The three of us decided that on Saturday, Patty would sign the paperwork, and our lives would change forever in seven days.
10
Patty
I was excited to be out of the palace with my friends. Kat, Jessica, and I were at my favorite coffee shop even though I couldn’t drink the dark roast. I sipped herbal tea while my sister downed another iced coffee.
“I’m going to have to ship this roast home,” Kat said between sips of her own coffee.
All the men were building Kinley an obstacle course. My little girl couldn’t stop talking about how she was going to crawl under barbwire.
“It’s the hardest thing I had to give up since being pregnant.” That morning, I’d gotten the doctor's okay to leave the palace but was told to not overexert myself. I’d had a rough couple of days, not getting to leave the bedroom after everyone showed up.
This was my day with my sister and friends before everything changed. The paperwork from the lawyers was done. I’d be signing it to shift power to me. It was only a matter of coordination. Everything would be in place before the wedding.
Carl had disappeared, and nobody could find him. I knew he had to be planning something huge, especially since both of his kids were in jail.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Jessica asked, handing me a muffin on the tray. “I’m sure we can figure out another way for everything to work out. I know there is a list of our brothers and sisters. God, Dad slept around a lot. I’m not sure why he never seemed to use a condom.”
Dad talked with Sam, not me. I figured it had to do more with embarrassment than anything else. I didn’t hold a grudge against him for how much he’d slept around. Technically, he wasn’t married. What I had an issue with was what he’d done to the country. “It took Sam and me years to get everything worked out around here.”
“But it’s not,” Jessica said, pointing out the obvious. “And do you ever think it will be? People will never stop coming for you or the country. Do you really want this life for Kinley?”
“It will be her choice,” I said. My dad had made me believe for years that I wouldn’t need to take over Shialia, but he was just telling me what I wanted to hear. “I know you hate it here, and I don’t blame you for that. I never experienced what you went through. But I did see what these people were going through when we took over.”
“I understand why you want to stay, but we do miss you,” Kat said. “Also, do you happen to know where the black market is in this country? I did a lot of searching online, and that shit is locked tight. I couldn’t even find anything on the dark web.”
Kat didn’t know how to use the dark web. More than likely, she’d asked someone else, and that person had kept the information from her. “If you want to buy some gems, I’ll give them to you at a good price. You don’t need to buy them from someone else.”
She shook her head and grabbed a Danish off the tray from the middle of the table. “I don’t wear jewelry. That shit gets in the way. Also, you know how hard it is to get blood out of the creases on my wedding ring. But Antonio gets all mad when I don’t wear it, and I’m on the no-killing rehab plan. His words, not mine.”
I highly doubted the no-killing rehab plan worked for Kat. I guessed she would find another way to get what she wanted and protect the people she cared about. “Well, if it’s not gems, what the hell do you think you can buy here and not in the states?”
“Yeah, Kat, what are you planning to buy?” The glimmer in my sister's eyes was not from the sun shining down. Jessica knew something was going on, and I could only imagine what Kat wanted.
“Remember, I clearly put no wedding presents on the invitations. You guys coming here was enough. So whatever you’re buying had better not be for me.”
Kat stared at me. “You’re going to have to help me get it. But yes, it’s your wedding present. I tried to bring one on the plane, but our pilot gave me issues.”
I leaned back in the chair, my thoughts whirling around what she could possibly be talking about. Then it hit me. “Hell no! You’re not buying an alligator.”
“Well, I wouldn’t have needed to buy one if they’d let me bring the ones I already planned to bring along. Now I’m here, and you’re about to be a queen and married, and I have nothing to offer you.” Kat pursed her lips.
I threw my hands up. “There’s nothing I want. The only thing I asked for is for you guys to come to the wedding. Everyone helping Sam and me with the other issues going on is more than we could ask for. Hell, they are building an obstacle course.”
“I heard the guys want to use it on the subs one night,” Jessica grumbled.
The doctor had said everything was okay with me, but Sam had barely touched me in the last few days. Light brushes of kisses weren’t doing anything to stop my burning desire for my future husband.
“No fucking way am I running through that thing. You know how hard it is to get a splinter out of your hoo-ha?” Kat leaned forward. “I’ll tell you: hard. Antonio had this great idea about having sex in the backyard under the stars. That shit sounds way more romantic than it is.”
Talking about our friends’ sex lives had gotten more comfortable over the years, though I still didn’t like hearing about Jessica’s. “Wait, don’t you guys have a hot tub?” I asked. “I could have sworn I saw that in a group text.”
“They do,” Jessica said as coffee flew out of her mouth.
“It’s not that funny,” Kat replied with a frown. “My husband happened to come home early from work when I was disposing of…” She glanced around the room. “Stuff. I didn’t have time to get the large… object to the property's back, so I lifted it into the hot tub and closed the lid. How was I supposed to know my husband wanted to get freaky outside that night?”
I was speechless for a second. Then I had so many questions I wanted answered. “How did you stop him from wanting to use the hot tub?”
