Which led me to where I was going next.
Murphy’s auto shop.
When I pulled up into the lot, he came out from under a car and sat up, his eyes never leaving my face.
Murphy was the man that got her brother’s heart.
Murphy was also the man that Madden liked to pretend didn’t make him physically sick to his stomach when he saw him.
I parked my bike and got off, walking carefully toward the man that was intense as fuck to look at.
The moment I was close enough, he said, “How’s she doin’?”
My immediate answer was ‘shit.’
But then I stopped myself. “She’s okay. She’s…making it.”
Murphy winced. “That’s not exactly what I wanted to hear.”
“It’s not exactly what I wanted to say,” I admitted. “How are you doin’?”
Murphy shrugged. “I feel fantastic.”
Again, not exactly what I wanted to hear.
“I have a question,” I admitted.
His eyebrows went up in question.
“I think that it would be awesome if you walked her down the aisle.”
Murphy looked at me like I’d grown a second head.
“Really?” he asked.
“You’re the only thing left,” I admitted. “You’re the only living piece of her family left.”
Murphy looked like I struck him straight in the throat.
His Adam’s apple bobbed with the emotion.
“I’d be honored.”
I just hoped that she didn’t cry throughout the entire service.
Mostly because I couldn’t stand to see her cry anymore.
It was breaking my heart.
Before I could say any more, my phone rang, and I answered it without hesitation.
“You find him?” Did my voice sound like I was begging?
“Found him,” Bram growled. “He’s in the Grove. With another surprise that came in about two seconds after that.”
I didn’t call to check on Sophia.
She was getting fitted for a dress with, surprise of all surprises, my ex-wife.
My ex-wife, who after she had heard about everything that went down, had done a complete one-eighty.
She’d turned into someone I actually didn’t hate being around.
Which was surprising for me, based on how awful she’d been over the years since our divorce.
When Trista had asked Sophia if she needed help picking out a wedding dress, Sophia had been hesitant at first.
I’d left it up to her if she chose to reach out, and in the end, Sophia had taken that hand out and now they were all at a bridal store in town looking at dresses.
Which left me free to go do what I did best.
“Where is he?” I asked.
Bram jerked his chin up at the door that led to our holding cell.
A single room, framed in concrete, with a few chairs bolted to the ground.
Only, when I got inside of the room, it wasn’t just Haylin who I found.
But also someone that I’d been thinking about for much longer than Haylin.
“How did you…” I started to say as Easton came in.
“Been tracking him for a month,” he answered. “Finally found him after his testimony. Waited like you asked. Now I’m ready to torture him.”
I wondered what Easton had against this guy—other than what he told me—but I couldn’t wait to dig in. To find out exactly what had happened.
“Well, well, well,” I said to the two men. “O’Ryan…do you know Haylin?”
It was my lucky fucking day. Not only had the man that’d tortured my sister for a year, but the man that’d nearly taken my woman’s life had been found, too. Lucky fucking day, indeed.
O’Ryan, the man that had held my sister for a year against her will, sneered. “No. I do not.”
Haylin was too busy glaring at me to say anything.
“What are you going to do with me?” Haylin asked.
I stripped off my shirt. “Whatever the fuck I want. Just remember, karma is a bitch. And for today, you can call me karma.”
Haylin stiffened. “You killed my son. What did you expect me to do?”
I shrugged. “Nothing, I guess. But, sadly for you, your stay at Hotel Crow is just beginning.”
I closed my fist tightly, and three of my knuckles popped.
“You won’t break me.” Haylin promised.
I shrugged. “I don’t care to break you. I actually hope I don’t. It’ll make this revenge that much sweeter.”
“You killed my son!”
I tilted my head as I reached for my brass knuckles. “Your son deserved to die. What kind of piece of shit did you raise? He was going to rape my daughter, you sick fuck.”
O’Ryan turned to survey where Haylin was hanging from the chain in the ceiling.
Which, unfortunately, caught my attention.
“Don’t think that you won’t suffer the same fate.” I pointed at him. “But, sadly for you, you’ll be hanging around a bit longer than Haylin here.”
Haylin sneered. O’Ryan looked…disturbed.
Good.
That night, after telling Sophia that we’d found Haylin, and that he was dead, she slept for the first time throughout the night since her father’s death.
I almost felt guilty for lying.
Because Haylin wasn’t dead.
He just wished he was.
I wasn’t going to be through with him until he’d lived through hell—the same hell he put my soon-to-be-wife through.