Page 98 of Knotted their Beauty
I cringe and grit my teeth then force myself to take a deep breath. “Did he? So, she was here?”
Cali nods and rests her head on my shoulder. “Yeah, she was. She looks like a skeleton.”
God, I love my kid.
“You don’t need to worry about her anymore, either, kiddo.” I’ll make damn sure of that if The Orphans don’t find her first.
“Good.” Cali worries her lip as I set her in the backseat of my SUV, and I know she’s not saying everything she wants to, but she will. Which has my hackles up all over again. “She hit me.”
I freeze as those words hang in the air between us, heavy and almost suffocating while I look over her angelic face and see the hint of a bruise forming around her split lip.
I can’t even respond to her, the way I’m seeing straight up fucking red has prevented me from thinking let alone speaking.
Which my daughter knows.
“She got mad because I told her that,” Cali says as she reaches out and cups my cheek. “I said she looked like a mean skeleton and I’m glad she’s not my mommy.”
I crack a smile and lean into her palm, inhaling her sweet little scent to help calm me down. “Did you, now?”
My daughter smiles and nods her head proudly. “I sure did, and after she hit me, I kicked her in the shin, pushed her down, then I kicked her again before I ran to the bed.”
“Nice,” is the only thing I manage to say in response.
I’m torn between laughing, and getting in the driver’s seat to start hunting that bitch down.
“Like you always say,” Cali grins and crosses her arms against her chest. “Don’t ever start a fight, but you better finish one you get dragged into.”
“Damn straight,” I say with a chuckle as I lean forward and press a kiss to her forehead, grateful to have my little girl back safe and sound. “Now, let’s get the hell out of here.”
Which is exactly what we do, and neither of us bother looking back.
Our future is way too bright to do anything other than look ahead.
Chapter
Thirty-Three
SIX MONTHS LATER
Los Angeles
ARLO
Cali is asleep in her room after two stories, one read by me and one by her father. He’s officially retired, though I will catch him muttering at the television whenever the news comes on about a murder.
I guess you can retire, but the instincts will remain with you forever. He still disappears at night occasionally, and I know he’s off to scratch an itch only a murder can cure. Los Angeles is a cesspool of evil, and my alpha is cleaning it up in a very different manner than before.
We bought a house together and it’s huge. There’s various parks, there’s a community center for kids to play, and I’ve finally learned how to drive. I don’t love to do it, but I can and that’s what matters.
I open Cali’s door again to watch her sleep in bed, a habit I now have ever since she was taken on my watch. It’s a new anxious habit I have. I’ll feel a jolt of worry, and start looking for her. She’s always playing or sometimes she’s right fucking next to me, but I can’t help it.
I think I might need to look into an anxiety medication because Butler kidnapping Cali really fucked me up. Ves never once yelled at me about it. He said Butler and Tiffany were working together, and it could have happened to anyone, even him.
I don’t know how I feel about that. All I can do is move forward because we’re all safe, and Tiffany and Craig Butler are dead. The Orphans ended Craig’s life, and Ves killed Tiffany. Cali stayed in the SUV talking on the phone with us while Ves destroyed someone who hurt her.
It really was that simple for our little girl, and she’s full of smiles and happiness. There are no nightmares, and she told me it’s because Daddy killed them all. I don’t think anyone else has a parent who literally scrubbed her boogeyman off the face of the earth.
Cali is the luckiest girl on the planet, and I think she knows it. Ves and she had a conversation about not telling anyone about his killing spree. She definitely heard the gunshots in that shitty hotel, and she’s too smart not to have connected some of the dots.
