Total pages in book: 160
Estimated words: 160041 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 800(@200wpm)___ 640(@250wpm)___ 533(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 160041 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 800(@200wpm)___ 640(@250wpm)___ 533(@300wpm)
I tuck the gun into my pocket and turn around.
“I’m not on your side,” Atreus quips, but he still follows us out the door.
Orion tosses me my car keys. “Let’s go, boys.”
“You think I’m going to sit next to you while you drive?” Atreus throws me a glance. “That’ll be the death of me.”
I throw him an insulting smirk. “Who said you could sit next to me?”
Minutes later
I open the trunk of the car and smile at Atreus. “Enjoyed the ride?”
“Fuck you,” he growls as he crawls out. “Why couldn’t you just put me in the back seat?”
I flash his gun. “Because you needed to learn a lesson.”
Serves him right.
“What happened to you two getting along for Sunny’s sake?” Orion asks.
“This is a mutually beneficial partnership that ends after we find what we’re looking for,” I say, closing the trunk.
Atreus sucks in a breath through his nostrils. “What he said.”
Orion rolls his eyes. “Okay, we’re at the hospital. What now, Detective Foley?”
Foley pulls out his phone and makes a call.
“Meet us outside. Bring the documents I requested.”
He hangs up the phone again.
“Who was that?” I ask.
“Hospital staff,” he replies. “I texted them earlier.”
Orion frowns. “So you’re having them steal it for you?”
“They don’t steal. They borrow.”
I laugh and turn my head away so I don’t have to listen to him lie. “Whatever, man. You’re so full of shit.”
“We only take pictures. They keep the original. There’s no stealing involved,” he adds.
“You always pretend you’re so much better than us.”
“Do you even know what kind of family you belong to?” he retorts.
“I don’t know, do you?” I quip.
“The Foley name is held in high esteem in this community. Unlike the Carusos, Riveras, and Torreses, who frequently come into contact with nefarious organizations.”
“Interesting, I heard your dad was a sack of shit who terrorized the campus because he couldn’t get laid.”
He nearly comes at me again, but Orion steps between. “Guys, guys, stop it, please. This isn’t getting us anywhere. No one mentions anyone’s dad. Just stop it. Behave like adults for once, please.” He sighs. “Why do I have to be the responsible one? I hate it.”
Atreus rolls his eyes and pulls out a cigarette, lighting it up. “Quit bitching and wait. He’s going to come soon.”
“Can we even trust this dude?” I ask.
Atreus takes a drag of his cig. “He’s already had a run-in with the cops when he tried selling a stash of fentanyl he stole from the hospital, so I’m pretty sure he’ll stay quiet.”
Orion nudges me. “Someone’s approaching.”
I tuck my hand into my pocket to make sure the gun is still there as the man comes closer, in his hands a few pieces of paper. He stops right in front of us and nods at Atreus. “I got what you’re looking for. Are you going to do what you promised? I want my records deleted.”
Atreus snatches the papers from his hand. “Consider it done.”
“Great. Send it back to me by mail before the end of the day.”
The guy looks us up and down, as if he doesn’t trust us either, and I don’t blame him. I’d gut him like a fish if he did anything to set me off.
Atreus holds up a cigarette. “Want one?”
The guy holds up his hand. “No thanks. It’s a hospital. I don’t smoke.”
“Wise words,” Orion muses, but the man simply ignores him and walks off again. “Okay, bye,” Orion adds, all snooty and offended.
I grab one end of the paper to read along with Atreus, while Orion looks over his shoulder as we search the pages for clues on what happened to Sunny, but we don’t have to search long. The doctor’s notes are right there at the bottom, and what’s written shocks me to my core. The doctor confirmed the pregnancy and abortion in this very hospital, and the loss of blood was so severe that it nearly took her life. Shock ripples through me, and I suck in a breath.
They damaged her uterus so badly during their botched attempt to perform an abortion that her uterus was removed.
Sunny can no longer have any children.
My fingers begin to shake, my rage unending, as I clench my teeth together and grit, “I’m going to murder the son of a bitch who got her pregnant.”
CHAPTER 44
Atreus
I’m too stunned to say anything at all.
The woman I believed to be a ruthless serial killer is, at heart, a woman scorned so badly that it’s no wonder she would scorch the earth. It’s a tragedy she’s carried with her to this day.
I stare at the paper, unable to stop reading the words over and over again, as if they imprint deeper into my soul with each passing.
Sunny Reed has lost not only her child, but her ability to ever have one again. “Oh God…”
That surgery … was it intended?