With All My Heart - Emilia Finn Page 0,60
walls, smiles everywhere I turn, and a warm wife to climb into bed with each night.
A long time ago, I was lost, but I didn’t even know yet that I needed to find my home. My true north. But then I looked into a dazzling pair of eyes framed with dark hair and a sassy smile, and there she was. My world realigned, my priorities straightened out, and my home was found.
Chantelle Robertson was everything I needed, and through her love, gave me everything I didn’t even know I wanted yet.
But now it’s time to complete that circle. Jon and Isabelle Hart belong to someone else according to the law, but in my heart, I know they’re mine.
Finally starting my truck, I back out of the driveway and smile when I catch Nell’s eyes through the front window. She gives a gentle finger wave, then laughs when Bobby climbs over her lap and looks through the window like a puppy with his tongue lolling out. He wears my hat, and makes his mom laugh. He’s as strong as an ox, and more responsible than any other twelve-year-old I know… bar one.
Heading across town with adrenaline zinging through my blood and the yellow envelope sitting beside my thigh, I cruise through the single set of traffic lights in town, past the town hall, around the park in the middle of town, and turn right at the end of the block. Heading out, I cross the train lines and move closer to the trailer park.
I’m going to hurt a man today, but I won’t be sorry.
I’m going to reclaim what is mine, and more importantly, I’m going to reclaim what is Jon’s, and I won’t feel a lick of remorse for a single thing I do.
Pulling up outside Wayne Hart’s home and cutting the engine, I study the closed-up place with narrowed eyes and wait for the dust to settle around my truck. The windows are closed, the curtains drawn, the door is closed. Even the pile of worn and tattered boots that littered the place earlier this week are tidied.
Climbing out of the truck with the envelope in my hand, I reach behind my seats and pull out my newest purchase. Something I never once, not for one single second considered taking inside my home. I took my ass to a sporting goods store the day before yesterday when this idea came to me, dropped way too much money, and walked out with a Winchester shotgun and ammo.
I never told Nelly I bought it, not because she’d get mad about spending money, but because I know she has the deepest, darkest hatred for guns. The same kind of hatred she had for me racing my car back in the day. The same hatred she had for me working three jobs, when she’d rather a little less money, but more time spent as a family.
Closing the truck door and resting the barrel of my gun on my shoulder, I walk toward the home that looks all but deserted and swing the front door open.
I don’t knock. I don’t show them a single ounce of mercy as I bring my leg up and my steel capped boots smash their flimsy door in.
“Wayne!” Shirley Hart screeches in the dark, with her hair in curlers and her ratty nighty on, even in the middle of the day. Bounding out of her chair and knocking a bottle of bourbon over, she pounces behind Wayne’s recliner and shakes the shit out of him until the bruised man wakes with a start, looks around for the problem, then stops on me when I cock my gun.
His face is swollen to hell and back, his lips split, his brow taped from left to right. He doesn’t move a single muscle as I stand in his doorway and point my gun.
“You’re both going to sign these papers.” Reaching back, I tug the envelope from my pocket and toss it into Wayne’s lap, and because my wife is smarter than anyone I know, I smile when he pulls the papers out and a pen drops onto his thigh. “Sign them, give those babies to me, then never step on my side of town again.”
“You can’t do this!” Shirley screeches. “This isn’t legal.”
“I assure you it is. I paid some fucker who charges five-forty-five an hour to draw those papers up.” Lie, lie, lie. “It’s already done, now you just gotta sign and I promise to leave you be.”
“And if we don’t?”