by Becca Van
“My father sold me to a pimp.”
“What?” Emmy gasped.
“Fucking asshole,” Pixie nearly shouted.
“Son of a bitch,” Dusty snarled.
She couldn’t believe that these women were angry on her behalf, but it felt nice that they cared about her wellbeing.
“Tell us the rest,” Pixie ordered angrily.
When Pixie gazed at her with concern, she knew the woman wasn’t angry at her, but at her father. Seeing the three women’s ire chased the fear in her heart away and she began to get angry, too.
“I’d been looking after that asshole for nearly ten years,” Kenzie said. “My mom died from pneumonia just after I turned thirteen. She made me promise to look after my dad. I worked hard at school trying to keep my grades up, and after school I took on any job I could to help pay all the bills. I’d planned to go to college but that dream slowly dwindled. By the time I was a senior, I was barely passing because I was too exhausted to study.”
“Why?” Dusty asked. “Why were you so exhausted?”
“My dad started drinking about six months after my mom passed.” Kenzie pushed her emotions aside and although she realized she was speaking in a monotone, it was the only way she could get through this without breaking down. “At first, he’d only drink at night and on the weekends, but then it was every night and during the day. His boss caught him drinking on the job and he was fired. I was fifteen by this time and was going to school and working in a café washing dishes, as well as stocking shelves at the local supermarket.
“He’d go into a rage if I was late getting his dinner ready or if there were dishes left in the sink. I don’t think it mattered what the infraction was, he was just downright angry and mean all the time.”
“He took his anger out on you?” Emmy clasped Kenzie’s hand in hers.
Kenzie nodded. “He did. The first time was a slap across the face, but it quickly escalated from there. He used to punch and kick me wherever he could land a blow. One time I had to stay home for a whole week from school and work because he’d taken a belt to my back.” The anger and pain roared into her heart and soul. She felt as if her heart was being ripped from her chest. The tears welled and flowed but she was too lost in the horrid memories to wipe them away. “He used the buckle and tine on my bare skin and ripped my flesh open.” She sniffed and took the wad of tissues Dusty handed to her.
“Why did you stay?” Emmy asked. “Why didn’t you go to a neighbor or a teacher, someone who could help you?”
Before Kenzie could answer, Pixie began to speak. “Because before the beatings started he wore her self-confidence down by telling her how useless she was.”
Kenzie was shocked that the other woman had figured out what had happened. Pixie gave her a sad smile when their gazes met. “My step-brother did the same thing.”
She clasped Pixie’s hand in hers and clung to a kindred spirit. “That’s exactly what he did. I was able to finish high school and got my degree, but there was no way I could afford to go to college and my grades were nowhere good enough for a scholarship. I barely passed. I couldn’t afford to find my own place. There was never any money left over for me to save for the bond or buy myself things I’d need to set up my own home.”
“You should be damn proud that you got your diploma.” Emmy smiled at her. “With all you had on your shoulders, you never gave up. A lot of people would have dropped out.”
“Emmy’s right,” Dusty said. “Be proud that you got your high school diploma.”
“I was too tired to be proud.” Kenzie cleared her throat. “I was working two to three jobs and keeping house, cooking meals, washing, ironing, everything, while he sat on his ass and drank.” Another sob escaped before she could stop it. “Turns out I was busting my gut for nothing. The asshole wasn’t even my father.
“I heard the pimp he’d sold me to talking to one of his friends. The bastard married my mom when my real father took off on her when she found out she was pregnant. He was hoping she was going to have a boy, for what reason, I don’t know, nor do I care anymore.”
“Were you raped, Kenzie?” Pixie asked. “Did that fucker make you—”
“No!” Kenzie answered emphatically. “I was so scared. The pimp and his friend had plans to sell me to someone else who wanted a blonde woman to complete his collection of women. He had every hair-colored woman he wanted except for blonde.”
“What?” Emmy shoved to her feet.
“Are you shitting me?” Pixie asked angrily.
“What the fuck?” Dusty snapped.
“Did you see their faces?” Emmy asked as she turned back toward her.
“No. I didn’t want them knowing I was awake, so I kept my eyes closed and tried to regulate my breathing. When one guy asked what they were going to do with me, I was sure they were going to realize I was playing possum. My heart was beating so fast it hurt and I was sweating and shaking, but they either weren’t looking too closely or were too intent on their conversation.
“They talked about handing me over to the leader of a Triad. They mentioned a name. Lei. I don’t know if that’s a first or last name. I don’t know who he is or what the Triad is, but I knew I had to get away. Unfortunately, they had a shipment of women arriving and had to deal with unloading them. I felt bad for leaving those women behind, but there was nothing I could do at the time. I was going to go to the authorities, but I never got the chance.”
“How did you escape, Kenzie?” Dusty asked in a hoarse voice.
“When they left the warehouse, I left by a side door. There were a few cars in the parking lot. I tried all the doors until I found a car that had been left unlocked and the keys were still in the ignition. I don’t know if the owner thought his car was safe since it was the early hours of the morning, or if they’d just forgotten to remove the keys and lock the vehicle, but I didn’t care. I got into the car, started it, and drove away without turning the headlights on. Once I got to the main road, I turned the lights on and I drove as far as I could. I was feeling sick to my stomach from the pain, but pushed the nausea aside. I had to stop when I started getting light headed. I don’t remember anything after that until I woke up here.
