Page 45 of Blackwood

“Hi Sugar Bear,” he says, voice raspy and strong.

My knees buckle and hit the floor before my brain can register what’s going on. All the years I held myself together just snapped in half. The sound that tears from me isn’t a cry, not really. It is everything I never got to say. Every bedtime story I lost. Every hug that never came.

He runs to me, drops to the floor and wraps his arms around me. Pulling me into him like no time has passed.

“I’ve got you, baby” he whispers as he kisses the top of my head. His hands shake, one buried in my hair, the other clutching my back as if he’s afraid I’m going to disappear again.

I pull back just enough to see his face. “You’re real,” I whisper.

He gives a soft, cracked laugh. “Of course I am.”

“How?” My voice barely a sound.

Daddy smiles, soft and teary. He brushes away one of my tears with his calloused fingers.

“Your brother,” he says, nodding toward Zeke, now leaning against the arm of the couch like he didn’t just upend my entire world.

“Sort of. Technically, this fed shows up on my porch—suit, badge, the whole nine. Thought I was getting arrested or audited or both. Before I knew it, I was on a plane without so much as a toothbrush.”

Zeke scoffs. “Jesus, Henry. You make it sound like we zip-tied you and tossed you in the luggage bay. It was a damn private jet.”

Daddy chuckles, “Felt a little like it.”

He stands, voice gentler now as he helps me off the ground. “Then he showed me a picture. My little girl. Grown, beautiful, and alive. I swear, I’d have walked barefoot across broken glass just to hold you again.”

His eyes shimmer as he steadies me.

“After that, your brother sat me down and told me everything. All of it.” His voice thickens. “Miami. Dylan. That god-awful house. What you lived through. What you and Zeke built from the wreckage. The kids you’ve saved. The lives you’ve changed.”

He rubs the back of his neck. “I can’t even wrap my head around most of it, but Jesus, Bella. I’m so damn proud.” His hands ball into fists. “And also furious. I’m glad that bastard Carlos is in prison. Because if he wasn’t, I’d have lit the son of a bitch on fire myself.”

Zeke snorts from the couch. “I mean, it was on the table. Right next to poisoning and wood chipper. We just couldn’t figure out how to sneak one into Cell Block D.”

My chest stutters with a watery laugh as Daddy shakes his head, but his voice breaks when he looks at me again.

“You got out. You held on. And you didn’t just make it, baby you fought back. You became something no one could ever touch again.”

He reaches up, wipes the tear from my cheek with his thumb. “You’re everything, Sugar Bear. Everything I ever hoped you’d grow up to be. I just wish your mama was here to see it too.”

I feel my throat tighten, but I push through. “Zeke?” I whisper. “What about Vince?”

“He won’t be a problem, Bells,” Zeke says, voice steady but edged with warning. “Far as the world’s concerned, the FBI just pulled Henry in for routine questioning. He’ll be back at the lake house by tomorrow night. No trails. No heat. Vince won’t know a damn thing.”

“Tomorrow?” Daddy’s voice cracks hard with disbelief. “You expect me to walk away after this? After all this time?”

He steps forward, chest rising like a storm building. “I finally have her back and you want me on a flight before the sun sets? No. Fuck no. Not happening, son.”

Zeke’s expression hardens in an instant. “One, I’m not your fucking son, so don’t call me that. Two. Yeah, you are leaving. Tomorrow. We talked about this on the plane. It’s the only way to keep her safe.”

Daddy’s eyes flare. “Safe? She shouldn’t even be in—”

“Not another word,” Zeke snaps. “I swear to fucking God, Henry.”

A voice rings out from the hallway. “Move it, Nathaniel, I know she’s in there!”

Zeke closes his eyes. “Shit.”

The door bursts open. Ellie storms in like a hurricane in gold sequins, heels swinging from one hand, eyes narrowed and feral.