Jonny's Redemption (Gemini Group Book 7) by Riley Edwards (audio ebook reader TXT) 📕

Jonny’s Redemption

Gemini Group

Riley Edwards

Jonny’s Redemption

Gemini Group Book 7

Riley Edwards

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Copyright © 2021 Riley Edwards

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Cover design: Lori Jackson Designs

Cover Image by: PAUL HENRY SERRES

Written by: Riley Edwards

Published by: Riley Edwards/Rebels Romance

Edited by: Rebecca Hodgkins

Proofreader: Julie Deaton, Rebecca Kendall

Jonny’s Redemption

eBook ISBN: 978-1-951567-11-8

Print ISBN:978-1-951567-14-9

First edition: February 23, 2021

Copyright © 2021 Riley Edwards

All rights reserved

To my family - my team – my tribe.

This is for you.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Also by Riley Edwards

Be A Rebel

Acknowledgments

1

Lieutenant Jonny Spencer stared down at the dead body.

A life gone too soon.

The man looked like he was sleeping. Not all of them did. It was the ones who didn’t that plagued his dreams.

His gaze went to the letter. Not a suicide note—a confession.

A tale of a woman’s pain. Years of suffering until she could take it no longer. A wife forced to take the law into her own hands.

I failed again.

Protect and serve.

What a goddamned joke.

“Miss Cassie finally snapped,” Johnson, the county coroner, noted. “Surprised it took her so long.”

Jonny wasn’t.

Cassie Hampton had called dozens of times. Jonny himself had been out to this very house over ten times. Domestic disturbance, domestic violence, now murder. Each time Cassie had refused to press charges. She’d call it in, a deputy would come out, Scott would stop whaling on her, and he’d leave to cool down. But Miss Cassie would never press charges, and Scott would leave peacefully only to come back, and a month later, the sheriff’s department would get another call.

Red tape.

So much damn red tape Jonny’s hands were tied. There was nothing he could do if the victim refused to make a report.

Nothing he could do unless the evidence was such the State’s Attorney had an airtight-open-and-shut case.

It didn’t matter that everyone in Cliff City knew Scott Hampton beat the ever-loving hell out of his wife. It didn’t matter every sheriff’s deputy, town cop, and state trooper knew Scott was a wife-beating motherfucker. There was not a damn thing Jonny could do.

And that was the last straw.

Without acknowledging his fellow officers or the coroner’s offhand remark, Jonny left the bedroom.

It wasn’t the stench of body decomp that filled his lungs and made his gut roil. It wasn’t the frantic 911 call from Cassie Hampton declaring her husband dead. It wasn’t even the damn note written in pretty cursive explaining how the woman had poisoned her husband and why. It wasn’t the dead body.

It was all of it.

All. Of. It.

Years of trying his damndest to help but failing.

It was his dead brother.

His dead father.

I’d failed them, too.

It was a good woman who’d been beaten down, who’d after years of abuse did not snap but plotted. And now she’d have to live with what she’d done.

Yeah, Jonny’s gut roiled all the way through the house. Not even when he stepped out on to the porch did the fresh air quell the anger that churned.

And by the time he’d made it to his county-issued SUV he was no less agitated. The drive to the station only made his disturbing thoughts turn into a plan.

“Shit,” Sheriff Baker muttered under his breath when Jonny walked into his office.

Jonny Spencer didn’t sit, he also didn’t speak.

Baker was smart, he knew what was coming.

“Anything I can do to change your mind?” Baker asked.

“No.”

“The county can’t afford to lose more, Spencer. Think on that before you do this.”

Baker was wrong.

Kent County had recovered after the last sheriff had tormented the citizens he’d sworn to protect. No one was happier to see Sheriff Richard Dillinger go down than Jonny was. He’d spent a long time working for the dirty sheriff trying to get his department clear of the filth that sat in the chair that Baker now had.

Jonny didn’t raise the taunt.

“I wish you’d reconsider,” Baker went on.

There was a beat of silence before Baker shook his head and closed his eyes.

“I quit.”

And with that, Jonny left.

The pain in his chest didn’t subside.

It never would.

2

“What are you gonna do about Jonny Spencer?”

The question came out of the blue.

Well, sort of. I had a feeling Miss Lola had been plotting her sneak attack since I’d arrived. I was actually impressed she’d made it all the way through lunch, me cleaning her kitchen, and us retiring to her front porch before she went for it.

“Miss Lola,” I started, but got no further.

“Don’t Miss Lola me, child.”

I kept my eyes on the empty street in front of me and smiled.

Lola Lane was a kick in the pants. I’d fallen in love with the old woman the first time I’d met her. The mother I never had. But she wasn’t mine, she was my friend, Kennedy’s mom.

“Bobby,” she prompted.

“I’m not going to do anything about Jonny.”

My statement made my heart throb. I wanted to do something about Jonny. But the stubborn man didn’t want anything to do with me. No, that was untrue. He did want something, but he was too damn pig-headed to act on it. And over the years I’d known him, he’d had plenty of opportunities. There had been a time right after Holden and Charleigh had gotten back together I thought he’d take his shot. Then a case he’d been working on turned to