“So now you know why I was worried about the car. If the owner’s reported it stolen, or the pimp and his guys are looking for me and they see it…”
“You don’t need to worry about the car being found, baby. We’ve already hidden it,” Jordan said as he and his brothers entered the room.
Kenzie’s heart slammed against her sternum and she gasped with panic. She rolled from the bed ignoring the agony ripping into her ribs and slid to her feet. Wooziness caused her to sway and she tried to breathe through it, but the darkness wouldn’t be held back.
Just before she lost consciousness, betrayal surged through her heart and soul. The men had been listening the whole time. The other women had to be aware they were still in the other room.
She’d been set up.
Chapter Three
“Catch her,” Jordan shouted when Kenzie’s eyes rolled back in her head and she started to go down. He would have leaped across the distance separating him from his mate and caught her himself, but Emmy and Pixie were in the way and he didn’t want to hurt them.
Emmy moved fast and lifted Kenzie into her arms before gently placing her on the bed.
“Damn it, Jordan. Why the hell did you all come in now? You should have given us more time to talk with her and explain some things.” Pixie scowled at him and his brothers, her hands on her hips.
Tatum shoved Jenson aside and stalked toward his mate. “Settle down, baby. They held out as long as they could. The scent of Kenzie’s terror was too much for any of us to ignore.”
Pixie poked her huge mate in the stomach and blinked back the tears welling in her eyes. “You didn’t see her face just before she passed out. She thinks we’ve betrayed her.”
“How?” Tatum asked.
Broden entered the room an
Emmy walked into Jett’s arms when he held them open and hugged him. She gazed over her shoulder as she answered, “She thought you’d all left the clinic. Kenzie thought there was just us here when she was telling her story.”
“That’s on them, love,” Jett said. “None of you lied to her.”
“It doesn’t matter, mate,” Emmy said. “She might not forgive us even though we didn’t lie.”
“Is she all right?” Jenson asked as he, Jordan and Jayson moved closer to the bed.
“She’ll be fine. She’s hurting and exhausted,” Broden answered. “Her heart rate is strong and regular. Her blood pressure’s a bit low, but that’s not a surprise after everything she’s been through. Her hydration is good, but none of us have any idea how long it’s been since she’s eaten.”
“How long does she have to stay here?” Jayson asked.
“Can we take her back to our place?” Jenson stared at Broden.
Broden sighed and was about to answer, but Dusty beat him to it. “You need to wait until Kenzie wakes up and ask what she wants.”
“But—”
“No buts.” Pixie slashed her hand through the air. “That woman has been through enough. If she wakes up in a strange room, strange house, with men she doesn’t know watching over her, she’s going to freak out.”
“Pixie’s right,” Jordan admitted. He hated agreeing with the other women because he wanted their mate in their house as much as his brothers did, but they needed to find out what Kenzie wanted. They didn’t even know her last name yet. He wanted to know everything about her. What food she liked to eat, what her favorite color was. What her dreams were. Absolutely everything.
He’d been pleasantly surprised when she’d put Jayson in his place, and he was happy their scars didn’t seem to bother her.
Jordan clenched his jaw as fury heated his blood and tensed his muscles. After the abuse she suffered constantly for ten years and having been whipped by a belt buckle hard enough to tear her skin open, she had to have scars of her own. No wonder the markings, the damage to their bodies, didn’t bother her.
When she regained consciousness, Jordan was going to have a hard time restraining himself from demanding to know who the fucker playing at being a father had been. He wanted to find that bastard and give him some of his own medicine. He couldn’t understand how a grown man could beat on someone half his size, let alone a woman or female child. That prick needed to be taught a lesson he’d never forget. Better yet, he didn’t deserve to breathe the same air as their mate.
That was something else that was worrying him. How the hell were they going to tell her that they could shift into panthers and she was their mate?
Jordan wanted to lay all their cards on the table, but thought it best to give Kenzie time to get to know them and become comfortable around them before revealing such a legendary phenomenon. If they told her too early, she was likely to think they had a screw loose, or were on drugs.
He watched Broden as the doc removed the blood pressure cuff from Kenzie’s arm and tugged the stethoscope from his ears. The Kodiak bear shifter met his and then his brothers’ gazes. “She can stay here for the rest of the day. If she doesn’t want to go home with you she can stay with us, or one of the other women.”
“Uh, I’d loved to have her stay with me and my guys, but we don’t have a spare room in the apartment and I don’t think it’s a good idea for her to stay by herself in one of the motel rooms.” Emmy frowned. “Who hid the car?”
Tatum held up a hand. “I called Rex and asked him to drive it to our place and hide it in the garage. It can stay there and rust for all I care. We’ll remove the plates and get rid of any other identifying mark so it can’t be traced as stolen.”