Kat grinned. “He came outside to tell me the boys were at Jessica and Brock’s house for the night. I know my husband. He gets this twinkle in his eye when he wants me.”
“He always has that.” Jessica said. “Also, you guys have sex everywhere. Including my laundry room.”
I sighed, longing for the time Sam and I had sex every chance we got. Now it seemed like it was less and less. I knew he loved me, but would that fade away like our sex life? Would my job put a strain on our relationship? The tears hit my hand, and I quickly cleared my throat.
“What’s wrong?” Kat asked, shifting her seat closer to me. “Is Sam having problems in the penis department? I’m sure we could smuggle some drugs in for you. Or Jessica can rattle off the statics about erectile dysfunction.”
I actually laughed at that thought. “Don’t do it, Jessica. And no, Sam isn’t having penis issues. We just don’t have much time for each other. And we have another one on the way, so it’s going to be even less.” We hadn’t originally planned on telling our friends about the pregnancy because I still had a chance of having another miscarriage. It was hard for me to talk about. “God, maybe I’m making a huge mistake or it’s the hormones talking. I’m worried Sam might leave me.”
“That man worships the ground you walk on. There is no way he will leave you. Nobody but you can make the decisions about what you want to do moving forward. Once you have the right staff and the power shift happens, I think things can get easier.”
We’d gotten off-topic from the story I really wanted to hear. “You still didn’t tell me how you got the splinters in your ass.”
“Well, when he walked out onto the deck and wanted to get into the hot tub naked, I had to make rash decisions.” Kat acted like I knew what that meant.
“You told him it was too cold out?” That was my best educated guess.
Kat smirked. “Nope. I dropped to the ground and gave him a blow job.”
“So did the diversion work?”
“Oh, at first, it worked fine. We made passionate love on the deck under the stars. Bu
t then I had a huge splinter in my ass because we didn’t lay a blanket down. Antonio had me lie over the cover of the hot tub. Everything was going good until I moved and turned the hot tub on.”
I felt my eyes go wide. “With the guy in the hot tub.”
Jessica chuckled. “Yes. I wish Antonio hadn’t made CJ delete the footage. It was priceless. The guy’s junk got stuck in one of the jets, and the hot tub started to gurgle.” Jessica wiped the tears from her eyes as she continued the story. “The guy's body expanded in the water, and Brock had to help Antonio drain the hot tub and pull the dead guy's dick out of the jet. I’ve never heard my husband cuss so much.”
“I still think it would’ve been better if we’d just cut his dick off.” Kat paused. “After the incident, Antonio sold the hot tub, so we don’t have one anymore. He didn’t want to spend time in it after there was a dead body. We’d filled it back up with chlorine, so I don’t see the point.”
Jessica shook her head. “The point is there was a dead person in it.”
Life was too short. Sam and I needed to make more time for ourselves and our friends. In the past five years, we’d gone back to the states twice. We would need to change something because I missed my sister and the people closest to us. I wanted Kinley to know my friends more.
We finished eating the last few pastries on the table and made our way down the street. Every Friday, Shialia had a market downtown. A few vendors sold things in the back ally, and I knew where Kat could get her alligator. I wasn’t sure what the fuck I would do with one, and Sam would probably go insane. But it was hard not to give Kat what she wanted because it always led to a perfect story.
Most people in the streets parted as I walked down the sidewalk, not because they wanted to, but because the two guards in front made a path as we walked. I’d gotten used to some things over the years, but I still missed getting to go do what I wanted. With the women missing and Carl on the loose, Sam had upped the guards with us while we were in town. I was sure he had a few more posted around that I didn’t see. And when Kat had grabbed a pastry from the table earlier, I’d caught the glint of the gun she had concealed.
A little girl with her thumb in her mouth stopped and waved. She held out her little teddy in her other hand. I stopped and knelt next to her. Tucker let out a sigh. The guards hated it when I talked with the people, but they would have to get used to it. I wasn’t going to be a snob and just walk away.
“Hello. What is your name?”
Saliva glistened on the little girl's thumb as she pulled it out of her mouth. “Izzy.”
Jessica kneeled next to her. “Where is your mommy?”
Her little cheeks scrunched, and fat tears rolled down her face. “They took her.”
My back tensed. “Who, sweet girl?”
“The bad man.”
“Can you show me where they took her?”
The little girl nodded. I didn’t even think twice about it. I swung her up into my arms. Tucker glared at me while he spoke into his phone.
I knew the guards would follow me. It wasn’t like I planned to go down a dark alleyway. We walked down the cobblestone street, passing many people who greeted me, but my only focus was where the girl was taking us. Kat was next to me and Jessica was on the other side. Our group was surrounded by guards.
We moved past the turn to the gem mines. Workers were coming and going. The mines had miles of tunnels, which I worried were used to move the women. For years, people had used them for whatever they wanted. The mazes in them had been built years before.
That was how I felt lately—I was stuck in a maze, and I couldn’t find my way out the other side. The only person who could help me get my life on track was myself. And Sam would always be by my side.
