She looked at me curiously. “Do you plan on telling him about the thousands of spiders we just released in the bathroom?”
I pinched my lips closed. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”
• • •
Four hours later, I emerged from the hell of unhooking and packing up my computers to find myself alone in the loft.
Not even the dogs remained.
Frowning, I went to text her after making a loop around all of the rooms when I found a note attached to the door that led to my office.
Picking it up, I glanced at the paper and nearly rolled my eyes.
Went to talk to my aunt. I took the dogs. Don’t be mad. Love you, W.
Sighing, I grabbed my keys and headed for the garage, choosing to take the bike because it’d get me to my destination faster.
I did stop to get the cut and throw it over my shoulders before mounting the bike, though.
After starting it up, I pulled up the app that told me where she was, and then headed to the prison.
It was surreal, being on this side of the gates.
And I was tense as hell as I made my way through the front doors and found the guard standing there waiting for me.
“Hello,” I said to him. “My wife is here. Her name is…”
“Cute little thing with curves? Two dogs that she refused to leave outside?” the guard drawled.
My lips twitched, and I tried not to laugh, but it didn’t hold.
“Yeah, she’s in with a detective,” he said. “They went in about twenty minutes ago. I can’t take you back, though. There are only two allowed per inmate.”
I didn’t say anything, just took up the spot near the door and hacked into the security feed that was in the rooms beyond using my phone.
I scanned the feed for a good two minutes before I found what I was looking for.
Wyett was seated at a table with her aunt across from her, arms crossed, glaring.
Wyett was glancing back and forth from the detective who was talking, back to her aunt who was hissing ugly words, and then down to the dogs who were flanking her like they were her protectors.
They were.
And it made me happy that she had them.
It made me even happier when, every time an ugly word would come out of Stella’s mouth, one or both dogs would growl.
I was highly entertained as I listened to Wyett do the questioning.
Then, all of a sudden, someone knocked on the door and the detective got up and left.
I turned the audio up on my phone and listened intently when Stella’s eyes narrowed on Wyett.
“What the hell are you doing here?” she hissed.
“I want to know why.” She paused. “I think I can guess all the rest of why you did what you did. But I’d really like to know why I was spared. Why you didn’t just take me out.”
Stella pursed her lips and looked away.
When she looked back at my girl, she had this hatred in her eyes.
“I felt it was better this way,” she admitted. “I mean, what better way to stick it to your father than to treat his child like the piece of shit she was?”
I fisted my hands in anger. I wanted to go in there and punch that bitch straight in the throat, woman or not.
I hated that she was treated so badly by this woman. Before I was in the picture and after.
I hated that I had to let her do this, too.
I wanted nothing more than for Wyett to turn her back on this woman and never look back.
Yet… that wasn’t going to happen.
I had to allow her to do this. I had to let her get her closure.
In the meantime, I needed to control my shit.
And act like I wasn’t about to lose it, seeing as I was sitting out in the open watching this all go down because I’d hacked into the prison’s security cameras.
“Well, I just wanted you to know that you didn’t win,” she said softly. “I’m here. I’m happy. I’m married. I grew up well. I have my degree, and I’m working on a second. You didn’t win.”
Stella laughed then.
“You think?” she asked carefully. “Because I think that I won. No matter what ends up happening with me, I won. My brother’s dead. You’re going to have kids, and you’re always going to wonder if I fucked you up. You’re never going to have a grandfather to give them, either. You know, I did a little research on my end, too. Your husband doesn’t have great family, either. Y’all are going to be all alone. Your kids are going to have no family.”
That was it.
I stood up, ready to break into whatever room I needed to, but before I could so much as take a threatening step toward the locked doors, Wyett laughed.