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When shit went down in my own office, there was no one who knew what was going on better than me.

I’d been in this office for nearly my entire adult life. First as a volunteer when I was just a kid, then as an adult with my first job out of the military.

When the vibe in the office changed, and I was actually in the office at the time, I knew.

I didn’t know what I expected to find as I drove to the location of where my two cruisers had gone to—which just so happened to be Jessamy’s house—but finding my ex-wife there was at the very bottom of that list.

I got out, fury pulsing in my every heartbeat, and walked toward the deputies, my ex-wife, and Jessamy.

Jessamy was on the other side of the gate, arms crossed, looking wary.

Not at my ex-wife, though.

At me.

She knew who this woman was.

I wasn’t sure how—she’d been young as hell when Marcia and me were through—but she did.

I didn’t waste time with pleasantries, though.

“Where…the fuck…is my daughter?”

Marcia stiffened.

Dempsey and Gentry backed up, giving us room.

Though Gentry did it in a way that he could put himself between my ex-wife and me if things went sour.

In that moment, I was not the sheriff of Jesper County. I was a dad who’d been missing his little girl, and the reason she’d been missing for eleven fucking years was standing right in front of me.

“You don’t deserve to know the answer to that question.” She bared her crooked teeth at me. I was so close to her that I could see the plaque buildup between them. “You disgusting excuse for a human being.”

Me. Disgusting.

With her teeth looking like that.

When was the last time she fucking brushed? Or picked up a goddamn flosser?

I blinked. “I’m a disgusting excuse for a human being? Why? What have I ever done?”

And how could you say something like that when you literally stole my daughter, I wanted to yell.

“You fucked my high school nemesis is what you’ve done,” she hissed, pointing a finger at me. “And now you’re fucking her daughter!”

The utter absurdity of her words was astounding.

I crossed my arms. “First off, I was never unfaithful to you in the entirety of our marriage. Second, I never slept with your high school nemesis. I knew how you felt about Jessamy’s mother—though I didn’t feel like her taking your boyfriend in high school was enough to have you hateful of her for the entirety of your life—and I never would’ve betrayed you in that way. Especially not with her. Third, I’ve been with Jessamy for a total of three weeks. She’s an adult.”

“She’s closer to our kid’s age than ours,” Marcia countered.

That only had me even more angry.

“The same kid that I know nothing about because you stole her from me?” I asked. “The one that was literally the light of my life, that you stole? The one that I missed out on her first date? The one that I missed out on watching graduate? The one that I missed helping her with math homework, and science projects? That one?”

Marcia snapped her mouth shut.

“I spent exactly nine hundred thousand dollars trying to find her.” I clenched my fists so hard my knuckles cracked. “I have zero money in my 401K because I’ve spent my entire life savings on every available resource to get even just a hint of her name on the wind. You stole eleven years of her life from me. Eleven. And you want to sit here and play victim?” I laughed, and it wasn’t a pretty laugh. “Why the fuck are you even here?”