Sparrow - L.J. Shen Page 0,113

a public toilet full of shit.

Not the best part of my job, but still better than rotting below fluorescent lights in an office all day.

I yanked his head back up and growled into his ear. “Last chance, buddy. Tell me where to find the scum who raped Don’s daughter and I’ll let you keep your balls.”

Jensen, who called me, spoke from the other line. “I don’t know any rapists.”

The hustler I was dealing with didn’t answer, so I shoved his head deeper into the toilet, this time keeping it for longer. Let him miss the privilege of breathing oxygen. Maybe that would refresh his memory as to the whereabouts of the guy who raped my client’s kid. After all, I got a hot tip that he was the one who helped him hide for cash.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” I told Jensen. “What’s good?”

“Your soon-to-be ex-wife’s bank account,” he said through tight lips. “That’s what’s good. It just got six hundred thousand dollars healthier.”

She’d cashed Paddy’s check.

“Thanks.” I hung up and threw my phone against the dirty, heavily graffitied wall. I let out a few juicy curses before pulling the man’s head back up. He was a little purple, but not enough for my taste.

“I just received some very bad fucking news, and I’m really in the mood for some torturing. One last time—where’s the fucker?”

“Alright, alright. I’ll tell you,” he whimpered.

Disappointment slammed into me. He was going to cooperate, after all. Shame. I was hoping to have some fun beating the living hell out of him.

Then I remembered nothing was fun anymore.

Nothing was worth doing when Red wasn’t around.

The only thing I wanted to do, and couldn’t, sadly was her.

SPARROW

Six weeks later

“THIS ONE’S PERFECT! Can we have it? Please tell me we can have it. It’s so, so, pretty. I really want it. It’d be perfect for us. So can we? Please say that we can. Lucy, tell her it’s the best. Sparrow, we gotta buy it.”

I leaned against Lucy’s rental car, arms crossed. Laughing into a foam cup full of goodness, I watched Daisy practically hugging the white and pink food truck. It really was beautiful, and honestly, it was also perfect for a pancake business. All sugary and sweet. I wouldn’t be surprised if Daisy started licking it, it looked so tasty.

“You don’t have to decide now.” Lucy bumped her shoulder into mine, laughing when she saw Daisy dancing around the truck like a drunk hippie.

We were standing in the middle of a trailer lot, looking for potential trucks for our new business. I was a few hundred thousand dollars richer than I was when I walked down the aisle with Troy, but also a few hundred thousand times less happy than I was right before our marriage fell apart. True to his promise, he’d never contacted me after that hospital visit. Not directly, anyway. Didn’t make any move on the divorce papers either. But I knew better than to think it was about the money.

We didn’t care about the money. It was about betrayal.

After I quit my job at Rouge Bis, he sent me my paycheck to my dad’s house. I bet he knew I no longer lived there, that I moved in with Lucy, since now I could afford the rent. I appreciated him not giving away he was still watching me.

Or was he?

It was bad to want him to follow me around. It was even worse to hope to bump into his employees or associates just so I could feel that he was still in my life. But in all honesty, that’s exactly what I wanted. I wanted him, but was all too aware of the divide between us. Of its depth. Of the gravity of the lies our relationship had been built on.

He buried my dead mom in a forest and didn’t even tell me.

Knew where she was all those years and never said a word.

He forced me into marriage so he could inherit his father’s fortune.

He. Was. A. Monster.

And yet, I’d give anything to have this monster’s claws back on my body, his cold eyes roaming my face. I missed the talks, the banter and everything this monster made me feel. Troy was the devil, but he breathed life into me.

“Earth to Birdie.” Daisy snapped her fingers, her hot-red nails dancing close to my face, reminding me of the ruby ring I took off not too long ago. Its weight on my finger was unbearable without Troy in my life.

“Yeah, yeah, we’ll