And just a few months after that, it was confirmed for real when she was placed directly into my arms.
EPILOGUE
People who live in the country don’t tell you when you miss the exit. They ask ‘where you goin’?’
-Sin to Blaise
SIN
“Daddy!” my seventeen-year-old daughter wailed. “Jackson broke up with me!”
I frowned hard at her. “What the fuck do you mean he broke up with you? You literally just left to go on your date!”
She hastily wiped her eyes, and each tear that fell down her cheek made my heart constrict in my chest.
“What the fuck happened?” I asked.
Or growled.
It might’ve been both. I wasn’t sure at this point.
But seeing my baby girl crying her ass off over a boy was pissing me the hell off.
She wiped her tears and sniffled loudly.
“Well.” She licked her lips, looking as if she didn’t want to tell me.
“I can answer that,” a male voice said from two steps down.
My brows rose.
“Who the fuck are you?” I grumbled.
“Toss.” He paused. “Actually, it’s Seven Tosser.”
I frowned. “What the fuck kind of name is ‘Seven Tosser?’”
I just couldn’t help myself.
But who the fuck named their kid that? Wasn’t ‘tosser’ some kind of bad name in England or something?
“Yes. My mom is… not very fond of my dad. And she named me that to ‘stick it to my father.’ Her words, not mine. Anyway, I can answer your question.” He looked at my girl. “Casey caught up with us at the airsoft course. She arrived with Jackson. Jackson, her, two other boys, and two other girls. It was just me and my friend, Bobbie. Bobbie” —he gestured to the kid that was leaning against his truck with a closed-off expression on his face— “and me wanted to play. So we chose her to be on our team. Anyway, umm…”
“Pretty much,” Bobbie drawled from the sprawl against the truck. “That little bitch she was dating didn’t like that your girl could debate with us on the merits of stacking on a door. My friend and I were having a debate on which one we should do. Dispersed stack, or closed stack. Your daughter got into a debate with us based on what she learned from you. Which was when we asked her to be on our team.”
I grinned at my baby girl.
“Douchebag didn’t like that she already knew how to work all the guns, either,” Bobbie continued. “She actually had to show him how to work the one he wanted. Then when we went to playing, she pied the room like a fuckin’ boss and shot the loser in the heart. Like, five fucking times. And then she’s all talking about fields of fire, what the guy did wrong, things like that. He called her a fuckin’ psycho and left her there. So we brought her home.”
I looked at my daughter. “If he can’t properly clear a building, he’s probably not man enough to be your boyfriend. Just sayin’.”
“Sin,” my wife, who I hadn’t realized had come up behind me until now, hissed. “You can’t say things like that.”
My eyes went to my wife. “I can’t say that the boy’s a pussy?”
“No,” she whispered. “Especially not in front of these men.”
“Ma’am,” Bobbie drawled, “I can assure you, we’ve thought much the same, and relayed that information to your daughter, all the way home. She still didn’t understand, though.”
My Casey looked at me with sad eyes. “I really liked him.”
I shrugged.
“Why don’t you look at the men behind you?” I suggested. “They’re not intimidated by the knowledge that you have. Just like I wasn’t intimidated by the knowledge that your mother had. Do you think that when she drew my weapon and shot that man in the face for pulling a gun on us that I was mad? Because I sure the fuck wasn’t. I was really fuckin’ happy that she knew how to protect herself… and me.”
A few years ago, I’d been on a fact-finding mission that’d turned deadly.
Luckily, the woman at my side had my back, just like she always did, and managed to protect me from getting shot in the head.
Unluckily, yet again, we had to go through a bunch of hoops to make sure that I didn’t lose my investigator’s license due to the legality of the predicament I’d found myself in during my ‘fact finding’ mission.
“Yeah,” Casey breathed. “But still. It’s just… I’m tired of being delegated to ‘weirdo’ because I know how to handle myself.”
Seven started to laugh.
Casey turned on him with a glare. “What?”
“It’s just… you haven’t found the right guy yet.” He shrugged. “Trust me. The right one will love you for you. Not for what you think he’ll love.”
Casey had opened her mouth to say more, but Seven’s awed words had her snapping her mouth shut.
“Holy fuck,” Seven breathed. “Is that Titus King?”