Vengeance was a drug I main-lined the night I tracked down that bastard. Revenge was the high I rode when I removed him from this fucking earth.

Love is what made it all make sense. When it came to my girls and my love for them, any rules I had about how and why I do the things I do were thrown out the window.

Our love had no rules.

What I did to Owen made me realize that there was a reason I was put on the planet exactly how I was, how I am.

To protect my family.

SEVEN

The meeting with my lawyer went as well as could be expected for someone being charged with first-degree murder.

Henry Allbright, one of the only competent lawyers within ten miles of Coral Pines, had informed me that there was a witness to the crime.

Of sorts.

A gator.

A mother fucking alligator.

All these years doing god knows what to god knows fucking who and I was going down partially because a fucking lizard had to go and get caught before it had the chance to properly digest its midnight snack of Owen Fletcher parts.

The guy who'd caught it was quite surprised to find a hand minus a few fingers in the belly of the beast he was gutting.

Impressive feat for the gator.

Damning for me.

The surveillance footage from the marina cameras across the street from the boathouse where I'd caught up to Owen, showed him entering the building, then me following him in shortly after.

But that wasn't the damning part.

The damning part was me, emerging hours later.

Two black garbage blanks slung over my back.

The camera never picked up Owen leaving, but what it did pick up was the license plate on my bike.

After the FBI identified Owen from his dental records and learned he'd shot my daughter just a few days before his 'alleged' (their words, not mine) death, they had a clear motive along with enough evidence, albeit circumstantial, to end me.

They had half of Coral Pines lined up as witnesses ready to testify that Owen and I had our share of public scuffles in the past.

The case was wrapped up neat and tied in a mother fucking bow, they had me by the balls.

The judge denied bail.

The question was, if they had all this evidence for a year, why did it take them so long to arrest me? Why would they sit on this for so long before making their move?

This wasn't the Coral Pines Sheriff’s Department stumbling their way through an investigation. This was the motherfucking FBI. There was no reason for the delay in my arrest that made any sort of sense to me and that wasn’t the only thought keeping me up at night.

I couldn't sleep in jail. I hadn't slept a single night without Bee for over a year and was beginning to wonder if I was ever going to be able to sleep again.

Just a few nights earlier, I was fast asleep in the king sized bed I shared with my wife. My arms wrapped tightly around her, not an inch between us as I held her tightly to my chest. Her steady breathing was a constant reminder that she was there with me and wasn't going anywhere.

A shift on the mattress woke me, and I instantly sat up straight on full alert, only to find my daughter slowly crawling up from the foot of the bed.

"What's the matter, baby?" I'd asked, making space so Georgia could snuggle between me and Abby. Abby turned over onto her side, but didn't wake up.

"I dreamed bad dreams, Daddy," Georgia said, rubbing her eyes, her stuffed rabbit in the crook of her arm. I pulled the covers over us and she rested her head against my chest.

"They're only dreams, Gee. Daddy would never let anything or anyone ever hurt you," I said, brushing the curls from her eyes.

"Pinky promise?" she whispered, extending her pinky to me.

"Pinky promise," I repeated, hooking my pinky with hers. And I meant it. There was no way I was ever going to let anything happen to my little girl. My fighter. My survivor.

When Bee and I had sex for the very first time, I'd used a condom, but I was so wrapped up in Abby that I'd fallen asleep inside her, afraid to pull out like she would disappear if I did, rendering that little piece of rubber virtually useless.

It's the only time in my life I could look back on and be thankful for my stupidity.

Georgia was in the first moments of creation when Abby was brutalized by Owen, but somehow, through all that violence, our daughter had held on tight and didn't let go.

She grew big and strong inside my wife.

Abby says Georgia was born with a set of lungs that would scare the devil straight.

How appropriate.

Even though I didn't meet her until she was three years old, for the second time in my life, it was love at first sight.