“Son of a bitch,” I grumbled, looking to Hunt. “Any luck yet on who he was working for?”
Hunt shook his head. “No, but if he’s out there, I’ll find him. I won’t stop until I do.”
Hunt was a good guy.
I liked him a lot.
And I believed him. He wouldn’t stop looking until he’d done what he set out to do.
“All right then.” I offered my hand to the men. “Then we’ll see each other next week? Same time and place?”
Lynn nodded. “Got a new person to talk to y’all about. See what y’all think. Brainstorm.”
I nodded once. “Next week. Now, I gotta go see my baby. She texted me a picture of the engagement ring she was given, and I gotta go tell her fiancé that if he hurts her, he’ll die.”
There were chuckles, but all of them knew that what I was saying was the truth.
Adam better take care of my girl, because she meant the whole world to me.Epilogue
Every woman has a little bit of Monroe inside of them. You just have to figure out if it’s Marilyn or Manson.
-Coffee Cup
Amelia
“Dada,” Silas Mackenzie Stoker, Mack for short, cooed.
“No! My daddy!” Jackopa Adam Stoker, Jack for short, cried. “He’s mine!”
I looked down at my two-year-old son, then back up at Mack, then just shook my head.
“Jacky, honey.” I dropped down to my haunches beside my first-born boy. “Mack is your brother. He has the same daddy as you have.”
Jacky pouted so cutely that I couldn’t help but smile.
Bending down, I caught him up in my free arm and situated him on my hip, then I looked at the photo that Mack and I were looking at before Jacky had made his no-longer-napping self known.
“Who else is with your daddy?” I asked Jacky.
Jacky growled. “My daddy. Yes.”
I rolled my eyes.
But I couldn’t help the smile that lit my face upon seeing the picture.
Every single morning, as I exited the hallway that led to Adam’s and my bedroom, I saw that photo.
It was the day that I’d first ‘met’ Adam. The day that he’d taken a photo with me and changed my life completely.
In the photo, we were in Avery’s kitchen. I was on the counter and Adam was between my legs. He had one of those donuts in his hand, and I had his finger in my mouth as I sucked it clean.
That’d been my very first drop of icing in years. At the time, I hadn’t even thought about what it would do to my blood sugar. All I was thinking about was the fact that I wanted Adam’s fingers in my mouth more than I wanted to breathe.
And that showed in my eyes.
That particular photo had been delivered to our house the day Hilton Barnes and Rogan Germain had left my life for good.
The day that Adam had walked in on the two men that were seconds away from finishing the job of beating me to death.
The day that I’d found out that I was pregnant with Jacky.
The day that my father and brothers had nearly lost their minds at seeing me so close to death.
That day, I’d looked at that photo of Adam and me while Rogan and Hilton had taken turns beating me.
That day, Adam had saved me in more ways than he could ever even know.
“Daddy!”
I turned to see Adam walking through the front of the house, grinning like a loon.
In order not to drop Jacky, I bent down and put him on the ground so he could run to Adam just like he always did.
And, just like always, Adam picked our boy up and kissed him. Smothering him with love just like he always did each night he came home from work.
Or, more accurately, any time that Adam left for more than thirty minutes.
Each time Jacky saw him again it was like that.
“Hey, buddy,” Adam said as he propped him up on one muscular, tattooed arm.
That tattooed arm had come while I was in the hospital.
On the outer side of his forearms, in cursive, the words ‘will you marry me’ had been tattooed onto his arm for forever.
And, on my forearm, the moment that I was healthy enough to walk into the tattoo shop, mine said ‘yes.’
“You been good for your momma?” Adam asked, his question for our son, but his eyes only on me.
I shook my head at the same time that Jacky said, “Of course, Daddy.”
I snorted loudly, causing Jacky to look at me with narrowed eyes.
So much like his uncles, that one was.
“Did you brush your teeth today?” Adam asked.
Jacky scrunched up his nose.
Adam put him down and said, “Better get that done. Uncle Sam and Uncle Sebastian are on their way over with Grandpa Silas. If your teeth aren’t brushed, they’re not gonna let you go.”
Jacky screeched and took off hauling ass out of the foyer.