Salem gulped as the technician sent an encouraging smile back at them. “Everything sounds perfect. Would you like to know the sex?”
“Yes,” Carlo insisted as he hovered over the side of where Salem lay.
“A girl…and a boy.”
His pride ballooned bigger than the rest. He turned to take Salem’s face in his hands, and he looked at her as if he adored her. “You did it. I knew you would give me an heir. A man to carry on my family name. A son to follow my path.”
Salem forced a trembling smile, tears blurring her sight and running down the sides of her face.
Carlo leaned in and kissed them. “Good girl,” he whispered before he turned and left.
They were parked at the curb on the quiet neighborhood street, and Salem struggled to breathe as she peered out at the unassuming single-story house that sat behind a white-picket fence.
Oaks grew proud and tall, their thick, full leaves dappling the ground in shadows as rays of sunlight shimmered through the branches. Birds flitted through, and the sound of children laughing and playing in the distance echoed in her ears.
The peace felt at complete odds with the barrage of fear and second guesses that filled her mind.
Was she really going to do this?
Was she brave enough?
Strong enough to see it through?
Was it a mistake?
She curled her hand tighter on the door handle as if it could keep her grounded.
Centered.
Reminding her of her purpose. The truth that she had no other choice.
Salem shifted to look at the detective who sat behind the wheel of the gray sedan. “You’re sure we will be safe here? That we will be protected?”
Salem’s mangled jaw was lifted in a challenge, desperate for the woman to give her reassurance. It didn’t matter they’d gone over the plan a thousand times. She needed to hear it again.
Detective Whitacre reached out and squeezed Salem’s hand. “I know you’re scared right now, but you’ve done the right thing. And I promise you, you are under our protection. No one will get close to you, not before the trial or after. You and your children will be safe.”
Salem spread a hand over her stomach that was so large she could hardly sit. Their time to come into this world was only four weeks away.
Love and hope blossomed. Bloomed against the dread that felt like a millstone that threatened to drag her to the bottom of the sea.
She knew…she knew the detective was right.
Putting Carlo behind bars for the rest of his life was her responsibility.
She needed to rid this world of his depravity. Of his viciousness. To get justice for her best friend. Justice for the rest he had hurt. For the families that had been destroyed.
But most of all, she had to protect her children. Shelter them from that life. Keep them from being molded in his design.
But once she went into protective custody, there would be no turning back. She wouldn’t be able to check on her brother or grandmother.
This morning when Salem had gone to say goodbye, to confess what she was doing, she’d almost changed her mind. But Mimi had hugged her tight as she cried, as she’d whispered in her ear, “I’m willing, sweet child, to face whatever is to come. I have no regrets. But you must go. I have already lived my life. Now it is time for you to live yours.”
Salem had to walk away.
Forever.
But for her children? To give them a good life?
She had no other choice than to leave this life behind.
THIRTY-THREE
JUD
Guiding his bike along the deserted path, Jud eased up behind the car that stopped along the backside of an abandoned warehouse. It was well beyond midnight, and a thick, murky darkness hung low on the city.
A dull glow pushed against it, rising up from the eternal lights that glinted from this place that was nothing but a festering cesspool.
He hated it there—hated it because he’d sworn he would never return to walk these cursed streets, and there he was, doing the bidding of the perverted.
Jud killed the rumbling engine of his motorcycle and kicked the stand.
His nerves rattled. An unsettled feeling that wafted through the cool night air as he swung off his bike at the same moment Marcello and two of his men, Tony and Kolin, climbed from the car.
They were quiet.
Too quiet. Too guarded.
Intuition lifted the hairs at the back of Jud’s neck. His fingers twitched as he was hit with the uneasy awareness that had kept him alive for years. A sense of foreboding that told him he had walked into an ambush.
Something was off.
Tony and Kolin went to the trunk where they pulled out four cans of gasoline, their seedy guilt clear as they scanned the area.
That feeling writhed, tendrils climbing through Jud’s nerves and winding around his neck.