Page 47 of Truck Stop Tempest

“Good. Now blow it out. One, two, three.”

I blew wet breaths at his face.

“Again,” he ordered. “Breathe in. One, two, three.”

I focused on his voice and my intake and output of air.

“That’s it, Bunny. One. Two. Three,” he repeated, over, and over, until the tears stopped falling, until the world stopped spinning, until Tito’s was the only voice I heard.

I don’t know how long we stayed that way, heads together, eyes locked. I don’t remember walking back to his car or driving to his apartment. I remember the numbness thawed when Tito parked and said, “You’ll stay with me tonight. Tomorrow, you’re gonna tell me everything. Then, you’re on your own.”

On my own.

No job. No home. No money.

Everything I’d owned I’d left behind in Jonas’s trailer. I would never step foot inside that pit of death again.

On my own was too daunting a concept to process, considering the events of the day.

I followed my reluctant savior inside his home. He tossed his keys on the kitchen counter and led me down the hallway into the bathroom.

He stood in the doorway, pointed to the tub, and grunted, “Take a shower. You’re a mess.”

I brushed past him, closed the door behind me, and stood at the sink, taking stock of my reflection. Red-rimmed, swollen eyes mocked me—blue like my brother’s, our only common trait. Tangled hair. Muddy and ugly. Dirty. Ruined.

As much as I wanted to melt into a puddle on the floor, I stepped into the tub and washed away the bloody mess.

What a bloody fucking mess. I should’ve cut her loose. I should’ve driven her back to the hospital, handed her over to Roger, and washed my hands of her.

Perhaps I would have if she hadn’t started screaming about the voices.

I knew those damn voices all too well. Angry as I was, I could not leave her to fight those demons alone.

She’d just been through hell. A hell of her own making, most likely, but torment nonetheless, and I wouldn’t let her slip into the abyss until I had the answers I needed.

I waited to hear the shower run, then grabbed a T-shirt out of the bedroom and laid it on the sink. I scooped her soiled clothes off the bathroom floor, carried them outside, and tossed them in the trash. Then I parked my ass on the sofa and fired up my laptop.

I couldn’t fathom how Tuuli had slipped under Tango’s radar. He’d had every one of Slade’s employees screened after the attack outside the diner last year.

After a five-minute probe into Tuuli’s family, it became clear how she’d passed the background check. Like her mother, Tuuli didn’t share her father’s last name. No father listed on her birth certificate. Not one financial record existed that tied her to the bloated bastard. Bank. School. Dentist. Doctor. Nothing.

Her parents had never married. Had never shared an address.

If Jeremy Carver was her father, DNA would be the only way to prove it.

Tuuli’s mother, Ingrid Holt, however, had collected state assistance for the entirety of Tuuli’s childhood, worked as a cashier at several different large chain grocery stores over the years, and was currently collecting a decent monthly disability check that was mailed to an address that shared a property line with the Brotherhood Church.

A soft, shaky voice startled me.

“Thank you for the shirt.”

Pale, bare legs passed my field of vision. My crew neck hung like a burlap sack over her slight frame, falling off one shoulder, the hem reaching below her knees.

She curled into the armchair across from me, pulled the cotton over her legs, and rested her chin on her bent knees. “Are you Googling me?”

I huffed. There was Google. There was the deep web. Then there was my web. “Something like that.”

“That’s not necessary. I’ll tell you everything you need to know.”

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