Double Tap (17 page)

“Hey, Fran. You’ve been at FHAS for a long time, right?” I asked, scanning the file even more.

I flipped back to the very back, the beginning of The Sergei family’s time with us, and I practically felt my eyes bug out of my head.

“Yes,” she replied cautiously.

I ignored her hesitancy and asked, “How long ago did Masha Sergei work here?”

“We’ve had a Masha
Artem work with us four years ago, but she got married and started doing pro bono work for her husband. She no longer
specialized in adoption law,” she explained.

I flipped back to the bio pages, scanning Masha’s history. My brows raised when I realized that Masha Artem and Anton Sergei had gotten married six weeks prior to adopting their first child.

A child that Anton had been denied for nearly six months before his marriage to Masha.

I pulled out the notes I’d taken yesterday on the Sergei couple.

Anton Sergei. Wife Masha. Married thirteen years. Been trying to have children for twelve of them. After third year of trying, went on to fertility doctors. Tried for six years before started adoption. Two children- adoption.

Why would he lie about when he got married?

Unless…

I flipped back to the social worker that’d been on the Sergei case prior to me, and was unsurprised to find the woman I’d replaced.

“Fran…the woman that I am covering the cases for…how long has she worked here?” I asked.

I could practically hear Fran’s gossip wheel turning.

She was one of the worst gossips in the office, but I liked her.

And her gossiping ways were very helpful right this moment.

“Stephanie Martin was here for around the same amount of time that Masha had been. Would you like to speak with her? I believe she’s going to be coming in later today to show the new baby off,” Fran tittered.

She sure as fuck better believe I was going to talk to her.

“Yes, Fran, I sure would,” I said, brows furrowing as I continued to scan the file.

Seriously, though. Had this Stephanie Martin been forging adoption criteria?

Because if what I read on the files were true, there was no way that Stephanie hadn’t known what was going on. None.

She would’ve had to double check this information like I’d done. She would’ve known.

There was no way on earth that she didn’t.

Hell, she hadn’t even tried to hide the fact. She had to have known. This was my first look at the file. And I was only a few short weeks out of graduating. This Stephanie Martin that I’d replaced was an adoption worker for nearly seven years.

“Georgia,” a man’s deep voice said from my doorway.

I jumped and squealed, eyes shooting to the door to see Luke, Downy, and Bennett standing in my doorway and beyond it to the hallway.

I tilted my head, looking behind them for Nico, but didn’t see him.

I calmed somewhat. I wasn’t ready to see him yet.

I’d hopefully grow a pair by the end of the day, because I didn’t want to make him wait longer than that.

He didn’t deserve it.

I was being irrational and I knew it.

“Oh,” I said breathlessly. “Hey.”

They looked worried, and Bennett looked pissed.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

Luke walked inside, and the others followed.

Luke took one seat, and Downy took the other.

Bennett stayed at the back of the room near the door, leaning his back against the wall and crossing one leg over the other.

Luke wasn’t the first to speak, Downy was.

“We were originally here to talk to you about Nico and something we’d found out
because you weren’t answering your phone. Now, however, we want to know more about what you’re working on. We heard you ask your receptionist about a Masha Sergei. And her reply. Can you tell us more about what’s going on?”
He asked.

His questions were unusually calm, but I could tell he was hyperaware of my answers just by the intense way he was watching me.

So I explained what I suspected.

“I think that one of our social workers on maternity leave gave custody of a child over to someone that was denied. When he was denied, I believe he went to marry the lawyer, and was granted custody of the child he’d previously been denied. Now, that’s not really the suspicious part,
since there are times that men or women are denied due to their availability to the child.
A married couple has exponentially more possibility at being awarded
custody than a single person. Whether it be a man or a woman.
This couple, though, really bothered me yesterday during our interview.
I knew immediately I didn’t want him or her around FHAS’s Angel. That poor girl’s gone through enough. That’s why I was going into their file to see if my worries were warranted. And, apparently, it was because everything he told me yesterday was a lie.”

