Chapter 33
Parker
Ididn’t know how long I had been asleep when the sound of the door opening woke me up. I blinked blearily until my eyes focused, then I straightened in the bed, yanking the covers up, using them as a shield. I glanced around the room, only to see it was empty and my guys were all gone.
“What are you doing here?” I wanted to have the words come out cold and demanding, but they betrayed me. Instead, I sounded weak.
“The hospital called,” my mother said as she stepped up to the bed.
“But, why are you here?”
My mother looked confused, then glanced at my dad. They both looked awful, like they had aged far more than the six years since I last saw them. “We’re listed as your emergency contact.”
I glanced between them. They still stood apart from each other, neither of them attempting to hold the other’s hand. I couldn’t understand why they had stayed married when their marriage had grown cold and withered after Mariposa died.
“That still doesn’t explain why you came to see me.”
My dad straightened his shoulders, and my mom patted her eyes as if what I had said affected her enough to bring tears to her eyes. What a joke.
“We saw on the news that you finally brought down Mariposa’s killer.”
Finally. As if it had been a task I had been issued and had taken forever to complete.
I nodded slowly. “I did.”
“It’s about time.”
I tilted my head, staring at the man who once gave me piggyback rides and taught me how to ride a bike. “Is it?”
“After what you did, disgracing Mariposa’s memory the way you did—”
The door was pushed open, and Dante stepped in.
“Go on,” he said as he walked around them and stepped to my side.
He leaned over and placed a kiss on my lips before sitting down.
“Sorry, baby girl, I had to take a phone call.” He turned to look at my dad expectantly.
“Finish what you were going to say about Cherish being a disgrace.”
My mother looked flustered. “If you knew what she did —the cutting, the scars…”
Dante’s hand slid over my leg until it purposely landed on my upper thigh.
He slowly slid his hand back and forth in a soothing motion while making a clear statement.
“I know about the scars, Mrs. Parker. Do scars bother you? Do you find them… distasteful? Perhaps you think they are disgusting?” he asked as he stared her down, his face only half turned so his scars were on full display.
I watched as my mother flinched and looked away.
My father’s jaw worked furiously as he ground his teeth in anger.
It was the same look he wore the day I was taken to the hospital when I was seventeen.
“She dishonored our daughter’s memory, blaming it on Mariposa,” he spat out.
“It was an embarrassment. We should have left her there on the bathroom floor.”
The door was shoved open, and Gage stepped in, followed by Ry.
The expression Ry wore said they had heard every word.
Gage’s face was blank, though his eyes were blazing with hatred.
Without a word, they stepped around my parents as they stumbled backward quickly out of the men’s way, their backs hitting the wall.
Ry stood at the end of the bed, a plastic sack in his hand, with delicious scents wafting from it.
Gage had an identical bag as he came to my side.
Dante gave him access, sliding his hand from my thigh after a gentle squeeze and leaning back in the chair.
Gage leaned down and took my mouth in a slow caress of his lips.
“You should still be asleep, beautiful.”
“I was,” I breathed out, looking into the endless blue of his eyes. “I was woken up by visitors.”
He hummed as he pulled back. He stepped over to the couch and set his bag down before folding his arms across his chest. His thick muscles bulged, the veins on his arms prominent. It was enough to make me squirm. Ry stepped over in the space he’d created.
“Cherish Parker!” my mother demanded, sounding scandalized. “What is going on here?”
Ry leaned down, giving me another sweet kiss. “Hey, pretty girl. How do you feel? Are you in any pain?” I smiled up at my beautiful Ry.
“I’m okay.”
He studied me, then nodded. “If that changes, let me know.”
I lifted my hand and smoothed it over his jaw. “I will.”
“Cherish!”
I turned my head to face my mother, pissed that our private moment had been interrupted. “What, mother?”
“What is happening here?”
“I don’t know what you are referring to. Is it the way you told Dante that I’m a disgrace, or is it how you told him scars are disgusting?”
Her eyes darted to Dante’s face, then away again just as quickly, as if the sight was too much for her to handle. It made me furious. “I never said they were disgusting.”
“Maybe it was the way my dear father suggested I should have been left to bleed out on the floor?”
The temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees at the reminder of what they heard before walking through the door.
“Or, maybe, it was the reminder you gave me that you only see Mariposa as your daughter.”
“Don’t change the subject, Cherish,” my father said harshly. He pointed around the room. “Who are these men?”
“What does it matter? If I tell you they love me more than life itself, you wouldn’t care.
If I told you they saved my life, coming in as the Angel Killer had me strapped naked to a table to stop him, you.
Wouldn’t. Care.” I sighed and let Dante’s hand that reached over to grip my shoulder soothe me.
“It doesn’t matter. It stopped becoming important to you the day Mariposa disappeared. ”
“How dare you!”
“No, Dad! How dare you! You don’t get to treat me like shit, forget I exist for years, then come storming back into my life the moment your real daughter’s killer is gone. I was right there in front of you, bleeding out long before I ever took a blade to my skin.”
