Cruel Intoxication (Underground Kings 4)

“I’m telling you, Mr. Carter, everything is fine. I have the samples, and I’ll call you when they come in. Okay?”

“Okay, thank you,” I say, watching her pop off the gloves and throw them in the biohazard bin. She leaves the room to give us privacy so I can get dressed again, and Owen is as white as a sheet.

I figured this would be great news. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

“I don’t want anything to happen to you. I just found you.”

“It’s only a bit of scarring, Owen. I’m surprised that’s all that is wrong with me. I don’t have any diseases. I’m at a healthier weight. She says everything is fine, and you know what? I’m taking it. It’s more than I thought possible. I thought I’d have dozens of STD’s and health issues, but I don’t. I’m here. I’m with you. I’m on the mend of fixing what he broke. Everything is going to be okay.”

Owen’s cell phone rings, and it breaks the moment we were having. He answers the phone. “Hello?” His voice is grated with exhaustion.

I take the time he is distracted to get cleaned up and dressed. I slide my jeans on under my gown and then untie each bow around my neck and back, letting the crappy sheet they call a gown fall to the ground.

Owen coughs as I bend over, and it makes me smirk when I look over my shoulder to see him staring at me. “What?” He tries to gather his wits about him and does quickly because he sits up straighter, suddenly serious. “Yeah, we will be there.”

I slip on my shirt right as he hangs up the phone. “Everything okay?” I throw my hair up in a messy bun and plop it on top of my head.

“That was Jaxon. Officer Howard is there to see us. It doesn’t sound good.”

I blow out a breath, wondering when all this will end. “We will cross that bridge when we get there.” Even if the bridges are a hundred miles long.

We will cross them.

Eighteen

Owen

“There was a package delivered to me at the police station, no return address.” Officer Howard places two files on the counter. One folder is thicker than the other that looks like it has nothing in it, but I see the edges of a few sheets of paper.

“Is everything okay? Was it a bomb?” Quinn gasps. “Oh my god. It was, wasn’t it?” She starts to cry again, and Officer Howard pulls her into a hug.

“It wasn’t a bomb. It was a package to me, but the contents in it are meant for someone else.”

“Oh, that’s good. Well, you know what I mean.” She rubs her belly and winces as a baby kicks her from the inside. “Sorry, just a bit emotional.”

“Thank you for worrying, but I’m afraid the contents in the package were meant for you two.” Officer Howard plants his eyes on me and Jolie. “I think it’s best if we talk about this alone.”

“No, this is my family. They will know anyway, so come out and say it,” I warn him, feeling a headache coming on. I want to lay down with all the lights off and nap with my arms wrapped around Jolie.

Howard sighs, then rubs a hand over his mouth as he struggles with what he’s going to say next. “I’m going to go out on a limb here. The guy you killed, he isn’t dead, Owen. Jolie, I think your captor is still alive, and he knows where you are. He sent these to me.” He opens the first folder, the one that barely

has anything in it.

“Oh God,” Jolie breaks down, placing a hand over her mouth when she sees a girl bound to a shitty bed, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Oh my god, that’s the cabin. That’s the bed. Oh my god. I think I’m going to be sick.” Jolie hovers over the sink as she tries to breathe, but the emotion is too high. Her knuckles turn white as she grips the counter, and she holds her hair to one side of her neck as she gags. “She looks like me.”

“Yes, it seems he has a type. Brown hair, green eyes, petite,” Officer Howard says.

“What’s in the other folder?” I ask and for the first time since knowing Howard, he looks like he feels bad for me.

He slides it across the table and lets me open it. What I see makes my heart stop beating. “This…” I whisper. “This is impossible.” I stare at the crime scene photos of my wife, my dead, bleeding, knife-sticking-out-of-her-pregnant-belly, wife. I haven’t seen this in twenty years.

“Owen,” Quinn gasps when she sees what someone stole from me.

Everyone stares at me with pity because they had no idea how bad it really was. I thought blood was everyone then, but these pictures confirmed it. I shut the fold with a hard smack and hang my head, gripping the barstool so hard the metal bends.

“Owen,” Jolie wraps her arms around me and lays her cheek against my back. I don’t shrug her off; I don’t get mad when I see the violence that used to be my life. If anything, I hold her closer so she keeps me grounded.

Just because I finally decided to move on, doesn’t mean I stopped loving Annabeth. I’ll always love her, and she will always have a place in my heart, along with the daughter I’ll never be able to hold. Seeing the images is like breaking every bone in my body. My heart aches like it did the day Annabeth died in my arms, but it’s comforted all at the same time because Jolie has her hands on me.