Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 75793 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75793 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
“I’ll have someone pick it up tomorrow. You’ll ride with me.” I open the passenger door and when she winces as she sits, I grin.
She doesn’t miss it and flips me off.
I chuckle, close the door, and walk around to the driver’s side. Once inside, I start the engine and hear Ophelia’s phone ping with an alert. She looks at it.
“It’s Mr. Higgins,” she says and opens a text.
“What is it?”
“It’s a link to a news channel.” She clicks in to read the headline. “Oh my God.” She reads it out to me. “Horatio Hart to be transferred to unknown address as authorities sort through new allegedly irrefutable evidence in his embezzlement case.” She turns to me. “He’s getting out. He’s really getting out.”
“What do they say about the evidence?” I ask as I drive us back to Nigella’s house.
“There’s a recording that implicates Sullivan Fox.” She smiles up at me, her face open and beaming. I smile back. There’s still the arson charge but this is something to celebrate, and I won’t take that from her. Her phone rings, and she answers. “Hi Mr. Higgins. Yes, I saw it. Thank you for sending it. It’s great news.”
I focus on driving, glancing at her and once she’s finished with the call, she turns to me.
“He’ll call me in the morning to let me know where they’re taking him, but he’ll be out tomorrow. He’s not in the clear completely, but he’ll be out of that prison at least.”
“This is great news. I’m glad, Ophelia.”
“Me too.” She wipes her face and can’t stop smiling.
“We’ll go first thing in the morning,” I tell her. She nods and I reach over to squeeze her hand.
“Where did you go tonight, anyway?” she asks.
I look out at the road, traffic lighter this time of night as we drive out of the city and to Nigella’s house.
“Tell me, Silas. Tell me where you went.”
“I saw Sly.”
“Sly? Why?”
“I made him a loan recently.”
“What? Why would you do that?”
“He’d have lost the company if I hadn’t. After the trial, even with your father’s confession, no bank would touch him.”
“So, you loaned him money to save him? That doesn’t make any sense.”
I turn off onto the quiet road that will lead to the house then look at her. I shake my head. “I did it so I could take it from him. I knew he couldn’t pay me back. I thought so at least, but that explains the urgency as far as you marrying Ethan and him contacting your grandfather. He was counting on your inheritance to save his ass.”
“He was counting on my grandfather dying.” She pushes a hand into her hair and shakes her head. “What’s wrong with people?”
“Not all people. But the Foxes, they’re a greedy lot. Anyway, I went to see him tonight to forgive the debt.”
“You forgave the debt? Why?”
I pull onto the driveway of the house and park the SUV. After killing the engine, I turn to her. “I made another deal with him. He and his family don’t come near you, and he can keep the money and the company. Not that it matters now. I think karma has finally caught up to Sullivan Fox.”
She touches my hand. “You gave everything up for me?”
I shrug a shoulder. “I guess my priorities have shifted. The Foxes and what they did, how they were to my mother, to me, all those years, it just doesn’t matter, O. Revenge and me wasting my life to get it, well, it’s not what my mom would have wanted, and besides, I have what I want. What I need. I have you.” I touch her cheek, brush hair that’s fallen out of her braid back and when she leans her cheek into the palm of my hand, I know I did the right thing. I know it in my gut. “I love you. I will give it all up for you.”
23
OPHELIA
Iwake up to the sound of tires crunching on gravel. The sky is a deep burnt amber and I fumble for my glasses on the nightstand to see the time is a little after seven in the morning.
“Silas?” I ask, sitting up when I hear car doors open and close.
He’s gone, his side of the bed empty.
I get up, pull on Silas’s discarded button down and cross the room to the windows that overlook the front of the house, buttoning up the shirt as I go. What I see outside, though, has me alert, the fog of sleep wiped clear.
There, on the driveway are three vehicles, two of which are patrol cars, one an unmarked sedan. Four officers are climbing out of their cars, a fifth standing at the driver’s side door of the unmarked vehicle. A man in a dark suit steps out of the passenger seat. The officers wait for him to go ahead of them.