“No. Actually, wait, when we first got into Finland my dad asked to borrow mine to call Mom. He said his phone needed to charge.”

I tapped on the incorrect number listed in the contact entry for me and changed it back to what it was supposed to be. “The number is wrong in here,” I confirmed for him. Then, once I had it changed back, I clicked on it so that it called my phone and it worked again.

“Son of a bitch!” Tucker hissed. “Why in the hell would he do that?”

“Maybe your dad thought you would take one for the team too, and raise his baby for him if Venla refused to do anything else about it?” I shrugged my shoulders as I put his phone back on the table. “If I wasn’t in the picture, it would be easier to get you to agree to something like that and your mom wouldn’t have to know.”

“The hits just keep on coming,” he whispered. Tucker tried to move to a more comfortable position but groaned and gave up. I sat there, by his side, waiting and finally he glanced back up at me. “You want me to finish now?”

I nodded my head. “If you’re in too much pain, it can wait.”

Tucker shook his head. “No, they have me on this pump,” he explained as he pushed a button. “The pain meds will kick in soon, so I’ll try to get as much out as I can before that happens.” I sat there and listened as he started telling me what happened while he was gone. “The next day, I went to the factory to go find Dad, get things figured out about what kept going wrong there, and to try to convince him to do the right thing - if it was truly his kid - so that I could get back home to you.”

“So, they ambushed you at the factory?”

“Pretty much. I left Wes behind because I knew my dad and I were about to have it out and it’s one thing to tell my friend about shit that happens in the family, but it’s another to give him front row seats to the drama. It’s embarrassing. Anyway, I went alone. Wes stayed back at the hotel, and when I got to the factory, I think my dad was already gone. He had been stabbed several times. He was just lying there in a pool of his own blood and vomit. That’s how I knew he couldn’t have gone quickly. He threw up at some point, Mina. He must have suffered so much. I know he was an asshole, cheated on my mother, and maybe even knocked up my ex-girlfriend, but none of that makes torture okay.”

“You’re right, it doesn’t. I’m so sorry you had to see him like that.”

Tucker shook his head. “I didn’t. That’s what they told me about afterward, it was in the crime scene images I saw. I went into the factory offices, calling for my father. I saw some blood on the floor, that’s all I saw. He had fallen over behind his desk and I didn’t get a chance to look before someone was stabbing me in the back.”