Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 71226 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 356(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71226 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 356(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
I wasn’t sure how that was possible but…why the hell not?
Three
One day you’re young, and the next day you’re wondering if you’ll ever find a pillow that doesn’t make your neck hurt again.
—Gentry’s secret thoughts
Gentry
Six months later
It was possible.
And it’d gone off without a hitch.
Now I was in Bear Pass, Montana, training as a deputy for Jesper County Sheriff’s Department.
I stared at the walls of my new house.
It was better than anything I’d ever seen before.
When I was little, and my entire life was ahead of me, I used to watch Fresh Prince of Bel-Air late at night, and I’d see their house and I’d think…one day I’m going to have that.
But that life had never come for me.
When I was eighteen, I’d joined the military because it was either that or keep living in a trailer house for the rest of my life.
And, seriously, nothing against the life that my family was able to provide for me, but it wasn’t enough.
Van, my big brother, and I had grown up knowing that when we were old enough to work, we were going to have to do it.
My dad worked shift work from eleven to seven every night. My mom worked during the day as a school lunch lady, and then when we were old enough to take care of ourselves, she took a night job that paid better, but also meant that she was gone more often than she was home.
Van and I practically raised ourselves from the time that I was eight and he was eleven.
With no one home to regulate what I watched at night, or when I went to bed, I did what I wanted.
And I saw that house on the Fresh Prince show and knew that I wanted that someday.
Hence why I followed in my brother’s footsteps and joined the Army.
Van went in as a grunt, realized he wanted more, and moved to the warrant officer route.
Meanwhile, I liked being a grunt.
I liked even more when I graduated Ranger school and became what I’d always wanted to be.
Though, throughout it all, that still didn’t help me buy the house I wanted.
The United States Government might be mighty, but they paid like shit.
Though, until Dean was born, I hadn’t cared all that much about the house.
But then I’d gotten a woman pregnant while on leave one day seven years ago.
Then I cared about not having the house.
Though, that woman had fought me tooth and nail.
If I wanted to see him, I had to get it approved. I had supervised visits when I got pissed off enough that I took it to court.
I had to pay child support, but she didn’t want me to have any part of his life at all.
It was the worst time of my life.
I’d had to get out of the military to be able to fight for my kid, and when I did, I struggled financially.
Which wasn’t conducive with trying to fight for custody of a child.
In the end, none of it mattered.
Because I’d gotten caught up in Sage Rice’s shit, and her family had ruined my life.
Sage Rice—now Kelly—had ruined my life.
Though, through no fault of her own.
I’d done the right thing.
The only problem was, by doing the right thing, I’d signed my own child’s death warrant.
This may make me a bad person, but sometimes I had recurring dreams that I had to make the same decision, only this time I was fully aware that by saving Sage, I would be killing my son.
Either way I chose in my dreams, I always hated myself when I woke up.
There was no right answer.
There never fucking would be.
And now I was in this big-ass house, in the middle of a Montana town, paid for by stealing money from the fuckin’ Irish Mob, and I had no one to share it with.
You could always share it with your wife.
I immediately shut that thought down.
Sage wasn’t really my wife. Sure, on paper she had been, but we’d never been anything more than just that—a paper.
Her brother and father both worked for the Irish Mob—though they were nothing more than glorified lackeys. But the real kicker was Mario O’Neal’s brother, Dario. Dario had promised me after I’d pulled his brother out of the car where he’d been assaulting Sage that I would regret interfering.
And I fucking did.
I really fucking did.
Which made me sick to my stomach.
Because had I not interfered, I would’ve gone against my moral compass.
Needless to say, Dario had made it clear that he would not give Sage an out.
He was something important to the Irish Mob. A cousin or nephew or something of the head of the Irish Mob, he was actually someone that could do something. And he had.
He’d made my life a living hell for seven years.
He’d gotten me sent to prison thanks to a corrupt judge, shitty lawyers, and paid juries.