Chapter 8 Cash
EIGHT
CASH
I knelt in front of the fireplace and used the poker to stoke the fire.
Red embers burned from the logs that were quickly turning to ash.
I added a couple more pieces, trying to keep my shit together, which was damned near impossible since I could feel the weight of Daisy’s presence lingering behind me.
Heavy and full.
Timid and so fuckin’ warm I felt like I was lost in one of those dreams I sometimes had. Ones where I was good and right and hadn’t destroyed every fucking good thing in my life.
I could feel her presence wrapping me from where she hovered at the end of the hall. I hadn’t seen her in the last half hour since she disappeared to tuck her children into bed. Likely answering a billion questions while she read them a story as nonstop questions rapid-fired from their mouths.
God.
They were a handful.
Precious and wild and probably the most terrifying things I’d ever encountered. The way they threatened to make something brittle inside me crack. Rattling my bones and nudging at my spirit.
Daisy’s flesh and blood.
Her life, so obviously.
Yeah. I knew she was married and had three kids.
Of course, I did.
I was a hacker, for fuck’s sake. My entire existence was digging into people’s lives.
But I’d done my best to stay out of hers. Let her live in whatever peace and joy she could find after I’d nearly snuffed out every chance of it, even though she didn’t have the first clue what I’d really done.
I could feel her joy now, but it was also blatantly clear there was no peace.
I hadn’t sifted through every aspect and element of her life the way I normally would when I was investigating someone. I wanted to respect her privacy since I had no right to intrude on her life.
Now, I regretted it.
“Even though summer’s hit, the nights still get chilly.” I mumbled it to fill the suffocating silence as I adjusted the logs then covered the hearth, needing to fill the tension that strained between us while she stood there staring at my back.
Could feel those eyes the way I’d always been able to do. This girl who’d always had the power to see right through me.
She let go of a light chuckle, and her words were quiet as she slipped deeper into the room, her feet barely making a sound on the wooden floors. “Oh, I know. I just spent the last two nights sleeping out in it, remember?”
She said it easy and light. Like she hadn’t been trespassing and camping out on my land for two days without my knowledge.
Unease rolled through my senses. How the fuck had I let that happen?
Clearly, I was getting complacent.
I rose to my feet and slowly shifted around. My insides tightened at the sight of her.
Cinnamon hair twisted in a messy knot at the back of her head. Wearing baggy sweats and a fitted tee. Slight frame and soft flesh and plump, distracting lips. “You ready to tell me about that?”
The casualness drained from her features, and that undercurrent of uncertainty I couldn’t miss rushed back to the surface.
Daisy swallowed hard and fidgeted with the drawstring of her sweats.
Fuck. That was distracting, too.
“I know I handled this the wrong way. I mean, sneaking onto your property and camping out is kind of pathetic.” She rambled it fast, that awkwardness that had made her adorable peeking through.
“But I got here…and God…I saw you in town when I stopped to get the kids something to eat when we first got here. You came out of a flower shop…”
She laughed a bemused sound with a shake of her head like the thought made no sense.
It wouldn’t to her since she didn’t know about Raven and the rest of my crew. The ones who became my family after I destroyed mine.
“I mean, can you picture it? This grumpy giant coming out of a flower shop? And you were so different. So much bigger than I remembered. And you had this…energy about you. Anger, I guess. And I realized that I didn’t really know you anymore.
My plan had been to march right up to your door and knock on it, but I lost my nerve. ”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “And you decided to camp on my land instead?”
She chewed at the inside of her cheek. “Well, it is probably the most gorgeous area I’ve ever seen, and I promised my kids we were going on an adventure, so I figured what better way than to camp out in the woods. Vacation and finding you. It was a win/win.”
A frown slashed into my brow. I wasn’t buying it. “Don’t bullshit me, Daisy.”
She bit down harder on her cheek, and her gaze dropped to the floor before she warily peeked up at me. “It was better than us sleeping in the car the way we did for weeks, and the campground was full. And I…felt closer to you. Safer…just knowing I was in your space.”
