“Yeah. We met the first day of ninth grade. I walked into our English class and Angie accidentally knocked her text book off her desk. I picked it up and handed it back. We’ve been friends ever since.”
“You never dated?”
He took in a deep breath and let it out. “Yeah, we sort of did. For about two or three weeks in tenth grade, but we both felt it was going to screw up our friendship. I can’t say it was like dating my sister, more like dating a cousin.”
“But you were in love with her, weren’t you?”
He should have seen that question coming. “I thought I was, but not until I ended up in the Marines. She wrote me every week when I was deployed. Email. Snail mail. Sent me care packages. I was there for her when both her parents died. Her only brother was killed in a car accident when she was nine. Suddenly, I was all she had left in the world to call family. A few years later, my mom and sister were killed, and I was in the same boat—Angie was the only family I had left. But when the shit went down with my last case, and she fell in love with Ian . . . at first, I was crushed. But while I was recovering from getting shot and starting my life over, I realized if I’d truly been in love with her, then I would have fought for her. I wouldn’t have let another man come between us. Ian and I will never be the best of friends, but we both love Angie, in different ways, and want what’s best for her. I think I’d been in love with the idea of having someone to share my life with. The problem was, I was so caught up in avenging my mom’s and sister’s deaths that I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t fall in love with someone . . . anyone . . . and I sure as hell couldn’t share my life with her. I wouldn’t have been able to give her what she needed—my heart and my soul. I lost them both so long ago, I’m not sure if I’ll ever get them back.”
Brie placed her hand on his chest, and the muscles there twitched. “You already got them back, Jase. You just don’t realize it. But I see it. You’re a good man. Loyal. A caring Dom. Your heart and soul are here. If they weren’t, you wouldn’t be here with me right now, doing everything you can to help me find Nadine. And I can’t thank you enough for that.”
Grasping her hand, he brought it to his lips and kissed the tips of her fingers. While he knew she believed her words, he didn’t. He wanted to, but he was so afraid to try to be the man she needed for the rest of her life. He’d give anything to be him, but if he failed, Brie would be the one hurt in the end.
Entering his suite, Ian wasn’t surprised to see his clothing still piled on one of the couches along with two pillows and a blanket. But he did have to smile. As pissed as Angie was, she’d still folded his clothes in neat stacks at some point since he’d left to stake out Perdition. Ever since she’d gotten pregnant, her nesting instincts had kicked in.
Shutting the door, he took in the silence. She was probably asleep since all the lights and the television were off. It was 12:30 a.m. and had been a long and exhausting day for her, both physically and emotionally. Noting the messy food cart, he was glad to see she’d eaten earlier. So someone from the resort could return it to the kitchen, he rolled it out into the hallway and left it outside the door.
Knowing his brother would answer if he was still awake, Ian retrieved his cell phone from his pocket and found Devon in his contacts before putting it to his ear. When the call was picked up, he asked without preamble, “Dev, who do you have available to come down my way?”
“Are you kidding me? You’re supposed to be on a vacation, Ian, not picking up jobs. Angie will murder you.”
He sat down on the couch, kicked off his sneakers, and propped his feet up on the coffee table. “Yeah, I’m already on her shit list. As of right now, I don’t think I’ll be having sex again until that kid is eighteen. You know our friend taking that really long vacation? Well, he decided to visit here at the same time as us. My wife wasn’t thrilled at the unexpected interruption.” That was a fucking understatement.
“Oh, shit! What the hell is he doing there?”
“A friend of his is in trouble, and ironically it might be connected to what Batman is working on.” Darius “Batman” Knight was a retired Navy SEAL who’d been on the same Team Four as Ian, Devon, and the other original six-man Trident team, before joining the security business with them. He was currently undercover in Argentina, infiltrating the cartel that was responsible for a large portion of the white-slavery trade in South and Central America. Lindsey “Costello” Abbott and Valentino “Romeo” Mancini were down there, too, as his backup.
“Damn.”
“Exactly. Who do you have for me?” Ian asked again.
