Cold Spite (Cold Justice: Most Wanted #5)

Chapter 18

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

S canlon stood beside a little bird of a social worker whose neck he could snap with his fingers. The woman who’d vowed to love him until death-did-them-part pushed through the doors and walked towards him, fat with another man’s bastard.

The fucker, Preston , stopped twenty feet away, arms crossed over his polo-shirt-clad chest, pretending he wasn’t shitting his pants.

Scanlon moved his lips into a smile as his daughter looked up at him with big blue eyes that were eerily similar to the ones he saw in the mirror every day. If it weren’t for the fact she looked so much like him, he might have questioned the kid’s legitimacy, given he’d been deployed for most of his wife’s pregnancy. As it was, there was no doubt as to her parentage.

“Melody.” He held out his arms and frowned when the girl pressed back against her mother’s legs. She’d been two the last time he’d seen her, but he was her father. She shouldn’t be scared of her own blood. He had no reason to hurt her.

Nicole squeezed her daughter’s shoulders. “It’s okay, honey. This is your father. You remember him, don’t you?”

The little girl shook her head from side to side so fast her hair got caught in her eyes. She held her mother’s hand and twisted to press her face into Nicole’s groin, a place he’d spent a lot of time in back in the day. He bet Preston didn’t go down on Nicole nearly often enough for her liking.

Nicole frowned at him. “What happened to your face?”

He touched the healed scar. “Someone tried to knife me in prison.”

“You look just like Virgil.” She shuddered.

His twin had always unnerved Nicole. He unnerved most people. “Yeah, he thinks it’s pretty funny.”

The kid tried to pull away back toward the door, but Nicole held onto her and scolded her. “Enough of this nonsense, Melody. You know who this is.” This new prim version of Nicole looked embarrassed by her daughter’s behavior. “She has a picture of you in your dress whites in her room.” Which was hardly the same as seeing her daddy in the flesh. He’d repeatedly asked Nicole to bring her to visit him, but she’d refused, saying prison was no place for a child.

More likely it was too much trouble to make the journey.

He understood. It was a choice. Everyone got to make choices, even people who were incarcerated.

Nicole crouched down and gave Melody a quick hug and then turned the kid back around to face him.

“Sorry. She’s a bit out of sorts. We sprang this on her on the way over. I didn’t want to give her too much time to object.”

Melody’s bottom jaw thrust out in mutiny.

Oh, yeah, she was a Scanlon all right.

“We’ll be back in a couple of hours, honey.” She looked at the social worker, who nodded, and then pried Melody’s hand from her own.

“Be good, baby.” Nicole’s eyes begged. “Your father just wants to spend a little time with you.”

Preston uncrossed his arms and shifted impatiently.

“Sorry.” Nicole backed away.

God, she was pathetic.

His wife had ditched his ass as soon as he’d been found guilty. She’d told him after he’d been sentenced that she’d barely gotten through deployments. There was no way she could wait seven years for him to get out of prison. So much for honoring. So much for obeying.

She’d moved back to her hometown to be closer to her bitch mother, and then she’d met “ Preston .”

He’d never beaten her. Never given her a slap even though she’d sometimes deserved one. He might not have been completely faithful, but that was a man’s nature. Spread his genes far and wide.

If he’d wanted her back, he figured it wouldn’t take much. Nicole liked sex. A bit of flattery, some practiced charm, the right timing, she’d be flat on her back, begging for his cock to plow her like the good ol’ days.

But he didn’t want her no more.

She repulsed him.

Even if she hadn’t been carrying someone else’s bastard, she’d lost all her appeal. The day she’d left him, she’d ceased to be anything except for an insult to his pride and caretaker of his child.

He watched the couple push out through the doors and climb into a silver Lexus. They drove away.

He lowered his gaze back to the girl who looked resentful and a little scared.

He held out a huge pink teddy bear, and she took it tentatively.

He turned to the social worker. “Can I take her for ice cream?”

“It’s February.”

“I want ice cream,” Melody stated, sticking her bottom lip out to match her jaw.

The woman shook her head. “Visitation has to be here?—”

“I thought it just had to be supervised.”

The woman’s lips compressed like she’d sucked on a lemon.

“You could join us. I’m buying.” He gave her a smile, careful to crinkle the corners of his eyes .

The social worker looked uncertain. “We have a room assigned for you and your daughter to get reacquainted.”

He tilted his head. “You know this isn’t a mandatory supervision order, correct?”

She looked startled by that. “Yes.”

“I volunteered for this to speed up the process because I am keen to get to know my daughter again.”

Melody looked at him sharply.

“I’m aware of the circumstances, Mr. Scanlon,” the social worker said quietly.

He waited.

Finally, she relented. “We can go to an ice cream parlor a couple of blocks away, but after that we need to come back to the center. Let me tell the receptionist and grab my coat.”

The woman left him and Melody in the foyer staring at one another uncertainly. Then Melody smiled.