Another rush of that fury gripped my guts in a fist.
It was bad enough they’d been sleeping in the forest. But sleeping in their car parked God knew where? That was dangerous. Reckless and dangerous and fuck…
“How did you find me?” I’d asked her earlier, but I hadn’t really given her the chance to answer.
She ran her hands up and down the outside of her arms, her gaze dipping away for a beat. “You told me one night what you’d name your construction company.” Her laugh was uncomfortable. “You said it like a joke, and I thought there was no chance, but I looked it up anyway, and it led me here.”
I couldn’t believe it. She’d taken that crumb I’d left her and followed it.
“You found the LLC my land is registered under.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yeah,” she whispered.
I raked a shaky hand through my hair. “What’s going on, Daisy? Need you to give it to me straight. Did you and your husband fall on hard times?”
I tried to phrase it as casually as I could. Like the thought of her with another man didn’t drive a dull blade through my heart.
Ethan Coughlin was the last fucking douchebag I pictured Daisy hooking up with. From the little research I did about him, he had that pompous edge that I hated. Probably good looking if pretty boy was your type.
I’d done a basic background check on the guy when I first found out she was engaged.
There was nothing other than a couple speeding tickets.
Yeah, I’d wanted to dig. To uncover any detriment or disgrace to prove he wasn’t close to being good enough for her.
But what the fuck did I have to say about it?
I’d forced myself not to put my nose in it. Not to put any tracers or trackers on him or his business dealings.
To just fuckin’ let go.
There would be no doing that now.
If he cheated on her or something?
Anger blistered through my body at the thought. The idea that someone would neglect the treasure that was standing in front of me made me want to go on a rampage. I would drain every penny from that motherfucker’s accounts. Make him wish he’d never uttered her name.
But if he’d hurt her. Or one of those kids?
Venom surged through my veins.
I would gut him.
Literally.
It was my preferred method of killing.
A small detail Daisy didn’t need to know about.
Because she was right. She didn’t know me at all. Didn’t know what I’d done after I left the small town in West Virginia. When I ran from what I did and let Hell consume me in its trap.
She choked out a frantic laugh. “Did my husband and I fall on hard times? No, Cash, I divorced him.”
Was it wrong that I was pummeled with relief?
But that relief was short-lived because a tear suddenly slipped down Daisy’s soft cheek.
Her demeanor dipping into dismay as that line between her eyes deepened.
Dread gathered fast. Awareness coming on thick. Truth that this was so much worse than I wanted to believe.
“What is it?” I forced out around the rock in my throat.
More tears slipped from the corners of her eyes.
“He’s going to kill me, Cash.” Pain leached into the words.
Those words smacked me across the face and brutality burned through my being.
I ground my teeth as I tried to keep my cool. To tamp down the violence that bashed and battered at the barriers where I tried to keep it trapped. Attempting to think rationally while all sense and logic melted away.
Leaving me nothing but a pulp of savagery.
“What do you mean, he’s going to kill you?” I bit off, each word a splinter of broken glass.
Tell me you’re being facetious.
Tell me you’re exaggerating.
“I…I found all this evidence.” It was a torrent of regret that rushed from her mouth. “He’s not who I thought he was. I was such a fool. So blind.”
My hands curled into fists as I warred between the need to go blazing out the door to hunt the fucker down and demanding to know if she loved him.
A selfish prick needing to know if she was broken over him.
But I was rooted. Held by the bold, brutalized strength that simmered from her being.
“I knew he had a good job and made a lot of money, but I soon realized it was a lot more than it should be. At the beginning, he convinced me he was really good at investments and playing the stock market. But as the years passed, my suspicions grew. It got to the point where I couldn’t let it go.
When it just started eating at me. So I confronted him.
Told him I knew something was going on.”
Her throat bobbed as she frantically swallowed, the woman pacing one step to the right then back to the left before she was pleading with me again.
