by Mari Carr
Her words painted a vivid, horrible picture.
“That was when the boy I loved stepped in.”
Marek wanted to cheer. Finally, finally, someone had helped her.
“He told Elroy that since…that since he was the one who’d been offended, it was his right to punish me.”
“I’m so sorry, Rose.” He whispered the words, not wanting to interrupt her, but needing to say them. She kept up her restless, anxious pacing.
“Elroy gave him the cane, but the boy I loved undid the rope. I remembered thinking this was it, we were going to make a break for it, run away.”
Logic told him that wasn’t what happened, that the story didn’t suddenly get a happy ending, but some foolish part of him hoped for that, rooted for Rose and this boy she’d loved to run away and sail off into the sunset.
Her next words were stark. “He spanked me while his father watched.”
Marek shook his head once.
“I was heartbroken that he hadn’t come to rescue me. Embarrassed that he’d seen me naked, that he knew what his father had done to me. Enraged with him for doing this to me. He was my friend, my family, the person who, in my fantasies, saved me from the hell I was living.”
“I’m sorry for what you suffered, Rose.”
“It gets worse. Or better. Depending on your point of view. Because the spanking didn’t actually hurt. It sounded worse than it was.”
Marek was ready to cheer again. “He was pretending?”
“Yes—playing along. As soon as the spanking was over, he ordered me to his room. I wasn’t sure, so I behaved like the obedient thing they’d made me into. I was scared I’d been wrong, that he really was just like his father.
“But he wasn’t. When he came, he held me, and I felt safe. He told me that they’d trained him too—nothing like what I experienced, but he’d had the same birds and the bees lecture. But he’d just shrugged it off.
“He wanted to run away that night.” She shook her head. “He was older than I was, but he was naive, because he didn’t realize we couldn’t run. We were trapped.”
“Why?”
“Do you remember I said there were three siblings? And one was in the hospital?”
“Yes.”
“The youngest, Tabitha, was sick. A rare degenerative disease. We loved her; we all loved her. She’s one of those people. And they told me that if I told anyone about them, about the purists, or if I tried to run away again, they’d hurt Tabby—that’s what we called her.”
“They’d hurt their own child?”
“Tabby didn’t matter to them. No one talks about it, but members of the Trinity Masters are all able-bodied, healthy, and smart. Legacy kids who aren’t all of those things don’t get admitted.” Rose’s lip curled in disgust. “Tabby would never be a member, so all she was good for was leverage over us.”
“What happened to your boyfriend?”
“He was stubborn. Noble. He insisted he’d find a way to save us. He stayed until his brother came home for the summer. Then he left, to go find a way to save us. And then he disappeared.”
Marek grimaced.
“We knew—the other brother and I—that Elroy had killed him. There was a fire at an apartment they owned. That’s where they kept their mistress. In the fire, they found two bodies. A man and a woman. The mistress and the boy I loved.”
The death of hope was a horrible, soul-crushing thing for anyone to experience. “I’m very sorry.”
Rose started pacing again. “The brother, who was my age, he had been trained as a Dominant too. He decided to protect me. He took me to Elroy and collared me.”
“Collared?”
“He claimed me as his property.” She spat the last word as if it were bitter.
“He was pretending, like his brother had,” Marek concluded.
“No…” Rose shook her head. “Caden wasn’t pretending.”
“Caden?” It hadn’t escaped his notice that she hadn’t said the name of the brother she referred to as “the boy I loved.” Names had power, and speaking the name of a loved one who was lost was often difficult, and sometimes impossible. Marek frowned as pieces fell into place. “The ‘friend’ who was killed?”
“Yes. Caden has owned me since we were seventeen.”
“Owned you, that’s—”
“Accurate. What it is, is accurate. He collared me, but he was serious. He was a Dom. He treated me like his submissive. I don’t think he knew any other way to be. As long as I was his, his father mostly stayed away from me. Instead, we both danced on Elroy’s strings, running around gathering information, protecting the purists’ secrets.”
“Because they would still hurt the sister, Tabby?”
“Yes.” Rose closed her eyes and tipped her head back, as if she were letting sunlight kiss her face. But they were underground. There was no sunlight.
“What about your betrothal?”
“Ah, that’s where fate intervened. The Grand Master had to step down, and Juliette unexpectedly became Grand Master. The first thing she did was dissolve the betrothal.” Rose opened her eyes and smirked. “Of course, Juliette married Devon in the end. Elroy and Barton were not happy. For a moment, they thought that they might have a double agent actually bound to the Grand Master. But Devon and Juliette were in love, and had been for years.”
“And you?”
“They didn’t love me. How could they? They didn’t know me, and I’m not capable of loving anyone, and I’m sure they felt that.” She licked her lips. “Deep down, they must have known how…how messed up I was.”
Marek stared at her, sickened by her story of abuse, loss, and manipulation.
“It’s understandable that when Caden was killed, you wanted revenge. He protected you, loved you.”
“Loved me? He said he loved me. But I don’t think he really knew what that meant.” A single tear slid down her cheek.
