TRENT

“Not sure how we should go about it, and I sure as hell don’t want anyone going back to prison over this. We need to figure this out. Find that little girl. I’ve got a feeling Luciano knows where she is. He might not care about Tara or the kid, but he’s up to something. Could be he had someone taking care of the baby until Tara made a move like this, and now he has the leverage to use to get her back. Fuck all if I know what’s running through his warped head. Fucker is obsessed in a sick, twisted way.” I bow my head, listen to Adrian go over what he thinks we should do as I cradle the phone between my neck and ear, finish twisting the band around my hair, pull it tight, and take the last swig of my beer.

“Sounds like a plan,” I say, toss the bottle in the garbage, disconnect, and concentrate on the woman making her way down the hall. Wet hair all piled on top of her head, face free of makeup. Cute little red tank top on, dark jeans rolled up, and barefoot.

Gorgeous and yet full of battle scars that may never disappear.

“Hey. Do you feel better?” I ask with a smirk. My mouth lifts wider the closer she gets to me and the more of the house she takes in.

This house screams old southern charm. Its age goes back nearly a century. I bought this as soon as I knew I was getting out on parole. Funny how the prison system will toss you all kinds of books looking for real estate just to get a piece of scum out of one of their cells only to replace us with what they call another one. Fucking jackasses. It sat here vacant for well over a month while my parole officer down in Memphis worked his magic to allow me to transfer my parole here.

I’ve busted my ass on fixing it up. Turned it into a home for Tara and me, and just when I thought she wouldn’t show up, I stopped working on the one thing she wanted to have.

There’s isn’t any amount of washing the guilt a person feels away. I know this better than anyone. But the gleam in her eyes as she takes in the kitchen shows me she’s trying, and she loves what she sees.

“This is beautiful, Trent,” she replies, ignoring my question and running her hands along the top of the smooth black surface of the bar, steps right into the middle of the massive kitchen, and twirls.

“Figured you would love it. You said you never had a say on anything before, so I took all your ideas and ran with them. The wood is hickory. Welcome to my interpretation of your vision, Tara.” I keep rooted to my spot at the bar and watch her fiddle with the gadgets on the fridge, the stove, and the big wine cooler. Tara seems to be mesmerized with the simplest of stuff. I’m a guy who could give a rat’s ass about what a knob to a drawer looks like. You open it, then you close it. To her, though, she was very adamant about them being square and black with a copper edging.

“I think this might be my favorite.” She points to the wine cooler. I watch her in awe, thinking she reminds me of what a child would be like on Christmas morning, and since I can’t remember a damn thing about the few holidays I had with my family before my father took me and vanished, it’s a beautiful sight to see. My father didn’t give a fuck if I went to school, so celebrating any kind of holiday didn’t mean shit to him either.

Know it didn’t mean a thing to her mom as well. Tara was nothing but a convenience for her. A way to collect money from the state, only to dump that money into her veins instead of taking care of her daughter.

A vision runs through my head. One where Tara’s little girl comes to a screeching halt, eyes big and wide, sparkling from the lights on the Christmas tree when she takes in the presents. Stockings hung by the fireplace.

“Wine?” she asks, laughing as she opens up one of the doors and pulls out a bottle. I watch her take it all in. Couldn’t tell you what kind she grabbed; I wouldn’t drink that shit if it were the last thing to drink on this earth. I hate it. Tara loves it, though. So the fridge is stocked with all three of her favorites.

“That’s the funniest thing you’ve said since you’ve been here, beautiful,” I joke. I hate to collapse her good mood, but we do need to talk, and it's not going to happen unless one of us starts. I’m not tossing sugar over what needs to be said either.

I need to do right by her. If I fuck this up and something happens to me, she’ll have no choice but to go back to him if she ever wants to see her daughter again. I know with everything in me that’s the only ace he has up his sleeve to get her back, and he will ruin her more than he already has.

Guess Adrian was right when I talked to him a few minutes ago about love making you do the opposite of what you want to do. I can’t fuck up my parole, and she wouldn’t want me to. The thing is, there are certain situations where we have to take a chance and pray like a motherfucker it all goes according to plan. Tara deserves to soar. Be herself and do what she pleases. And I’m the man who deserves to watch her. Except, Luciano is a smart man. He knows her weakness, knows he can manipulate her, and that’s a huge fucking problem for all of us.

“You know, the old Trent would think nothing of crossing over the line between right and wrong. He would kill Lucian without a wayward glance. I’m not going to do that to you or me. You taught me how to love. His power ends here. He doesn’t have any left. This is my home, my town, and he’s fucked in his head even more if he thinks he has the ability to make you come back.” She finally looks at me. There are no more stress lines across her face. How could there be when they’ve been replaced with a mask? She’s hiding her emotions underneath it. I see them set in the depths of her eyes. So many of them I wouldn’t know which one to wash away first. I’m sure the fuck going to try, though. I won’t give up.

“You’re a good man, Trent. You should listen to yourself the next time you think you don’t deserve all this.” She gestures around the room with her hand.

“If I didn’t know better, I would guess you're keeping something else from me,” I bite out a little more than necessary.

