Emily nodded, a faraway look in her eyes. “In the early days, I fought. I was granted permission to sit at Jonas’ feet one evening for dinner. Nate was being his usual self, making his disregard for my presence known. We have a love hate relationship; we love to hate each other. Nate always inferred I was a liability. That Jonas should only keep his slaves for a short while then properly dispose of them. On this particular evening Nate called me a whore, so I grabbed a knife from the table and stabbed him in the foot.” Emily sighed. “It was absolutely worth a week in the cage.”
Bomber groaned loudly. “What the fuck was the cage?”
I’m pretty sure I didn’t want to know.
“It is what you would expect—a cage—about three feet by three feet. Large enough for an average size woman but small enough that you can’t stand up and can barely sit. Jonas housed his cage in the basement of his home, so there was no light or sound; the sensory deprivation was maddening. You would only receive a slice of bread at morning and night, and a half a glass of water. Even though your body would scream for sustenance and just one chance to stretch your limbs, it was the psychological torture of being locked in a cage that was the real killer.” There was no inflection or emotion in Emily’s voice.
“Motherfucker is going to die hard,” growled Gabbie.
Sam looked a little pale and Bomber and Dillon were trying hard to maintain control. I, on the other hand, had been struck speechless, simply in awe of the strength Emily had to endure to survive her time with Jonas.
“If Nate is alive, he’ll come for me, and if he isn’t, another of Jonas’ personal security team will. Jonas himself won’t come, so I’ll need to go with whoever comes for me, to get to Jonas.” The room was silent as Emily seemed to think this through out loud. My eyes never left Emily’s.
“You won’t be going anywhere with Nate, or any other of Jonas’ men,” I calmly stated. I wanted to roar and bellow, but I managed to keep my composure.
“Jonas won’t come for me and anyone who works for Jonas wouldn’t think twice about dying for him, so don’t think you can grab them at the pickup for information. I am going to have to go willingly. It’s the only way to get to Jonas,” Emily argued.
“There is only so much a man can endure before spilling secrets, Em. I can’t imagine Jonas being a caring, honorable boss, I’m sure there will be a few of his men that would crack under very little pressure,” Gabbie carefully explained.
“No,” Emily shook her head almost violently, “the ones at the top would never give him up. Jonas only lets certain people close to him, and they are people he can control, people who have something to lose. He will have threatened family or loved ones to gain their compliance. It’s how he ended up keeping me, it’s how he keeps everyone. I went through all those years of hell to keep Rebecca safe. There are men working for him that would go through ten times that to keep their loved ones safe.”
“Do you have any idea what will happen when Jonas gets his hands on you?” I growled, calling an end to the discussion. “I told you I would hunt him and I will. Once I have him, you get to finish him.”
She shook her head stubbornly. Sam tried unsuccessfully to shrink behind the computer screen, obviously wanting no part in this debate.
“Em, Braiden is right. It’s too dangerous to allow you to get that close. Once we’ve secured Jonas, then we will let you do what you need to do.” Dillon was always the voice of reason. But Emily completely ignored him as she set her determined focus on Sam. He tried to shrink further away under her resolute gaze.
“Is there some sort of a tracking device I can wear?”
That caught Sam’s attention, and he sat up straighter.
“No,” I growled. “Jonas will strip you of everything, jewelry, clothing...”
Emily didn’t look my way; she just kept staring at Sam who was staring back at her with a thoughtful look.
“We would have to assume they won’t leave anything on your person. You’ll be searched, just as Braiden suggested, and possibly bound and gagged. We can put an RFID tag in you. It works just like a GPS tracker in your phone but can be placed under the skin. The only downside is we have to maintain a close distance. If you get too far away, we’ll lose the signal.”
“How close?” asked Dillon.
“Thirty to thirty-five feet, tops.”
The room erupted into argument. Of course there was no way we could remain covert if we followed that closely.
