Page 72 of Absolution

“I thought that we needed to have the home study back, and the DNA test? How did you get him to agree to all of this?”

“The home study report came in this morning. The day you were arrested, the lab received the results. Nicole tried to call you, but it was after they picked you up. I also told him about your father’s plan.”

“His plan?”

Ratchet divulges to me his intentions and motives for wanting my brother still in his possession. My stomach heaves that the thought of my mother being involved in it too, and I am even more thankful she is dead because I would have killed her for it.

“What if my father tries to come after him after the fact? What will we do?”

“You don’t have to worry about him anymore, Siren. He’s not going to be a problem.”

The words fall oddly off of his lips. I’m missing something buried underneath his words. I try to process everything that has happened today, and that’s when the realization hits me. My father wasn’t going to protest my adoption of Asher because he couldn’t. My husband did the only thing he knew what to do to protect our family. He killed my father, and the last piece of my past still walking the earth.

“It was you that got him to confess on that CD, wasn’t it?”

“There is nothing that I wouldn’t do for you, Siren. Believe me when I say that he will never bother you again,” Ratchet promises me.

I could have asked more questions, but I didn’t need to do that. My husband had done something that no one else ever had. He protected me, and gave me the best gift of all, a family. A family that loves me. We may not be the most picturesque group, but not all love looks like a Hallmark card. My family may have come at a cost to my own father, but that was his sin to bear for his plans and misdeeds. I hope that he and my mother enjoy their reunion in hell.

Looking to him, I smile and take his hand in mine.

“Let’s go home.”

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