Aequitas by Hope Anika (best classic books of all time .txt) 📕

Squeak. Squeak. Squeak.

Honor sighed. The sun was just cresting the horizon, spilling light across the earth toward her as she sipped her coffee and rocked back and forth on the noisy porch swing. The air was crisp and clean from the recent rain, verdant with pine sap, and the birds were celebrating the dawn with piercing songs and sharp, high-pitched cries.

It was Sam and Lucia’s wedding day, and all hell had begun to break loose.

First, tiny red handprints had suddenly and mysteriously appeared all over Lucia’s dress—handprints which smelled suspiciously like cherry Jell-O—and Sam’s tux had somehow ended up in the dryer. The tent—which was supposed to arrive yesterday—had yet to appear (and get set up), and the woman who’d baked the wedding cake had called to say she’d accidently made a lemon cake instead of a chocolate one—which made Ben cry out in horror—and the frosting had, for some unknown reason, turned from pale yellow to bright, neon orange. Because that wasn’t enough, the band was going to be late, Sam’s best man was still two hundred miles away due to a wicked summer storm, and the local Judge who was going to marry them had managed to misplace their vows.

“Ay, yai, yai,” Lucia had proclaimed. “If it was not for bad luck, we would have no luck at all!”

At which point, Sam had laid a kiss on her that made Honor blush and Ben crow.

“Married,” he’d said when they surfaced. “Wife. Nothing else matters.”

And Lucia had flushed and kissed him back, and the hooting and hollering had started all over again.

Sam was happy—wondrously, deliriously happy. Honor hadn’t known it was even possible to be that happy. To see Sam find that…she was so glad for him.

And so jealous.

“Loser,” she muttered and sipped her coffee.

The front door opened, and Ben peeked out at her. All round, dimpled cheeks and gregarious nature, the five-year-old was incredibly extroverted. He was also an incorrigible flirt.

Honor loved him.

“Hi, Auntie Honor,” he said, grinning broadly.

“Hi, Ben.”

He looked around. “I’m s’posed to find Daisy. Did you see her out here?”

“Nope,” she told him. “Sorry.”

“That’s okay.” He gave her a thumb’s up. “Thanks a bunch.”

The door banged against the frame when he ducked back into the house. When it opened immediately again, Honor smiled and shook her head, but it wasn’t Ben who appeared. It was his brother Alexander.

“Hey,” she said, startled.

He only stared at her—a protracted, heavy stare that made her shift in discomfort. Alexander, she’d discovered, was the polar opposite of his brother Ben—somber, unsmiling and withdrawn. His pale green eyes were touched by a hint of frost, and his composure was absolute. In no way, shape or form did he resemble the ten year old boy he was.

Honor knew why; at this point—thanks to her—the whole world knew why. But that didn’t make it any easier to stomach. It just made her angry.

So goddamn unfair.

She hadn’t seen him smile or laugh; he displayed none of Ben’s easy joy. Instead, he watched everyone around him with an odd, chilling intensity, as if waiting for a shoe she couldn’t see to drop. He was protective of his younger brother, and he stuck to Sam like glue.

“It was you,” he said abruptly, his gaze skewering into her. “Wasn’t it?”

She couldn’t pretend not to understand; she owed him more than that. Full circle. Whether she liked it or not. “How did you know?”

“TV,” he said and stared at her. “And you hacked our car.”

Ah, yes, she’d forgotten about that. That Aequitas had been the one to unmask Donovan Cruz by releasing the video footage of him basely abusing his young son was international news, but hacking into a rental Jeep to provide Sam and Lucia with a getaway vehicle had been all her. That the boy had made the connection between the two shouldn’t have surprised her. Alexander Cruz was no dummy.

“I’m sorry,” she told him quietly. Because she’d made a deliberate choice in releasing that video—which exposed Alexander’s horrific tale to the world—and she knew he’d paid as steep a price as Donavan Cruz with its release.

It was something that would follow him always, inescapable and eternal. And for that, she couldn’t apologize enough.

