“You’re going to help me. Until you get me Sophie, you owe me. There is nowhere you can go where I won’t find you, and I’ll make you pay every cent back. What I need is a chance to talk to my wife alone. You will help me with this. You will do whatever is needed so I can speak to Sophie without your ex-husband hovering over her. Follow her, sit outside her house, and find out when she’s alone. Do something useful, for fuck’s sake.”
“H-her house?” she stuttered out, confused.
“Yes, her house. That brainless thug can’t spend every second around them. He has to go home eventually.” I had to explain everything to her like she was a fucking kindergartner.
“But they don’t live there anymore. Linc said they moved in with him,” she told me. Her tone was casual. I didn’t miss the way her eyes watched me, enjoying the way that news hit me.
“Since when?” I gritted out, not trusting myself to open my mouth too widely in case I started screaming and couldn’t stop. Control used to be the one thing I could count on. I was playing chess, while everyone around me was playing checkers. The only time I had ever been thrown off guard was when Sophie left me. Since then, my equilibrium had only barely settled, and it was always teetering on the precipice of demise. Based on the whims of the women in my life; Natalia, Mother. Lately, though, it felt like a fog had lifted.
I was unsure about what was behind my recent revelations, but it didn’t matter. My body was clearly responding to what my mind knew was right: Sophie was mine.
“I don’t know! When I visited Linc at work, he told me.” Feigning innocence, Lindsey just batted her lashes as she continued to speak, each word another dagger to my heart. “I’m too nervous to remember what he said word for word, but he told me not to go near Sophie or the kid. That they were under his roof and under his protection.” Lindsey licked her lips, her overly white teeth looking ghoulish as she gave a sad smile.
“Oh, and that he loves Sophie. Since she moved in… I think it’s safe to assume the feeling is mutual.” Lindsey had wormed her way closer to me, one nail trailing down my chest. I grabbed her arms before I finally shoved her away from me. She stumbled on her heels before regaining her balance.
Quickly regaining her composure, she was pulling her coat on before I realized what was happening. Pausing, her hand hovering above her purse handle, she added, “I’ll see what I can do about getting Sophie alone, but this isn’t as easy as you thought, jackoff. Not to mention, looks like you’ve got more working against you than you ever had behind you. And knowing what Linc’s packing? Yeah… You’re gonna need a whole lot more than a wallet and a wish if you think you’re getting her back.”
With that parting jab, she left my office, the door closing with a loud click behind her. The silence in the office echoed off the walls, mocking me. Dropping my head, a picture of Nat and me on our wedding day caught my eye. In an oversized Waterford glass frame, it was the only thing besides my computer on the large mahogany desk.
All the anger and frustration came pouring out of me as I swiped my arm across the desk, sending the expensive frame flying into the wall and shattering before it even hit the ground. Ignoring the mess, I pulled out the bottle of whiskey I kept in the office for late meetings and downed a glass before stripping off my jacket and tie. Collapsing into my desk chair, I dug into the bottom drawer—one I had studiously avoided until then.
Pulling out two frames, I dusted them off before carefully placing them on my desk. One was an obnoxiously purple frame with the wordDaddyin beads draping from the corner. A pictureof Eloise as a newborn sat inside. It was given to me shortly after she was born.
The other picture was one of Sophie and me at our wedding. It was candid; we were laughing over a piece of cake. Holding it in my hands, I stared at it, taking in the pure love and happiness in Sophie’s eyes.How could I have given this up? Why did I betray such pure devotion?
The devil tempted me. I had been tested, and I had failed.How long will I have to pay for my sins, though?I was sweating, restless. Images of Sophie in another man’s bed haunted me. I could see clearly now, was able to shake off the shackles of perception, reaction, and realize what it was that I wanted.She was my wife! That should be me.If that ogre insisted on locking her away and standing guard, I would find a way to get around him. I would bring her to me.Maybe I could use the event next month.She had no reason to decline attending. Eloise had been on the mend for a while. I would talk to Grandfather, plead for a chance to see my daughter. With Lindsey’s help, I would get Sophie alone, and finally bring my family home.
