Page 83 of Resisting His Charm
“I don’t like how interested he was in Poppy,” Alfie grunts.
“You think I do?” I throw back at him.
“Obviously not. You think she was on the take? Poppy’s mother?”
“No.”
“What the fuck goes on at that ranch?” Alfie flicks his glare in my direction.
“No clue, but I don’t like the idea of Poppy being out there surrounded by criminals.”
My cousin laughs. “Everyone we know is a criminal.Our familyis made up of a bunch of criminals.”
“Yeah, but we have morals, and there isn’t a pay check high enough to make any of us go after one of our own.”
“True.” He nods.
Pulling up to the ranch, I spot the SUV my uncle rented. He’s leaning against the side of it, waiting.
“Hey.” I nod. “Where’s my mom?”
“She had an errand to run. She’ll be here soon,” Uncle Louie tells me.
An errand, my ass.She’s going after the cop. There’s nothing I can do about that right now.
“Come on.” I nod towards the house and walk up the stairs. The door swings open before I reach the top step.
“You stop for lunch or something? Get in here and fix this.” Poppy’s cousin Joel ushers me inside.
“Fix what?” I ask him.
“Poppy. She’s fucking… Just follow me.” He walks farther into the house.
Fuck following him.
“Poppy?” I yell as I pass Joel and start running from room to room until I find her in a living room towards the back of the house. She’s sitting on the floor with a pile of books laid out in front of her. “Poppy?” I call out again, and she looks up. Tears stream down her face. “What the fuck?” I walk over and drop down in front of her. I take her face in my hands. “What happened?”
“I…” She shakes her head from side to side. “These are my mom’s journals.”
“Okay.” I nod, but I don’t know why she’s crying. I glance past her at Jaxson. He lifts a shoulder as if he has no idea. “Poppy, you gotta tell me who made you cry so I can kill them.”
“It’s all here, Sammie. She wrote it all down,” Poppy whispers.
“What did she write down?”
“You were right. It wasn’t the cartel,” she says.
Well, no shit. I knew it wasn’t.
“What does it say, Poppy?” I ask her.
With shaky hands, she opens the book on her lap to a page and turns it around for me to read.
I found it today. The evidence I need to put him away for life. I’ve been working towards this for seventeen years. Ever since that asshole took the one thing from me I could never get back. Took the one thing from John. He’s going to be devastated. He can never know about this or about Poppy. It would destroy him if he found out.
John thinks I’m investigating my partner. I was, because I know Cane is taking bribes from Daniel. If my husband knew just how evil his brother was, it would blow everything up. This ranch would be destroyed forever. I can’t do that to him or the kids. They didn’t ask for any of this.
I can put Daniel away, though. Maybe not for the crime I’ve wanted to, but I can now charge him with murder. I’ve got the body, I’ve got the bullet that matches a gun registered in the name of Daniel Kestral. He’s not going to get out of this one, no matter how much money he has. I just need to keep Cane from finding out until I get the warrant signed by the judge.