“Uh . . . let’s see. I can send Polo, Reverend, Junior, Cowboy, and Skipper. Everyone else is neck deep in their assignments, but I can pull one or two more if you really need them or I can call Chase.” Chase Dixon owned Blackhawk Security, a company similar to Trident, and often supplied them with extra personnel when needed—in fact, he’d supplied some of the men who’d helped save Angie and Jenn when they’d been held hostage.
“No, that should do for now. I’m going to throw our friend a party, so we’ll need some favors for the guests. Have Polo go shopping for everything we’ll need.” The “party favors” would consist of weapons, ammo, explosives, communications gear, bulletproof vests, and anything else they might need. Marco “Polo” DeAngelis wouldn’t need to go far to “shop” since the Trident compound was well stocked for any mission that might come up. “Send CC down with everyone tomorrow since we don’t have a date set for the party yet.” The company’s pilot had taken the jet back to Florida after dropping Angie and Ian off at a private airport on the island, where they’d met up with Carter and Jordyn.
“You might want to warn Polo and Reverend they’re on Angie’s shit list, too,” he added. “No need for them to walk into an ambush.” The others were lucky. They had no idea who Athos/Atwood was. Well, Ian and Dev’s youngest brother, Nick Sawyer, aka Junior, did, but as far as he knew, the man was six feet under at a cemetery in upstate New York. But Angie was sure to ream Polo and Jake “Reverend” Donovan the moment she saw them.
“Will do. Shit. I gotta go—JD’s crying and Kristen’s asleep. I’ll call you in the morning for an update.”
“Later.” Disconnecting the call, he quickly typed out a text to Nathan to do his geek thing as soon as he got to work in the morning. While Ian didn’t think Brie Hanson wasn’t exactly as she seemed, a bar/restaurant owner who was worried about her sister, he wasn’t taking any chances. Nathan would have a complete dossier on her within an hour or two. If Ian was going to be using his team and resources, he wanted to be certain there wasn’t anything that would bite them in the ass down the road. Once he hit send on the phone, he had one more thing he needed to do, and his wife was sure to fight him on it.
Standing, he walked to the bedroom door. Angie hadn’t locked it earlier; she knew it was useless to try. The one time she’d attempted to lock him out of a room, it hadn’t stopped him from getting in. Easing the door open, his gaze fell on the bed where his wife was lying on her side. There was just enough moonlight coming through the blinds to see her clearly. Her eyes opened as he stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. “You’re not sleeping in here, Ian.”
“Try again, Angel. You’re my wife and submissive, and I’m sleeping in our bed.” He pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it on a chair by the windows. “We’ll talk about this in the morning.”
Angie sat up in the bed, turned on her bedside lamp, and glared at him with tired eyes—at least they were no longer swollen from her crying earlier. “No, we’re going to talk about this now. One of the main rules of our contract, collaring ceremony, and wedding had to do with being honest with each other, and you failed. You swore to me you’d never do it again after your deceit about watching me for Jimmy.”
He sighed as he dropped his pants and placed them on the chair as well. He wasn’t stupid enough to take off his boxer briefs—it was highly unlikely he was getting laid tonight—so he l
eft them on and climbed onto his side of the bed. “Angel, let me ask you a question. If you did know his plan—a very last minute plan, mind you—that Jase was going to have to fake his death in order to keep both himself and you alive, would you really have been able to let him go? Would you have been able to put on an act at his wake and funeral? Would you have been able to be convincing to the FBI and DEA agents who interviewed you several times, without slipping up even once? Would you have been okay knowing he was out there somewhere, but not knowing where and not being able to contact him?”
Her glare dropped to where her fingers were picking at an invisible piece of lint on the blanket covering her, as she mumbled, “That’s more than one question.”