Chapter 23
Lincoln
A two-day shift was both a blessing and a curse. There was a high about it, the knowing you had to be “on” that whole time. Figuring out the balance between being rested and being too energized to be useful. Sometimes, they dragged on, made endlessly long by the monotony—or worse, by the trauma.
Recently, though, coming home from a forty-eight-hour shift had been a new source of joy. Typically, I slept hard when I got in; sometimes through the whole night and not waking up until 9 or 10 a.m. That morning was no different, and after a workout and breakfast, I found myself making my way through the house, cleaning up. It was a new part of my routine that I found soothing.
Once upon a time, it was just a matter of throwing out the garbage and the few dishes I had messed up. Now, each room offered some type of test, a new kind of obstacle course. Jumping over piles of books, dodging sharp LEGO pieces, trying not to drop any of the stuffies stacked in my arms on the way. As a reward for surviving my afternoon trials, I got to have Nutella or Fluff and call it a snack whenever Lou was around. I wasn’t complaining—I loved it. Loved that everywhere I looked around my house, I saw evidence of my girls. Sophie’s collection of coffee mugs. Lou’s toys and things scattered about the house. We had her drawings and tests taped to the fridge. Then there were the fluffy blankets that somehow multiplied and appeared in everyroom of the house.
They were just more reminders of how much my life had changed. For years, there wasn’t room for anyone permanently. I wouldn’t allow it. Mostly because of some poor decisions I’d made in my twenties that resulted in my caution. A memory washed over me, playing out in front of my eyes as if no time had passed. My parents, seated at our kitchen table, their faces stoic.
“Now that Lindsey and I are married, we’re ready to start our lives together. We can’t do that here.” Stubborn, full of piss and vinegar, I truly believed what I was saying at that time.
“What are your plans, son? What kind of future are you going to build for yourself?” Dad had asked, not giving away any emotion.
“We’re moving to LA. Lindsey has a friend we can crash with until we find our own place. I’ll figure out work while Linds goes to auditions,” I told them confidently, but I didn’t miss the wary look my parents gave each other.
“That’s a bit risky… Moving across the country with nowhere to live and no job lined up? Just make sure you find what you want and need, too. That your decisions aren’t solely made for Lindsey,” Mom said, and I remembered feeling annoyed. Why couldn’t they just support me?
“We’ll figure it out—together. I’m an adult. This is what we’re doing.” A beat passed, the room growing tense before my father finally spoke.
“We support you, Lincoln. Always will. We just want to make sure you really understand what you’re doing, especially if you insist on doing it so far from us. We love you and want what’s best. That’s all.”
They were right. Of course they were. It took us far too long to find an apartment that we still managed to overpay for. Part-time gigs made up my income as I did not have the luxury to turn anything down. I wasn’t doing anything I loved or wanted as a career. I wasn’t building anything for myself.
When my marriage ended, the hardest part wasn’t necessarily losing Lindsey; it was regretting my poor choices. I felt like I had to go home and start all over again. Thankfully, it was in a placeI loved and with people who were important to me.
While my parents and siblings never gave me shit or even whispered an “I told you so” in my direction, I felt my regrets every time I was around them. My own insecurities and poor decisions kept playing over in my head. It had taken that long for me to feel myself again, working in a career I love, living in a home I had bought myself. And I was finally ready to ask another to share my life completely.
Looking at the clock, I saw it was almost time for Lou to get home from school. It turned out that my neighbor, Sandy, had two kids in the same school, so we now had a rotating carpool schedule. Using the extra time, I decided to get some snacks together for Lou. Like a bottomless pit, it was amazing how much food she could put away, but with the amount of energy she constantly had, the fuel was needed.
