The laughter of children echoed around him. Juice stared forward. His nephew was somewhere in the wooden ship in front of him, but his thoughts had wandered to sadder places; to a silent fantasy where his little girl climbed foot bridges and Dana was following her, laughing. And he was watching them from below with a pounding heart, scared to death that Tabitha would somehow fall.
A squeeze in his knee dragged him back to reality. Like every time after such a daydream, disappointment was washing over him when he realized that it wasn't Dana who was sitting next to him, but Lotte.
He loved her – he really did.
But not like he had loved Dana – like he still loved Dana. He enjoyed being with Lotte, she always calmed him down. But they never laughed until the tears were running down their cheeks. They never talked until the sun came up. Her touches didn't set his skin on fire, her kisses didn't make him forget about everything, her laughter didn't reach the depths of his soul.
She was more than a good friend, but she wasn't his soulmate. She wasn't Dana.
He knew he had to let go of it; he had to stop comparing them all the time. But he couldn't help it. Every time he was enjoying something, he thought of how much more he would have enjoyed it if Dana had been with him. Every time when Lotte was holding him in her arms when he was having a rough time, he wished that it was Dana who was holding him. Those longings just didn't go away. He was really trying and there were days he was genuinely happy about their relationship, being able to see all the steps he had taken the past months – but the day after everything crumbled down again, giving him the feeling that he was running and running without his destination coming closer.
"Your mind is racing again," Lotte said softly.
Juice took a deep breath and nodded. His eyes searched for Mikey and he found the boy on a stairs. When he reached the platform, he turned to another boy and chatted to him; as it seemed he had found a friend at the playground.
Her hand glided in his and she rested her head against his shoulder. "You think you ever want another kid?"
Juice felt his muscles tense; a tightening feeling arose in his chest.
"I don't mean now," she said softly. "Just... ever. I get it if you don't."
"But you do want a child," he understood. Actually, he had never thought about it. Tabitha had neither been planned, although Dana and he had talked about kids.
Her staring at the floor confirmed his words. If he didn't want another child – did that mean that she would leave him? If it was her desire to have a child, he didn't want to stand in her way. But a kid with him? Although Dana had told him that he shouldn't let Maddox control his life, he didn't want to lose something so precious again. He was already worrying about his nephew, afraid that Maddox would hurt him. But having a child of his own... he was way too scared to lose it again.
"Maybe when he's dead," Juice muttered. "Or when it's been years since I've heard from him."
But the first option would mean that Dana would return – and the second that she was probably dead.
He swallowed. "I get it if you don't want to wait for me. I already have such a big influence on your life, I don't wanna be the one who destroys your dream just because I can't control my fear."
His phone went off, and he gave Lotte an apologetic glance. "Yeah?"
"Are you home?" Jax asked. "We got new intel."
"About – about Dana?" he asked breathlessly.
"Yeah, about Maddox's activities."
Immediately Juice jumped up. New energy flew through his veins. "Mikey!" he yelled. "We're leaving!"
Lotte looked at him with wide eyes. "What's going on?"
"Maddox. They have something on Maddox."
. . .
Until deep into the night Juice was working on his laptop. Lotte had already gone to bed. He knew it was better to continue next morning, but he just couldn't turn away from the screen. Finally he was able to do something. Finally they knew something.
Maddox earned his money within the sex industry. He was trading girls, Happy told Kozik. And so Juice hacked into different police databases, making a list of all the women between 18 and 30 who had gone missing the past two years – assuming they would make the most money. By reading witness accounts and combining the places where they were last seen, he hoped to discover a pattern. Maddox had to find those girls somewhere... As soon as he knew more details, he would dive into the dark web and find some contact information. Maybe he could pretend to try to sell a girl and find a way into that sick world.
His eyes glided down the list of names and widened at the name Bakker. Lotte's surname. Since her father was Dutch, it was a very uncommon name. He opened the file, his hands suddenly feeling clammy. This had to be a coincidence, right?
As soon as he saw the picture of the blond haired girl, he froze to the bone. That had to be Lotte's sister. They looked a lot like each other. He dug deeper into it, searching for her family members and discovered that she indeed had an older sister. Anne Lotte Bakker. It was right there.
For at least five minutes Juice stared at the screen, trying to understand what he was seeing. She had never said a word about a missing sister, she...
Then the realization hit him like a truck.
Maddox had taken her sister.
All this time she had known how Maddox earned his money; how they could find him. And all this time she had pretended to love him, to...
With a growl he jumped up, pushing over the table so it tilted and hit the floor. His laptop fell down on the floor as well.
Juice didn't care. All he felt, was an intense anger blazing through his body because the girl he had finally opened up to had betrayed him.
She didn't give a shit about him. She was employed by the man who had destroyed his life.