“Of course not. You should take them.”
“I mean, anything to help a friend,” she said, grabbing a fourth jar even though her hands were already full, then making her way out, leaving me to wonder what kind of surprise Crow might have for me.
Maybe he’d found some fun trinket for me on the road?
What that might be was a complete mystery since I actually didn’t even know where he’d gone.
I figured maybe that was just how it was with the men and their women—they didn’t give us all the information because they wanted us to be able to tell the truth to the cops if we were ever asked about their whereabouts.
Though it did feel kind of weird to me that only Crow and Slash had gone on this “run” when they were so worried about possible ambushes.
That didn’t matter now, though.
He was home.
He was safe.
That was all that I cared about.
I moved through the house, stepping out front and waiting to see the lights of the bike or SUV coming.
But they never did.
Anxiety rising, especially because I hadn’t been out to my homestead alone since the whole Kyle situation, I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard footsteps coming from the back of the house.
My hand went instinctively for the blade in my belt.
“You won’t be needing that, baby,” Crow called, making my turn on my heel to find him standing there at the side yard, giving me a small smile.
“Where did you come from?” I asked before making my way toward him, right into his arms, settling into his chest as he wrapped me up tight.
“Missed you,” he said, pressing a kiss to the top of my head.
“I missed you too. I’ve been keeping busy to distract myself from how much, actually.”
“Looks like you and Nyx made a lot of progress on packing.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Why did you text her and not me?”
“Because she doesn’t need to be a part of this.”
“A part of what?” I asked, pulling back to look up at him.
“Closing a chapter,” he said, reaching down to take my hand, then pulling me with him.
“Where are we going?” I asked as he led me toward the backyard.
“Into the mountains,” he told me.
“Is that where you came from?”
“Yeah.”
“You went into the mountains before you came to see me?” I asked, not wanting to pout over something so silly, but unable to help it.
“I had to… secure something,” he said.
Secure something?
I wanted to ask, but Crow seemed to be in a rush, practically dragging me along with him as he guided us into the oh-so-familiar mountains, going deeper than I needed to go to forage or gather water.
“Crow, what is going on?” I asked, hearing the breathlessness in my voice from the break-neck pace.
“Just around this corner,” he said, pulling me with him until we reached a small opening.
Where Slash was standing beside a man with a hood over his head.
Seeing us, Slash gave us a two finger to the temple salute and walked away from a different direction.
“Crow…” I said as he let my hand drop and moved toward the hooded man.
I knew.
I knew right then where he’d been.
Not on a run to drop guns.
On a hunting trip, if you will.
Looking for a very specific animal.
“Time to close this chapter,” he said, pulling the hood off the man.
And there he was.
The dark figure from my occasional nightmares.
The man who led me to the life I’d lived for so long.
The motivation to start using my knowledge of poisons to stop people like him from reoffending.
Brent.
Crow - 4 months
It had always been my plan.
To track down the monster who hurt her, who still made her wake up from nightmares on occasion, who never paid for his crimes.
He was a relatively easy man to find, all in all.
Posted all his personal shit on social media, wanting to flaunt his swanky apartment, his fancy jewelry, his obnoxious boat.
Not only had he just been allowed to live and likely keep committing horrible crimes against women—since it was never just a “one time thing”—but he was able to thrive, to live it up.
Well, not for much longer.
Not on my watch.
So I’d made a plan, then went to Slash with it.
I just figured it would be me. Taking off to Florida where he was currently living, rounding him up, and bringing him back for a little justice.
Slash had decided to go with me, wanting to drop in on the Golden Glades chapter for a bit, since we didn’t get a chance to connect with Huck and his crew like we had with the mother chapter.
Which had ended up being a great idea, since they had a lot of connections in the area to make kidnapping a powerful man like Brent easier.
He was an older guy now, but a lifetime of Botox, face lifts, and exercise made him look pretty good for his age.