Ian rolled onto his side facing her and got comfortable. “Yeah, it is. That’s because this wasn’t a decision he made lightly. Either way, you’d be grieving for him, and I understand that; he was your best friend for a long time. But your knowing he was alive could’ve resulted in someone hell-bent on revenge tracking him down. It would’ve only taken one person . . . one wrong person out of all the cops and feds who spoke to you or observed you in any way, to suspect you were lying and he wasn’t really dead. And if that happened, they’d stop at nothing to find him and kill him for real, including using you, Jenn, Kristen, or even me or one of the team. You were the only person in this entire world who could be used against him, either directly or indirectly. Do you really think you would’ve been able to sit there and choose between me or any of the others or . . .” He reached out and laid his wide-spread hand on her baby bump. “. . . Little Bit being killed if you didn’t tell them where Jase was? Or letting him be killed in order to save someone else you loved? Would you really want to be put in that position to have to choose? I couldn’t let you go through that, Angel, so yes, letting you believe he was dead was the lesser of two evils. And yes, I wasn’t honest with you as our contract and vows stated I should be, however, another part of them was that I would do everything in my power to protect you, too, and that took precedent.”
A tense silence filled the air as Angie thought through all he’d said. Reaching over, she turned off the light and shifted further down under the covers. “Who else knows he’s alive?”
“Not as many people as you think. Just the Alpha team, Carter, the military surgeon who treated him, and Larry Keon.” The latter was the Assistant Director of the FBI and had helped get the paperwork and medical records necessary to fake the man’s death and set him up with a new identity. “As far as the other contract agents who were there, they think he died in surgery. So do the local cops and FBI, Boomer’s dad, the paramedics who arrived to treat him, and the pilot who flew him out of there.” Boomer’s father was also a retired SEAL and had been there to help with the rescue. It had been his bullet that’d killed the rogue DEA agent a split second after the guy had taken the shot that had hit Angie’s best friend. “Hell, even Jordyn had no idea who he was when she walked into the suite earlier. Carter never told her either. But now she knows and so do you, and you can’t tell anyone else, Angel, not even Kristen, Jenn, or any of the other women. It’s too dangerous. Nick doesn’t know but he will when he gets here with the others tomorrow.”
Her head whipped to the side to face him, and even in the darkened room, he could see her eyebrows were arched high. “What are you talking about? Who’s coming and why?”
“Nick, Jake, Polo, Cowboy, and Skipper will be down. We found out what may have happened to Nadine Hanson and we’re going to need some help.” He paused, knowing what he was about to say was going to be met with some resistance. “I want you to fly home with CC after they get here.”
“What? Why?”
Ian yawned, the long day finally catching up to him. “Because we think Brie’s sister was taken by a white-slavery ring, the one that Batman is infiltrating down in South America, and I don’t want you anywhere near them.”
Her eyebrows fell and narrowed at him. “I highly doubt they’re going to want a pregnant, thirty-five-year-old woman, Ian. I’m not leaving. I know I can’t do anything to help you, but at least I can be here to support Brie and Amy. They’ll need someone to talk to while you all are running off, saving Nadine and the rest of the world.”
Eyelids drooping, Ian wasn’t going to argue with her anymore tonight. There’d be plenty of time for that tomorrow while waiting for his team to arrive. “Not the entire world, Angel. Just my little corner of it.”
C
HAPTER 12
N adine Hanson let out the breath she’d been holding as the door to the bedroom closed. The only time it had opened since she’d woken up from what had to have been a drug-induced sleep, Lord knows how many hours or days ago, was when food was brought in. She wasn’t sure if it was Saturday or Sunday. With the windows blacked out, the only way to tell time was by what type of meal they were given. Hell, she wasn’t even sure where she was. Neither were any of the other four young women who were being held prisoner there for some unknown reason—well, at least to them it was unknown. Every time they asked one of the armed men who brought in the food three times a day, the responses had always been, “Shut up and eat.” Or something to that effect. But since Nadine was the only one who didn’t remember waking up briefly on a boat before being drugged again, she was hoping that meant they were still on St. Lucia. Not that it made a difference since no one knew where to start looking for her. She was certain Amy would’ve notified Brie by now. Her sister was probably worried and pissed at the same time—worried because Nadine was missing, and pissed because she probably knew where the two best friends had been working.
