PROLOGUE
REBEKAH
Bang!
Assaulted by the ringing in my ears, I jerked back in the chair. My heart raced as I looked beside me and found my sister slumped over in an identical chair to mine.
I frantically watched for the rise and fall of her chest, but it never came. My brain yelled something my heart didn’t want to hear.
“Alicia!” I screamed. “Alicia! You’ve got to wake up, Alicia!” Over and over, I repeated her name until the sound escaped me, and no words came out.
Why was this happening? I didn’t understand why we were picked up and thrown into the back of a van as we had been walking home from the movies.
She was only fifteen. She still had her whole life ahead of her.
There was movement on the other side of the room, and in that moment, I remembered that I wasn’t alone. Turning toward my captor, I pleaded with him, “What do you want from me? I don’t have much, but whatever I have, you can take.”
He said nothing as he moved into my line of sight. Looking into his cold, dead gray eyes, I silently begged him. This wasn’thow I imagined my life coming to an end, but as I looked toward my baby sister, I knew that my life had ended the moment she took her last breath.
“Please.” I didn’t know what I was asking for more, my life or my death. Dying right now would have been a mercy, and I would never have to continue walking this earth knowing that she would never be by my side.
I stared down the barrel of the gun and accepted my fate.
“You don’t get to take what is mine.”
Bang!
CHAPTER 1
BEAU
I threwthe pen on my desk, dropping my head into my hands with a sigh. The guys and I had just finished another successful case, but why didn’t I feel the usual rush of adrenaline? Was I getting too old for this?
A knock at the door interrupted my spiral. Looking up, I found my right-hand man in the doorway holding a huge, pink, glittery envelope.
“Hey, man, what do you have there?” I ask Josh, motioning him into my office.
Josh had worked for my company, Shadow Force Tactical, since I founded it in 2012, following my honorable discharge from the special forces. He was the first soldier I hired to get the private investigator service up and running.
“Miles’ Little girl, Olivia, sent us a letter in the mail. Figured you wanted to be the first to open it.”
What Josh meant was he didn’t want to be the one having glitter exploding all over his desk, which would inevitably happen the moment someone started opening the envelope. I held out my hand, immediately grimacing as glitter fluttered onto my desk.
This was going to be a shitshow as soon as I slid my finger under the flap. After kicking my trash can closer to me, I held the envelope over it and slowly began peeling away at the top.
There was a snicker behind me as Josh held back his laughter at my disgust. There was one thing I hated more than predators in life, and that was glitter. It was the bane of my existence.
Finally, I freed the letter from the death trap the glitter envelope held it in and dropped the rest in the trash before sliding the offending glitter-filled can away. I flipped the yellow paper over and began to read.
Dear Mr. Private Daddies,
My name is Olivia soon-to-be Montgomery, but I think you already know that. My therapist, Auntie C, said it would be a good idea to write to your company expressing my gratitude for all the help you did to bring me home to Daddy.
I will never know how to repay you for the time, money, and expertise that you gave… but I know I can start with this: thank you. Those two words could never hold the weight of happiness, gratefulness, and relief that I felt hearing my Daddy’s voice. I was told later that without your help, I might have never been found and would have probably died at the hands of my abusive ex-husband.
I wanted to do something special for each of you who were present the day of my rescue, so my Daddy helped me print out the perfect picture for you.
I’ve put your names on each one, and I hope that this shows you just the smallest amount of thankfulness my Daddy and I have.