“FHAS’s angel?” Luke asked.

I nodded. “FHAS staff started calling her Angel when she arrived here. I’ve only met her once, a few days ago, but she’s a cute little thing. Tiny for only four months.”

I was rambling, because suddenly all three men’s intent eyes were focused solely on me. Not the wall behind me. Not the men I could hear mowing the lawn outside my window. All three dangerous gazes were on me.

“What?” I asked nervously.

“Is the kid you’re talking about with the wounded veteran and his wife?” Bennett asked from his perch.

I blinked. “Yes. Why?”

Bennett looked at Luke, but Luke’s gaze was on me.

“Candice and Guy Golding?” He asked for confirmation.

I scrunched my eyebrows together and pulled out Angel’s file that was underneath the Sergei file.

Flipping to the second page, I ran my finger down until I found the foster parents currently taking care of Angel.

“Yes, Candice and Guy Golding. That’s them,” I confirmed.

“We need to go talk to the social worker who’s been forging paperwork. Then we need to know why an Artem is trying to get custody of Anita Artem’s child. Especially when there’s not supposed to be any living relatives.”

That bomb was dropped by Downy, and their extreme attention as soon as I’d mentioned the name Artem finally made sense.

Anita Artem was the woman Nico had shot and killed.

The one that’d belonged to the mafia.

The institution that’d been responsible for shooting and killing the officer that was using Nico’s cop car.

Holy.

Shit.

Don’t let the door hit you on the way out. Try not to fall down the stairs on your way, either.

-Note to self

Nico

Two days later

“Hey, this is Nico. I wanted to see if you could come clean my house later this week. I’ve got a bit of a mess going on right now, and you know how I am. Let me know when you can do it. Thanks, bye,” I said to Candice’s voicemail.

I hung up and glared at my still dirty floors.

That was the third time I’d called her in three days.

“At least it wasn’t the thirty fifth like someone I know,” I snarled as I threw down my phone and went outside.

Feeling the need for an exhausting workout, I went outside and gathered up my axe and wedge, then took them to the large pile of wood I’d stacked in a heap at the corner of the house.

A tree had fallen a couple of weeks ago during a storm, and I’d cut it up with my chainsaw, leaving the large chunks to cut up for fire wood at a later date.

I’d been doing it nearly an hour when I heard wheels crunch on the gravel road that led up to my driveway.

I didn’t turn around.

I knew whom it was as soon as I heard the engine whine.

So the little coward had decided to finally show after three fucking days.

Imagine that.

I felt her stare, but I never stopped chopping the wood.

Set the wood up on the stump. Swing back. Strike hard and fast.

Thwack.

I repeated it over and over, waiting on her to say something.

It took her a long time.

Thwack.

I counted thirty five pieces before she finally spoke.

“I’m mad at you,” she said softly.

She was crying.

I hated when she cried.

I didn’t stop, however.

I just kept going, waiting for what she had to say next. The only outward sign that
I was listening was the bunch of my shoulders.

“You should’ve told me about her suicide the night she did it,” she said tearfully.

I whirled on her. “Is that right? And how exactly did you expect me to do that? I fucking called you seventeen times that night, and left you at least a fuckin’ million text messages. I know how to take a fucking hint.”

Her eyes widened at the vehemence in my voice, and she took a step away.

I was on a fucking roll, though, and really let her have it.

“All you had to do was be understanding. If you can’t handle this, what makes you think you can handle it when I have to take down a goddamned kid
because he pointed a gun at his big sister?” I asked irately.

I walked past her, going inside to the kitchen to grab a drink.

She followed.

I heard her stomping feet behind me as I walked up to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of water, twisting the cap off viciously.

“I don’t like it when you’re right. It makes me mad when I have to admit that I’m wrong. I know I was wrong, but you were wrong, too,” she snarled.