When she’d gotten into a fight with Rudy and ultimately fired—Brie had warned her not to sleep with a boss at any job—Nadine had thought it would be easy to find another job. But after a month of looking, she’d been ready to swallow her pride, give up, and return to Caicos. Then one of the women who lived in the same crappy building as them, had told them she’d just gotten a job at a strip joint, and they were still hiring. She’d said it was just dancing and you got to keep your panties or thong on. Nadine and Amy had been at many topless beaches in the Caribbean, and had even taken Brie a time or two, so it was no big deal—plus, the money was supposed to be good. What they hadn’t known until it was too late, and they’d already handed over their passports, was that the owner took a sixty-five percent cut of their tips. When they demanded their passports back, they were told it was going to cost them money and not to bother going to the police since the owner was friends with a lot of government officials. They’d have to work off $5000 dollars to get out from under Laron’s control.
Later she’d thought something good had come from working in the club. One of the nicer looking men had flirted with her after her shift about three weeks ago. When they were done dancing, the strippers were expected to mingle with the customers. Some of the women made extra money by sleeping with them, but Nadine, Amy, and a few others refused to go that far. Thankfully, it wasn’t a requirement, although it would have helped them pay off their debt to get their passports back faster.
The guy had told her his name was Jack Harrison and he was a businessman. With his good looks, strong British accent, and his nice clothes, she wondered why he hung out in a strip club—he could probably have any woman he wanted—but had been afraid to insult him by asking. After that first night when they’d chatted for over an hour, he’d shown up a few more times, always toward the end of her shift. He’d buy her a drink, and they’d talk about a bunch of things. She’d found him fascinating. When he’d told her he was a Dom in the BDSM lifestyle, she’d been surprised and leery, but he’d taken the time to explain it to her. He hadn’t pushed her into going to a club with him, but, thinking back now, he’d seduced her and made her want to see what the lifestyle was all about. Accepting his offer to learn more about BDSM the other night had been the biggest mistake of her life. The last thing she remembered before waking up in this room was him ordering her a drink while she looke
d around in awe at the mansion that’d been converted into a BDSM club he’d taken her to. There, she’d been introduced to a suave, good-looking man named Master Taye who was supposedly the club’s owner. He’d bought her and Jack drinks at the bar. After that, she had no idea what’d happened, but knew it was because of her date, and possibly Master Taye, that she was now in this predicament.
After she’d woken up here, one of the guards had forced her to give him the code to access her voicemail and texts on her cell phone. It hadn’t taken her long to realize that he was going to erase all evidence of her contact with Jack so he wouldn’t be a suspect if the police investigated her disappearance. Apparently, they’d done the same thing with the other women’s phones. That explained why Jack had been pissed when she’d left her purse and phone at her apartment. She hadn’t wanted to keep track of them in the club.
Standing, Nadine joined the others in grabbing some food and water. At first, she’d been afraid it contained drugs to knock them out again, but the other women had told her that hadn’t been the case. They’d all been there when she’d woken up. Trying to escape had been futile they’d told her, but she hadn’t taken their word for it until she tried to open the windows and had found them made of strong, blacked-out Plexiglas and bolted shut. She also learned that there were always two armed men stationed in the hallway, guarding the door. At least there was an attached bathroom for them to use. Nadine had inspected every inch of it looking for something that would help get them out of there, but had come up empty. So there she sat on one of the folding cots, wondering what would happen to her and the four other women. It wasn’t hard to figure out they’d all been targeted because they were in their late teens or early twenties, pretty, and physically fit. And that didn’t bode well for any of them. The Caribbean was a common place for women like them to go missing without a trace. It had been for years. And it appeared Nadine and the others were about to be added to that long list. She hoped she was wrong, but the only thing she could think of was they were going to be sold to the highest bidders and end up as sex slaves for some rich, perverted, sadistic assholes. That was why they were feeding them and allowing them to wash up in the bathroom. Her stomach rolled at the thought.
Salvaging His Soul: Trident Security Book 8 Page 13
