Page 67 of Montana Justice

I’d tried to crawl to the crib, ribs screaming, blood in my mouth from the punch to my face. Caleb and Sadie were crying, both of them, from the noise. Ray walked toward my babies, and I raised my arm in his direction.

“Don’t hurt them. Please, Ray. Dad.” I hadn’t called him that in years, but I would now if it meant he wouldn’t hurt my children. “Don’t hurt them. They’re your grandkids.”

“Oh, I’m not going to hurt them. You’re the one who needs to pay for your sins.”

I tried to protect myself from his fists, but I couldn’t. Blow after blow, until darkness took me.

“You don’t need to worry. The vet said they’re both perfectly healthy,” Lark continued, oblivious to my internal collapse. She moved closer to the foals, her voice soft with wonder. “Usually with twins, one doesn’t make it or they’re too small to thrive. But these two… Look at them. They’re perfect.”

My chest constricted, lungs refusing to expand properly. Each breath came shorter than the last, like breathing through a straw. A plastic straw that someone kept pinching tighter and tighter.

I’d woken to Caleb’s cries hours later. Just Caleb’s. The portable crib held only one baby, Sadie’s side empty. Like someone had carved out part of the crib, part of the world, part of me.

She was gone.

Ray sat in the chair by the window, smoking despite the baby in the room. Despite everything.

“Where is she?” My voice had been broken, barely recognizable. Blood had dried on my lips, copper pennies on my tongue. “Where’s Sadie?”

“Here’s how this is going to work,” he’d said, not even looking at me. Ash fell from his cigarette onto the stained carpet. “You’re going to go to that sheriff of yours. You’re going to get close. You’re going to tell me everything—every operation, every plan, every thought in his pretty little head.”

“Where’s my daughter!” I’d tried to sit up, but the room spun. Concussion, probably. Broken ribs, definitely. None of it mattered. “What did you do with her?”

“She’s safe. For now.” He’d finally looked at me then, and his smile had made my blood freeze. The same smile from my childhood, the one that meant someone was about to bleed. Usually me. “She stays safe as long as you do exactly what I tell you. Cross me, try to run, breathe a word of this to anyone—especially your cop—and you’ll never see your little girl again.”

The barn spun around me, hay dust dancing in the morning light like snow. It had been more than two months since I’d held my daughter. Sixty-eight days. One thousand six hundred and thirty-two hours. I knew because I counted every one.

“They’re nursing so well already,” Lark said, kneeling beside the foals now. “Sometimes twins have trouble competing for milk, but Duchess seems to have plenty. Mother Nature is amazing, isn’t she? The way she provides for both babies, makes sure they both get what they need.”

Mother Nature. As if nature had anything to do with a mother having her baby ripped away. As if nature would ever be that cruel. My throat closed completely, like hands wrapping around my neck. Ray’s hands. Always Ray’s hands.

“Lachlan will never take me back.”

“You’ll find a way to make him take you back, or I’ll kill her.” Ray shook his head calmly as if he wasn’t talking about murdering his own flesh and blood. “Make it look like SIDS. Tragic story—young mother, overwhelmed. Asked us to help out.”

“You wouldn’t.” But even as I said it, I knew he would. He would do it to control me.

“Try me,” he’d said. “Do what you’re told, use your boy there to get back in Sheriff Calloway’s life, and feed me details so I can run my drug and weapons network right under his nose.You’ll make sure I never get caught, and everyone will be fine. Your mother will take care of the brat.”

I let out a sob. My mother could barely take care of herself, much less a newborn.

Ray stood and walked to the door. “I’ll be in touch.”

“Please, Ray.” I didn’t know why I was begging for mercy when he didn’t have any.

He reached over and yanked my head back by my hair. “Fight me, and I’ll mail you pieces of her, Piper. Starting with those tiny little fingers.”

I’d vomited all over the floor.

The foals made soft sounds, content and safe. Together. My vision started to tunnel, darkness creeping in from the edges. The taste of copper filled my mouth—had I bitten my tongue again? Or was that just the phantom taste of that night, forever burned into my memory?

“Piper?” Lark’s hand touched my shoulder. Her fingers felt like brands through my shirt. “Hey, you’re scaring me. What’s wrong?”

I tried to answer, tried to form words, but my chest had locked up. No air in. No air out. Just the image of those two perfect foals, side by side, the way my babies should have been. The way they’d been before it all went to hell.

Every video call, every proof of life photo that deleted itself after thirty seconds. Technology I didn’t understand, apps Ray had someone install on burner phones.

Sadie getting bigger, changing, growing without me. Her first smile—I’d missed it.

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