
“Yep!”
“Remember how to brake.”
“I know, Dad, I know!”
Trent let Gage go.
Gage wobbled for a second before he took off by himself.
He screeched when he realized he was unassisted. “I’m doing it! I’m doing it! Look it, Mommy! Look it, Juni! I bet you can’t catch me! You see that mountain over there? That’s where I’m going all the way to the top.”
His entire face was full of a grin.
Juni followed behind, Jud right behind her.
Her rock.
Her fortress.
“You ready to try, Juni Bee?” he asked her.
“I don’t knows!” she shouted at him, terror in her eyes as they whizzed back by on the other side.
He chuckled. “I’ll be right here beside you. You need me, I have you.”
My heart rattled.
“Okay, I can do it! I wants to be like you, Motorcycle Man!”
He let her go.
My daughter soared.
Rode and played and lived.
My chest stretched. Pressed full. Overflowed.
I thought there was a chance it might burst.
Jud ran along beside her. “You’re doing it, Juni. Look at you, big girl.”
“I’s doing it!”
Trent jogged beside Gage, and the four of them headed up the road.
“Come on, let’s go.” Eden giggled and tugged at my hand, and we jogged after them, laughing, too.
Juni was singing, “I’m riding, all by myself.”
“You can’t catch me,” Gage shouted at her.
Juni pedaled faster in a bid to catch up. She pedaled up and over the little hump in the road, pulling away from Jud who ran behind her.
She was cracking up when she passed by Gage. “I’m winning!”
I wondered if Jud saw it at the exact same time as I did. The car sitting at the curb that radiated evil.
The way a bolt of rage struck in the air when Jud recognized it.
The way fear spiked through the heavens like a fiery, poisoned arrow.
Jud was no longer laughing but sprinting behind her. He grabbed Juni from the bike and yanked her against his chest in a bid of protection. Her bike kept going, flying forward, tumbling and skidding across the ground.
The driver of the same black car that had been outside Jud’s shop suddenly tore from the curb and sped away.
Jud held Juniper like he was a shield. His giant shoulders heaved with aggression.
Trent grabbed hold of Gage and stilled him as the squeal of tires at the end of the road echoed through the neighborhood, as the engine accelerated before it disappeared in the distance and a bated silence took over.
Nothing but panted, shocked breaths, clanging, horrified hearts, and the frantic clattering of my footfalls as I ran for Juni.
The second I had her in my arms, my legs gave, knees going weak.
I dropped to them on the hard pavement, hugging my daughter to my chest.
“Salem.” Jud’s deep voice rolled through the tense, bottled air.
A sob of torment—the truth that this would never end—tore from my lungs.
Strength and hope gone. The truth that he would always, always catch up to me.
TWENTY-EIGHT
SALEM
TWENTY YEARS OLD
Salem edged down the hall of Carlo’s office. She didn’t know what stalled her feet. Why she slowed. Why the hairs at her nape lifted in dread or why sickness churned in her belly.
She’d dropped by his realty office on her way back from the store. She’d thought she’d stop to offer her help since she was bored out of her mind. Maybe fiddle around at the front desk. Organize something. Make calls. Find leads.
Whatever.
The only thing she knew was she ached to go to school. To work. To create something with her mind and hands.
To do something other than flit her days away at the ostentatious house Carlo had built for them where they now lived on the opposite side of the city.
Miles away from her mimi.
An eternity away from her heart.
She’d thought she’d at least try to do something that mattered.
Give it a shot.
Make Carlo see she was more than a pretty face meant to be waiting for him at home.
His words, not hers.
She was second guessing that decision right then.
Chills scattered when she heard the voices coming from his office at the back.
She edged that way, quietly…so quietly.
Not because of the way the voices were lifted. But because of the way they were controlled.
She made it to Carlo’s office door that was cracked open an inch. Her heart battered at her ribs as she heard his words curl through the air, “You had a second chance. You were warned, were you not?”
His tone was casual and cruel.
Condescending.
She peeked through the slit left in the door.
Her entire being stuttered. Coiled and locked.
A man was on his knees in front of Carlo’s desk. His hands were bound behind his back and a gun was to his head.
Carlo sat behind the desk, an elbow propped on the arm of the chair and the side of his head rested against his fingers. As if he were more annoyed than anything else.
As if this were common.
An everyday problem to be dealt with.
“Carlo, please,” the man begged.
Carlo shook his head. “You know the rules. You had your second chance. You failed.”
Salem jolted when the shot rang out. Her hand flew to her mouth to stop the scream that raced her throat and fought to make its way out.
Tears blinded her eyes.
Heavy and horrified.
Her heart screamed.
Her stomach soured.
Her still flat stomach that she clutched like she could keep the child safe.
She had to.
She had to.
“Clean this mess up,” Carlo ordered, and footsteps began to thud.
She pressed herself behind the partition. Hid. Stifled her cries.
And when it was clear, Salem ran.
A scream tore up Salem’s throat as she was tossed to the floor of Talia’s apartment where she’d sought refuge until she knew where she was going to go. She tumbled then scrambled around to sitting, holding her knees to her chest.
Violently, she shook.
Shook and shook.
Carlo treaded forward on his shiny dress shoes.
He knelt in front of her, tilted her chin up with the tip of the knife.
The blade gleamed in the slivers of light that burned through the room.
“Salem.” He tsked. “Why so foolish?”
“I…I—” She couldn’t find the words.
A reason to give.
A purpose other than the one that she had to get away from there.
Whatever the cost.
“Did you see what you made me do?”
He gestured to Talia’s body slumped in the middle of the room where her best friend had bled out. Agony clutched Salem’s spirit. Horror and guilt and hate.
How could he?
She squeezed her eyes closed as if she could block it.
“Such a shame.” He tipped her chin up higher. The tip pierced her skin the barest fraction.
She suppressed a scream, though her body still shuddered.
“I thought you were smarter than that, no?”
A whimper got free.
He clicked his tongue, and she shrieked when he suddenly took her by the hair and yanked her to standing. He hauled her to the middle of the room and forced her to look down where Talia lay. He was behind her when he hauled her back against his chest, the knife at her throat. “I warned you not to waste my time with ridiculous antics. I was worried…searching everywhere for you…for two days, Salem. How could you put me through that?”