The Devil's Daughter

by Ophelia Bell

  “This is sweet as hell, isn’t it?” Baz says, gesturing around us with a crispy slice of bacon. “Much better gig than we had with Papá Flores.”

  “It has its bonuses,” I agree as I slather butter on a piece of toast. “That doesn’t give us an excuse to treat it like a vacation, though.”

  “No, but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy the little bit of downtime we get. How’re you doing today, hermano?”

  I concentrate on my food as I give a slight shoulder twitch, catching myself just a touch too late. He’s referring to my night terrors, which aren’t something I’ve bothered hiding from him in ages, but he knows full well that my stupid shrug-off is my biggest tell that I’m hiding something.

  Clearing my throat, I offer, “Not too bad,” but his eyes are narrowed on me already.

  Rather than look pissed, his lips twitch in a smirk. “Drake?”

  When my eyebrows shoot up, he chuckles. “You really needed to get laid. Glad it helped.”

  “It’s not what you think…” I begin, then catch myself, because maybe his assumption is the safer one.

  “Brother, I don’t need details,” he says, then shuts his mouth and tilts his chin toward the doorway behind me. I know both by the way he just clammed up and by the smile that lights up his face that Elle’s here. A breeze coasts over us, carrying the scent of her sweet soap to us before she plops down in the chair next to mine.

  “Morning,” she says with a delighted grin, snatching a piece of bacon off my plate and crunching into it. I clench my jaw, giving her a sidelong look that hopefully conveys a warning. She just bats her eyelashes at me, pops the last piece of bacon in her mouth, then sucks off her fingertips.

  Fuck me sideways, this isn’t helping.

  I cautiously slide my gaze back to Baz, but whatever joy that was there has transformed to dark mistrust. His jaw is clenched so tight the muscles spasm and his knuckles have gone white around his juice glass. He just looks between the two of us for a few beats before letting his gaze rest on Elle.

  “Ellie, did you…” He snaps his mouth shut as if the words are too foul to speak, and I can almost taste the bitterness on my own tongue. But I can’t leave him hanging.

  “I didn’t fuck Drake,” I say. Elle shoots me a confused look that disappears a split-second later when she catches on.

  “Baz, it just happened—please don’t be mad. He was having a nightmare. I couldn’t just let him suffer.”

  My brother’s shock and hurt digs deep, leaving me wishing I’d blamed Drake after all. I’m such a fucking idiot sometimes.

  “I… I can’t look at you two right now. I just can’t…” Baz pushes his half-full plate away and slides his chair back, standing so fast the chair tips over. He runs up the steps onto the upper deck, taking them two at a time until he disappears around the corner.

  “Fuck,” I mutter, closing my eyes and slumping back.

  “Go talk to him,” Elle says. “And for the record, I don’t think we should lie about what really happened. It’ll just piss him off more if he finds out.”

  “What the fuck do you want me to tell him? That I broke every rule in the book last night by sleeping with you two?”

  “We can’t undo it, Ben. Tell him whatever you think you need to, but he deserves to know the truth.”

  I toss down my napkin and stand, pausing to upright the chair he left behind before following him. I find him pulling a Rose from Titanic, standing at the rail facing into the wind, looking every bit as if he might just dive into the water.

  He tenses as I approach, and I feel that tightness reflected in my own body. We are too in tune with each other sometimes, to the point that right now I can taste the acrid jealousy he must be feeling, because I sure as shit know how I’d feel if the tables were turned.

  I grip the rail next to him, offering my excuses to the wind. “She’s not lying. I wasn’t in a good place, and she was there for me. I lost control, and the next thing I knew, I was waking up naked beside her.”

  His brows twitch and he gives me a worried look. “How bad did you lose control?”

  I shake my head and take in a sharp breath. “Nothing as bad as you’re thinking. You saw her. Does she look traumatized?”

  He snorts and shakes his head. “She looks… happy.” Then he heaves a sigh and slouches back against the rail with a scowl. “I hate you right now.”

