Page 75 of I Am Salvation

My ankle is throbbing as I attempt to get up.

I try to walk on it, and pain slices through me as if a knife is cutting into my left ankle.

“Mrs. Locke!” I yell.

A moment later the door opens. Her eyes are wide. “What happened to you?”

“Your rickety old stairs broke under my weight,” I say. “My ankle is killing me. It hurts to walk.”

“What do you want me to do about it?”

Is this woman for real?

“Nothing, I guess. I’ll just stay here until an ambulance arrives.” I wrangle my phone out of my purse and call 9-1-1.

“Shit. Are you going to sue me?”

It would serve her right, but she doesn’t have a pot to piss in, and I have health insurance in addition to my trust fund.

“No,” I say.

“Good. Then you still owe me a hundred bucks for the information I gave you.”

And I can’t help myself.

In spite of the pain, the blood dripping from my hand, the ache in my heart for Dragon and his little sister, I burst out laughing.

Chapter Twenty-One

Dragon

My heart nearly stops.

“What did you say?” I ask through gritted teeth.

“Her daughter. Your sister has a daughter. You have a niece.”

“Who the fuck is the father?”

No response.

I already know the answer. This degenerate is the father of my sister’s child.

“How old is this daughter?”

He gulps. I can actually hear it through the phone line.

“I’m waiting…” I say again through gritted teeth.

I’m well aware that I need to watch my tone with this man. He could easily hang up, and then I may never hear from him again.

But my fists are clenched, the hair on the back of my neck standing at attention. My stomach is in knots, and my heartbeat is racing.

“Her daughter’s name is Bridget,” he finally says. “And she’s thirteen.”

I quickly do the math in my head. Griffin would be twenty-seven years old now, which means, if her daughter is thirteen, she was…

Fuck.

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