Whatever I do is going to be for her sure, but there are some things a woman just don’t need to know, at least my woman. So with that thought in mind I kept my plans to myself and gave my attention to my family.
I did feel her out as the morning went on and was surprised to find that she hadn’t given Mindy a second thought. As far as she was concerned the courts could take care of the rest. She didn’t even seem pissed anymore, just caught up in the kids. Fuck that!
There’s no court in the world that can make her pay for what she’d done. And if Gavin was right and she planned on playing the nut, there’s no telling what kind of slap on the wrist this fucked up system would give her.
“Why aren’t you mad?” I found it hard to fathom that she could feel nothing when I was so mad I could hardly think straight.
“I used to be mad Cade. For the first few weeks that’s all I felt. I was mad, hurt, scared. I ranted against life for being so unfair, for always taking from me. Then after the babies were born and I lost them, all I wanted was to live to find them one day.”
“Now that I have them back, I don’t really care what happens to Mindy or the people who held me hostage. Of course I want them to pay for what they’ve done, but I’m not about to give them another second of my time. Let the law handle that.”
She was serious. How the fuck had she outgrown me? I guess like she said, she’d had nothing but time to think while she was being held, as for me, this shit was only just beginning.
Cade
By midmorning we’d put a good dent in the shit that needed to be done, met with the cops to give our side of yesterday’s events and had Gavin give a statement to the press who refused to stop calling my damn phone.
About noon we got the news that Mindy had made bail and Zandi went into full-blown panic mode. She locked herself in the bedroom with the kids until I talked her into opening the door and letting me in.
“How could they give her bail after what she did? What about the other two and the guy who took me in the first place?” Mindy hadn’t said anything to the cops as far as I could tell and they hadn’t shared anything with us if she had.
“Mike’s here with his boys, no one can get to the house you don’t need to worry.” I hated that fucking look of terror on her face. It reminded me too much of what she looked like when I found her hiding in the dark.
“Do you want me to take you somewhere else, would that make you feel safe?” She shook her head no and held the kids closer.
“I just don’t understand. I thought once she was locked up she’d be put away forever. How can they just release her when she’s such a threat?” She was trying to rationalize the irrational but I didn’t bother trying to stop her.
This was nothing less than I expected, but it was also what I wanted. I didn’t share that with her though, the less she knows about what’s going on inside my head right now the better.
Still, I didn’t want her this worried and afraid in her own home. “Babe, there’s no reason we can’t move away from here.” I should’ve thought of this shit before it came to this.
“How about we go to the beach house for a few weeks? Then you can look for a new home for us and we don’t ever have to come back here.” She seemed to like that idea even if she was a little torn.
I understood why. This was her first home after her parents had been taken from her. The first place that was hers, where she could feel safe and secure. How could I have slept on the fact that it wouldn’t be the same now?
“Come on, let’s get packed and we’ll be out of here in a few hours.” It was a spur of the moment decision and there was a lot still left to be done, but her peace of mind trumped all that other shit.
I enlisted mom’s help to get her and the kids packed up and ready to go and was on the road in less than two hours. Mike followed us out of the city with a few of his guys, making sure that we weren’t being followed.
The beach house was a good hour and a half outside the city and the farther away we got the more excited I became at how well this shit was going to play into the diabolical plans still forming in my head.