Page 137 of Jude

Wearing the ring she bought me felt like a shield against my own failures.

I had another thought and, reaching for my suitcase, removed her diamond wedding band, the one she left behind in Rome, from my toiletry bag.

I slid it on the silver chain around my neck, so it rested on my heart next to my Aquila pendant.

I didn’t give a fuck whether it was a female band; it was my motivation, a physical reminder to get her back to me.

I stood up, staring at my hand with a newfound, gritty determination.

I’m coming for you, Sofia. I’m going to earn both these rings, or I’m going to die trying.

Brian and his investigator Amos called me a day later.

‘Amos caught a hit on her Social Security number at a high-turnover women’s shelter,’ Brian intoned.

‘It’s located deep within the city’s industrial district, adjacent to the CSX freight tracks. It also seems she’s taken a night-shift job cleaning at a Greyhound bus depot about ten stops away. I’ve spotted her scrub-washing the bays from midnight until dawn. Most likely to pay for a cot in that dilapidated boarding house,’ Amos rasped over the line.

My heart lurched at the mental image he painted as guilt flooded me.

‘Send me the address,’ I growled. ‘Of the shelter and her new workplace.’

He did, and I stared at both locations, mapping out my plan to win my wife back.

Chapter 28

JUDE

With the tour wrapped and the band on two weeks of leave, I had nothing but an ocean of regret and time.

That night after I received the coordinates, I climbed into one of my cars, a black nondescript Dodge Ram I’d never driven with Sofia.

It’d help in case she recognized my other vehicle and bolted before I had a chance to assess the situation and speak to her.

I drove down to Sofia’s work address Amos gave me, parking the truck beneath the shadow of a rusted water tower across the street from the depot.

Through the cracked windshield, I spotted her at midnight.

Sofia stepped off a bus wearing an old, oversized cardigan and linen-cleaner uniform pants.

Her chin was tucked down as she walked toward the terminal administrative block.

My heart squeezed as I took her in; she appeared small and exhausted.

Yet her posture remained stiff with fierce dignity.

The depot sat nestled in a treeless, industrialized pocket on the ragged edge of town, surrounded by rusted chain-link fences, gravel lots, and the skeletal structures of abandoned warehouses.

From my vantage point, I spotted three off-duty coach drivers lounging near the brick entrance on their break.

Their eyes locked onto Sofia the second she walked past.

They checked her out, and a couple of crude catcalls drifted across the lot.

Every muscle in my body coiled tight as a hard, violent heat flooded my veins.

I wanted to rip those bastards’ throats out for even glancing at my wife.

Then her manager stepped out of the dispatch office.