Page 152 of Risky Passion

Fuck!

We were sitting in the specialist’s office when we found out, and Alice’s face had crumpled, not in fear for herself, but forme.

She always worried about me.

The treatment was too expensive. More than I made answering phones and cleaning vomit at the doctor’s office. We had savings, but they evaporated like morning dew.

I became desperate and reached out to Fred Kincaid. Or Frank Morgan. Or whatever the fuck he was calling himself by then. I thought I could blackmail him. I knew where the bodies were buried, literally and otherwise. I had dirt on him that could destroy his life completely. Him and his asshole brothers.

But he didn’t even flinch. He didn’t threatenmeeither.

He threatened Alice. He fucking knew she was my weakness. Knew that I would do anything to save her. Knew that I would kill for her.

He said he needed someone like me. Someone with office skills and an innocent face.

I had no option but to work for him.

He got me a job at Rosebud Wharf. At first, I’d do small things for him. Turn a blind eye to a shipment. Leave a door unlocked. Say nothing when men came and went at odd hours. I convinced myself that it was nothing serious, and my work for him bought Alice her treatment. Most of all, it bought us more time together.

Here are the criminal bastards working at the wharf: Peter Dempsey, Mika Wallace, Aiden McMasters.

The list went on. Six more names of people who took bribes to look the other way, or worse.

That was what I did . . . turned a blind eye. And I would do it again. A thousand times over. Because Leukemia nearly broke Alice, brokeus. The nausea, the sleepless nights, the weight that melted from her bones. She lost all her beautiful hair. But not her light. Not her laugh.

She pulled through.

We pulled through.

But Frank had his hooks in by then. And we couldn’t walk away.

I dropped the pen and went back to digging. My hands were blistered, my spine on fire, but I kept going. The shovel hit something solid, a rock, maybe. Or a root. I hacked at the fucking thing with a kind of rage that didn’t belong on this beautiful beach.

It belonged to every ounce of blood money Frank and Chui squeezed out of me.

Alice and I became a family.

Two beautiful boys came into our lives. Orphans, like us. They arrived on a ship; their parents died during the crossing. We never asked how. We just said yes.

All those women and children I helped bring to Australia, they live better lives because of me. I gave them new identities and helped them get work. Get money. Live the dream they came here to find. I had nothing to do with the ones who died in that god-awful shipping container. That was Chui. That bastard was pure evil.

Alice cried for a week, thinking about how awful their deaths must have been.

I glanced over at Alice, wondering where that piece of paper was, the one with all their real names. It would be nice to write them down here. Give them an ending. A place in this story, too.

But what would it matter? Nobody would believe me. Nobody would believe I had no idea that container was even missing, not until some boat crashed into it.

We named our boys Thomas Wexler and Fraser Maddenafter the boys who’d been murdered at Angelsong all those years ago. The ones no one had ever cared about.

But we cared. We loved those boys like they were our own. Becausethey were. And for a little while, our home was full again. Laughter. Chaos. Life.

Even with Frank’s shadow always hanging over us, we had each other.

I returned to the digging, and the sun rose higher, burning off the mist, shimmering off the ocean in the distance. It looked peaceful, like it didn’t know I was trying to bury Alice. Again.

I wiped my face, smearing dirt across my cheek. The grave was almost deep enough. Almost. But not yet. Besides, I still had more story to tell.

With the sun belting down on my skin, I stopped digging again.

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