My mother pressed a fist to her mouth and sobbed into it at my words.
My dad just clenched his fists and remained stubbornly silent.
I sighed and looked at my guys. “I thought I was broken, but I wasn’t.
These men that you are silently judging?
These men mean everything to me because they made me see that I am far from broken. I’m strong, and beautiful, and—”
“Sexy,” Ry interjected. Dante chuckled beside the bed. I smiled.
“And sexy. Scars and all. While you threw me away. So, I’m going to ask you one more time, Mr. and Mrs. Parker, why are you here?”
“You’re still our daughter,” my mother said with tears in her eyes.
“Not anymore,” I said softly. “I did what you wanted me to do. I found Mariposa’s killer, and he won’t be bothering anyone ever again, so you can leave now.”
My former dad opened his mouth to say something else, but the words never left his lips, as Gage dropped his arms to his sides and stepped forward without saying a word. “Come on, Meredith,” he muttered to the woman I would no longer think of as my mother. “We’re done here.”
My mom took a step toward the bed, glanced at each of my men before turning back to me. There was regret in her eyes, but it was too late. “I want you to be happy, Cherish.”
“I already am,” I replied. As the door closed behind them, I let my head fall back against the pillow. “Damn.”
Gage walked around the bed to my other side and carefully took my hand with the IV in it. He held it as if I were made of spun glass. “Are you okay, Cherish?”
I looked at him, then turned my head to the other side to see Dante and Ry, all wearing expressions of love and concern. Turning back to Gage, I smiled, a genuinely happy smile. “I am.”
We were eating the meal that Gage’s grandmother had put together for us.
Mine was just soup, but it was delicious soup.
Even though I eyed the french fries in Ry’s container with envy, I didn’t feel deprived.
My headache was beginning to taper off, either from the slow healing process of a concussion or from the meds the nurse had recently come in to top off.
Either way, my brain was no longer throbbing since my parents left.
As I was finishing my soup, a knock sounded at the door. We all glanced up as the door was pushed open and three people stepped inside. I smiled at Monique, then glanced at the other two who had been my teammates. I never got to know them, but they had always seemed like good people.
“Hey, guys.”
Monique stepped to the end of my bed with wide eyes after taking a look at the men who were keeping me company. She breathed out, “Girl.”
I held my stomach as the urge to laugh was too hard to hold back. I winced afterwards and sucked in a breath. “I know. Right?”
SA Garcia and SA Thomas stood back, looking slightly wary. “We came to say goodbye,” SA Monique Hanson said. “Now that two serial killers have been stopped, they no longer need us here. I’m assuming the Bureau has already been in contact with you?”
I nodded. Shortly after my parents left, I’d received a courtesy phone call from the man who had been in charge of our team. It hadn’t been a pleasant conversation, contributing to the headache I’d already been working on, but it hadn’t been all bad either.
I was on administrative leave, with pay, while my actions were under review.
I would have to eventually go in person for a formal statement regarding the two deaths.
Still, I was also praised for saving Melanie Jackson.
I wasn’t expected back in Virginia until I was healthy enough to travel, but Dante already informed me I wouldn’t be going alone.
“I’ll be back in a couple of weeks to give my formal statement so the cases can officially be closed.”
“I’m so sorry, Parker. I wish I’d seen that man for what he was.”
I shook my head. “That’s what serial killers do, Monique. They hide in plain sight, fitting seamlessly into society. Walker had been a new FBI agent back when he killed my sister. No one ever caught on, even back then, when he was actively murdering women.”
“It just feels like I’m a failure for not seeing it,” she sighed.
“What about Morris?” I asked. “Who was the woman from his past?” It had been one of the questions that I never solved while looking all that time. It had eaten away at me that I didn’t know.
Monique grimaced. “It was his older sister. He grew up in upstate New York. He grew an unhealthy obsession with her. When she started dating, he grew increasingly unstable. When he caught her having sex with her boyfriend in her bedroom, he lost control. He killed them both in a jealous rage. His parents covered everything up. They reported that someone had broken in and killed them. They staged a home invasion and everything.”
“Wow,” I said, shaking my head. “If they’d let him get taken in, he might have gotten the help he needed. All those women would still be alive.”
“And a baby would still have her mother,” Monique said sadly.
“Yeah.”
Thomas spoke up. “I hate to say it, but our plane is leaving in an hour, so we’d better go.” He turned to me. “It was great working with you, Cherish Parker.”
I grimaced. “You all know my name, don’t you?”
“Girl,” Monique laughed. “It was on your badge. Everyone knows your name.”
“I thought I covered it,” I pouted.
“You had. But that little piece of paper slipped out of place ages ago.”
“Damn it.”
They all chuckled, then said their goodbyes.
It probably wouldn’t be the last time I saw them, since I still had to return to give my statement, but we were no longer teammates.
A part of me felt the loss as they left the room, but as I looked at the men who surrounded me, I knew I’d found something so much better.