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While I am stuffing the things I brought with me in the bag, the phone in my back pocket pings. Still sniffling and an emotional mess, I pull it out and see an email from Lili. Relieved, I open it up.
Jules, where are you? I didn't have a way to go to the library. Jules, did you send someone to come and get me? A man came and said he was bringing me to you. I know you said don't go with strangers but he knew a lot. A stranger wouldn't know a lot about you and me right? I'm scared. I think I made a mistake.
The email ends right there and I sob, by body hitting the floor. Oh God. Who has her? I should have been there. I leave everything I had in my hand but my phone and bag run down the stairs. I have to find her. I have to. What did I do?
I make it into the kitchen when the backdoor opens and my anime is yelled through the house. “JULEP!” Oh shoot. Daddy’s home.
Chapter Twelve
Harlan
I was supposed to be working tonight. I mean that is the whole reason I came to the store, but instead I am sitting in my office in the store on the phone with Shutter. Apparently it only took him hours to find what I was looking for and now everything makes sense. “A little sister? How old is she?”
“According to the birth certificate she is ten. She just moved to a group home.” God, bunny. Why didn’t you tell me?
“Where is the group home?”
“Actually two hours from you. It's mere minutes from me according to this electronic placement record.”
“What do I need to do to get her here?” I can hear his fingers clicking away for minutes before he answers my question.
“I don’t see it being an issue other than the time of night. There is no family in the system so this should be pretty cut and dry. They can place her with you temporarily as a foster kid while you go through the checks and balances and once everything has been satisfied, they will give you the option to adopt her.”
My cell phone beeps with an incoming message and I see a photo pop up. I recognize my wife instantaneously even though this must be like a few years old. The little girl beside her is almost the spitting image of her big sister, but there is something untouched about her. She has this sweetness that tells me Julep has been shielding her from the harshness of the world. Suddenly my chest feels tight, oddly out of sync. The longer I look at this picture the more convinced I am that she should be here with us. She is Julep’s missing piece which makes her vital to my life.
“I want her here now,” I say into the phone. I know it sounds irrational and probably impossible since it is after business hours everywhere, but my wife needs her sister here. Everything is starting to become crystal clear. The far off looks of guilt and worry. The reason she filled out the ad at all. She has been trying to find a way to make a life for them. I just don't get why she wouldn’t tell me. Doesn’t she know I would do anything for her?
Sighing because I am being unreasonable, he clicks a few times more. “How much are you willing to give?” There is no question what he is asking me. I pull up my account and wire him thirty thousand.
“It has been sent. But it has to be you that brings her to me. I don’t want her with strangers. Maybe bring one of your little girls so she doesn’t feel so scared.”
“It is late, Hubris, but I will do what I can. I will call you when I have something to tell you.” Once the line is dead I find myself sitting and thinking. I can’t for the life of me figure out why she wouldn’t trust me with this? She has let me do dirty, filthy delicious things to her body. Hell she lets me breed her every fucking time I am inside of her, but she won’t tell me about her sister and ask me for help?
Convinced I am missing something and knowing I need to go home to figure it out, I begin finishing off the information I needed to input for work. Then I am going to put the new stock in the walk-in refrigerator to keep it fresh and I am going home to my wife.
Right when I am finishing up, an incoming call from Jasper Sutton. “Sutton.”
“Harlan, I don’t want to overstep, but I thought you should know Sadie and I literally just ran into your crying wife coming from Greyson Picard’s office.” What the double fuck?
