Page 36

PATRICK

The police lights flashed outside the house, sending an eerie feeling through the neighborhood.

The neighbors all stood on their stoops, watching intently for what would happen next.

Had they any idea that a child was being forced to live under the house?

Someone had to have seen her at some point and wondered why she vanished.

“We’re questioning all of them,” the officer said as if reading my thoughts.

“What’s going to happen to the girl?”

“For now? She’s headed to the hospital. She’s severely malnourished and…” He shook his head in disgust. “To think of what she went through…I have a kid. I can’t even imagine anyone treating him that way.”

I nodded in understanding. “I don’t have kids, but this makes my stomach turn. When I opened that hatch, I already knew what I would find. I could smell the human waste.”

“Frankly, I’m glad it was you and not me. There are some things that never leave you on the job. I’m pretty sure seeing that would have nearly broken me.”

Thankfully, I’d seen enough shit in the military to harden me to this kind of thing. It still made me want to puke, but I’d learned how to compartmentalize. I was about to tell him that when Edu pulled up. Telling him what I’d found was fucking horrible, but he insisted on coming out.

“My buddy is here—the one I was telling you about.”

“You’re sure he had no idea?”

I turned to face the officer, making it clear that I was giving him one hundred percent of the truth. “He walked away from his old man at seventeen and hasn’t had any contact since. He’s a good man. Trust me on that. He would never have let anything like this happen if he’d known.”

He gave a tight nod and faced Edu as he approached.

“What happened?” Edu snapped, ready to kill.

I hadn’t given him details over the phone. Only that he needed to get his ass out here. “We found something.”

“Something? What the fuck does that mean?”

“Your old man?—”

Edu cut me a scathing look, which I knew meant not to call him that.

“He’s married. We haven’t seen him or his new wife, but there’s a child.”

He nodded, licking his lips nervously as he shifted his weight. This was going to be fucking horrible to tell him. “Okay, where’s the kid?”

I nodded to the ambulance. “She’s being attended to, and she’ll head to the hospital for further care.”

“Christ,” he muttered, running his hand over his head. “He hurt her, didn’t he? He fucking hurt her.” His eyes kept flicking to the ambulance like he was ready to pounce, but something was holding him back.

“Edu,” I said calmly, snagging his attention. He finally looked back at me, but the words didn’t even come out before he knew it was really fucking bad.

“Fucking hell.” He bent over, sucking in a large breath as he simultaneously choked.

I felt Raven’s presence behind me as she shifted around me. “Why don’t you let me take it from here?”

Edu looked up in confusion. “Why are you here?”

“Because I?—”

Thankfully, she stopped herself from saying she was bored.

“Because I knew this was important to you. You should come with me.”

I almost stopped her, sure this wasn’t a good idea, but the look she shot me made me change my mind. Edu nodded and followed her inside. Cursing under my breath, I followed at a slower pace, already aware of what he would find.

The strangled cry that left his throat stopped me in my tracks.

I’d seen Edu fucked up when Harper left him.

I’d seen him at his lowest and fucking depressed, but I’d never in all my life seen him break.

And I knew if I walked around the corner and saw him, he’d be on his knees, fucking horrified by what he was seeing.

And blaming himself.

I leaned back against the wall, unable to walk back there and see it again. The smell, the absolute horror of the situation, was too much to take right now. I could deal with it, but I really didn’t fucking want to for a second time.

I could hear Raven talking to Edu in a low voice, soothing him as he fucking broke. I begged my legs to start working, to get me back there, but I was frozen. I just couldn’t fucking do it again.

The officer appeared in the doorway, nodding to me as his eyes flicked to the back. “We’re taking the child to the hospital now.”

“Give me a minute. Let me talk to Edu.”

He hesitated, “He can’t ride in back with her. The social worker on call is taking over.”

“What about?—”

The officer shook his head. “Until the situation is sorted out, the social worker makes all the calls.”

I didn’t like it, but I didn’t have a choice in the matter. I wasn’t related, and Edu hadn’t been checked out yet. “Yeah, I get it. What hospital?”

“Mercy. If you hurry, you can follow the ambulance.”

I nodded and steeled myself to have it out with Edu. The last thing he would want to talk about was the welfare of this kid. Hell, he’d struggled with the fact that Harper was pregnant. How would he deal with this? But none of that mattered—only the child in the back of the ambulance did.

I forced myself to head back to the hallway where we found the hatch. Edu was pacing angrily, glaring at the hatch every few seconds.

“Edu!”

He tore his gaze from the hole in the floor and walked over to me. The anger was rolling off him in heated waves. I knew he was seconds from snapping.

“The ambulance is leaving. The social worker is with her now, and will be responsible for her welfare and placement.”

He nodded, his eyes flicking toward the door. “I can’t fucking believe it,” he mumbled. “She was here all this time and?—”

“You didn’t know,” I cut in.

“I didn’t want to know. I hid from the truth.”

“Edu—”

He turned, his hand scrubbing at his face as he stared at the offending hatch. “How fucking long did she suffer down there? This is all my fault?—”

“It is not,” Raven cut in. “You didn’t know.”

