CHAPTER 12
Her eyes sparkled with hope. Lupita bought all sorts of knives and began training me on how to use them. Within just two weeks, I became the finest knife woman she had ever trained.
The very next day after work, she bought me a sniper rifle. We drove to a nearby shooting range and fired several rounds. For someone who had never handled a rifle before, I was frighteningly good.
I became a sharpshooter.
Two in one—
a sniper and a knife woman.
For the first time, I felt it: focus, precision, control. A spark of power I hadn't known I still possessed. My hands, once weak and trembling, now held purpose. The road ahead would be bloody, but I was ready
I thrived with every blade and every gun placed in my hands. There wasn't a knife I couldn't control or a weapon I couldn't learn. Yet when it came to the one thing that mattered most—my son—I was a complete failure.
I went back to Taylor's house, hoping Jordan would finally listen to me. But Jordan trusted that excuse of a man he called a father far too much.
I returned home feeling hollow, like a shadow of the woman I once was.
Some days I rode my horse for hours, letting the wind whip against my face until my thoughts went numb. Other days I went hunting, returning with a deer or a warthog slung over the saddle.
But nothing eased the pain.
My son's resentment cut deeper than any blade I had ever held. The child I had brought into this world carried so much hatred toward me. As a mother, it felt like my veins were being slowly sealed shut.
Still… I refused to let that pain stand in the way of my revenge.
I believed that if I was ever going to move forward from my terrifying past, I had to destroy the people who had violated my life.
It was time.
Time to put everything together.
Time to end it all.
I approached the ladies and told them I was ready to take down everyone who had hurt me. As far as we knew, the Atkinsons were still in the UK. If we wanted the twins, we had to go there.
We arranged our visas and boarded a flight.
Economy class.
We didn't have money to waste on luxuries.
When we landed safely, we booked a room at a modest hotel and rested for the night. The next morning, the hunt began.
Marissa and I drove to Hertfordshire to see if the Atkinsons still lived there.
The large white house I once knew was abandoned. Tall grass swallowed the yard, and dirt and neglect surrounded the place like a silent graveyard.
I walked through the long grass, trying to remember where I had buried my mother.
After searching for a while, I finally saw it—the stone I had placed there years ago.
I knelt down slowly.
My chest tightened as tears threatened to spill. I wanted to tell her everything—about the prison, about Jordan, about the war I was preparing to fight. But time was not on my side.
We asked around the neighborhood, but no one knew where the family had gone.
When we returned to the hotel, Marissa told the others she could track them down if she had their names.
I gave her one: Madeline Gold Atkinson.
It was the only middle name I remembered.
After hours of digging through digital trails, she found something—a location where Madeline had recently used her credit card.
Still in Hertfordshire.
Meaning she had never left.
I went out to investigate the ATM she had used. After asking around, someone directed me to a nearby filming location where a commercial shoot was taking place.
Madeline was the model.
I stood quietly and waited for the shoot to finish. When it ended, she was wiping sweat from her skin with a towel.
Then she saw me.
For a second, her eyes widened.
She threw the towel aside and ran toward me.
Before I could even react, she wrapped her arms around me.
I was stunned that she recognized me.
I hugged her back. She smelled of lavender and smoky wood. Madeline had always been the only person in that house who never treated me like I was less than human. She never cared about my skin color.
We sat down at a table nearby, and she ordered coffee for us.
She had grown into a beautiful, chubby woman. Her blue eyes still carried that same tenderness I remembered.
She complimented my looks. I was—and still am—a fine woman.
We talked about the past. She admitted her parents hadn't cared much after my disappearance.
I asked her why the house had been abandoned.
Her parents had taken a large loan from the bank and couldn't repay it. The house had been seized.
Then I asked where they were now.
Her eyes dropped immediately.
She didn't need to say anything. I already understood. But she told me anyway.
Her father had suffered from diabetes and kidney failure. They couldn't afford a transplant, and he eventually died.
Her mother…
Well, I had always suspected something was wrong with her mind. No sane person could hate someone so deeply simply because of the color of their skin.
She had become addicted to cocaine.
One overdose ended her life.
Madeline herself was married and living in Australia, with two children.
When she asked about my life, I lied.
I told her I worked at a hotel and that I was married—with no children.
She wasn't married yet.
But none of that mattered to me. Those weren't the people I had come to find.
Finally, I asked about the twins.
The monsters.
She smiled while telling me they had moved to America.
Rudolph had become a successful man. A family man. A wife and a daughter.
Rufus, however, was the opposite of his brother.
A chronic drunk. A gambler.
A parasite living off the allowance Rudolph gave him.
That was all I needed to hear.
Minutes after she finished speaking, I said my goodbyes and returned to the hotel.