“I think we should talk to the Louis brothers,” Jordan said. “They’re recently retired FBI agents. If Kenzie can tell us where that warehouse is, they can call some of their agent friends and stake those fuckers out.”
“I agree.” Jayson nodded.
“Have any of you ever heard of the Triad?” Jenson asked.
“I have,” Tatum said. “Those fuckers are bad news.”
“Who and what are the Triad?” Pixie asked.
Jordan glanced at Kenzie when he heard her heart rate increase and knew she was awake. She still had her eyes closed and was trying to keep her breathing regulated, but he and the others heard any change since they had enhanced senses. When he quirked an eyebrow at his brothers in query, they both nodded. When he did the same to the three women, they nodded, too.
Giving Kenzie as much information as possible would hopefully go a long way to gaining her trust. He just hoped what she heard didn’t send her running out of town.
“The Triad are the Chinese mafia,” Jett began to explain. “They have cells all over the world and are into anything and everything illegal.”
“They’re into making and dealing drugs, firearms, prostitution, murder, and human trafficking,” Tatum explained.
“How would a local pimp know someone like that?” Dusty asked.
“Kenzie said something about a shipment of women coming in,” Jenson said. “My guess is that the pimp asshole is kidnapping women off the street to sell to the Triad.”
“Those poor women are probably being shipped overseas after being doped up on drugs. They will be made to work so their pimps can earn a shit load of money,” Tatum explained.
“What scares me most is that the Triad leader, Lei, I think she said his name was, wants Kenzie for his personal collection. If he’s already handed the cash over for the purchase and the underling doesn’t deliver, he’s going to be very, very angry,” Jordan said.
“The Chinese are big on dignity and respect, or saving face, which is great for the moralistic people, but when the bad guys are seen as losing face, like this Lei, he’s going to want revenge,” Jayson explained.
Jenson clenched his fists and frowned.
“What Jay’s trying to say is that no matter what the asshole who bought Kenzie does or says to try and make up for her escape and their failure to hand her over, it isn’t going to wash. The Triad leader paid money for Kenzie and isn’t going to be happy with a replacement.”
“He’s not going to give up until he has what he wants?” Emmy asked.
“Do you think they’re looking for her?” Pixie shivered and crossed her arms beneath her breasts.
“Do you think they’re going to come here?” Dusty’s voice trembled.
“If they can find her, yes,” Tatum answered.
“They’re not going to get their hands on, Kenzie,” Jordan said through clenched teeth. “They’ll have to go through me, Jay, and Jenson to get near her. They’ll have to fucking kill me to get within sight of her.”
“Me, too,” Jayson stated emphatically.
“I’ll be right beside you,” Jenson said in a hard voice.
“And we’ll all be beside you guys,” Tatum said. “There is no way those fucking assholes are going to hurt, Kenzie. We might be retired soldiers, but we trained to take people like them down.”
“Damned right,” Pixie said. “You’re all big, bad-ass shifters. No one’s going to…oh shit!”
* * * *
Jenson glanced at Kenzie when her breath hitched, and cringed. He wondered if she’d open her eyes and scream at them to get away. The thought caused pain to surge into his heart.
He was surprised because he’d thought he would never feel anything again after fighting for his country. Some of the atrocities he’d seen would be things he’d never forget. So much violence and horror. He and his brothers had been lucky to survive, but it had been seeing the opposite sex staring at them and turning away in repugnance that had deadened his heart. He’d been enviously happy that some of his friends had found their mates, and while he’d pined for a woman they could love, too, he’d never expected to ever lay eyes on her. Now that she was here, albeit bruised, swollen, and hurting, he’d begun to hope. That hoped slowly diminished with each passing second as Kenzie remained lying on the bed with her eyes closed.
Jenson squeezed his own eyes shut and inhaled deeply through his nose. He quickly opened his eyes again and gazed at his mate. The sweet scent of her fear had faded. He could still smell her pain and the blood from her bruises, but he could also smell her sweet feminine fragrance of oranges and peaches. Saliva pooled in his mouth and he swallowed. When she shifted on the bed he got a waft of another sweet perfume. His panther purred with eagerness and began pacing, rubbing himself over his insides as if trying to saturate himself in their mate’s delectable aroma.
She was wet.
He crossed his arms over his chest and dug his fingers into his biceps to prevent himself from moving and reaching for her. Jenson wanted to order everyone from the room, pick his mate up, and hold her close, but he couldn’t for two reasons. The first because he didn’t want to cause her any more pain when she was already feeling way too much. And the second, because he was scared if he so much as touched her, he would strip her out of that hospital gown and bury his face between her legs.
Hope tried to crawl back into his heart, but he ruthlessly pushed it away. He didn’t want to be optimistic only to have his dreams smashed onto the rocks. Maybe he and his brothers were going to have to get used to spending the rest of their lives alone after all.
* * * *
Big bad-ass shifters? What the hell was Pixie talking about?
Kenzie had listened to all the people talking about her and her situation while she pretended to be asleep. When the men had started to explain to the other women about the Triad, she’d been terrified, and it had been hard to keep her breathing deep and even. However, when the guys had said they’d protect her, her fear had waned and confidence that she’d survive this began to take its place.
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