by Gemma James
I’d survived things that would make the toughest of men fold, yet water and a needy cock threatened to break me. No man on this planet could push me past my limits like Rafe did.
Zach hadn’t even accomplished that.
Maybe the part that bothered me most was how I caved every time. There wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do for Rafe.
“Besides,” he said. “I wanted his arrival to be a surprise.”
“How come?” I crossed my arms, utterly aware of my nakedness, and eyed him in suspicion. When Jax showed up, shit usually hit the fan.
He gave me a long, considering look. “I need a best man if I’m getting married, don’t I?”
A car door slammed, interrupting anything I might have said. Not that I had anything to say; I was too stunned by Rafe’s words.
“Go put some clothes on,” he said, smacking my bare ass. “Though I’m fucking tempted to make you greet Jax and Company naked for that stunt you pulled in the bathtub.”
Before he changed his mind, I hurried into our bedroom and rifled through my duffle until I found a red checkered sundress. I pulled it over my head, and as I laced up the bodice, heart knocking behind my ribs, I couldn’t stop the grin from spreading across my face.
He was going to marry me.
In the back of my mind, logic tolled the bell of caution, reminding me how life often left me in the tatters of bloody destruction.
Fuck logic. And fuck the other shoe hanging over my head. That fucker wasn’t going to drop. I would take this morsel of happiness and run with it.
Fight for it.
Enjoy every second.
The soft cotton dress swished against my knees as I made my way into the living room again, where I found Jax pulling Rafe into a quick one-armed hug.
“Damn, it’s good to see you,” Jax said.
My gaze fell on the girl standing behind him and to the side. She wore cutoffs and a black tank, with a compact duffle slung over her shoulder. Something about her seemed familiar—not familiar in that I’d seen her before, but familiar because of the vulnerable aurora surrounding her.
Jax and Rafe’s conversation became background noise for the wheels spinning in my head. She was gorgeous, with blond hair that fell to her ass and striking blue eyes I only saw a hint of before she aimed them toward the floor. There was a frailty about her that unsettled me.
She was too thin.
Too timid.
Straight white teeth sucking in her bottom lip in a move I recognized as a nervous one.
The bruises marring her pale skin were the biggest giveaway.
My gaze clashed with Jax’s. His held a hint of guilt, reminiscent of the way he’d looked at Nikki right before she was killed, and that’s when it hit me. This girl was a slave like the one I’d seen in that tunnel last year. I could practically smell the fear coming off of her, sense the psychological damage behind her guarded eyes. She crossed her arms over her chest, cleavage rising and falling too rapidly to be normal in normal circumstances.
But nothing was normal about this situation.
Jax settled a hand on her shoulder, and she flinched. The reaction was subtle, and I might have missed it if I hadn’t been scrutinizing her every move. He propelled her a few inches forward before dropping his arm to his side.
“Can you show her to my room?” he asked, directing the question at me. “I’ll take the couch,” he added, a look passing between him and the girl. Whatever he relayed to her without words seemed to ease some tension from her shoulders.
“What’s your name?”
“We’re calling her Angel,” Jax answered.
“What do you mean you’re calling her Angel? Does she not have a name?”
“I’m sure she has one.” Jax inched toward her, shadowing her side in a protective maneuver. “She doesn’t remember it.”
I waited for her to offer something more, but she remained quiet.
“I’m Alex.”
Still nothing. Not even a “nice to meet you” coming from her full lips.
The disquiet that settled over the four of us was suffocating. Finally, Jax broke the tension, snapping it with the force of a whip.
“You’re safe here,” he told her. “No one’s going to hurt you.”
Rafe arched a brow. “What’s going on, Jax?”
Running his hand through his perpetually shaggy blond hair, he pierced Rafe with an expression that said they’d talk later.
After the little women were out of earshot, of course.
Rafe settled a hand at the small of my back, fingers pointing toward the cleft in my ass. “Babe, give us a minute.”
I barely refrained from rolling my eyes. After disobeying him in the tub earlier, I didn’t want to push it. “Follow me,” I told Angel, biting back a growl that would tell the testosterone in the room exactly what I thought of their tactics.
She followed me down the short hallway, and I paused in front of Jax’s bedroom, hesitant to enter that untouched domain. I’d never been inside his room. Shaking off the uneasy feeling, I shoved the door open and crossed the threshold into a room that smelled musty from disuse. The space appeared innocuous enough, left tidy from the last time he’d been here, bed made and all. Suddenly, I wondered if Jax had visited the cabin since the morning he and Rafe blew up the Perrone estate.
My heartbeat thrashed in my chest as something else occurred to me, squeezing the breath from my lungs.
Had Rafe been back? Had he waited until I left this place, tears of grief saturating my face as I followed Jax out of the cabin for what I believed to be the last time? While I’d suffered his death on my own in Portland, had he hidden out here before moving on to Shelton’s fight ring off the coast?
