Can two broken men build one life? Ten years. That’s what Makai lost for a crime he didn’t commit. He’s been exonerated, but the abuse he suffered in prison isn’t so easy to leave behind. He heads to the one place he remembers being happy: Acker, Wisconsin, where he spent summers with his grandpa. Unfortunately, not everyone wants Makai there. Ten days. That’s how long Emil, now twenty-one, was held prisoner as a teenager. The mental and physical injuries he suffered at the hands of a drug trafficking ring still haunt him. Nightmares, anxiety, and PTSD challenge the connection forming between Makai and Emil, though together, they might find a way to move beyond their pain and into a future -- and a relationship -- that both had thought impossible. Now they just have to convince Emil’s father, the town sheriff. It won’t be easy with danger closer than they know ...

Emil swallowed hard, and his knobby fingers started to twiddle with Mouse’s ears. She let him do whatever he pleased, it seemed. Makai wondered if it was possible she knew how hard this was for Emil.


“It was one of the henchmen, I guess. They knocked me out in the van, so I wouldn’t scream. They… they had me for ten days. Before the FBI found me.”


“Oh yeah. It was a whole mess of FBI and DEA by then, with all the local forces and townspeople from here and Mercer trying to find me.” Emil smiled in a self-deprecating way that made Makai’s heart hurt.


“Do you want anything to drink?” Makai needed to have something in his hands to fiddle with. The label of a beer bottle seemed like a good option right then


“I’m having a beer. If I’m gonna talk about this stuff, I need a drink.” Makai hoped his tone sounded better to Emil than it did to himself. Fucking PTSD.


Chapter 40