She returned to the step, and Marek wrapped an arm around her and let her cry quietly against his shoulder.
Chapter Nine
Several hours passed before she stopped making soft, heartbreaking noises. Marek had wiped away a few tears of his own during that time.
And he’d had time to think. And make some decisions.
It was going to be all about the timing now.
She coughed, and it was a dry sound. He released her gently and grabbed his untouched soda, sticking a fresh straw in it and giving it to her. She swallowed greedily, then passed it to him. He took a few mouthfuls himself, then set it down where she could drink it.
Rose seemed composed. Her breathing was even, her voice steady. “They say talking is cathartic.”
He crouched in front of her so he could more easily see her face. “Is it?”
“I think so.”
“I’m glad.”
She tossed her hair. Some strands of hair still clung to her wet cheeks. She swiped at them in irritation. He reached up a hand. “May I?”
She stilled. “Yes.”
He carefully peeled the strands of hair from her cheeks and tucked them behind her ears.
“I’ll tell you a secret,” she whispered. “Something I’ve never told anyone.”
Marek didn’t reply. He’d seen heartbreak and suffering, and there were millions, if not billions of people on the planet whose lives were filled with pain. But those people were numbers, statistics—a vague yet massive suffering he could do nothing about. Rose was right here, strangely elegant despite her bloody and torn clothing. Yet he could see how fragile she was, like a chipped and worn ballerina figurine trapped in a music box, battered and damaged, but still she would rise up and dance when the box was opened and music played.
There was a reason he did what he did—he knew he could help on the individual level, save one person at a time.
He would save Rose.
“I never loved Caden.”
That took him by surprise. “You didn’t?”
“No. Because he wasn’t preten
ding to own me, dominate me. When he collared me, he meant it. He was kinder than Elroy was. He taught me that there could be pleasure mixed in with the pain. But he still owned me.” Her voice thickened with tears. “And I could never forgive him for that. Could never forgive him for not being his brother.”
She swallowed, her throat visibly working. “Part of me hated him, but he was all I had. And now he’s gone.”
Rose stood and paced to the wall and turned. She must have moved too fast because she winced. He needed to do something about her rib before she turned the crack into a break. Marek pushed up off the step.
Rose looked past him up the stairs.
“The brother, the boy I loved? The one who died?”
Marek had a suspicion what she was about to say.
“His name was Weston.” She met Marek’s gaze. “Wes.”
He froze, then turned to look at the top of the steps.
“And,” she said, “he’s not dead.”
* * *
Weston curled his hands into fists. The urge to put his fist through a wall was making the muscles of his biceps twitch. He’d lost half a day. He couldn’t afford to lose time like that.
Marek Lee was a complication he didn’t have time for.
And he’d had to leave Rose down there with him. Damn it.
After her reaction this morning, he wouldn’t put her back in the little makeshift room under the stairs where she’d been the last few days. The only other place to keep anyone was the cellar. He’d stayed outside the door when he first put them in there, then set up a listening device at the door before heading out to get food. She hadn’t eaten in days, and he’d been anxious to make sure she ate something.
He heard bits of murmured conversation—enough to know Marek wasn’t strangling her. Then he’d reluctantly gone to his computer to do some damage control.
He’d shot out a few queries, trying to get more information about this Lee person.
He hadn’t gotten anything back yet.
He was so close to having what he needed, but the situation was getting more fucked by the moment. First his brother was murdered, then Rose went nuts and started shooting people and blowing stuff up. Now he had this Marek guy to deal with. He had to get to Dorset. He knew the proof he needed was there—he could feel it.
Weston stared at the door to the cellar, frustrated and worried. As far as he was concerned, Marek was the enemy—he’d been sent by the Grand Master, who wanted Rose’s head on a plate. Marek seemed to have no idea what was really going on—that he’d be taking Rose back to face the judge-and-jury-less justice of the Trinity Masters.
In the morning, he and Rose were going to Dorset.
He had no clue what he was going to do with Marek.
* * *
Lorelei Madden picked up a cell phone, looked at the display, and then tapped a few keys on her laptop. The call was coming to one of her less-secure phone numbers.
A second later, the system spit out an identification for the caller, who had used a low-level rerouting procedure.
Standard operating practice for members of the Masters’ Admiralty.
“Madden,” she answered.
“Find my grandson.”
She’d known who was calling, but she still winced. “Ms. Dell.”
“It’s Dame Dell, and don’t you forget it,” the older woman snapped.
Lorelei straighten her spine. She would never admit it, but she idolized Jane Dell. She was no-nonsense, shoot first and almost universally feared—just the way Lorelei wanted to be.
“My grandson,” Jane repeated.
“He’s missing?” When it came to members or their relations, something like this had to be treated like a crisis, because it usually was. “Where was he last seen?” Lorelei laid her fingers on the keys, prepared to take notes.
“I know where he is. Go get him.”
As much as she admired Jane Dell, the woman could be a bit, er, ornery. If her grandson hadn’t come ’round for tea, he was hardly “missing.” Lorelei pursed her lips.
