Tony

 

“What—what the hell are you doing here?” Evie’s father stepped forward, a glare on his face. I smiled at it.

 

“I’m on the guest list.”

 

“Like hell you are—”

 

“You going to want to stop right there unless you want trouble, Governor.”

 

I had boys all through the crowd. Brown stopped and looked around. I knew when he looked past me that he saw Allan and a couple others. But there were more, and he was taking notice.

 

“What do you want?” he hissed at me. “Why are you here?”

 

“I thought it was obvious.” I looked to Evie. “I’m here for my girl.”

 

Evie looked at me with wide eyes. I knew I had taken a long time, but it was because I’d been preparing this whole affair. I hoped that she would understand when I got the chance to explain everything to her.

 

Brown laughed.

 

“You’re here for your girl. Your girl. Where? No girl here belongs to you.”

 

“I could say the same thing, though you certainly like acting like your daughter belongs to you.” I looked out to the crowd. “Didn’t you hear her? Didn’t you listen to Evie? Do you honestly believe this story that her father spun for all of you, or can you see what a fucking psycho he is—”

 

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave—”

 

I nudged the security guard who had come over to me away.

 

“No. Not until I’m finished. This man coerced and kidnapped his own daughter because she was pregnant. He forced her into seclusion, then threatened her and her unborn child so that she would do what he wanted. This man is a menace and a fraud, and all of you,” I said, pointing around, “allow it to happen, because all you can think about is how much of this asshole’s money can line your pockets and what you can gain from it.”

 

I turned to Evie.

 

“I’m sorry I took so long this time,” I told her. “But we promised we were in this together, and your shit-head father isn’t going to change that, if you still want to try.”

 

A wide grin broke out over Evie’s face. Suddenly, she rushed into my arms. A hug was a little hard—she was huge, after all, and round as all hell—and I had to lean over that belly to give her a kiss, but it was worth the shocked gasps and oohs and ahhs in the crowd. Let Rick Brown try and worm his way out of that one with another press conference.

 

“You ready to get out of here?” I asked her.

 

She nodded up at me, tears shining in her eyes.

 

“Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

 

I took her by the hand and the crowd parted. There were pictures flashing and people calling over to us, trying to get answers. I didn’t have answers for them. I only had answers for Evie. Her father tried to follow.

 

“Evelyn! Evelyn! You get back here—”

 

I didn’t have to look around, but I had a couple of boys in the crowd. Contacts of my father—FBI. On a whim, I looked back and saw them holding up folders in front of Brown’s face—a face that had gone so pale he looked like he’d seen a ghost. Perhaps he had. The ghosts of people’s pasts were enough to spook anyone, and a whole lot of Rick Brown’s ghosts were about to come back up and haunt him.

 

I led Evie outside. The night air was cold, but it felt refreshing enough against my skin that I couldn’t really complain about it. I had my arm over Evie’s shoulder, and I was feeling better tonight than I had in a really, really long time.

 

“I missed you so much, Tony,” she said as she pressed herself into my side. I hugged her tighter to me.

 

“I missed you too.”

 

“What—what happened? It’s been weeks. I thought—”

 

“I was putting this whole thing together,” I said. “I knew that the only way to get you would be having Rick exposed somehow. I knew that there had to be evidence. My father knows a few guys in the FBI. I contacted them and this MC buddy that I have who originally helped me find you. We got all the information that we needed that proved he tried to hide you away—amongst other things.”

 

“Other things?”

 

“His case. All the extortion shit? I pulled a few strings. Your father is going to be going away for a long, long time. The worst of it, though, my father is keeping to himself.”

 

“The worst of it? There’s …more? How much more?”

 

Ah. There was the caveat.

 

“More as in …murders. A few. Most notably the accidental death of the man he was running against before he became governor.”

 

“Benedict Rhode? He died in a train crash just before the elections.”

 

“Your father had that rigged.”

 

Evie didn’t say anything. I looked down to her, and she wasn’t even really shocked. She was frowning.

 

“I guess I’m not really surprised. My father was going to get rid of our baby …before it was born,” she said, placing her hands on her swollen belly. “That doesn’t surprise me, but—why are you keeping that from the police? He deserves to be punished!”

 

“He does. But it’s leverage so that when, or even if, he gets out of jail and he sends anyone our way—mine, yours, the baby, anyone—we have enough evidence to send him right back. And more. The death penalty is alive and well in this state for someone involved in multiple murders.”

 

Evie didn’t ask for any more details, and I didn’t blame her. I was glad that she didn’t. There was one murder that Rick Brown had covered up that I didn’t think Evie would recover from …

 

“What have you guys got for me? It’s been weeks. I thought you all were quick.”

 

Rodney and Avery Jiles, my father’s two FBI contacts, sat across from me in my father’s office. I’d gotten them to look into Evie’s father for anything and literally everything they could find that would give us leverage against him. In particular, any proof that he had tried to lock away Evie and had threatened her to keep her from trying to come to me.