“Wait, hear me out.” Sam put up his hands in defense. “The RFID tag is just a precaution, insurance if you will. We may not even need to use it.” The team grew quiet once again. “When they pick up Em, they’re most likely going to want to stop somewhere and strip search her. I doubt they’ll do it in the middle of the street. If they know about Collars and Coats, they know she is in Claymont which means there have been eyes on her, which means they have to have a local base nearby. And that’s where they will more than likely take Em. You do your ninja stuff and follow, when Emily is taken inside to be searched, we bug the vehicle, then you can follow it at a safer distance.”
“There are a lot of ifs and buts in that plan, Sam,” I murmured.
I wasn’t used to operations being so flimsy. I prepared them by taking in every angle, every possible failure and plugging it up with a backup plan that wouldn’t fail.
Sam shrugged. “If things don’t feel right, you can always use those fancy guns you carry and shoot everyone, or try interrogation.”
Everyone had become quiet, all possibly thinking the same I was thinking: this was madness. We were actually contemplating handing Emily right back to the man we had rescued her from. And this time I had no doubt he would kill her.
The team slowly disbanded, and I took Emily home. The drive was quiet with neither of us able to find our voices. I was too deep in my thoughts to bother with small talk, and Em seemed distant. If the curled fists in her lap were any indication, maybe a little angry, too. As we approached the front porch to her home, Emily hesitated and pressed her ear to the door. It was then I heard the laughter beyond. It sounded like Ella.
Em sighed.
“I can take you somewhere else for a while if you aren’t in the mood for socializing,” I offered.
Emily shook her head. “If I lived my life that way, I would spend forever locked in a room avoiding people.” She pushed open the door and sure enough, on the other side sat Rebecca and Charlie, Ella and Jax. Rebecca’s eyes lit up as soon as the spied Emily safe and sound. She signaled for us to join them.
“We’re choosing baby names, come help. Ella wants to call their baby Sunshine if it’s a girl. We need to talk some sense into her. I’d offer to knock it into her, but she’s pregnant.” Emily reluctantly moved towards the cozy setting.
“Where is Larz?” I asked, not particularly wanting to be involved in this little social scene either.
“In the kitchen. I swear that man never stops eating. He should be the size of semi-trailer,” said Rebecca.
Em cast me a nervous glance as I moved to the kitchen, her discomfort clearly visible in the way she held herself stiffly. Apart from the short anxious look my way, she moved easily into a mask of impassiveness. I thought about asking her to join Larz and me, but thought better of it. These were situations she was learning to adapt to. She herself had said if she didn’t force herself to partake in group gatherings like this, she would likely never leave her room. I found Larz heating leftovers in the kitchen and quickly filled him in on what was happening.
“It’s doable. Not ideal, but doable,” he finally said after thinking it over.
I’d hoped Larz would be the responsible one who would refuse to put Emily is such grave danger. Seeing his positive response to the plan made me furious and yet I trusted Larz. I knew he also cared for Emily, so if he could go with this plan, then I guess it was just my irrational possessive claim on Emily that was clouding my own judgment.
“For all we know Jonas is here in Claymon
t.” Larz took a long drink from his water bottle.
His words sparked something within me though. Could Jonas be in Claymont? I had been so lost in the hunt, so consumed with tracking him across the world, I hadn’t even paused to think he could have made his way here.
“And if he is here, the fucker wouldn’t just put a gun to her head and pull the trigger. He doesn’t work that way. He’s the kind of man who holds a grudge and believes in cruel and unusual forms of torture. He wouldn’t kill her right away, which would give us time.” Larz was thinking like a soldier, forcing himself to think of Emily as a faceless civilian and nothing more. It’s the only way he could have considered her being tortured and killed, and not start breaking things.
“It’s a long shot though. Jonas could be anywhere; however, hiding in plain sight does seem logical. He sure as hell isn’t popping up on any of the usual radars. Alexander emailed me this morning, wondering if Jonas is dead. He has never known a man to disappear so effectively who wasn’t already six feet under.”
The pause in our conversation allowed for the chatter in the living room to spill into the kitchen.