The idea sent a ripple of rage through me. I wanted to scream and pound my fists on the walls. I wanted him to grovel for what he’d done.
I wanted him to realize how much he’d hurt me, because I wasn’t convinced he understood the extent of it.
“I can sleep on the couch.” Angel’s delicate voice broke through the chaos of my runaway thoughts.
“Take the room,” I said, turning to face her. “If Jax wants you in here, you should be in here.”
Especially since I didn’t know the dynamic of their relationship. If they even had one. For all I knew, Jax was in charge, like Rafe was with me, and he’d punish her disobedience.
“Okay.” Without another word, she let the small duffle on her shoulder slide to the bed. I stood back, curiosity getting the best of me while she filled a drawer in the dresser with her meager belongings.
Undergarments on the left side, tees in the middle, followed by shorts and skirts on the right. She set each folded article inside, one at a time.
Everything in threes.
The whole time, she didn’t speak, and I was stunned into utter silence when she gripped the hem of her tank top and dragged it up her protruding ribcage. She removed her clothing with reverence, folding each garment into a perfect square before placing it on top of the dresser in a neat pile.
Maybe to be washed?
Next, the duffle found a spot in the top of the closet.
Then she kneeled at the end of the bed with her hands clasped at her back, eyes downcast.
Totally fucking naked.
11. Man Talk - Rafe
“Who’s the girl?”
Instead of answering, Jax headed toward the kitchen. “I’m so hungry I could chew off my arm. Whatcha fixing?”
My stomach rumbled, reminding me that the bathtub session with Alex had interrupted breakfast. It was now past lunchtime. “Omelets. Finish chopping the veggies while you tell me what the fuck is going on.”
He took over Alex’s post while I added additional eggs for Jax and his mystery woman. “It’s been a while since we talked,” he said, expertly handling the knife.
“Sorry. We didn’t have cell service at camp.”
“I know.”
Chop.
Chop.
Chop.
Something was on his mind. Jax was too candid to keep quiet for long, so with a flip of the switch on the stove burner, I decided to wait him out.
“Why the detour?” he said, and I didn’t have to ask him what he meant by that. Considering we were only weeks away from finishing work on the island, he probably wanted to know why were bunking down in a safe house instead of at my brother’s vineyard.
“Alex is still dealing with everything that went down last year. She’s scared I’m going to leave her.”
Shaking his hair out of his eyes, he raised a brow. “And you think bringing her back here is going to magically fix everything?”
“Fuck no.” There was no magic fix for what Alex was going through. I knew it because I’d been there…was still there. “But it’s a start. I’m taking it one day at a time.”
“That’s all you can do.”
“Jax, who’s the girl?”
He paused before slicing an onion in half. “I found her in Mexico.”
“When did you go back?”
“A couple of weeks ago.”
“You got a new lead?”
“Yeah.”
Chop.
Chop.
Chop.
“And?” I prompted.
He laid down the knife. “My sister is dead.”
His statement came down on me hard, like the hammer of a gavel. Everything he’d done had been for his sister. The whole reason he’d allowed his son-of-a-bitch father to throw Alex and me into that tunnel was so he could buy enough time to find info on her whereabouts. I felt bad for him, but I couldn’t deny the bitterness that dug under my skin, refusing to be displaced. We’d all gone through so much hell, and all for a fucking ghost.
“You sure she’s…gone?”
“Dental records confirmed it.”
“I’m sorry, Jax.” And I was, despite the quiet anger taking hold of me.
Anger at Jax.
Anger at the De Lucas.
Anger at Fate.
I was ready to flip Fate the finger.
“Me too,” Jax said. “More than I can say.”
And just like that, we understood each other. The past couldn’t ever be changed. We’d lived it, survived it, bled for it. And we were still standing.
“Is she a victim of sex trafficking?” I nodded toward the bedrooms.
“Yeah.” Anguish corroded his tone. “I couldn’t fucking leave her there, so I broke her out. Almost got wasted over it.” There was no mistaking the horror and pain in his voice—a dark, gruff sound that strangled his vocal cords.
He’d seen things in his lifetime, possibly more than I had.
“You were smart to bring her here. She obviously needs help, and Alex could use a friend. Plus, she’s had some experience with victims.”
“Right,” he said with a nod. “Her stint at Sanctuary.”
Back when I was “dead.” Maybe reminding Alex of that time wasn’t such a good idea even if it would help someone else. But damn, if anyone could relate to a victim of sexual slavery, it was Alex.
My previous memory-loss-self would point out how Alex was still a victim, this time by my own hand. And that man would probably back down, set her free. Break her heart all over again for her own good. But the man standing in this kitchen, talking about such horrors as if they were the norm, accepted that she was born to be owned.
She was fucking mine.
Right or wrong, I’d do with her as I saw fit.
And right or wrong, she’d get off on it.
Like this morning. After shoving her under water and scaring the ever-loving fuck out of her, she’d still been desperate to fuck me into next Sunday. And I’d let her. Not only let her, but submitted to it because I hadn’t had a choice. The little vixen had me wrapped, and I wasn’t sure she realized it.
