Page 120 of Sunny Undone

“You okay, Indy?” I ask, my hands on her shoulders.

“Just…a-another…adventure, right?” she stammers.

I cup her cheeks and brush her lips with mine. “Yeah, babe, just another adventure. You okay, for a second?”

She nods, and Knox helps her to her feet.

Then, I draw back my fist and punch Evan hard in the face, hitting him with the full force of my rings.

He screams like the coward he is. “You promised…I’d be breathing.”

I grab his chin, hard. “Didn’t say whether it would be through a tube or not. You’re lucky you’re not dead, and you’ve got Della to thank for it. But if, for any reason, Velaro Coastal Group, or Bennett, lawyer you up good and you end up walking away from this, or serve less time than you deserve, note that I will find you, and I will kill you.”

Knox squeezes my shoulder. “Cops are on their way.”

I help Della out the door, and she’s shaking, great bone-rattling tremors she can’t stifle anymore. I strip off my jacket and wrap it around her shoulders before pulling her into my chest. Her hair is soft when I slip my fingers in it to hold her head to my chest while I ply kisses to the top of it.

“Easy,” I whisper. “I’ve got you, Indy. I got you.”

She cries into my shoulder, and I let her.

Two things strike me, at once. The first is that I’ve spent my life collecting things that got left behind because I’m the original thing that got left behind. I got left behind in school, by my father, by my mom. And the second is that Della is my kindred spirit. She’s been left behind too. By parents and siblings who only ever saw her as competition rather than seeing her merit for who she is.

But not anymore.

There’s absolutely nothing broken and unworthy about us, not to each other.

The sirens get louder. “They’re gonna have questions for you,” I tell her. “But I’ll be with you every step of the way, okay?”

Della looks up at me and nods. “Then, can we go home? To your home.”

“Yeah, Indy. We can go to our home.”

EPILOGUE: SUNNY

THREE WEEKS LATER

Della ends her call and takes a deep breath before putting the phone down on top of wallpaper samples she brought home yesterday.

“And?”

“Bennett and Evan have had the proverbial book thrown at them. It seems almost unfair that Evan has more charges than any of them. Kidnapping and false imprisonment, conspiracy, aggravated assault, attempted murder, and felony battery, to name a few. Oh, and criminal environmental pollution charges.”

Relief settles in me. Strong charges mean stronger sentences. “And Bennett?”

“Conspiracy, bribery of public officials, wire and mail fraud, and environmental crimes. Because this isn’t the first time he’s colluded to poison water stretches before. But Dale Pritchard and Velaro Coastal Group haven’t been charged. So far, it looks as though Bennett ran the ugly business on his own to get commission from Velaro Coastal Group. He could see the original bid they were working on was not going to win, so he was anxious to find another site for Velaro to buy and build on so he would still get the healthy commission. In isolation, Evan’s testimony might not have been enough, but with the extra information Wren found, and the testimony of Darrell Voss, the case is solid. Plus, it looks like Evan might get a plea deal.”

Bennett, nor any of his men, had ever arrived to help Evan. When we returned to our bikes after dealing with the police, there were signs two large vehicles had bumped up onto the side of the road to turn around. Our best guess was Bennett saw we were already there and wasn’t anxious for a second run in with us.

I top up her glass of champagne. “Happy birthday.”

She takes the glass and knocks it to my beer bottle. “I’m guessing we should go back outside to our friends.”

“It’s your party. You can hide out in here, if you want.”

“No.” Della stands. “They’ve done so much for us.”

The last few weeks have been a transition. The dean was asked to step down when it was revealed he tried to force Della to change her research to gain a donor, even though that donor has now been cleared of wrongdoing. Pritchard donated to the university. A substantial sum. Some of which will benefit Della and her department. And Velaro Coastal Group also signed on to be the first company to use Mina’s model to assess environmental impact before a spade has hit the dirt.