Page 20 of Vicious King

She’d better come over here tonight, or I’ll go to her.

Either way, we’re having our talk, and I’m going to remind her that she’s mine.

Six

RINA

My hands are anything but steady as I try to hold the book that Charlie wants me to read, but I can’t calm down. I can’t steady my brain, or my heart, and I want to run next door, fling myself in his arms, and beg him to reassure me that this is real.

How is he alive?

I also want to scream and cry and beat something up because HOW IS HE ALIVE?

“Mommy.”

“Sorry, bubby.” I kiss the top of his head and breathe deeply. “Mommy’s tired. Let’s just call it a night, okay?”

He looks up at me with a frown. My boy sees so much more than I give him credit for. How am I going to tell him that his father’s alive?

“Okay.” He snuggles down under the covers and yawns, and I pepper kisses over his face before I turn out his light and close his door behind me.

I’ll wait until I know he’s peacefully sleeping before I go next door.

Although, I don’t want to leave him unattended. I don’t want to call Mildred back—what would I tell her?—but I still have the baby monitor in a closet. I rummage through and find it, sneak into his room and plug it in, then turn it on and make sure it connects to the app on my phone, and leave again.

He didn’t wake up at all, so I take that as a good sign. Charlie has always been a good sleeper. He doesn’t wake up easily.

“What if it’s a setup?” I whisper to myself as I stand in the kitchen and nibble my lip. “What if it’s all in my head? Am I crazy? Did I imagine it?”

My eyes fill, and I rub my fingertips over my forehead and then decide that if I’m being set up for something, I’m going to have an escape plan.

What could I be set up for? Who knows. I don’t think that someone had plastic surgery to look just like my late husband only to scam me, but I come from a ruthless, heartless family, and I have an overactive imagination.

I run back to my closet and find the go bags I’ve packed for Charlie and me. I update them every year, so the clothes for Charlie are the right size, and I know that nothing has expired. I shove my stash of cash into the bigger one, along with a burner phone.

I really hope this doesn’t go sideways.

With my phone open to the app monitoring my son, I lock the front door behind me and walk next door. But when I climb the porch to the door, I pause.

Because what if this was a figment of my overactive imagination? I haven’t imagined Carson before. I don’t have a history of mental illness. But this is just so unbelievable that I can’t help but wonder if I’ve made it all up.

Maybe the Hudsons are here, and they’ll think I’m nuts.

But suddenly, the door opens, and there he is. Tall and broad, way more muscles than before, with crystal-blue eyes that have seen so much over the time we were apart, and I can’t help it.

I walk right into his arms and press my cheek to his heart and dissolve into tears.

“I don’t know what to say,” I mutter through the sobs as he walks me inside and closes the door.

“You don’t have to say anything at all.” He kisses the top of my head, and I feel it all the way to my toes. This is the first time in seven years that someone has held me.

“I’m so sorry.”

“No.” He pulls me away and shakes his head. “That’s the one thing you won’t say. We were both lied to, Rina. Until a week ago, I thought you were dead too. Otherwise, I would have found you long ago. There’s no way I would have let you go.”

With a sniffle, I stare up at him, and then I pull out of his arms and watch as he shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans.

Jeans that mold over thick thighs. He’s in a black T-shirt, and I can see tattoos that run down his arms to his knuckles.