Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 70488 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 352(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70488 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 352(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
“Any last words?” I asked as we dug his hole.
He watched the five of us dig with nothing but shovels.
Either he literally had no soul, or he didn’t think we’d do it.
Whatever the reason, he didn’t look as concerned as he should be.
“Hope you don’t get blisters?” The older man laughed.
He thought he was so funny.
Well, he fucking wasn’t.
We were way deeper than we ever intended to go, but we wanted to make sure that we got it deep enough that no one would ever go that far.
When we could go no farther due to the dirt and rock, we helped each other out of the hole we’d dug.
When I dropped down to my haunches next to the poor excuse for a man, I said, “I hope that you feel just a small amount of the pain that she felt that day.”
Randel sneered.
I stood up and kicked him into the hole.
He fell with a thunk, then groaned. “You’re bluffing.”
I got my shovel and slipped my gloves back on. “I don’t bluff.”
Then we buried him alive.
The last scream as his mouth was filled with dirt was music to my ears.
It was as we were running over the area with an excavator to make sure that it was truly compacted that I spotted it.
My heart in my throat, I walked toward the glint of light I could see on the ground.
The reflection of the excavator’s lights caused the diamond to wink.
I held my breath as I picked it up and held it up to the light.
“Did you find your diamond after all?” Sterling called.
I grinned and showed it to him. “Sure, the fuck, did.”
“What do you have there?”
Bernice’s husky voice, thick with sleep, was music to my ears.
I showed it to her.
She jerked up on her elbow and stared. “Holy shit!”
She reached for it, and the yellow diamond winked in her hand due to the daylight slipping through the blinds.
“Where…”
“Last night,” I said. “I found it on top of the gravesite.”
Her face was priceless. “Best diamond ring ever. Now ask me.”
I grinned. “You knew that was what I was going to do?”
“Figured, since you seemed so hell-bent on finding it.” She smiled. “Now, ask me.”
I touched the tip of her nose. “I’ll ask you now. Then I’ll ask you again once I get it shaped into a ring for you.”
She raised her brow, waiting.
“Will you marry me, Bernice?”
She threw herself into my arms, the diamond hitting the floor somewhere behind us. “Yes, yes, yes.”
Six Weeks Later
“Holy, holy shit,” she breathed. “It’s so pretty.”
“Forty-one carats rough, eighteen cut,” I said. “Now…”
I got down on one knee, ring between my fingers. “Last chance to say no. Will you marry me, Bernice?”
She hit me like a battering ram, just like the first time.
The damn ring went flying.
“Yes, yes, yes!” she repeated her earlier agreement.
At least this time it didn’t take us twenty minutes to find the damn thing after she said yes.
Epilogue
On the bright side, I’m not addicted to cocaine.
—Romina to Bernice
Bernice
“Mom!”
I ignored it.
“Mom!”
I ignored that, too.
“MOTHER!”
I eventually looked up from the presents that my kids were getting, then looked at the other grandkids, and felt ire light my veins.
“Children,” I said as they stared in shock at all the presents that they were getting, and all of the presents their cousins weren’t getting. “Can y’all go outside to play with your cousins?”
My precious angels got up and walked outside, catching the hands of their cousins on the way.
Their cousins looked dejected.
I wasn’t sure what the hell Vera was thinking, but this was unacceptable.
“You know,” I said when Vera ignored her own children. “This is something that I really think you need to do some soul searching on.”
Vera, who hated my guts but loved my kids, looked at me with narrowed eyes. “And why is that?”
“Because if you keep this up, you’ll be spending your life alone,” I said. “Your husband has already threatened to leave you today. Your own children are fed up with you. And now you’re disappointing your grandkids. You gave each of my children six presents. The rest if the grandkids have one. A tiny one at that. Why would you do that?”
All of the kids were close in age.
The moment that Hux and I got married, we immediately started having kids.
All of the grandkids were within three years of each other.
So at five and six for my kids, and nine for Hampton’s oldest, then all the age ranges between, our kids knew when something wasn’t right.
And Vera’s attitude wasn’t right.
“It’s just presents.”
“It’s not,” I said. “This is beyond ridiculous. Yes, life isn’t fair. I know what you’re about to say. But let me tell you something. And I want this to really stick. You’re cultivating how they’ll treat you right here, right now. And I can guarantee you, my kids won’t like you. They’re being raised by one of the best men on earth, and that man can’t stand to be in the same room as you. Do you think that won’t rub off on his kids if they see how you’re treating their cousins?”