“I thought it was the only way,” she added, a sharp ache piercing her chest. Repercussions. Just an abstract, something that had never penetrated the barriers she dwelled within. But this boy…this afternoon he would become, for all intents and purposes, her nephew. Her nephew. And he might well spend the rest of his life hating her.

Honor couldn’t blame him. But it hurt. Jesus, how it hurt.

“I’m sorry,” she said again.

Alexander only blinked at her, his light, jade green eyes glittering in the sunlight. “Did you kill him?”

Honor swallowed. She looked down at her hands, which were tangled into a cold knot in her lap, and felt the ache bleed into her bones.

Donavon Cruz was not the only death she was responsible for, and she didn’t regret what she’d done, because she knew—she knew—it wasn’t only his sons she’d saved. Cruz had been a predator; in quietly ending his life, she’d saved countless others.

So she couldn’t say she was sorry. But she had turned off the man’s life support. She had killed him. And there were days when that fact clobbered her over the head like a sledgehammer and she felt—if not regret—then certainly the weight of that soul. And then there were days she wished she could do it all over again.

“Sam said he died of his injuries,” Alexander continued, watching her closely. “But I heard the nurse say someone turned him off. Was that you?”

Honor clenched her hands together, lifted her chin and met that pale gaze. “Yes.”

For a long moment, he only stared at her. Then, to her surprise, he moved to sit on the swing beside her. Not touching, but close enough that she took a quiet, gulping breath and tried to not start bawling. Again.

“Is that what you do?” he asked softly. “Kill the monsters?”

“Some of them,” she admitted.

“And what about…their victims? Do you help them?”

“That’s…harder,” she said lamely. “Finding them and freeing them…” That required fieldwork, people and resources she’d never had. “It’s very difficult.”

He frowned, but didn’t argue. “I guess.”

“They’re very well hidden,” she continued, uncertain why she felt the need to defend herself. Actually physically finding the lost children who were the victims of sex and human trafficking was not something she’d ever focused on because she didn’t have the resources.

And because it would have required her to leave behind her bolt holes. To take a risk beyond that which involved a wireless connection and well-hidden server.

Jesus, you are an asshole.

“I’m sorry,” she repeated again.

“Couldn’t you…could you find them?” Alexander watched her without blinking. “I mean, if you wanted to?”

Yes.

A tremor moved through her. Goosebumps washed across her skin, and in her lap, her hands clenched.

Aequitas would ride off into the sunset, nothing more than a digital urban legend. But another could be born. One who went beyond the electronic world.

Into the real one.

Cian would help. Maybe. If she was brave enough to ask him.

To reach out. To try.

“Yes,” she said and turned to look at Alexander. “I think I could.”

He nodded and looked out at the sunrise. “That would be cool.”

Tears massed without warning in her throat, and Honor swallowed hard. She stared at the glowing golden ball of the sun, her heart beating hard in her chest. The thought of doing more was like electricity suddenly discharging inside her, and her brain fired with breathtaking speed, filtering through the logistics and challenges and obstacles. Excitement welled within her, followed by something she’d thought lost only a day ago: hope.

“Just so you know,” Alexander said. “I’m glad he’s dead.”

A tear escaped and rolled down her cheek.

“Ay, yai, yai!” Lucia’s sudden cry through the open window behind them made Honor start. “The flowers—they are all dead!” An avalanche of furious Spanish followed, interspersed by Sam’s quiet murmur. “We are doomed!”

“I can go get flowers,” Honor offered through the window screen.

Sam appeared behind the mesh. “You sure?”

“Of course,” she replied, eager to be given something to do.

“Honor is our guest,” Lucia protested from behind Sam. “She should not have to run our errands.”

“She’s not a guest.” Sam snorted. “She’s family.”

Family. Honor swiped at another tear before it could fall. After she’d left Cian, she’d never felt more alone. But she wasn’t alone. She had Sam…and now she had Lucia and Ben and even Alexander,