Losing Hope | {BOOK 4}

2| Lester

I sat behind the wheel of some car I'd hijacked, driving along a rain-soaked highway in the dark. Beside me, my phone started to ring, Dean's name flashing on the screen. Reaching over, I picked it up and stared for a second before answering it.

"I left you an open tab at the bar. Knock yourself out."

"Well, hell, I might just take you up on that," a foreign voice answered.

"And who is this?"

"Me? Well, I'm karma, sister."

"On my husband's phone?"

"On your husband's phone," the man echoed.

"Is he dead?" I asked, not caring either way.

"No. Not yet," he replied. "And as long as you show up where I tell you to show up, your husband will be just fine."

"And how do I know he's still alive?"

"Speak," the man said, sounding a bit fainter.

There was no response, and then the sound of a punch being thrown and the tell-tale grunt of Dean's voice.

"Aah!"

"Proof of life," the mystery man said, sounding closer to the phone.

"Ellie!" Dean yelled in the background.

"Got a pen?" the man asked.

"No," I snarled, "you listen to me. There's no trade. There's no meet up. There's no nothing- except the one-hundred percent guarantee that, somewhere down the road, I will find you, and I will kill you."

"Well, that will be a cold comfort to your dead husband."

"I told him to let me go. So whatever jam he's in now, that is his problem."

"Yeah, well, I'll be sure to pass that on to him while I'm slitting his throat."

"Yeah, you do that, 'cause he knows me. And he knows damn sure that if I'm one thing, I'm a woman of my word."

I hung up the phone without letting him get in another word.

⁘

I made a stop in Kill Deer, North Dakota where I proceeded to get in a bar fight and knocked out one of the bouncers before leaving. As I stepped out of the bar, a couple teenage boys ran past me, one of them bumping into me.

"Move, grandma," he said.

"Kids, am I right?" a familiar voice asked as the boys continued down the sidewalk. "In my day, we respected our elders. Of course, back then, anyone over 30 was ancient. Now 40-year-olds are still living with Mommy, lying on OKCupid, and taking pictures of their food."

"What do you want, Crowley?" I snarled, not looking at him.

"A chat," he replied. "We need to talk about your... anger management issues."

Rolling my eyes, I followed him to another bar where we could talk without any problems.

"Two shots here. And he'll have something fancy, with your tiniest umbrella," I ordered from the bartender.

"So... How you been feeling? On edge? Pent up? Unfulfilled?"

"You sound like a Viagra commercial," I quipped. "You know that, right?"

"I'm talking about the Mark," Crowley huffed in frustration. "It changed you."

"I've noticed," I smirked, flashing my black eyes.