 

“We are quick, but it takes a little time when the person you’re digging up on has so much dirt on them you might as well be in a landfill,” Rodney said. He and Avery slapped three thick folders onto the table before me and my father. We exchanged looks.

 

“This is enough to put him away on the investigations that are already ongoing for him.” Avery said. “Honest, bone fide proof of extortion, money laundering, bribery—you name it, he’s done it.”

 

“That’s excellent!”

 

“Yeah. You’ll also be interested to know that there’s quite a bit in here suggesting that he was involved in several murders—and evidence confirming at least two.”

 

My eyes lit up. This was amazing. I was so fucking excited. I was going to get my girl back from her bastard of a father and put him away for life.

 

“So, what was it? Did he have a hit on someone? He whack a colleague?”

 

Rodney and Avery exchanged a look.

 

“In a manner of speaking. Yes. You’re aware of the tragic death of Benedict Rhode, yes?”

 

“The one who was killed in a train crash, yeah.”

 

“Well, Rick Brown organized that whole thing. The faulty track. The breaks failing. All of it.”

 

“You gotta be shitting me.”

 

“Nope. No shit.”

 

“That killed Benedict Rhode, his staff, and several other people not even involved in the crash.”

 

Rodney nodded.

 

“Yep.”

 

I shook my head in disbelief; Rick Brown had ruined and taken so many lives—and I couldn’t say that I was an innocent man, but that was downright cruel. You settled your beef with the person involved; you didn’t fuck with innocent people that had jack shit to do with it.

 

“Okay… So Benedict Rhode. Who was the other one?”

 

“His late wife, Karen Brown.”

 

I nearly choked.

 

“What? What? No, that’s impossible. Evie said that she died in childbirth—”

 

“And she did. But not because of birth complications. She’d been severely beaten before giving birth. Evie was born a month early. Did you know that?”

 

“No …I didn’t…” I shook my head. “How the hell—”

 

“Rick and Karen Brown had a midwife. Karen was all about natural birth, so they never had plans to have Evie in a hospital. It turns out, however, that Rick had suspected that his wife had been cheating on him for some time—perhaps long before Evie was conceived. He hired a private detective to follow his wife and found evidence that his wife was, in fact, unfaithful. He beat her within an inch of her life one night when she was coming home from a date with her lover, sending her into an early labor. The birth complications that killed Karen Brown weren’t birth complications at all; her husband had beaten her to death and hired a doctor close to the family to deliver the child secretly. He then paid quite a handsome amount of money to police to overlook the fact that his wife was covered in inexplicable bruises, and then more money still to doll her up after death so that she would look presentable for her funeral. No one ever knew that Rick Brown had killed his wife—except those who helped cover it up.”

 

“And they, too, have mysteriously disappeared over the years.”

 

My mind reeled. Evie had always thought that her mother had died giving birth to her—because of complications. Well. Hell. Abuse was certainly a fucking complication.

 

“There’s also more that’s rather interesting,” Avery piped up.

 

“More?” I said, unsure if I could believe that more was even fucking possible in this situation.

 

“Yup. Rick Brown apparently had a hair up his ass after the death of his wife and raising their child on his own—he wanted to see if Evie was actually his daughter. He paid for a very, very discrete paternity test.”

 

“And?”

 

“Evie’s certainly her mother’s child …but she’s not Rick Brown’s. Not by blood.”

 

No, there was a lot about Evie’s father I had learned that I would not be telling Evie. But Rick Brown didn’t need to know that. As long as he thought that I would and I had the means to do so, he would fall in line and stay in line and wouldn’t be bothering us again.

 

From beside me, Evie nudged me. I looked down.

 

“Hm?”

 

“You look very much deep in thought.”

 

I smiled.

 

“I might be. A little.”

 

“Oh? Well do tell.” She nudged me again. “Don’t keep secrets. I’m still trying to figure out how lucky I am to have gotten a man like you.”

 

I laughed. I didn’t know if I would call it lucky on her part, but I certainly wouldn’t be complaining about it, either way. I was the lucky one. After all this shit, I finally had her and there was nothing in my way to stop me from keeping her, either.

 

I stopped us along the sidewalk. The area was surprisingly quiet, just a few other passersbys. It was peaceful. I reached into my pocket to fish out the last piece of the puzzle on this one—a small, black, velvet box.

 

Evie was shocked as I dropped to my knee. I opened the box, revealing the little amethyst ring I had bought at the jewelry store. I smiled up at her.

 

“I don’t have anything sappy to say to you,” I said. “I want you. I want that baby. I want us to be happy—and I love you. If you would let me, I want to make you my wife, Evie. I want you to be mine and me to be yours.”

 

Tears flowed down her face. They came rapidly, like a stream. But she was happy and smiling, and I knew that they were good tears.

 

“Yes,” she said, holding out her hand for me to slip the ring on her finger. It fit perfectly, like her hand hadn’t been made for anything other than this.

 

I pulled her up to stand with me, and I wrapped myself around her, kissing her deeply.

 

“I love you, Evie,” I said.

 

“I love you too, Tony.”