Page 23 of Sweet Possession
Until Cora.
I’d spent the entire night gawking at her, unable to tear my eyes awayevery time her face lit up with a breathtaking smile.
With every present she opened, Cora became more overwhelmed,and I wondered if I’d given her too much, too soon. I couldn’t help myself though. Once I started buying presents for her, I couldn’t stop. I wanted her to have everything.Not because I was trying to buy her trust. Okay, maybethatwas alittlepart of the reason, but because Cora deserved the world.
She’d been through so much shit in her eighteen years, and I suspected I’d only heard the tip of the iceberg when it came to the way Freddy treated his daughter.
So sue me if I wanted to give her everything she’d missed out on.
By the time she got to the last present, a brand-new laptop completewith a subscription to aYouTubecooking channel, her eyes had turned watery, and every time she spoke, her voice cracked with emotion.
After she confessedthatshe didn’t have the first clue as to how touse the laptop, and I promised to teach her, she thanked us over and over,before quietly admittingthatshe couldn’t remember a time when she’d been given presents.
It took everything in me not to scoop her up and promiseherthatnot only would she have presents on every future birthday, Christmas, and any other damn holiday, but I’d also make up for the times she went without.
Soon after she’d opened her presents, she asked if she could go tobed, and thanked us again for throwing her the party. When she went off to her room, I was left feeling bereft.
It was selfish of me, but I wanted to spend every single minute withher.
Christ, I was fucked for that girl.
But it was probably a good job she went to bed when she did. Notless than ten minutes later while we were clearing up, I received wordthateverything was in place for later tonight.
With Savannah promising methatshe’d stay at the house until wereturned, Nash and I headed to the last place I wanted to go; the Dukes warehouse of hell.
Before we’d set off, I’d questioned Nash as to whether he should begetting involved in the kind of shit we were about to do, giventhathe now had a kid on the way.
But my best friend was loyal to a fault.
He’d given me a lookthatsaid I was out of my mind forevenaskingthe question before stomping off to his jeep. We’d opted to take his SUV over my Challenger, the trunk was bigger, and we were going to need all the space we could get.
The drive to the dark, deserted street we were currently parked onwas a tense one. Notjustbecause Nash was throwing a paddy over me asking whether it was sensible he came along, but because I was more than eager to get my hands on the fucker who’d hurt my girl.
It was thanks to Nash’s driver, Brian, and his connections to anorganization, who were far from law-abiding citizens,thatI’d been able to get the raid to happen tonight. As soon as the man behind Apollo heardthatthe Dukes were selling young girls, he’d ensured the resources would be available to shut their operation down.
After a lengthy discussion, it was agreed the Dukes would be turnedover to Las Vegas PD, along with all the evidence of their crimes. With the amount of girls the Dukes had trafficked, they were looking at spending the rest of their lives in prison.
The same couldn’t be said for Dwayne.
Nash and I weren’t taking part in the raid, fuck no. We were businessmen, not fucking ex-soldiers with military training.No, we were leaving the professionals to do what they needed to do, and once they had control of the building and the people inside,thenNash and I were going to take Dwayne on a one-way trip to meet his maker while the mercenaries called in the LVPD.
Our names would be nowhere near the destruction of the humantrafficking ring, which was exactly how we wanted it to go.
But the call to saythatthe mercs had secured the building was takinga fucking age, and I was growing impatient with the need to end Dwayne’s life.
He didn’t deserve to live another minute.
My hands tapped against the dash despite Nash’s constant huffing,agitation running through me. But I had no fucks to give if my restlessness was irritating him.
“If you don’t stopthat, I’m going to lock the windows and doors andlet off the stinkiest fart I can produce,”Nash grumbled.
I stopped tapping, rolling my eyes.“What are you, eight?”
“Justtrying to lighten the mood,”he retorted, exasperation in his tone.
“Yeah, well. Don’t.”
I knew he was trying to help and I was being an ass, but until theDukes were in cuffs, and Dwayne was in the trunk, I wouldn’t breathe easy.
