in the open watching this all go down because I’d hacked into the prison’s security cameras.
“Well, I just wanted you to know that you didn’t win,” she said softly. “I’m here. I’m happy. I’m married. I grew up well. I have my degree, and I’m working on a second. You didn’t win.”
Stella laughed then.
“You think?” she asked carefully. “Because I think that I won. No matter what ends up happening with me, I won. My brother’s dead. You’re going to have kids, and you’re always going to wonder if I fucked you up. You’re never going to have a grandfather to give them, either. You know, I did a little research on my end, too. Your husband doesn’t have great family, either. Y’all are going to be all alone. Your kids are going to have no family.”
That was it.
I stood up, ready to break into whatever room I needed to, but before I could so much as take a threatening step toward the locked doors, Wyett laughed.
The sound had me freezing.
“You think that Hunt’s and my kids are going to want for anything?” she asked. “Would it be the best thing ever to have my mom and dad there? Yes. Would it be great for Hunt to have parents that weren’t assholes? Again, yes. But will they realize they’re missing something? No. Because Hunt and I will try doubly hard to give them everything they need. And I don’t know if you know this, but Hunt’s in a motorcycle club. There are eight men in that club off the top of my head that I know would drop anything when it came to our children.”
Stella narrowed her eyes.
“My children will never know the hell I went through. They’ll never realize that the house that they grow up in was the hellhole you made it for me for those years that I lived with you after they died and then I moved out. Because I’ll treat my kids how they’re meant to be treated. Unlike your ass. Do you want to know what you’ll be doing while my kids are living their best life?” Wyett pushed as she stood up and gathered herself up. When Stella didn’t answer, Wyett gave her the answer anyway. “They’ll be living off the money that you tried to keep from me. They’ll be playing in your room. Jumping on your bed. They’ll be happy while you’ll be… what?”
Stella again didn’t answer.
And just as she started to walk toward the door, the detective on Stella’s case returned, looking between Stella and Wyett.
“Ahh, good timing,” Wyett said as she headed toward him. “I’m ready to go, and Stella needs to find her way back to her cell. Enjoy your life, Aunt Stella. I know that I’ll enjoy mine.”
And when, ten minutes later, Wyett finally made her way outside to where I was standing next to my bike, she saw me and gifted me with the biggest smile I’d ever seen grace her face.
Before she could overthink it, she started running toward me.
I caught her in my arms and brought her to my chest.
“Missed you,” I whispered as I pressed my mouth to her temple.
She squeezed me even tighter. “I love you. Thank you for coming.”
I pulled her even tighter. “I love you, too. And even if you would’ve asked me to go, and I would’ve tried to talk you out of it, I’d do it all over again. I’d do anything for you.”
Her face flushed with happiness. “Let’s go home, Hunt McJimpsey.”
I winked at her and caught her hand up with mine. “Yes, ma’am, Wyett McJimpsey.”
• • •
Four months later
“You are found guilty of the murder of Mr. and Mrs. Wyett Villin.” The judge read the results. “You are sentenced to sixty-two years in a federal prison effective immediately. Chance of parole at fifty-one.”
Stella’s face went slack in disgust.
She was not happy to be found guilty of yet another murder. So far, she has accumulated one hundred and seventy-three years in jail and there are two more trials she has to go through.
Wyett’s beaming smile, on the other hand?
That one was brilliant.
EPILOGUE I
Did you know that the flesh inside your cheek is identical to the flesh inside your vagina? And now you’re licking your cheeks.
-Text from Hunt to Wyett
HUNT
“I, Hunt, take you, Wyett, to be my wife. To have and to hold from this day forward. For better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish as