Page 97 of Fourth Point Of Contact

Thankfully, I’d seen enough shit in the military to harden me to this kind of thing. It still made me want to puke, but I’dlearned how to compartmentalize. I was about to tell him that when Edu pulled up. Telling him what I’d found was fucking horrible, but he insisted on coming out.

“My buddy is here—the one I was telling you about.”

“You’re sure he had no idea?”

I turned to face the officer, making it clear that I was giving him one hundred percent of the truth. “He walked away from his old man at seventeen and hasn’t had any contact since. He’s a good man. Trust me on that. He would never have let anything like this happen if he’d known.”

He gave a tight nod and faced Edu as he approached.

“What happened?” Edu snapped, ready to kill.

I hadn’t given him details over the phone. Only that he needed to get his ass out here. “We found something.”

“Something? What the fuck does that mean?”

“Your old man?—”

Edu cut me a scathing look, which I knew meant not to call him that.

“He’s married. We haven’t seen him or his new wife, but there’s a child.”

He nodded, licking his lips nervously as he shifted his weight. This was going to be fucking horrible to tell him. “Okay, where’s the kid?”

I nodded to the ambulance. “She’s being attended to, and she’ll head to the hospital for further care.”

“Christ,” he muttered, running his hand over his head. “He hurt her, didn’t he? He fucking hurt her.” His eyes kept flicking to the ambulance like he was ready to pounce, but something was holding him back.

“Edu,” I said calmly, snagging his attention. He finally looked back at me, but the words didn’t even come out before he knew it was really fucking bad.

“Fucking hell.” He bent over, sucking in a large breath as he simultaneously choked.

I felt Raven’s presence behind me as she shifted around me. “Why don’t you let me take it from here?”

Edu looked up in confusion. “Why are you here?”

“Because I?—”

Thankfully, she stopped herself from saying she was bored.

“Because I knew this was important to you. You should come with me.”

I almost stopped her, sure this wasn’t a good idea, but the look she shot me made me change my mind. Edu nodded and followed her inside. Cursing under my breath, I followed at a slower pace, already aware of what he would find.

The strangled cry that left his throat stopped me in my tracks. I’d seen Edu fucked up when Harper left him. I’d seen him at his lowest and fucking depressed, but I’d never in all my life seen him break. And I knew if I walked around the corner and saw him, he’d be on his knees, fucking horrified by what he was seeing.

And blaming himself.

I leaned back against the wall, unable to walk back there and see it again. The smell, the absolute horror of the situation, was too much to take right now. I could deal with it, but I really didn’t fucking want to for a second time.

I could hear Raven talking to Edu in a low voice, soothing him as he fucking broke. I begged my legs to start working, to get me back there, but I was frozen. I just couldn’t fucking do it again.

The officer appeared in the doorway, nodding to me as his eyes flicked to the back. “We’re taking the child to the hospital now.”

“Give me a minute. Let me talk to Edu.”

He hesitated, “He can’t ride in back with her. The social worker on call is taking over.”

“What about?—”

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