AllFreeNovel
Share Us
As she studied his writing, Mickey noted familiarity with how she wrote and the words he used. She grinned. They might have had a good relationship if her father wasn’t an asshole. She was happy her mother protected her from the criminal, but the absence of her biological father was felt throughout her life.
Mickey flipped forward a few pages and saw the name Strap. She bit the inside of her lip. Her father had found him pickpocketing when Strap was only fifteen years old. Her heart cracked open thinking about any fifteen-year-old feeling the need to pickpocket to survive. Apparently, Strap’s speech about stealing food was more from life experience than she realized.
Her eyes continued to rake over the entry. Michel Granger took the boy under his wing. He named him “Strap” because he was such a strapping young man. Michel thought the boy would do well in society.
Mickey blotted her lips together.Strap, just his name floating through her mind, shot a surge of adrenaline racing through her body. She felt the pull toward him, but that didn’t mean he was a good guy … he admitted to being in jail.
Although his words about reform were good and seemed genuine, she still didn’t want to end up like her mother … loving a criminal she would never see because a child would be safer away from him than with him.
Strap’s determination to get into her apartment showed her how much he believed his words about being mates. Their connection was already so intense. She wouldn’t get rid of him that easily.
She didn’t know what to do about it.
One thing Strap was right about: she would never have killed him. Not because of the mate connection. But because that wasn’t the kind of person she was.
She flipped to the entry she had bookmarked. The hand-drawn ten-inch gold statue was made in the 16th century by Benvenuto Cellini. The artist made it for King Francis I of France. The inlined gold statue had amazing detail.
Mickey smiled to read that it also doubled as a salt-and-pepper shaker.
Her smile faded. The Heist of Salieri was what Michel Granger had named that particular job. Despite the details and organization, the man was still a criminal. The thought churned in her stomach. She could never be proud of him.
The man who gave her life was pond scum.
She hardened her heart and closed the journal.
She was prepared to hate the man for her entire life.
But as she crawled into bed, she remembered that he had saved a teenage boy on the brink of starvation. Michel Granger took Strap under his wing … taught him how to be a criminal … but he also seemed to care very much about the adopted son.
Mickey grunted and punched the pillow.
Why did these things have to be so complicated?
SEVEN
STRAP
Strap trod down the stairs and out of the apartment building. The smell of food wiggled its fingers toward him. He lifted his head to inhale the amazing aroma.
He hadn’t had a real meal, real breakfast food, for a long, long time. Without thinking about it, Strap’s feet turned toward the smell and began walking.
Strap’s thoughts were banished. His target was food.
Breeze fluffed through his hair as he walked to the cafe. The weather was glorious. He couldn’t imagine more perfect weather. The smell of spring leaves danced over his skin. The invigorating feeling made him never want to return to the Supermax again.
That and other things.
Thankfully, the cafe he had scented was close by. Although his stomach rumbled as he walked through the door, he took a moment to savor the sights and sounds of freedom.
He took so many things for granted before he was incarcerated. He never appreciated good food since he didn’t have it early in his life. Food was never something to taste, just to consume to stay alive. And other things Strap hadn’t thought about … the ability to walk into a room without someone telling you where to go or what to do was incredible.
There was a lightness to Strap he hadn’t experienced. He stood there to indulge in it.
“Can I help you, sir?”
Strap turned to see a petite server with curly hair tight to the side of her head. Her name tag readGladys.
Gladys’s eyes were large under thick glasses, and when she blinked, her brown eyes reminded Strap of the toads along the prison walls. Her red lipstick was colored outside the lines of her lips, and her uniform was powdered blue.
