Page 11 of Joey

Kinda like me, I guess.

So I didn’t chase her or stalk her. I just accepted shit for what it was. Got real, and then got sad for about a year.

Until one day… I wasn’t sad anymore.

I don’t know how that happens. I don’t understand how people move on. I don’t understand how I moved on.

I just know I did.

Anyway, my detectives found Maisy Kane two weeks ago. I hired a team of high-profile lawyers and found out that fucking Charlotte has been missing for ten months. Lost at sea or some shit like that.

Personally, I think she walked out. Bruce was long gone. Dude never stuck around. And that hurt too. Because he wanted a DNA test, I guess. And he was not the father.

I never asked her for a DNA test. I never asked her to prove it.

“You good?” Wald asks, clapping me on the shoulder.

I nod. But I don’t say anything.

Because I’m not good.

I want this kid. I want her like nothing else I’ve ever wanted in my fucking life.

Maisy Kane.

“No matter what happens,” Huck says, “just… be cool, OK?”

I nod at him too.

We’re meeting the lawyers to get the DNA tests results today. Because while I do not care whose DNA is inside little Maisy, the courts do.

Maisy won’t be there. But her guardian will.

Michael Conner. The Michael Conner of Conner Industries.

He is definitely not the father. But he was Charlotte’s husband when she… died? Disappeared?

Whatever happened to her, she’s gone and he’s here.

With my daughter.

This asshole has been raising my daughter for almost a year.

I am livid.

I am a monster filled with rage every time I think about this.

“We gotta play this smart,” Wald says. “You hear me?”

He shakes me by the shoulder.

I nod one more time. Which… is not convincing my two best friends of anything.

“I’m fucking serious,” Wald says. “Don’t blow it, man. No matter what happens. Do not blow.”

“I won’t,” I say, tugging on my suit coat. “I won’t.”

But I’m gonna. I can feel it.