  “You shouldn’t. She wanted you there. She even said as much… suggested we call you, make you fly up last night instead of this morning.” I doubt that’s the piece of truth Elle was suggesting I share, but it’s a piece that’ll soften the blow of the other one when he finds out.

  He frowns and jerks his head to the side in disbelief. “You’re fucking with me.”

  “You can ask her. You know she’ll be straight with you—she always has been. More than with me, anyway. You’re the one she always talks to.” I can’t conceal a hint of bitterness in my tone. Baz closes his eyes and chuckles.

  “You always hated that, but I was never going to shut her out. I hope you know that.”

  “I know. So don’t shut her out now.”

  He turns back around, staring off into the distance toward the rolling hills of Catalina Island. I can predict the trajectory of his thoughts as if they were my own, and I’m not surprised when he lets out another sigh and shakes his head.

  “Knowing it could happen is enough. But it can’t. Not for me, and not again for you. I’m sorry, hermano, but you need to let her go, at least for now. We need to stay focused on the job. We can’t protect her if our heads are clouded by emotion.”

  “My thoughts exactly. Did you make any headway last night? Do you know who’s targeting Drake?”

  He takes a breath and shakes his head. “I found out a few things that don’t add up. Someone’s trying to blackmail him into stepping down as CEO of Typhon. Whoever’s doing that is the one behind the cameras. He wouldn’t move us here so fucking fast if he wasn’t freaked out about it, but I’m not convinced he’s not into something messed up that put us in this position. I just wish he’d come clean about what it all means to him. He has to have some idea who’d do this.”

  “My gut says we can trust him, even if he’s being tight-lipped about his past,” I say, though I’m not about to explain that the real reason I trust Drake has more to do with how he looks at Elle than anything else. He’s falling for her as hard as Baz and I did ages ago. Why that doesn’t incite any kind of possessive, jealous urge in me, I’m not sure I’m prepared to examine though. “What’d you find out?”

  “I’m not ready to give him the benefit of the doubt yet. Let’s head back down. I need to talk to him, see what he has to say about the things I uncovered.”

  Worried now, I follow him back down the narrow steps to the main deck, only to stop short when he blocks the path at the bottom of the stairs, staring at the table.

  Drake’s there now, his chair canted toward Elle’s, their heads bent close, foreheads nearly touching. It’s such an intimate pose, there’s no way in hell Baz is going to interpret it any way but one.

  “Brother, what the fuck actually happened while I was gone?”

  12

  Baz

  It’s one thing to find out my twin slept with the girl of my dreams. We’ve never kept from each other how we feel about Elle, and until now she was equally inaccessible to us both as any more than a friend. So I don’t begrudge him the pleasure of being with her, especially knowing that she’d have given herself to me too, if I’d been here.

  But a vicious claw grips my guts and twists when I see how cozy she is with Drake. I see red, and not even Ben’s hand gripping my shoulder to hold me back can cool me down.

  “Baz, let me explain,” Ben says. “It’s not what you think.”

  “The fuck it isn’t,” I snap, tearing away and rushing toward the table. For the first time in my life, I understand where Ben’s temper comes from. I’m usually the cool twin, but right now, the only thin
g on my mind is crushing that bastard for touching her.

  They hear me coming a split-second before I reach them. Drake scrambles up like the guilty bastard he is and lifts his hands. He utters a curse as my fist comes swinging, barely managing to dodge. My knuckles graze his cheek, and he lets out a growl before lunging at me.

  But the asshole isn’t fighting. Why the fuck isn’t he fighting?

  Instead he grapples me around the waist, shoving me across the deck. He’s strong, tackling me like a linebacker even though he’s built like a quarterback. I lose my balance and fall against the outdoor sofa that butts up against the rails.

  Ben’s at my side, holding me down when he should have my back. He should be laying into Drake for daring to lay a hand on Elle.

  “Let us fucking explain, okay?” Ben yells.

  My pulse throbs in my ears. “Explain what?” I grit, struggling against them. The anger is already fading at the sight of Elle standing a few feet away, shock and worry etched on her face.

