Damaged Doll (The Beth Series Book 2) by Jennifer Bene

Author:Jennifer Bene [Bene, Jennifer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781946722645
Published: 2022-07-11T18:30:00+00:00

THIRTEEN

Jake

Beth was eerily quiet, and he was pretty sure she was in shock. Hell, he’d promised her just that morning that he’d find the bastards coming for her, and now he was back on the same damn day to rip her away from her parents. All because he couldn’t keep the promise.

“Honey, please don’t go, please,” her mom begged, tear-streaked and barely able to stand. Her husband had his arm around her, helping to hold her upright as she pleaded with Beth. “I can’t lose you again. I can’t, baby. I love you so much, please stay.”

Fuck. It was like a knife to the gut every time the woman sobbed. He’d been around plenty of sobbing mothers in his line of work, but he’d never been the reason they were crying before. For the first time he wasn’t there to try and return a missing person — he was there to take one away.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” Beth whispered, and Jake couldn’t even remember how many times she’d said the phrase.

“Bill, you can’t be okay with this! You can’t let them take her!” Mrs. Doherty was swinging back to anger, turning to grab onto her husband’s shirt as she shifted her focus onto him. “She’s our baby! We already lost her once!”

“I know, Tanya, but this is what they do. They can protect—”

“No!” Beth’s mom shouted, shoving her husband away as she turned back to her daughter. “Don’t listen to them, sweetheart. You don’t need to leave. We can keep you safe here! We’ll call the police, and they’ll—”

“Mrs. Doherty, I already explained that the police won’t do anything,” Asaf interrupted, and as usual Jake was impressed by how calm and collected the man could be while still sounding so empathetic. “There’s no evidence, no threat to show them. If there was a way to guarantee all of your safety here, we would absolutely make that our first goal.”

“You’re not taking my daughter!” she screamed, but the anger faded back into sobs as her husband stepped forward and supported her once more, wrapping his wife in his arms as he whispered in her ear.

“I’m really sorry, Mom. I love you,” Beth said, her voice still too soft, too calm. “I love both of you, and I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“I can’t let you go again. I can’t let you leave.” Mrs. Doherty slid to the floor and her husband followed her down, cradling her while she reached for Beth’s legs, holding onto her yoga pants as she sobbed. “Please don’t do this, baby girl. Don’t leave. I would die before I’d let anything happen to you! I swear to you I won’t let anyone get near you or hurt you. Not again. Not ever again.”

“Mom, I know.” Slipping to her knees, Beth ended up in a mirror image of her mother, their knees touching as she held onto her mom’s hands. “I know you would try to protect me. I know you and Dad would both die to keep me safe — but I couldn’t live with that.

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