Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 70801 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 354(@200wpm)___ 283(@250wpm)___ 236(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70801 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 354(@200wpm)___ 283(@250wpm)___ 236(@300wpm)
Ozzy’s voice is careful. “It was your father.”
The world tilts. My stomach drops so fast I feel nauseous. I’m going to puke. Seriously. I blink a few times, breathing through my nose to steer the nausea away. “My… father?” I whisper.
Ozzy nods once, slowly. “Yeah.”
I stare at him, waiting for my brain to make sense of the word.
Father.
You’ve got to be kidding me. The man’s a ghost. He was never around. He’s just a space my mother filled with silence and disdain and the occasional drunken rant about “men who leave.”
I swallow. “I don’t—” My voice breaks. “I don’t have a father.”
Ozzy’s expression softens. “You do.” The words hit me like a punch in the chest.
I pull my hand back instinctively, pressing it to my sternum like I can hold myself together physically. “How?” I whisper. “How would he even know where I was?”
Ozzy shakes his head. “We don’t know yet. Dean’s team is looking into it.”
My mind races. If my father knew I’d been taken… how? Did my mother tell him? Did Carl? Did he see something online? Did he—did he care? Questions pile up so fast I can’t catch any of them. “What’s his name?” I ask, voice tight.
Ozzy hesitates just long enough for me to feel the weight of it. Then he says it.
Arthur Charles.
It means nothing to me. I blink. “I’ve never heard of him.”
Ozzy nods like he expected that. “Yeah.”
My chest aches. “Why would he—” I shake my head, trying to force the thoughts into a line. “Why would he want me rescued if he never… if he never contacted me? If he knew he had a daughter, why didn’t he—” My voice breaks again, anger and hurt tangling together.
Ozzy moves fast, sliding closer, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me against his chest.
I resist for half a heartbeat out of pride. Then I crumble into him because I’m so tired of holding myself alone.
Ozzy’s hand cups the back of my head. “I don’t know, Salem.”
My voice is muffled against his skin. “This is so messed up.”
“I know,” he murmurs.
I swallow hard, blinking against the sting in my eyes. “So my mother is on vacation, and my father—my father exists, apparently—and I’m just… I’m just finding out now?”
Ozzy holds me tighter. “I’m sorry.”
I lift my head, eyes burning. “Is he… is he a good person?”
Ozzy’s expression turns unreadable. “I don’t know yet.” That’s the worst answer. Because it leaves room for anything. And my life has taught me not to hope. Hope is just the first step toward humiliation. But still, something in my chest—tiny and stubborn—wants to believe this man didn’t rescue me for selfish reasons.
That he didn’t pay to save me out of guilt or fear or image. That he paid because he wanted me alive.
I whisper, “Can I talk to him?”
Ozzy’s face tightens.
My stomach sinks before he even speaks.
Ozzy’s voice is quiet. “That’s the thing.”
I go still. “What thing?”
“We can’t reach him,” Ozzy says. “Dean’s been trying. No answer. No response.”
My throat tightens. “Maybe he’s busy.”
Ozzy’s eyes hold mine, steady and grim. “Maybe.”
My voice shakes. “What do you mean maybe?”
Ozzy exhales slowly. “He might be missing.”
The air leaves my lungs. Or worse, my brain supplies, because my brain is cruel.
Ozzy doesn’t say it aloud, but his eyes do. He might be dead. Something cold and focused clicks into place inside me.
I sit up abruptly, the blanket falling to my lap. My hands shake, but my voice comes out sharp. “Then we need to find him.”
Ozzy’s brows lift. “Salem—”
“No,” I say, cutting him off, surprising even myself. “If he hired you—if he paid to get me out—he knows something. He has to. He had to know where I was, or who took me, or how to reach Maddox Security. He knows something.”
Ozzy watches me like he’s measuring the steel in my spine.
My voice steadies. “I’m done being the girl bad things happen to. If my father is real and he’s missing, then we find him.”
Ozzy’s gaze darkens, something proud and protective flaring. “You don’t even know him.”
“Exactly,” I snap. “And somehow he’s still the only one who tried to save me.” The words hang there. They’re heavy.
Ozzy’s jaw clenches, anger flickering. “Yeah.”
I swallow, forcing the tremor out of my voice. “I want answers.”
Ozzy reaches out and cups my face gently, thumb brushing under my eye like he’s wiping away a tear I didn’t realize escaped. “We’ll figure it out,” he murmurs. “Together.”
I blink hard. “Promise?”
Ozzy’s eyes lock on mine, steady as stone. “Promise.”
Promises are dangerous. But Ozzy doesn’t make them lightly.
I lean into his hand, letting myself breathe. Then I nod. “Okay,” I whisper. “Then let’s find him.”
Ozzy’s mouth softens, and he pulls me back into his arms—tight, protective, like he’s holding me together while my entire history rearranges itself. And I let him. Because for the first time in my life, the future doesn’t feel like a closed door.