“He tried to gaslight me, tell me I was being crazy and making things up that weren’t there.
I guess at first, it worked because I didn’t want it to be true.
But it kept eating at me. I didn’t want to be this complacent person, Cash.
Didn’t want to just swallow bullshit for the sake of making my life easier. ”
Daisy inhaled a shattered breath, and she anxiously scrubbed her palm over her forehead. “I started digging into his accounts and connections, and I discovered huge sums of money. Like, obscene amounts of money, Cash. There was no question he was crooked.”
Rage churned, every word she delivered a blow to my psyche. A dagger to the decision I’d made to turn my back on her.
“Then one of his business associates disappeared.” Horror held her in a fist. “There was no evidence that he was involved in that, but I knew. I knew, and I knew I couldn’t hold onto the things that I actually had proof of.”
I couldn’t speak before her confession continued to rush, “I took all the evidence I had to the police on the same day I filed for divorce. He was arrested for money laundering as well as a bunch of other crimes.”
“Fuck, Daisy—”
She turned him in?
But she didn’t stop. She just kept relinquishing the details. “I didn’t want anything of his. I just wanted to be free. While he was awaiting trial, I got through the divorce as quickly as possible.”
Divorced.
She was divorced and running from her ex who was behind bars.
My head spun through the details, trying to figure out exactly how I was going to get to the bastard.
How I would wipe away the fear that was so blatant on her face.
I recognized it now. The way she’d struggled to hide it. To keep from showing the terror she felt to her kids.
But the guy was behind bars.
And she was here now.
Safe.
I could figure out the rest later.
“But he got off on a technicality.” It was a desperate plea. One that instantly had that violence skimming my flesh, and my gaze immediately darted to the windows that overlooked the front like I was going to suddenly see the monster appear from the shadows.
Daisy took a frantic step forward. “He got out, and the next day, I was certain I was being followed. Then on my way back from the grocery store, someone tried to run me off the road. For a second, I thought maybe it was just someone looking at their phone, being an idiot and responding to a text or whatever. But deep down, I knew. I knew. So, that day I picked the kids up from school, made sure no one was following me, then I drove. Drove until I found you.”
Tears soaked her cheeks. “Because you’re the only person I can truly trust. The only one I knew I could go to.”
Fury whipped me into disorder. Stomach toiling with malice and fingers dripping with barbarity.
I was across the room in a flash. Towering over her as I growled, “Then you came to the right place because that motherfucker is dead.”
She shook her head. “You can’t get to him, Cash. He’s…powerful. I didn’t know it, didn’t recognize it for a long time. But what I saw…” Her words thinned. “He’s capable of horrible things. Things I don’t want to involve you in. I mean, how can I even ask this of you?”
Shame had her dropping her attention to the floor.
Fingers trembling, I reached out, took her by the chin, and urged her to look at me. “You came to me because you somehow knew what I’m capable of. Came to me because you knew that I would protect you with everything I am.”
I owed what was left of myself to her, anyway.
“I will end him, and I won’t blink doing it.” My voice scraped with aggression.
Didn’t care what I was revealing. Didn’t care that I was exposing a piece of who I was.
Daisy blanched, the color draining from her face like she hadn’t expected me to react that way.
Fear flashed through her features before she squeezed her eyes closed like she was resetting the conversation.
Then she opened those eyes to me.
Blue torches of hope shined back.
“That’s not what I’m trying to ask of you.”
“Then what are you asking? Say it and it’s done,” I promised through the fury that singed my insides.
That bastard was dead on any account.
Daisy gulped and reached out and gripped onto my shirt with the plea.
“I want you to marry me. Marry me and act as my children’s guardian.
Maybe find a way to sever his parental rights and start adoption proceedings.
Whatever it takes so when I’m gone the courts will know my wishes.
So I’ll know when he gets to me that my children will always be safe.
I’m asking you to take care of my kids.”