Page 84 of The Last Promise You Made

That singular word turned over and over in my mind.

Maddox was in the hallway, leaning up against the windows opposite the door to her room and watching through the opening as his team worked carefully and methodically inside. I joined him, hands going into my pockets as I pressed my back to the cool glass.

“They’re almost done,” Maddox said. He was trying to soothe me, but the flames wouldn’t die. I was angrier than I’d ever been before. Even angrier than I’d been when Ravyn had left.

“They took her backpack,” I seethed. “This is the first time she felt comfortable enough to leave it, and now…”

I wouldn’t fucking cry. Not now. Not over a damn backpack.

Maddox bumped my shoulder with his. “You’ll get her another one.”

“Won’t be the same. Just like the jaguar isn’t the same. She knows the difference. She knows what she lost. Knows the new one will never really replace the old one.”

Maddox’s eyes narrowed. “Are you talking about replaceable things, or are you talking about you? Because as far as I can tell, in a handful of days, you’ve given her a life full of more stability and love than seven years with her mother did. You aren’t some lesser replacement.”

I hadn’t meant that, had I?

The crime scene techs came out of the room with bags and boxes in hand. One of them stopped in front of Maddox. “Not much, Sheriff, but we did get a few hairs and prints. We’ll need samples from the folks in residence to rule them out.”

“We’ll get it to you,” Maddox said. “Give me a couple days to gather everyone’s prints and DNA.”

He was stalling them because we had to keep Addy out of the system as much as possible. But doing so would also limit their ability to find the guy who’d broken into my house and fucked with my daughter’s room. My hands felt tied in ways I was coming to despise.

The techs nodded and headed out. I moved into Addy’s room and started righting things. Maddox joined me. We worked in silence, cleaning off the dust used to collect latent prints and putting things back where Addy had left them.

Gia appeared in the doorway. “We found something.” Her face was excited but cautious, and it made my chest ache. I wasn’t sure how much more I could take today—hell, how much more I could take in the next week or month. Hadn’t I been handed enough? That old saying about life never giving you more than you could handle was a joke. Life had broken me multiple times.

Gia turned, and I immediately followed her down the hall with my brother on my heels.

She’d set up at the island in the kitchen. Enrique had made himself at home in my house, cupping a mug of coffee while reading something on Gia’s laptop screen.

“What is it?” I asked, watching as she slid back onto the stool.

“A bunch of documents and image files. The dates show they started a decade ago. They’re encrypted, so I’ve got Rory working on it, but we think you might be able to help us with the password.”

“Me?” I frowned. “I know shit about computers.”

“But you knew Ravyn.”

I sucked in a breath and felt Maddox go still next to me. I took another deep breath, desperate to calm the pounding in my veins, and stepped closer to Gia and the laptop. Her scent immediately washed over me—fall nights and the comfort of home. There was some strange dichotomy in reading and talking about my ex while standing next to this woman who I ached to make mine. Who’d run after a burglar, gun in hand, ready to defend me and my child.

It was sexy and scary.

It was as enticing as her straddling me while I devoured her body last night.

And just as threatening.

“There’s one document that isn’t encrypted. I think it confirms the suspicions we talked about last night. About Ravyn being more to the Lovatos than just their tech genius. But more than that, I think she wrote it for you. Can you read it and see if you understand what she means?” Gia asked gently, as if she was afraid of hurting me.

I forced myself to turn my attention from Gia to the computer. Unlike the letter, handwritten in a painfully familiar script, this was typed in a simple font. Impersonal. Merely black-and-white words and a flashing cursor that didn’t feel nearly as painful as the letter had. I could remove myself from these generic words that could have been written by anyone. At least, that was what I thought until the story hit me.

Once upon a time, a prince saved a demon’s daughter from being slaughtered by the demon’s son. The prince didn’t know he’d saved her, but he still had. He met her, entranced her, and took her to his home, showering her with love and riches she didn’t deserve and certainly hadn’t earned.

But the demon, being the evil creation that he was, reached out his inky hands and found her, stealing her from the prince and tying her to his evil deeds by using her love for the prince against her. Ensnared by the demon, she knew she had one chance to save the world before the demon crushed her and turned her to dust.

So, she created a sword that, once wielded, could unravel all the demon’s protections and keep the world safe from the demon’s dark threats. She waited for the right time to brandish it, working in a fail-safe in case she didn’t make it. If she died before she could use it, the person she’d loved with all her soul—the prince—might still be able to use it.

To do so, to free the sword from its bindings and finish the demon forever, all the prince had to do was say her name.

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