Page 152 of Stone Cold Hearted
“How was your call with your brother?” Hunter asks as Charlie lays his head on my hip. Little flirt.
“Tiring. He’s continuing to cooperate with the Feds, and as long as he continues doing so, he won’t see the inside of a prison cell.”
They’re keeping a very tight leash on my brother, but he can’t work to bring Jonathan’s operation crashing down from behind bars. No one would talk to him. With his help, we’ve rescued hundreds of people already; women, men, children—many of whom have been helped by Honor’s charity to find their families and offer support. We’ve liberated all but two cult settlements, and Gail has focused her work on helping deprogram them using methods she honed with me. I’m not someone who can offer kind words or a strong shoulder to cry on; my grace comes from the practicality of tracing families who had long since givenup hope their relatives would return to them. I access DNA databases for those born within the compounds, like myself, and vet their families so if they want to get to know them, they at least know it’s safe.
The two groups we didn’t get to in time up and moved, and no one has been able to trace them. But it’s only a matter of time. Christopher had enough separation to avoid prosecution, so he remains at large, but knows I am protected so has left me alone. We will get him. Men with his appetites don’t just stop. They can’t. And when he surfaces, I will be waiting.
Mama was finally buried in a grave I could grieve at, not that I do. I’m a firm believer in not weeping above a hole in the ground. The dead can’t hear us. I just hope she has found the peace in death she could never grasp in life.
“How’s your sister?”
He smiles softly. “Better. She sends her love and asked if you’ll come on Sunday because, and I quote, ‘you, brother, are boring as shit.’”
I snort. Stephanie is strong and powerful, but not unbreakable. None of us are. But for the most part, she decided the experience with Jonathan paled next her rape. She settled back into Green Hay after Hunter and I upgraded their security protocols, and she’s been happy, if not a little restless. I suspect she is getting ready for reality. I think our kidnapping proved she could handle more than the carefully controlled peaceful world she’s in. I have broached it with Hunter twice. He shuts me down every time. It’s his fear—which I understand—but at some point, he needs to allow Stephanie the power to choose for herself.
I curl into his side, my fingers splaying over the roman numerals along with the newer ones tattooed underneath. It’s the date he rescued me from the boat, but it’s not finished, and it’s irritating the shit out of me.
“When are you going to tell me why you haven’t added the year?”
His lips tip up in a ghost of a smile, his fingers lazily tracing shapes along my back. “I could, but you’ll probably freak out.”
“I’m not really the kind of girl that freaks out.”
His arm holds me to him tighter, and he sighs, dropping a quick kiss to the top of my head. “It isn’t the day I knew you were mine—that came earlier—but it is the day I proved I would always come for you no matter the danger.”
My chest tightens. Having just one person in your corner makes all the difference in life. “That doesn’t explain the lack of a year.”
“At some future point, you are going to say yes to marrying me.” The thought is not as terrifying as it once was. Jonathan’s warped version will take a little longer to work out of my psyche. “When you do, we are going to marry on this day under the stars, and I will add the year to make sure the universe remembers that no matter which life we find ourselves in, you are mine, and I am yours.”
My stone cold heart shatters into a million pieces, making room for the version of myself I was always capable—but never brave enough—of becoming. And I find myself, for the first time in my life, complete in the arms of a man who gives me the stars.
The End