“Dame Dell, I cannot send out agents simply because—”
“You can and you will. He called me this morning. He was on a case.”
“In England?” Lorelei asked coldly.
“He was looking for an American girl who’d been kidnapped. He had a description of the kidnapper. My old biddy network got a line on him. In Sussex, of all the godforsaken places.”
“I’m from Sussex.”
“Well, don’t go around blurting that out, girl.”
Lorelei glared at her office wall. “What are you asking for?”
“I gave him that information this morning. I know my grandson. He would have done recon, then collected a team to do an extraction. He would have called that in. The boy’s manners are flawless, despite my best efforts. It’s been nine hours since I gave him that information. Recon does not take nine hours. It can’t, in Sussex.”
She had a point. “I’ll check into it.”
“You’ll do something about it, or I will.”
“I cannot make—”
The old woman had already hung up. Lorelei glared at the phone. She turned to her computer and quickly read through the log of that day’s reports from in and around Sussex. One was flagged for further review and possible action needed. Usually that meant tipping off the police to something their network had been able to spot that the police never would.
She pinged the phone of the asset who’d sent in the report. A moment later, her phone rang. She answered without saying anything.
“Ms. Madden? It’s James Shepherd.”
“Mr. Shepherd.” Lorelei waited for him to get to the point. He had to know why she was calling. She found unnecessary conversation to be a waste of time, and disliked small talk—and after that conversation with Jane Dell, she was more irritated than usual.
“My report was about a disturbance at Hilltop Cottage.”
“What sort of disturbance?”
“There was a man standing on the lawn holding a large gun threatening to shoot two people.”
Lorelei’s lips thinned. She tapped a few more keys, pulling up a highly encrypted program. Even she, with her excellent memory, had to keep notes. At any one time, she was overseeing a dozen crises, projects, and investigations. She opened the file called “Hilltop Cottage” and refreshed her memory.
Mr. Shepherd knew better than to fill the line with chatter and annoy her.
Her eyes narrowed as she skimmed her terse notes, written in a shorthand code only she could read.
“Thank you,” she said.
Mr. Shepherd may have said something—goodbye or other such niceties that Lorelei found unnecessary—but she’d already ended the call, and immediately started dialing again.
The phone rang twice before it was answered. “Knight.”
“Tristan.” It was an acknowledgment of his identity more than a greeting. Lorelei didn’t bother to identify herself.
“Hello, Lore—”
“You need to control your American.”
A beat of silence.
“Is there a problem?” Knight’s tone remained cool, almost bored.
“He was spotted threatening two people with a gun, in broad daylight. He’s your responsibility.”
“Bloody fuck,” Tristan muttered.
“And he may have taken an asset of ours.”
“Bloody fucking wanker. I’ll take care of it.”
Lorelei grunted in satisfaction when the line went dead. It was a pleasure dealing with other people who didn’t waste time.
She made a mental note to follow up on the situation with their American refugee in a few hours. She looked at the clock. Or in the morning.
Lorelei stood, stretched, and headed for her bedroom, where she changed into pajamas and got into bed with her computer. Work never stopped. She put the situation in Sussex out of her mind until the morning. Until then, there were other, far more serious issues to be addressed.
> * * *
Wes angled his body as he came down the stairs so his good, left side descended first. After all these years, he’d gotten used to having only one eye. He was, quite literally, blind on his right side, so though he was right-handed, he’d learned to lead with his left side. He still had to shoot with his right hand, so he held the bag of dinner in his left, leaving his other hand free to grab the handgun tucked into the back of his waistband.
It was full night, long past dinner, and the food had grown cold by the time he’d gotten back from the only take-away in a twenty-mile radius that was open this late, but he’d done the best he could. It had been hours since he’d brought them fish and chips, and he wanted to make sure Rose ate again.
Marek stood at the bottom of the stairs, wearing only an undershirt.
What the fuck? Why had he gotten undressed?
Rose had one arm across her middle. Her pants were shredded from ankle to above the knee. Both the remains of the pants and her shirt were dirty and wrinkled. Her hair was mussed, her shoulders bowed.
Yet, she was beautiful. She always had been, and she always would be.
He stopped a few steps up from the bottom and slid his right hand back, looking between Rose and Marek.
“Rose, are you okay?”
She sighed and turned away from the steps. “What do you think, Weston?” Her voice was a bit scratchy.
What the hell had Marek done to her?
“Come here, Rose.” The words were tense and harsh from fear. Goddamn it, had he locked her down here with a monster?
Rose jumped as if she’d been shocked. She put her weight on the balls of her bare feet and turned in a smooth, almost poetic motion. Her hair swung forward to brush her right cheek as she lowered her chin.
Marek stepped between them, facing Weston. “You shouldn’t speak to her that way.” His hands were on his hips, his body blocking Rose’s path.
Weston pulled the gun and pointed it at Marek. “Move.”
Marek met his gaze. The other man had dark eyes and a handsome face that boasted the best features from several ethnicities. No missing eyes, no badly healed bones or melted skin. Marek looked like a hero—good-looking, calm, apparently bulletproof.
