Chapter 31
Thirty-One
I was a good kid, and it got me nothing.
—Bernice to Hux
Hux
The night before had gone exactly as I’d planned it.
We’d known that he’d do one of two things.
Lie in wait for us to come back, then make a mistake and out himself. Or he’d follow us here and fall right into our trap.
He’d chosen door two, and we’d caught him and taken him out to an abandoned property near the diamond field.
It was where they’d dumped scraped-off dirt to be used when needed.
It was dark, secluded, and the perfect burial place.
“Any last words?” I asked as we dug his hole.
He watched the five of us dig with nothing but shovels.
Either he literally had no soul, or he didn’t think we’d do it.
Whatever the reason, he didn’t look as concerned as he should be.
“Hope you don’t get blisters?” The older man laughed.
He thought he was so funny.
Well, he fucking wasn’t.
We were way deeper than we ever intended to go, but we wanted to make sure that we got it deep enough that no one would ever go that far.
When we could go no farther due to the dirt and rock, we helped each other out of the hole we’d dug.
When I dropped down to my haunches next to the poor excuse for a man, I said, “I hope that you feel just a small amount of the pain that she felt that day.”
Randel sneered.
I stood up and kicked him into the hole.
He fell with a thunk, then groaned. “You’re bluffing.”
I got my shovel and slipped my gloves back on. “I don’t bluff.”
Then we buried him alive.
The last scream as his mouth was filled with dirt was music to my ears.
It was as we were running over the area with an excavator to make sure that it was truly compacted that I spotted it.
My heart in my throat, I walked toward the glint of light I could see on the ground.
The reflection of the excavator’s lights caused the diamond to wink.
I held my breath as I picked it up and held it up to the light.
“Did you find your diamond after all?” Sterling called.
I grinned and showed it to him. “Sure, the fuck, did.”
“What do you have there?”
Bernice’s husky voice, thick with sleep, was music to my ears.
I showed it to her.
She jerked up on her elbow and stared. “Holy shit!”
She reached for it, and the yellow diamond winked in her hand due to the daylight slipping through the blinds.
“Where…”
“Last night,” I said. “I found it on top of the gravesite.”
Her face was priceless. “Best diamond ring ever. Now ask me.”
I grinned. “You knew that was what I was going to do?”
“Figured, since you seemed so hell-bent on finding it.” She smiled. “Now, ask me.”
I touched the tip of her nose. “I’ll ask you now. Then I’ll ask you again once I get it shaped into a ring for you.”
She raised her brow, waiting.
“Will you marry me, Bernice?”
She threw herself into my arms, the diamond hitting the floor somewhere behind us. “Yes, yes, yes.”
Six Weeks Later
“Holy, holy shit,” she breathed. “It’s so pretty.”
“Forty-one carats rough, eighteen cut,” I said. “Now…”
I got down on one knee, ring between my fingers. “Last chance to say no. Will you marry me, Bernice?”
She hit me like a battering ram, just like the first time.
The damn ring went flying.
“Yes, yes, yes!” she repeated her earlier agreement.
At least this time it didn’t take us twenty minutes to find the damn thing after she said yes.