  I’d rather be pissed than feel whatever sick feeling is rising as my rage dissipates.

  “Elle,” I plead. “Do you know what kind of sick fuck he is? How could you?”

  Drake growls, “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  I turn and sneer at him. “I found your secret stash. The old drive you had locked away in your office safe.”

  He blinks down at me in shock. “You got into my safe? How?”

  “Doesn’t matter. What matters is what was inside it. Why don’t we go take a look? Show her how depraved you really are?”

  He bares his teeth, but surprisingly lets me go. “Fine. You want to dredge up ancient history, be my guest. It’s not going to change a goddamn thing.”

  He darts a pained look at Elle as if he isn’t so sure. This is likely to hurt him, but he’s letting me do it anyway? That doesn’t track.

  He paces away and Ben eases back onto the sofa, leaving a hand on my shoulder as if he isn’t sure I won’t attack Drake again. “Did you really break into his safe?”

  “Yeah. I’m going to owe Trinity a favor, but she won’t talk,” I say, referring to one of our underworld acquaintances who’s always good in a pinch when we need to open certain doors, including doors to most safes.

  “That’s pretty low for you.”

  “I wasn’t about to leave any stone unturned. And I found some fucking creepy shit.” I stand, eyeing Drake as I walk to the pile of my stuff I left just behind the buffet table when I arrived. I dig out my laptop and bring it back to the sofa, setting it on the coffee table and opening it up.

  Drake has gone pale, and he glances at Elle before shooting a beseeching look at me. “Please. Wait.” He holds out a hand to stall me, then swipes it over his face. “There is context for what’s on that drive. I wish you’d just fucking asked me before digging.”

  Elle’s the one scowling at him now. She crosses her arms and glares. “Yeah? You haven’t exactly been forthcoming about your secrets. Will you tell us now? Or let us draw our own conclusions from what Baz found?”

  “It’s fucking complicated,” he snaps. He grinds his teeth, nostrils flaring, then spins on his heels and paces to the railing past the table. He lets out a frustrated roar as he smacks the hollow steel bar, and it emits a metallic echo.

  There aren’t really a whole lot of ways he can justify what I saw, and I’m sure he knows it, but I close the laptop and sit back. I’m enjoying watching him squirm.

  “Fine. We’ll wait to look, but you’d better start talking.”

  He turns around and stares, first at Elle, then at Ben, his expression one of tortured longing that has me raising my eyebrows. When I glance at Ben, his eyes are locked with Drake’s, and I recognize a heat I normally only see when he looks at Elle. It isn’t anger or worry, but something else entirely. My brother left out some serious details about last night, based on that look. I’m more tempted to make them explain that than Drake’s stash of questionable videos.

  Elle chooses that moment to move toward the sofa. Ben shifts over, and she settles between us as if that’s the only place available for her to sit. It isn’t, but it feels right for her to be there, her soft warmth so close in her sheer sundress. From this angle I catch a glimpse down the front of an already low-cut bodice and realize she isn’t wearing a bra. It’s an effort to redirect my attention to Drake.

  “We’re listening,” Elle says, sliding her hand into mine and threading our fingers together. She does the same to Ben, and a sinking feeling settles in my gut when it hits me that there’s no way in hell any of us will be able to stay away from her, unprofessional or not.

  Fuck me.

  Drake grabs one of the chairs from the table and sets it across from us, sitting down and propping his elbows on his knees. He swipes his hand over his mouth again and takes a breath, clears his throat, then finally says, “I have no excuse for what you saw. It’s pretty much what you think, but there’s a bigger story. Just trust me when I tell you I’m not that person anymore…”

  His gaze settles on Elle. “Not entirely.”

  13

  Drake

  Telling them the truth was always inevitable, especially once they found the cameras, but it doesn’t make it easier to spin the story. My dad was a piece of work. I skip the whole sob story about his absence during my childhood because none of that matters, and neither does the fact that my mom divorced him when I was ten, married someone else, then died of breast cancer a few years later.

