“How long?”
“She’s nine now and was abducted when she was four.”
“Five fucking years ago?”
“It’s one of the reasons it took so long to identify her,” Kincaid confirms.
“Varon was one sick fuck.”
“From what Max and Wren uncovered, Varon didn’t abduct her. He bought her from another trafficker. He was planning to keep her, not resell her.”
My stomach turns, hands fisting in my pocket. Some people seriously fucking suck.
“But I wanted you to go give Sylvie the good news. I imagine she’s suffered a lot with guilt over all of this.”
I know for a fact she has. I held her through a lot of her pain, allowed her tears to dry on my skin because there are no words to make something like that better.
“Why are you still standing here?”
I chew the inside of my lip nervously. I’ve waited weeks and weeks for the topic of Sylvie to be brought up, and now that it has, I find myself even scared of speaking her name.
“What if she doesn’t want me back?”
“What if she does?”
“That doesn’t help, Prez. What if I go over there and she breaks my fucking heart?”
“Isn’t your heart already broken?”
A sigh escapes my mouth. “You know this could end up being the worst day of my life?”
“But it could also be the best? Aren’t you excited to see which way it goes?”
Kincaid claps me on the back, walking away before I can argue further.
***
I know exactly where I’ll find Sylvie on a Sunday morning when I drive by her house and see that her car is gone.
I’m eager to see her, to give her the good news about locating Raelyn’s mother, but I’m also filled with trepidation.
What has she told her grandfather about me?
Does the old man hate me?
Am I a huge asshole for hoping she’s been just as miserable as I’ve been the last two months?
Does she care about me at all?
Am I driving toward her with my heart racing only to have her crush it beneath her feet?
I take a moment for myself after pulling into the parking lot of the care facility. Her car is here like I knew it would be, and just the sight of it ramps up the emotions building inside of me.
I consider that I’m possibly putting off heartbreak, but at the same time I could be postponing the best thing that will ever happen to me.
I climb off my bike, my steps sure but slow toward the front door. Wiping my sweat-damp palm on my jeans as I enter, I give the little old woman who catcalls at me a little wave before turning down the hallway leading to Sylvie’s grandfather’s room.
I’ve been in this place a handful of times with Cerberus because the organization does a lot of work in the community, but I’ll never get used to the smiles I see. I’ve always pictured these places as the embodiment of sadness, a place where some of the brightest stars of our history are left to wither away.