Page 2 of Fortune's Favor

“Gypsy! What the hell happened to you?” I lift my exhausted head and shoot him a half-smile.

“Wouldn’t you like to know, Pops?”

His stern lips twist and he glares at me. “Don’t get cute with me, young lady. You’re bleeding on my front porch.”

“Yeah. That kind of happens when somebody gets you with a knife.”

“Did you go to the fucking hospital, Gypsy?” He reaches out and wraps his arm around me and tears spring to my eyes. I forgot how much I missed his hugs.

He helps me inside and I shake my head. “No. I didn’t know if he’d look there.”

Another sharp look and he settles me on his couch, pushing me until I’m resting against the cushions.

“I’m gonna get blood on your couch.”

He snorts. “It’s seen worse than this. What have you managed to get yourself into, Gypsy girl?”

I close my eyes and fight the tears again. My mother and her constant stream of daddies made it hard for me to relax when I was growing up. But not with Jerry. He was always the exception to the rule and it broke my heart when their marriage broke up and she packed me up and moved me away from him. He was always my rock in the twisted life I was forced into. The one I carried with me that very few people knew about.

I didn’t even tell my mother. Although she claimed she was psychic and she scammed a helluva lot of people with that tall tale.

Little did she know her own daughter found her powers when she was thirteen! I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell her about that. Lord knows what she’d have dragged me into to make money.

I opened my eyes and studied him as he pulled my sweater off my shoulder and winced. “You need stitches.”

I shake my head. “I’m not going to a hospital. We both know you can stitch this little scrape up.”

Rolling his eyes, he stands up and points a finger at me. “As soon as we get you fixed up, you’re telling me what the hell is going on and we’re gonna get this figured out.”

“Yeah, Jerry. I know. That’s why I came to you. I need help.”

His smile doesn’t slip. “I always knew you’d be back. It’s good to see you, little one,” he says softly.

“You too, Jerry. You too.” And this time I don’t even bother to hide the tears trailing down my cheek. I’ve missed the hell out of this man. He’s the only dad I’ve ever known.

Hopefully we can figure this out before I end up dead in a ditch somewhere and never get to restart my life with him in it.

Chapter Two

ALEX

Frustration sizzles along my nerve endings as I take another stack of paperwork to transfer to another file.

I am sick to death of this shit. The Captain has had me digging through all these old records and digitizing them before filing them in the archives for weeks now. I know he thinks I’ve fucked up and I am a fuck up but this is ridiculous even for him.

He’s a good boss but for some reason he thinks my last assignment where I worked with the feds to take down some human traffickers running around in our neck of the woods really messed me up.

I’m not messed up. I just don’t like guys like that. And I sure as hell didn’t like to see all those young girls being used like that. Drugged, dead to the world and raped.

Shivers run up and down my spine and I feel sick to my stomach yet again.

On that part he’s right. I cannot seem to kick the pictures of those girls with the dead eyes, the strung-out look to them. The bodies ravaged by drugs and pain.

I close my eyes and fight the nausea coming up the back of my throat. When I open them, the Captain is standing in front of me, his eyes sharp and knowing.

“I need you to come into my office. Now,” he says and turns on his heel.

Captain Jeremiah Stone is pretty damn observant and I don’t like the sharp tone of his voice. If he thinks I need to be benched for psych reasons I’ll be out of here so fast my head will spin.

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