Chapter 87

Chapter 87
\[BRIAN\]

I wanted to kill Beau Fucking Edwards.

I wanted to kill him.

And I would have, if the prison guards hadn’t shown up only fifteen seconds after I started punching that fucking asshole in the face.

Shit.

My whole body is still shaking with mad anger when the guards finally escort me out of the prison gates. They don’t exactly scold me or anything—God knows they probably know how much that filth of a man deserved that beating—but they don’t outright praise me either.

I’m pretty sure they even gave me five seconds extra so I could land just one more punch.

Fuck.

The last time I got so worked up was when Vera’s body was retrieved after the accident, and I was asked to identify it so I could claim her and bring her home.

I still remember the way I stood frozen outside the morgue, not wanting to take another step toward the double doors. The doors that not only represented the way to my daughter but also to the life I was supposed to live after her.

The thought… the thought itself was so painful and heartbreaking and unacceptable that I thought about ending my life.

I just couldn’t bear it, couldn’t carry the weight of seeing my daughter dead.

That beautiful, smart, and lovely girl that I watched growing up—the one who made me a sketch of a stick figure and called it her perfect daddy. The one who would wake up and sit up every time I walked through the main doors of the house. The one who would smile and giggle and laugh at the most absurd things I would do.

It didn’t matter to her that my jokes were bad, my choices were lame, and I didn’t often pick out the best gifts for her birthdays. She accepted everything with a big, bigger, biggest smile on her face.

The smile that I had come to love more than anything.

It’s not like I don’t feel guilty sometimes for falling for Ava—Vera’s best friend.

Trust me, I do, more often than not. But the thought of letting Ava go hurts me just as much as learning that my daughter was no longer a part of this world. It tears something inside me, and I feel like howling with pain in the hope that someone would hear it, in the hope that my girls would come back to me.

And maybe that’s why I lost it when that fucking Beau brought her name to his filthy lips.

The nerve of that man… to even think of something so crude and disgusting makes me want to tear him a new one. It makes me want to just kill him and end this matter right then and there.

Because now I’m more sure than ever that Beau Edwards is behind the mess Ava and her family are facing right now. He’s the only one who could come up with something as disgusting as what happened to Ava. He’s the only one with that kind of sick mentality.

I take a sharp breath and look up at the prison building one more time.

It’s obvious I need to find out how the hell he pulled it off from inside the prison.

He must have someone on the outside. Someone willing to do his bidding. Someone who would make sure Beau is avenged. Or at least someone who shares a similar hatred toward the Monroe family.

I know for a fact that after Beau’s imprisonment, his wife cut all ties with him, and their divorce is almost halfway through. Financially, Beau isn’t capable of hiring a killer or a kidnapper. So he found a molester instead—another sick pervert like him.

I turn around and head to my car. Once I get in, I check my phone and find a few missed calls from a number I never really cared to save. I had it memorized once, and since then it has stayed with me like a murky shadow—something I’m capable of ignoring and moving past, but can’t really delete from my memory.

I call her back.

“So, how did it go?” she asks as soon as she answers the call.

“Bad. Worse than I thought.”

She hums. “I expected that much. The asshole has always made me sick to my stomach.”

I stare at the steering wheel. “But he’s the one, Tina. He’s the one behind this mess. I’m confident.”

I hear a chair moving in the background. “I knew it. The moment I investigated him, I knew this man was up to no good. He’s such a creep, I swear.”

I bite the inside of my cheek. “Now we just have to find out how he pulled it off and make sure he never gets out of that prison cell. I want him nailed for good this time. I want him to spend the rest of his life as miserably as possible.”

“Don’t worry. I’m already digging through his life before and after the imprisonment. I already have so much dirt on him, but I’ll keep looking. I’ll call you once I have something big.”

I nod and end the call.

I sigh into my chest and let my back drop against the car seat, wanting to take a moment to calm myself down.

I can’t go home looking like this. I can’t let Ava see this dark and ugly side of mine.

Not until she’s ready for it.