  The second Dad decided it was time for me to be a man, he had a very particular idea about what that meant. Even thinking about it now gives me a bad taste as I revisit the memories, deciding which ones are truly relevant. I want to spare Elle the worst parts, but she deserves to know, though knowing she might not like me so well after I’m done makes it difficult to keep talking.

  But I do. I tell them everything.

  I was fifteen when the moment came. I wasn’t expecting it. I think I was immersed in some video game when I should have been studying the evening my father announced we had someplace to be. I sulkily joined him in his Bentley, which he drove somewhere up the interstate. The fact that he was driving was strange enough. We had chauffeurs—we had hired help for just about every task. We barely needed to lift a finger to do anything.

  If I hadn’t had Theo growing up, I’d have never learned the value and the pleasure of a hard day’s work. Spending summers sailing with him was the closest I ever got to a true father-son relationship, and Theo wasn’t even my dad. I matured more that summer before my fifteenth birthday sailing to Easter Island with him than any of the stitched together moments I had with my real father.

  Despite my dad’s assumption, I wasn’t a virgin when he took me to that place. Which is some small comfort—that I didn’t lose it thanks to him. My first time was with a Costa Rican girl I met at our last port before Theo and I sailed west, and I hooked up with her again on our trip back.

  But Dad didn’t even ask. He just assumed his son needed to become a man, and he was dead-set on facilitating it.

  We wound up in a remote industrial park outside Carlsbad. I thought it was just a storage lot at first, but the sign outside the small stucco office read “The Kennel” and gave the impression of being some kind of animal rescue organization.

  Dad didn’t give me a single clue what I was in for. At first I assumed he wanted me to adopt a pet. I’d wanted a dog for a while, but he’d forbidden it, so I started to get excited, even though this kind of thoughtfulness was completely out of character for him.

  It didn’t hit me what his true mission was until we passed through some overzealous security and stepped inside the room with all the video screens. Even then it didn’t click. At first all I saw was a fucking wall of porn, so much I was too shocked to be turned on. There were easily a hundred screens, and on each of them was a slightly different scene. Some were dark. Some just showed a woman dancing or acting out for the camera. But in others there were men in
there with them, sometimes more than one.

  It only took me a moment to figure out what all the videos had in common. The women were in identical square rooms with no windows and very little decoration. Some were smiling, but none of them looked like they enjoyed what they were doing, even the ones actively having sex.

  It started to sink in what this was when I started listening to what my father was saying and caught the word “legacy,” as if he was showing me this the way he’d sometimes take me to his office and blather on about the business I’d inherit when I got older.

  Then he said the most surreal thing I think I’ve ever heard: That most women I’d meet out in the real world were lying, thieving whores who’d get knocked up and milk you for all you were worth. How we Stavros men shouldn’t outsource anything. That I should choose from the stock. And if I found a liking for any one in particular, I could even bring her home—like a fucking pet. But the only way to control her was to pay her to do what I wanted.

  I couldn’t look away from all the screens. I remember being both turned on and disgusted at the same time. Deep down I knew what he was doing was wrong, but Gregor Stavros wasn’t someone you said no to. I knew if I did, he’d punish me. So I told myself it wasn’t as bad as it was. That the girls he kept locked away in this… facility… were safer where they were than where they’d come from. And that as long as I was kind to whoever he made me choose, it would be all right.

  I reluctantly made my choice, believing there was no other option, then got buzzed through a security door into a corridor. It was nicer than a storage facility, but only by a little. The floors were polished concrete, the walls painted cinderblock lined with doors every ten feet, each one with a light overhead, most lit up bright red. I tried one and it was locked, moans and slapping flesh filtering through from the other side.

  Everything was pristine, white, and brightly lit. But there was no soundproofing. What I heard was more than what I’d been shown on screen. Underneath the sounds of sex was unbelievable sadness—anguish. Crying women trapped for the pleasure of whoever was willing to pay.