“Why would you guess that? I’ve told you everything; it’s just… you keep saying he doesn’t have power, and yet I know he does. He has power over me. He scares me.” And there it is; in vague words, she’s admitting how the man’s mind works. Fuck, how I wish she had told me. I get it, though; doesn’t mean it sits well with me.

The guy has status power, and he’s done a damn good job at making sure his wife has nothing except her troubled mind to get her through life.

“He doesn’t have to anymore. He can’t hurt you here, Tara. What do I have to do to get you to understand that?” I take a deep breath. Hold it in while reaching up to pinch the bridge of my nose. I don’t want to push her, but something isn’t right here. She’s keeping something else from me. I know she is.

“Listen, in the short time you’ve been here, I told myself that every time I thought of my past, I was going to stop and look at my future. It takes the love of a good woman to make a man feel he’s deserving of anything. You gave that to me, Tara. You need to let me give you back your strength. There are glasses in the top cabinet to your right. I’ll grab a beer. Are you hungry?” I stand, head to the fridge, and pull out another beer. I need air. This running around in circles with her is driving me crazy.

“I had something on my layover. Can we eat in a bit? I’d like to go outside. We can talk out there.” She grabs her glass, while I twist off the cap to my beer, cork her wine, and fill her glass.

“Yeah. You’ll love it out there. We will be talking, and you will listen, Tara. The quicker we decide how to handle this, the faster we can move on with our lives.” I take her hand before she has a chance to toss in another stab at me instead of focusing on her.

Once we pass through the sliding glass doors, I drop her hand, turn around to witness the look on her face, and crack a smile when her mouth drops open and her eyes remain glued to one certain spot. I know what she’s looking at; her smile says it all.

“You didn’t,” she squeals.

“I did. It isn’t done yet.” I take her glass from her shaky hand, sit it on top of the deck railing, and watch her run barefoot over the cobblestone sidewalk, the dirt, and stand right in the middle of where her garden will be.

“Now this. It’s going to be fun taking care of this. And the view out here is amazing.” I lean on the ledge for several minutes, wanting her to have her fun before I have her trailing down dark memory lane.

“We need to finish our talk,” I finally say, harsh and to the point. I may be a sentimental man when it comes to her, and I promised I would never hurt her, but fuck all if I know any other plan that’s going to work better than the one Adrian and I came up with. Tara and I should have known better. We should have hatched this shit out through our letters or found a way to be able to talk to one another on the phone the second I got out.

With every step she takes toward me, her smile fades until not a trace of it is left. I hand her the wine; she drains half the glass. Her hands start shaking, and her eyes go resolutely gray.

“I talked to Adrian while you were in the shower. We should have planned this a little better. I’ll take the blame for that. But, baby, you're going to have to call that son of a bitch and threaten to expose him about everything. You said you sent me pictures of one of the times he hurt you. Do you still have them with you?” I never received them. Chalked it up to whoever goes through the mail before they give them to us for taking them.

She gulps down the rest of her wine. Pulls her cell out of her pocket and goes to turn it on. I told her to leave the Goddamn thing behind. Fuck, what the hell is she doing? My first instinct is to yell at her. I won’t. That’s the last thing she needs right now.

“Damn it, Tara. Do not turn it on. Not until—”

“Not until what? You fucking figure out a way to get me here? Well, here I am, you wife-stealing rapist. It wasn’t enough for you to try and take your own brother's wife, so you had to take mine? Tara, you little whore, I would never have guessed you had the guts to leave. Move away from him right the fuck now.” I blink from the sound of his voice. Go stock still when I hear the gun behind me click.

I turn around, ignoring the fact he knows about my past. Every nerve in my body locks up except the one running straight to the fact he called her a whore. He followed her. This cannot be happening. How in the ever-loving fuck did he get in here? This place is wired tighter than a vault.

“Fuck you. She isn’t coming anywhere near you, you rotten piece of shit. Do you have any idea the hell you put her through? Get the hell out of my house,” I snarl, shove Tara behind me, and hold my lethal stare.

I didn’t alarm my house when I brought her in here. I didn’t do it because I was so drawn in on seeing her, thinking we were safe and secure until I figured this shit out. Fuck.

He laughs. It’s callous and malicious. Sure as shit turns the happiest day of my life into one of the worst.

“I’m warning you, Tara. You know the things I’m capable of. If you don’t get over here now, you’ll live to regret it. If I let you live at all.”

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” My fists clench, while Tara’s entire body shakes behind me.

“I’m her Goddamn husband, that’s who I am. The question of the day is, who the fuck do you think you are? You’ve been writing to her for years. Stole her right out from under me. And the two of you didn’t think I knew? I know everything, Tara. Every Goddamn dirty little secret you tried to keep from me. You fucking bitch. You seriously are stupid. A piece of shit white trash little girl who doesn’t know her head from her ass. Christ. I should have sold you right along with our daughter.” Something inside of me splits in half over the names he’s calling her. HUsband or not, he will not come into my home and say jack shit to her.

I lunge forward. My target is his throat. My hand has only just begun to squeeze when a gun clicks upside my temple.

I freeze in place. Cock my head, barely letting go of him before I'm blindsided and knocked out. Black.