“I fucking knew what kind of monster he was!” Edu shouted. “I fucking knew and I said nothing!”

“You were a kid,” I said slowly, trying not to set him off. The last thing we needed was for Edu to admit he’d tried to kill his father when he was seventeen. It was done and in the past. He’d more than atoned for any sins he committed that day.

I walked toward him and gripped his shoulder, forcing him to look at me. “Hey, that little girl needs someone, and you could be that someone.”

He scoffed in disgust. “I’m not the man to help?—”

“Should I ask Harper about that?” I snapped. “Should I tell her you no longer feel like you’re capable of taking care of a family?”

His eyes slowly slid from the hole in the floor to me.

I saw the war raging on his face, and I knew this could go either way.

If he fucking walked out on Harper, it would be hell on her.

Hell on that little kid waiting at home for him.

But the gravity of the situation was pushing down on him, threatening to bury him alive right alongside that little girl.

“How could any of them live with what I’ve done?” he whispered.

“Forgiveness, man. You were a kid,” I reiterated slowly. “You were just a kid trying to survive. You were scared. But that little girl is scared, too. And she needs someone in her life who will look out for her and protect her, and I don’t know a better man for the job.”

His throat bobbed as he swallowed hard.

“You can do this. I know you can. And Harper would love that little girl just as much as her own kid. We both know that. But you have to be willing to fight for her.”

“I can do that,” he said with a stuttered breath.

“I know you can.” I gripped his shoulder and squeezed. “She’s headed to the hospital.”

“We should go,” he croaked out, shooting a final look to the hole in the floor. “She won’t ever fucking live like this again.”

It had been two days. Two fucking days of sitting in the hospital, waiting for any word from the social worker about where the child would be placed. She was still sorting out court records and birth certificates—it was a fucking mess. How long had that kid been hidden from the world?

“She’s still not speaking,” Edu grumbled, pacing the waiting room. He was fucking exhausted. He hadn’t slept once since we came to the hospital. Loading up on coffee and energy drinks, he was strung tight.

“The social worker should have some information today,” I said, trying to reassure him.”

“I can’t fucking believe how she was living. Who treats their kid like that?”

He didn’t really need an answer. Hell, he’d lived with his old man for seventeen fucking years. He already knew just how bad it could get. But he’d never been forced to live like that.

“Did you talk to Harper yet?”

He shook his head. “She thinks I’m on a job.”

“Man, you’ve got to tell her.”

“I will. I just—how the fuck do I explain this to her? How do I tell her that this is all my fault?”

“It’s not?—”

“It fucking is,” he snapped, “and there’s nothing you can say that will make me think otherwise. That kid is in that bed because I was too much of a fucking coward to stand up to my old man.”

“You escaped. You fucking survived, Edu. None of this is your fault, and I will keep fucking telling you that until you get it through your thick skull.”

He sighed again, turning away from me. I didn’t want to go behind his back, but it might be the only way. Harper had a very loving nature, and I knew she could handle this. That might be what it took to get through to Edu.

And right now, I wasn’t sure he was in the state of mind to deal with a child just as fucked up as him.

While Edu paced the hospital some more, I made a call I fucking knew Edu would kill me for. But it was the only way. If this kid was going to trust us at all, we needed female reinforcements.

I dialed Chase and got to work.

“You want to tell me where you disappeared to for the last few days?” he asked.

I glanced back at Edu and dove headfirst into something I knew would get my ass beat. “I need you to bring Harper and any other women you can to Mercy Hospital.”

“We don’t have a Mercy Hospital. Where the fuck are you?”

“Kentucky.”

“Kentucky? Why the fuck are you there? And why do you need all the women?”

“Edu is with me.”

“Why?” His voice took on an edge that I knew meant he was going to lay into me later.

“It’s a long fucking story, but Edu has a sister. Ten years old, and she’s in the hospital. It’s a fucked up situation.”

“Is she sick?”

“Malnourished. She was living in a fucking hole. A literal fucking hole in the ground under a house.”

Silence met me on the other end of the line. I knew it was a lot to take in and way too fucking much to explain over the phone.

“Just get them out here. I’ll text you the address.”

“Yeah, I’ll get on it.”

“And Chase…fucking kid gloves on this one.”

“I figured.”

He hung up, and I shot off a text with the address.

Edu was going to have my head, but none of that mattered right now.

That kid needed to be surrounded with love, and if he had any shot of gaining custody of her, we needed all the help we could get.

Right now, he was more likely to get her put in the system with the way he was ranting and raving.

“You’re playing a dangerous game,” Raven said as she walked up beside me.

“It’s necessary.”

“He’s not going to ever forgive you for this.”

“He will in time. But we have to do what’s best for that kid, and right now, the best thing for her is to be surrounded by people who will protect her and love her.”

“And Edu?”

“He’ll come around.”

“You’d better hope so. You might have just pushed him over the edge.”

She walked away, and I wondered if she was right. I didn’t want to push him too far, but he needed some help, and he wasn’t going to get it by beating himself up.