“What do you mean?” came Rebecca’s voice, laced with worry.
I moved out of the kitchen and into the dining room that opened into the living area. Larz was right behind me. All eyes were on Emily, her sorrowful eyes full of pain. Jax cast me a nervous glance.
“I mean what I said, B,” her words were mumbled. She looked shy and embarrassed about all the attention that was focused on her.
“Don’t be silly. Of course you can have a baby. You’re young. When this is all over and you’ve had some time to heal, you’ll meet the right man, and you’ll see that having a family isn’t all that impossible,” Rebecca argued.
Charlie placed his hand on Rebecca’s shoulder. “Betty Boop, I don’t think Em is suggesting she doesn’t want to have children. I think she meant she can’t, medically.”
Rebecca became silent at Charlie’s words. Emily lifted her gaze from the floor. She took note of everyone staring at her, and her eyes settled on mine.
“I bled once and it wouldn’t stop. Jonas had a doctor come to the home, and he examined me. They ended up sedating me, and when I woke, the doctor explained that the damage was so significant that he had to do a full hysterectomy.” She pulled her gaze from mine, shame and horror filling the depths of her blue eyes. She looked at her sister. “Even if I were able to physically have children, I wouldn’t. I’m not normal, B, and I never will be. What I went through fucked me up—physically and emotionally. I wouldn’t put that burden on a child.” Emily rose from the couch with her shoulders back, her movements fluid and graceful. Without a word, she walked down the hallway and into her bedroom.
Rebecca was barely holding it together, Ella looked pale, and Jax and Charlie looked ready to kill someone. I went to follow her, but Larz’s hand on my shoulder stopped me.
“Boss, give her some space. She doesn’t like people to see her in tears; she sees them as a weakness.”
Desperately needing to beat the shit out of something, I clenched and unclenched my fists. Charlie was already standing, his gym bag over his shoulder. This had become a silent and unspoken understanding between the two of us. Sometimes a guy just needed to blow steam and there is no better way to do it than in a ring. Charlie once had the potential of being a world champion kick boxer. Instead, his wayward temper kept his fighting to a minimum. It had become a routine to call him when I needed an outlet for my own anger. Avoiding his punishing fists and deadly kicks was enough to refocus me. Leaving a lingering kiss on his woman’s lips, I followed him out the door, and we left for Lee’s Gym.
CHAPTER 17
EMILY
Three days had passed since the admission of my infertility. Rebecca was treating me like a child, who might break at any moment. Larz and Charlie thankfully were no different than before. There was understanding in their eyes, though no pity. I had only seen Braiden once in the last three days, when he took me to his home and had Dillon insert the tracking device under the skin on my shoulder. Neatly sewn together with three small stitches, the wound was looking good. Itchy though. It would leave a small scar, but on my patchwork skin, I really didn’t care. I was a broken, infertile, scarred woman. I took solace in the fact that I was no longer the top shelf quality Jonas and his men preferred.
I was in the laundry room at Mercy’s Shelter. Mercy hummed softly behind me as we worked in a comfortable silence. This is what I loved about Mercy, her understanding of the need to just work and move forward. Stopping to reflect on troubled memories was just too hard some days. I saw my therapist yesterday, and he had ruthlessly scratched at my old wounds. I just wanted it to all go away. Lying down, closing my eyes and never waking again seemed like bliss to me. But I had a job to do before there would be any lying down. Jonas Levier. There wasn’t a single bone in my body that didn’t demand that man’s death, the sooner the better.
“I’m taking a belly dancing class.”
Mercy’s admission made me stop in my tracks. I glanced over my shoulder and saw that she was folding towels, humming again as if nothing had been said.
“Really?” I asked.
She nodded. “Really, but do not tell anyone.” She pointed her finger at me in an attempt to try and look intimidating. I wanted to smile. She was so motherly and fierce all at once. “If Jax found out, he would make me the laughing stock of Claymont.”
I shook my head. “I doubt that. Jax adores you, and he doesn’t seem like the type to ridicule his mom.”
