“I think it does, Serafina,” he contested. “I think it proves that, at some point, you switched from being an asset to being something so much more.”
I avoided his eyes, trying to ignore the same argument I had made to myself over the past few days. “That still doesn’t mean I love him.”
“It’s normal to be defensive about your feelings. I can imagine how confusing it must be for you. Your mother fought her feelings for me, too, because I was much older than she was, but you can’t always control who you fall in love with.” He glanced at me with a twinkle in his eye. “You look so much like her. Every time I see you, I see more and more of her in you.”
“Do you miss her?” I asked softly.
“Every minute of every day, Serafina,” he choked out, his words barely audible.
“How do you get through it? How do you go on breathing when that love has been ripped from you?”
“You go on,” he replied, placing his hand over mine, caressing my knuckles. “It’s not easy. It’s never easy. Love isn’t easy. But you carry the memory of those happy times with you and those moments remind you of the beauty of life. And you just hope to find that beauty once more. I beg you, Serafina. Don’t let your stubbornness deprive yourself of something you deserve.”
“And what’s that?”
“Love, Serafina. You deserve to feel love.”
Mackenzie
“SO,” I SAID, TAKING the keys to Brayden’s SUV from Wyatt as we stood just outside the same gas station as yesterday. “Did it work?”
He paused for a beat before he nodded. “Yes. He followed me.”
“Who?”
“His name is Clinton Evers and he is an FBI agent.”
“So he is a fed,” I replied. “What did he want with me? The same as everyone else? To find my father who, according to most of the world, is actually dead?”
“Not exactly, ma’am,” he said and I raised my eyebrows.
“Really?”
“Yes. I drove Mr. Weller’s car out to Austin and Agent Evers showed up approximately five hours later. I confronted him and asked what he wanted with you. He showed me his badge and indicated he was working a case.”
I sighed. “So he was after my father.”
“No, ma’am. I got him to tell me what he was working on. He said it was off the record. Unofficial. Just him and another agent. One of their colleagues took a leave of absence several months ago and hasn’t been heard from since. They believe something’s happened to him, that someone’s abducted him and are using him for his…unique skills.”
“Which would be?”
“Apparently,” Wyatt began, eyeing me, “he’s one of the most skilled hackers out there. The knowledge he has, in addition to his skills, makes him a powerful weapon in the wrong hands.”
“Who is this guy?” I asked, my mind spinning.
He studied me, almost as if gauging whether or not he should tell me. After a protracted pause, he said, “His name is Damian Mills and, if I’m not mistaken, he grew up next door to you when you lived in Fayetteville.”
My jaw dropped, not expecting to hear that name. “They think I have something to do with his disappearance?” I asked, confused about why they would follow me and put a tracker on my car.
“They do not believe you’re responsible. Apparently, they were two of the agents who had arrested Mr. Mills nearly a decade ago when he hacked into the FBI computer system trying to find the location of one Serafina Galloway.”
“He was arrested?” Despite my shock at that news, my heart warmed a bit with the knowledge Damian had never forgotten about our friendship, just as I never did.
“It appears so. I’ve looked into his story and it all checks out. Mr. Mills was given a choice. He could either go to prison or work for the FBI. He chose the latter and has been there for almost a decade. Agent Evers said he and Damian had grown close over the years. He talked about you, your childhood, stuff like that. Then, just a day before he took his mysterious leave of absence, Damian made Evers promise to do everything he could to find you and keep an eye on you if anything ever happened to him. I checked the timeline and this coincides to around the time Mr. Montgomery was named as the man behind all those murders. After