I looked at her incredulously
. “You’re so full of shit.
You piss me the fuck off.”

She crossed her arms. “Well, maybe if I’m so full of shit, and I piss you off so fuckin’ much, we shouldn’t be together.”

I shook my head at her and gave her a droll look.

“
We fight. We yell. You throw shit and I glare at you. That’s just how we are. We don’t have the type of relationship where it’s all hearts and goddamned flowers. We have the type of relationship that’s real. We fight hard, and make up harder. And you need to get over your fucking snit, because I’m so fucking
hot for you that I might not be nice when you really need it,” I growled in Georgia’s face.

She tried to push me away from where I was pinning her to the wall, but she didn’t get me far. In fact, it was only the barest of millimeters, and that was only because I didn’t want her to hurt herself when she slammed her wrists against my chest.

“I fucking love you, Georgia. Get the fuck over it,” I yelled.

She narrowed her eyes. “You fuckin’ love me? Than where the fuck were you?!”
She screamed in my face.

I rocked back on my heels. That one penetrated.
The vehemence in her voice alone was enough to send me back.

“What do you mean, where was I?” I asked.

She surged forward, taking advantage of the gap I left her, practically hurling herself at me.

“You weren’t there. I needed you, and you weren’t there,” she whispered brokenly.

My heart broke.

“I didn’t know,” I rasped.

She slumped into me. “I wanted you to come to Houston so bad. And you never came. I called you so many times, and you never came.”

“I did come, though. I may not have been there in person, but I was there with you. I thought about you nonstop. Not once, in the last eight years, have I stopped thinking about you,
” I said adamantly. “I would’ve
come down and helped you celebrate your graduation just so you had someone there if I hadn’t shot that stupid bitch who was trying to kill Luke. I’d have been there. I’ve known where you were since six months after the accident. I’ve gone down there every month since I got out of the Navy.”

She looked shaken. “You knew where I was? But why did you never stop by?”

I leaned my back against the counter and shrugged, crossing my arms over my chest. “You weren’t ready. I knew you’d come back when you were.”

Her mouth dropped open and the hair that’d been threatening to fall out of the messy bun she’d put it in, finally gave way, spilling her beautiful wavy hair out across her shoulders and partially covering her face.

“What would you have done if I was
never ready?”
She asked painfully.

“I’d have been one hell of a lonely man. You’re it for me, Georgia. You have been since you were that shy
girl who stole my heart,” I said truthfully.

I would’ve waited too. However long it took.
It wouldn’t have mattered if I was a sixty five year old man, there’d never have been another woman for me.

“But…” she shook her head. “If that was the case, why did you never return my calls?”

I shook my head.

“I don’t know about any calls, Georgia.
I’ve had the same number since I was fifteen. If you’d have called, I’d have answered.” Then I amended. “
If
I was able. What number did you call?”

Her brow furrowed. “The same one that I’ve been calling you on.”

I took the phone from her hand and started scanning through her contacts, finding two numbers. One under Nico, and one under Nicolas.

“Which one have you been getting calls from me under?” I asked, scanning through her call log.

Nico.

Pulling up the other number in her phone, I couldn’t help but laugh.

“You have my dad’s number under my name.” I wheezed.

“But…if I had your dad’s number that means… Dear God. I left your dad all these voicemails. I practically poured my heart out in all of them!”
She nearly yelled.

I shook my head. “It’s okay, Georgia. My dad doesn’t even know how to work his phone. He still has a flip phone, if that tells you anything. I don’t think he’s checked a voicemail in all that time. In fact, if the phone was capable, it’s probably still on there.”

She slumped and walked forward into my arms.

I caught her up, burying my face into her neck.

She smelled like hay and the laundry detergent she used. A cotton smell that was oddly attractive. It was also something I was beginning to smell like myself since she’d been the one to do my laundry the last time.