It wasn’t long before we were at the entrance of the market. The brick building had been the location of the weekly event since I was a kid. A few people stared as we walked down the first aisles passing the cheese-and-bread vendor.
When we got close to a soap vendor, the little girl tensed in my arms. A man with a beard and beady eyes stared at me as we walked by. I motioned for Tucker, who caught my eye and stopped.
Kat, Jessica, and I stopped at the second vendor so I could watch what was happening. Kat scanned the building and turned to me. “I think we should head back to the palace. Something feels off, and this place has too many exits for me to watch.”
I nodded. “I agree, let’s wait for Tucker, and we will be on our way.”
Tucker talked for a few more minutes as we looked at the little kittens in the cages. The booth owner talked to Kat for a few seconds before he nodded and wrote something down. She handed him a credit card. But the owner never gave her anything.
I didn’t have time to ask her questions because Tucker was at my side. “That guy said this little one is his daughter, and her mother wasn’t feeling well.”
I clutched her closer to my chest and stared at my guard. He can’t be that stupid, can he?
“Did he show you pictures of the girl and him?”
He shook his head and reached out for the girl. I took a step back and glared. “No. I want to take her to Sam.”
Kat was by my side when a shot rang through the building.
11
Sam
I stared at my future wife as she slept on the chair in our bedroom, her arms wrapped around the little girl they’d found in the streets that day. When Patty called me from the market to tell me what was going on, I’d panicked.
Tucker should have brought the girls back to the house immediately and let the team investigate where the mother was. The police had made it to the scene a few minutes before me, and Patty was in a screaming match with them. Kat stood to the side, eyeing everyone around her. I was pretty sure she would kill someone before leaving the country.
Even the police believed the guy at the market’s bullshit story. He had no pictures of his daughter in his phone and no ID for himself. Then there was the struggle with the police when they wanted to take the little girl with them. Patty said no, and they didn’t like that. At least the shot Patty thought she heard had turned out to be a car backfiring.
My concern was the shouting match between my wife and the police with people walking around the market. It was a matter of time before the video feed would hit the news channels. The only good thing would be if someone recognized the little girl.
Anger and fear clouded my vision as I looked at the girl. We’d lost another person to the trafficking group we weren’t any closer to finding. I knew Patty wouldn’t want the little girl to grow up in the system. Neither did I. My first-hand experience with foster care hadn’t been great, but it was better than living with the man who’d raised me the first eight years of my life.
Gunner Blackwood was as the scum of the earth as you could get. He ran a prostitution ring out of the back of my childhood home. From the research I’d done, it seemed my mother was one of his workers, and she’d ended up dying of a drug overdose.
I still had questions about my childhood and knew my father could answer them. He was spending life in prison for murder. A rival pimp had tried to take over his turf when I was eight years old, and a shoot-out had occurred at our home. My father ended up killing two men and three women.
When the cops came, I remembered they found me in a locked closet, a place my dad stuck me when he was dealing, which was most of the time. To this day, I hated small spaces because they brought back so many memories of hours spent locked away. As a young boy, I’d never imagined getting out of the hellhole. When the cops took me to my new home, I figured it would be a fresh start. It was. I worked to keep out of the way of my foster parents until I turned eighteen and signed up for the navy.
“Hey.” Patty’s eyes fluttered open, and she stirred in the chair.
I walked over and grabbed the little girl. She stirred for a moment before I put her down on our bed and walked back to where Patty was. I moved her from the chair, sat down, and pulled her bac
k into my arms. “How are you doing, Pixie?”
“Okay. She’s a good little girl,” she said, and I felt a smile creep across my face. “I remember when Kinley was that small. She was not as calm.”
Our daughter never stopped. Especially if she got her little fingers on any type of candy—then she would run around for hours. Kinley had played with the girl when they first got back to the palace. Now she was with her cousins. Patty looked exhausted. I hated how much this pregnancy was taking out of her.
“No, and I have a feeling our little boy won’t be calm either,” I said. “Do you want to talk about what happened at the market today?” I worried that if we didn’t find the person doing the kidnapping, Patty might take matters into her own hands, which would cause more problems for all of us.
Patty nodded and linked her fingers between mine. “I’m not sure if I trust Tucker anymore. Up until today, he’d never given me a reason to doubt him. And before you get all huffy about me following the little girl to where she said her mom went missing, I had my guards, and Kat was carrying. We already planned to go to the market.”
“I had Wes go back through all the missing-women cases. They seemed to be linked to the market or a vendor there. But we can’t pinpoint one.”
“You think there is more than one vendor we need to look into?”
“Yes.” There was no question in my mind. Brock was working to find any connections between them. “With the number of women and girls that have gone missing, there has to be a larger operation. Every woman who has gone missing so far doesn’t have family or anyone connected to her. I bet they frequented the market every week.”
Patty was quiet for a moment. “Almost every woman goes to the market. Many people buy their groceries on Friday. It’s cheaper, and the product is better. If I didn’t have so much shit going on, I’d do the same. I love fresh vegetables.”
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