Beard Up(72)

I looked down at my wife, who had Sienna in her arms where they were sitting in the seat next to my bedside, both asleep, and realized that I needed to make another promise.

"We finally got him." I looked up at my uncle. "Now it's time for you to have the family that you always deserved."

Lynn laughed.

"I'm not a family man."

Silas started to chuckle now, too.

"It looks like you are now, Joker."

Audrey broke in then, her voice cold and unyielding.

"Yeah," Audrey said. "You can be my uncle. And your first act as my official uncle will be you telling me what room my rapist is in so I can go shove my foot up his ass."

Lynn coughed, looking at Sienna to make sure that she was still asleep.

"You don't have to worry about him," Lynn promised. "I've got a special place in Hell just for him."

Audrey smiled. "That's the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me."





***


I was asleep hours later when the soft voice of my daughter woke me.

"You're my daddy."

My eyes opened, and I saw Sienna sitting at the foot of my bed, my phone in her hand.

Bleary-eyed and foggy-brained from the effects of the pain medication that they'd given to me before the room had emptied, I couldn't quite comprehend what was going on.

"I thought it might be you when mommy kept calling you Tunnel," she said softly. "Tunnel was my daddy's name."

I swallowed, then sat up.

Muscles screamed as I pushed up my bruised and broken body to a sitting position. My fingers spasmed with pain when I put even the slightest pressure on them, but I did my best to make sure that none of that showed on my face.

No, all my daughter could tell was that I was sitting up and giving her the attention she and this conversation deserved.

"Yeah, baby," I rasped, then cleared my voice. "I'm your daddy."

She stared at me intently, eyes so much like my own, and smiled.

It was like the fucking sun was rising right there in my goddamn heart.

"I've missed you."

So simple. So understanding. So fucking awesome.

"I've missed you, too."

"Are you still a police officer?" she questioned. "I want to be a police officer when I grow up."

I smiled. "No," I answered honestly. "But I still put bad guys in jail. I just work privately now."

Her grin was infectious.

But that grin quickly fell off her face just as quickly as it'd arrived.

"You won't go away again, will you?"

The sheer panic in her voice was enough to have me reaching for her, despite the pain that was echoing off every broken bone in my body.

"I wouldn't leave if I had a choice," I answered, pulling her gently into my lap. "But no, I don't ever plan on leaving again. Not if I can help it."

"Was it your choice last time?" she demanded, suddenly angry that her father was forced to do something he didn't want to do.

I shook my head.

"No," I admitted. "I would have never left you and Mommy if I'd had a choice. You two were my whole entire world."


      ///
       
         
       
        

Her grin was small, but it was there.

"I have your old badge under my pillow."

My throat tightened.

"Yeah?" my voice cracked.

She nodded. "I sleep with it every night."

I carefully twisted my torso and placed a kiss on the top of her head.

"I used to sleep with it every night, too," I murmured into her hair.

"Why do you think she does it?"

That was Mina.

I turned.

"What?"

She smiled.

"She saw that you slept with it underneath your pillow when you were still alive," she said. "She may have been really young, but she remembered. The night that you died, she stole that and slept with it. And has been ever since."

Overwhelmed with emotion by my daughter's simple act, I felt tears starting to burn my eyes.

"Fuck."

"That's a bad word. Mommy says I'm not allowed to say that."

I started to huff out a laugh. "Mommy is right. You shouldn't repeat any words that come out of my mouth."

Mina snorted.

Sienna wiggled off my lap, curling up on the other side of me, pressed between my big body and the hospital bed railing.

The minute she was comfortable, she closed her eyes and fell right to sleep, like the past twelve hours had been nothing more than a scary story.

I looked over at my wife the moment that our daughter's eyes closed.

She just shook her head.

"Let's hope our next one sleeps like she does."

I started to laugh.