Page 56 of Loving Trent (Love in the Bootheel #5)

Thirty-Five

TRENT

The holidays and New Year have passed, but I will never forget my first holiday season with our new family.

It’s been three weeks, and I’m still in shock over what transpired on Christmas.

After Harley gifted us the adoption papers, everyone huddled around the room to discuss them.

I will admit that not only did I get pissed when I found out exactly what she did, but so did every other member of our family—except one: Nana. Nana was nothing but proud of her.

It turns out that Harley, Leon, and Sonny drove back to Ohio the night they picked her up from the house.

Demon met them there from wherever he lives.

Once they met up with Demon, they drove straight to Harley’s birth parents’ house, where she not only confronted them about what they had done to her but demanded that they sign the adoption papers.

When Demon had them sign the guardianship papers, it didn’t terminate their rights to her.

But we never worried about them coming for her. However, I guess Harley did.

“You should have seen her,” Leon says, waving his hands in front of him as if he could paint us all a picture.

“There Harley stood in the middle of their living room staring Jaxx and Megan down with fire in her eyes. Her voice never shook, her shoulders never rose, and her body never tensed up as she told them that she had a new family. A family that she was meant to belong to. Harley never raised her voice or got disrespectful, but man, her words…” He pauses to whistle, and Sonny picks up the story.

“Her words cut them deep like a sharp steel knife. I wish I could remember them clearly,” Sonny says, looking over at Harley, who is still in Shawn’s arms.

“I told them that they were never my parents, but simple donors put on this earth to show me exactly what I didn’t deserve.

I told them that I had new parents, the best parents a girl like me could ever wish for, and that in the last two months, my two dads had shown me more love, acceptance, and care than they did in sixteen years.

I looked them dead in the eyes and told them that I wasn’t dirty, broken, or wrong for doing the simplest thing to ever be created…

Loving someone for who they are, not what’s in their pants.

” Pride shines bright in Harley’s eyes, and all my anger fades into nothing but unconditional love for the girl who is choosing us.

“Then she shoved the papers into their laps and demanded they sign them. Once they did, seconds later. She turned to me and said 'Come on, Grandpa Sonny, take me home to my dad’s.” Sonny crosses the room, lays a wet kiss to her cheek, and whispers.

“Best fucking feeling in the world, I’ll tell you that. ”

Our appointment to go before the judge to finalize the adoption is next week, and the whole family has taken off work to be there with us. I just have to handle one little problem before then.

“Okay, show me what you have,” I say, shutting the door to Uncle Joey and Ryan’s house.

They found a cute Tudor-style home two blocks from ours and snatched it up quickly.

I was honestly surprised that Uncle Joey moved here because of his business.

But he said that he wanted to be closer to family, and that was that.

Adam, Levi, and Uncle Joey are in talks about combining their companies to form a single, larger construction company.

I kick off my shoes and walk into their cozy living room.

The first thing I noticed about this house is how it screamed Uncle Joey from the get-go.

He fucking loves dark colors in a home, especially paneling, and this place has that all over.

Not me, I could never stand it, but I won’t rain on his parade.

The overstuffed white couch is pushed against the wall with the coffee table lying face down on it.

The wing-backed chairs that Ryan loves have been moved out of the way, and in the middle of the room, Uncle Joey and Ryan sit on the floor surrounded by papers and two laptops.

“Thanks for coming,” Ryan says, not looking up from his computer. “Come in and I’ll explain everything.”

Making sure not to disturb any of the piles of papers, I watch as Uncle Joey clears a space for me in front of them.

“Okay, as you know, we have been going over Shawn’s records from the restaurant.

We went all the way back to the beginning,” Ryan says, still typing away at his computer.

He pauses and looks at me for a quick second.

“I have to say that your boyfriend has impeccable taste in record keeping. He kept everything, and that worked in our favor.” He hits a button, jumps up, and takes off down the hall.

I turn my attention to Uncle Joey and see that he’s holding out a stack of papers for me to take.

“These are the records when he first started to lose money,” he says as I take the papers.

