I don’t know who the man is in the video, but I have a good guess.
Sissy’s father.
He is the T I forgot to cross. He’s the base I didn’t cover.
And now he’s taken my angel away from me. Not only that, he pointed a gun at her. He struck her. Knocked her unconscious. I come very close to crashing my SUV into the parking garage wall at the memory of it. Who could cause harm to such a gentle creature? I don’t know. But he’s going to fucking pay for it.
Two turns later, my tires are squealing onto the strip and I’m hitting the gas in the direction of I-70, knowing that if this motherfucker is bringing Sissy back to Nebraska, they will have to travel east on the interstate. He has a twenty-seven-minute head start on me, but he probably isn’t driving like a bat out of hell. At least, he better not be with such precious cargo in the back seat. Is she hurt? Is she in pain?
I slam the steering wheel with my fist and shout an expletive, my foot laying down on the gas even harder. Once I’m on the interstate, it seems to take hours to find the old blue Chrysler. I’m starting to worry that he’s taken a different route when it comes into view up ahead, right there in the middle lane. I don’t allow myself to feel relief yet. Not yet. I don’t know what condition she’s in and I can’t feel anything but violent knowing she’s scared.
I’ve always been a peaceful man, a man of God. Right now, however, I wish for a weapon. Something besides my fists and wit, both of which seem inadequate right now. But that’s when heaven sends me help in the form of a traffic jam. The Chrysler slows to a stop in front of me, brake lights appearing all around, desert stretching on all sides.
A gruff, miserable sound escapes me when Sissy sits up in the back seat, pressing a hand to her head, clearly disoriented. Definitely in pain. My heart can’t stand the sight of it—and I can’t wait anymore. I throw my SUV into park and alight from the driver’s side, my mind going into some kind of survival mode. Her survival.
It all happens in the space of seconds, but they move in slow motion for me.
I rip open the back door of the Chrysler. “Sissy,” I bark, not allowing myself to look at her or risk losing focus. If I see blood on her head, I’ll probably go ballistic and I don’t need emotion right now. I need to remain calm. I need be effective. “Go get in my car, honey. Move.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see her do as I ask, whimpering my name as she bolts from the vehicle. “He has a gun, Locke!”
Without missing a beat, I wrench open the driver’s side door. It only takes a split second to register the slight resemblance to Sissy and confirm it’s her father. He’s already lifting his gun, but I’m ready for it. I catch his wrist in my hand and twist with all of my strength, snapping the bone and making him squeal like a baby. The gun lands down near his feet and I have it in my hands in seconds, cocked and pointing at a spot right between his eyes.
“Don’t shoot,” he begs, fear slackening his features. “Please.”
“Believe me when I say if there were no witnesses on this interstate, you would already be dead. I would drag your sorry carcass out into this desert and leave you for the buzzards to feast on. But the police would take me away from her. And no one, no fucking one is ever going to separate me from that girl.” I move in close, wedging the muzzle of the gun to the center of his forehead, my finger aching to pull the trigger. “Especially you, you weak, pathetic excuse for a man. Do you understand me? If you ever even think about coming within a thousand miles of Sissy again, I will leave pieces of you scattered all over Vegas. They’ll never put you together again. You don’t deserve to call yourself her father.” I flip the gun around and pistol whip him across the face, sending a spray of blood across the dashboard and two of his teeth in the back seat. “And every night for the rest of your life, when you’re lying in bed trying to fall asleep, remember she calls another man Daddy now. And I’m giving her the kind of care you never could.”
With that, I put his lights out, bringing the butt of the gun down on his temple one extra time in Sissy’s name. I reach across the man’s slumped body and put the car in park, then I slide the gun into my jacket and walk back to my SUV where Sissy is waiting. I’m barely inside the vehicle before she launches herself at me over the console, wrapping her arms around my neck and straddling me, shaking, sobbing into my neck.