Page 37 of Erik's Redemption
Tears pressed at her eyes, but she blinked them away to lift the empty box she’d brought with her and opened the first drawer. Item by item, she removed herself from this house. Her remaining clothes. Her toiletries. Erik had made a lot of space for her here. He’dwantedher…at least for a while.
God, she’d give anything to know what had happened. Why wouldn’t he tell her? She’dbeggedhim!
When a tear fell, she swiped it away before pulling her phone from her pocket and calling Brigid. She’d called her best friend at least three times this morning, but she wasn’t answering. This time was no different. The call went to voice mail, and Hannah hung up. Then she sent a quick text.
Hannah: Brigid…I need you.
She could call Henry, but in her gut, she knew she needed Brigid. The friend who knew exactly what she was going through, because she was going through something similar.
Argh. She hated crying. Her entire life, crying had felt like a weakness, and she hated feeling weak.
Quickly, she grabbed her diabetes supplies from the bedside table.
Her gaze moved over the space one last time before she turned and all but ran down the stairs. She grabbed her insulin from the fridge and turned to the door. Getting out was all she could think to do, before her heart broke completely. Before every carefully constructed protective wall came crashing down.
She’d experienced loss in her life, so many shades of it, but nothing like this. This felt worse, like she was losing her center.
She lowered the box to the floor and had just wrapped her hand around the doorknob when panic rippled inside her. Panic at not knowing whether this was it, her last time in his home.She took a moment to stop and breathe. Immediately, she found herself touching her bracelet, but it wasn’t Nico’s cloud she was touching…it was Erik’s angel.
God, the angel charm…she couldn’t keep it if they weren’t together. It would be a constant reminder ofthem. It would hurt at every touch. Every glance.
Slowly, she turned and moved into his office. She unlatched the angel charm and set it on his desk. Releasing it was so much harder than it should have been.
Another tear trickled down her cheek, but this time she didn’t wipe it away.
The second the angel fell from her fingers, she felt bare, like she’d just set a part of her heart onto his desk and now had to walk away without it.
Her breath shuddered and her fingers shook. She stepped around the desk, her gaze brushing over the surface…when something caught her attention.
A piece of paper, poking out of a manila folder. The sliver she could see contained only a small fraction of a photo, but she didn’t need to see the entire thing to know who it was.
Her heart stuttered.What the hell?
Slowly, she reached down and lifted the folder before opening it up.
The photo of Nico sat on the top right corner of the page, and beside it, his full name—Nicolas Spalder.
Her eyes ran over the text. Was it a bio? It had his date of birth. His description. His schools. She turned to the next page to find photos of him that looked to have been taken just before he’d died. Crossing a road. Inside various shops.
The blood ran cold in her veins. What the hell was this? Had someone been watching him before he was killed?
She flicked to the third page…a printout of an email addressed to Erik, from Chandler.
When she read the contents, her vision hazed, darkness closing in around her as a low buzz started in her ears.
The only thing to penetrate the buzz was the sound of the front door opening.
She looked up to see Erik standing in the doorway to his office. His gaze lowered to the folder in her hands, then shifted back up to her. There was no emotion on his face. None.
“What is this?” she whispered, not even sure her words crossed the distance.
He took a step toward her, but that damn silence remained.
The fear in her chest shifted to anger. “This isnota time for silence, Erik! You tell me what this is right now!”
A part of her knew, but God, she wanted to be wrong. She needed the man in front of her, the man sheloved, to tell her that what she held in her hands was a lie. That her world still made sense.
“He was part of a well-established sex trafficking ring.” Erik’s words hit like blows to her abdomen, each landing harder than the last. “He was a recruiter, which meant he found the women, lured them in, then those women were kidnapped and sold.”