I don’t bother looking at them because I’m not a big numbers guy.

“It started as small transactions that went unnoticed, but Ryan caught them.”

Ryan returns with new papers and smiles.

“That’s because I’m good at what I do.” He hands the papers to Uncle Joey and sits back down.

Ryan is a numbers guy. He owns his very own accounting firm.

That’s how he and Uncle Joey met. Uncle Joey hired him to help him get his financial records in order to get a loan from the bank.

Over multiple dinners disguised as business, they fell in love, and then when Uncle Joey couldn’t get a loan from the bank Ryan offered to become a silent partner…

The rest is history as they say. They’ve been together in secret for six years but not anymore.

“That you are, Cupid,” Uncle Joey says, and I gag out loud at the nickname. He ignores me and starts talking about the whole reason I’m here. “Like I said, small amounts at first, and it stayed like that up until the night of the fire. After that, the thief got bolder and started taking more.”

“Okay,” I say, that makes sense, because that’s when Shawn first noticed he had money missing.

“We went through all of Shawn’s employees past and present,” Ryan says, pointing to a stack of papers to his left. “We were able to clear all but two, as we told Shawn, but last night we found out who it was.”

“Who—”

Ryan holds up his hand, and my mouth snaps shut. “But we found out why, which is more important right now.” I nod for him to continue because I don’t think he wants me to interrupt him again.

“Carl Tinsel,” Uncle Joey says, handing me a folder.

“He’s a dishwasher hired two weeks before the first small amount of money went missing.

He’s twenty-one, lives with his mom, who is sick, takes care of his younger sister, and is putting himself through college.

Which means that he would have a motive to steal money from Shawn.

He is drowning in debt and could be desperate. ”

“Nathan Van,” Ryan says, placing another folder on top of the other one. “The night manager. He has been working at the restaurant since the beginning. He’s thirty, lives alone, single, and from what we found, clean as a whistle.”

“Then why suspect Nathan?” I ask, clearly thinking it’s Carl they have been looking for.

“Because the shifts where the receipts from the register and the cash count don’t add up are always when he’s working.

I’d explain how the person did all of this, but it gets complicated, and I don’t think you want to hear it.

So, I’ll get to the point,” Ryan says, waving his hand in the air clearly in his element.

“I’d appreciate it.” I place the folders on the floor and run my hands through my hair.

“It’s Nathan,” Uncle Joey says.

Before I ask how they know Ryan speaks up, “I said that from what we found, he is clean as a whistle, but something wasn’t sitting right with us.

So, we called Demon in. First, let me explain how we ruled out Carl.

If he was stealing from Shawn, then his life would be getting better, right?

” Ryan cocks his head when I don’t answer him.

“Yeah.” I nod, and he continues.

“But that’s not the case. According to everyone we spoke to and our research, he’s still in debt. He has made small payments to the credit card companies, but nothing big. He is months behind on their rent, and to get groceries he goes to the local churches and food banks.”

“So, it’s not him,” I say firmly, moving his folder away, leaving only Nathan’s.

“Yep,” Uncle Joey says, reaching forward and opening Nathan’s folder. “Now, Nathan, on the other hand. When the money started going missing, he was addicted to online gambling, which could have spurred him on, but that’s not what we think is going on.”

“Not at all,” Ryan says, putting his laptop on the papers in the folder Uncle Joey just opened.

My eyes widen, the muscle in my jaw twitches, and my fingernails bite into my palm as I fist my hands. “What the fuck is that?” I ask, pointing at the computer screen. Which is filled with a picture of someone’s walls plastered with images of Shawn.

“That is Nathan’s bedroom wall,” Ryan states calmly, as if that will help me not blow my top.

Uncle Joey lays a hand on my shoulder, knowing I need him to keep me here, to keep me in control.

As if he can sense that the rage and need to punish Nathan for what he has done is clawing at my sanity.

“Demon found it when he broke in. There’s more,” Ryan says, and he clicks a button, and the picture changes.

“That’s—”