Mercy smiled and plonked herself down on a stool, throwing the last folded towel into the large pile we had been working through. “No, he wouldn’t. But he’d tell Ella and then Ella would tell Rebecca and she would tell Charlie and Charlie wouldn’t let me live it down.” I pulled the last towels from the dryer and began folding them. “You should come with me.” I paused and gave Mercy an ‘over-my-dead-body’ look. She laughed. “Come on, it would be fun.”
“No, thank you. I’ve lived enough of my life being uncomfortably ogled. I’m more than happy to plod along in the background nice and quietly.”
“Nobody ogles you. The instructor is a sixty-three-year-old grandmother, and I am the youngest of the other eight women who go. It’s just for fun and it’s great exercise.”
I considered it for a moment. Older women who no longer paraded around fluffing their feathers like proud peacocks, I might fit in. “I’ll think about it.”
Mercy smile was full of approval when a tap on the door caught our attention.
“Ladies,” said Braiden, his lopsided grin full of mischief. It made my heart stutter with longing to see that smile.
“Mr. Montgomery, you must be here for your date.”
Braiden had a date? The stuttering in my heart shifted to something uncomfortable and my stomach revolted. Was this jealousy? If so, then why was I feeling it? I was angry with this man in front of me. He had thrown me away, left me crying on the floor of my sister’s home. He had been the one to organize the psychiatric facility in Florida. Those reasons alone should have made me spitting mad, not swooning over him or feeling the dead weight of horror at the idea of him with another woman.
“That I am,” he declared, holding his hand out to me. I just stared at it, unable to talk as my body became hostage to foreign emotions. “Come on, Em, or we’ll be late.”
“Late?” I asked, shaking my head.
“For our date. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to give you the chance to back out. Now come on, we have a table full of fine cuisine waiting.”
Mercy gave me an encouraging look as I stepped forward, unsure of what was going on. Braiden took my hand and led me out of the shelter to his beautiful Corvette parked in the back parking lot. He politely opened the door for me and I slid in. As he climbed in the driver’s seat, I spared a quick glance back to the shelter. Mercy was standing at a window with a big grin on her face, waving. I gave her a
wave back and turned to face forward.
“Where’s Larz?” I found myself wondering.
“He took off when I arrived.”
“We have a date?”
“We do.” Silence.
“I’m not exactly dressed for a date,” I mumbled, looking down at my worn jeans, dirty sneakers and grey hoodie.
“It doesn’t matter. You can wear anything you want where we’re going.”
More silence.
“I’ve never been on a real date before.”
Braiden glanced my way, his dark eyes full of promise. “I will have to make sure it is a date to remember then.”
We pulled right into the garage at Braiden’s home. “Wait there,” he ordered. He disappeared behind the car somewhere before my door clicked open, and then he stood before me with a large bouquet of deep blue flowers. “Irises. Rebecca told me that they hold the meaning of faith, hope, courage and admiration.”
I stepped slowly from the car and took the flowers gingerly in my hands that shook with emotion. I’d never been given flowers before and these weren’t something as cliché as roses. These were chosen with a particular message in mind.
“Thank you,” I whispered, suddenly shy.
“You’re welcome,” Braiden replied.
Once we were inside, I noticed the lights had been lowered and the dining table was lit with candles of varying sizes and shapes. It made the setting look cozy and intimate. Music played in the background, Ella Fitzgerald’s Dream a Little Dream of Me. Jazz was safe music, it was non-Jonas and it was soothing and romantic. The meals were already dished out and ready to eat. The entire setting was like an intoxicating scene from a romance movie and my brain simply could not place me within it. This wasn’t supposed to be my future. I hadn’t even offered myself the chance to dream up something so entirely captivating, so perfect. It was Braiden’s voice from over my shoulder that brought this wistful scene to reality.
“Thank you, Gabbie.”
I hadn’t even realized she was there. I turned in time to see her disappear down the hallway. Braiden pulled out a chair for me, and I moved forward in a daze. I sat gracefully at the immaculate table setting.
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