Or maybe she did.
A door in the hallway opened, followed by the soft pad of Alex’s footsteps. I recognized them before I saw her enter the living room. The look on her face gave me pause.
“What’s wrong?”
“She’s…” Alex tilted her head toward the bedroom. “She’s on the floor, naked.”
Jax cursed under his breath. “I’ll take care of it.” He left the kitchen, and I followed, instructing Alex to keep watch over the food on the stovetop. She wanted to argue with me, but one hard look sent her into motion.
Jax pushed the door to his bedroom open, and I averted my eyes to the naked girl kneeling on the floor.
“Get up.” He strode to her, and from my periphery, I saw her jump to her feet.
“Yes, Master.”
“I’m not your goddamn master. We’ve talked about this.”
She flinched at his harsh tone. I entered the room, no longer caring about giving her privacy, and settled a hand on Jax’s shoulder.
“Let me bring Alex back in. Maybe she can talk to her.”
Jax was too frustrated to get through to Angel. The girl was obviously suffering some unspeakable torment. If it were Alex experiencing a mental break, I’d know how to handle her.
But this girl was a total stranger.
For the first time since Jax arrived with his tagalong in tow, I wondered if he were in over his head.
“Yeah,” he finally said, letting out a breath. “Maybe they can go for a walk or something after lunch.”
I didn’t like that idea, but deep down I knew I couldn’t keep Alex within sight for the rest of our lives. Eventually, she would need some freedom. And I’d have to find a way to give it to her without having a panic attack at the thought of all the fucking things that could happen to her.
This cabin was a transitional phase for both of us. A more permanent place than the cities we’d hopped through for the last few months, and not as remote as where we’d settled in to camp, just the two of us.
It was also closer to home.
Home was a scary fucking place.
Home was too damn close to her father.
The thought of letting her go into town for work or school or whatever she might want to do after we got our lives back threatened to squeeze the air from my lungs. Sweat bathed my palms, and I had to concentrate hard to slow my breathing.
Alex would have zero fucking freedom until I knew for certain that her father posed no danger. And as for Zach…he was still a festering question mark. Jax and I had more than his stowaway to discuss.
The stowaway in question lowered to her knees again. “I don’t know what you want from me, Mast—” She cut off, swallowing hard. “Sorry.”
Before Jax could reply, I grabbed him by the shoulder and ushered him from the room. “Have you considered taking her somewhere to get help?”
“Of course I have. She has no memory, so I can’t contact family, and when I mentioned getting the law involved to help her find out who she is, she went fucking crazy on me. Total hysteria, man. She sees me as her fucking savior or something.”
“She seems scared of you.”
“She is, but I’m tame compared to the sick fuck who had her before. I can’t figure out why, but she seems to trust me.”
“Do you know how long they had her for?”
“No, but based on the way she acts, it was long enough to wipe out her identity.” Jax’s face fell. “She reminds me of the old man’s favorite slaves. He spent a lot of time on them, if you know what I mean.”
The thought made me sick.
I peeked at Alex, who stood at the stove with her back to Jax and me. She pretended not to listen, but I was positive she’d heard every word. And part of me wondered if she compared herself to the girl in Jax’s bedroom.
Did she see what I did?
Alex hadn’t chosen this, but she’d submitted. She loved the fuck out of me, but there’s that saying that a duck is still a duck. Our relationship was fucked, and no matter how we dressed it up, she’d always be a victim.
My victim.
For her sake, I had to do better by her.
“Babe, c
’mere.”
“Just a sec,” she said, transferring an odd-shaped omelet onto a plate. As she made her way across the room, I couldn’t help but smile. She couldn’t cook worth a damn, but not for lack of trying.
“Think you can go in there and talk to her?”
“I can try.”
“That’s my girl.” Then I kissed her because she deserved a thousand fucking kisses every day for putting up with me.
12. Kindred Spirits - Alex
She liked to tilt her face back and close her eyes. Angel didn’t say much, but she didn’t have to.
I knew she was soaking up the sunlight.
We’d been walking for about ten minutes in silence. Rafe made me carry my phone, location services enabled, so he could find me. It hadn’t been a request, but it wasn’t done entirely out of possessiveness either.
“Is he your Master?”
I jumped, her voice startling me after so much companionable quiet.
“Um, no. He’s my…my fiancé.”
God, how I loved saying that. How I hoped it were true.
“Oh.”
Oh?
I’d only known her for a couple of hours, but I was finding that she was a woman of few words. She hadn’t said anything during lunch beyond please and thank you.
“We do have a…I guess you could call it a different type of relationship. It works for us.”
She glanced at me with interest. “How is it different?”
I wavered, unsure of how much to tell her. On one hand, having someone to talk to who might understand some of what she’d been through could be comforting. On the other hand…
I didn’t want to scare the shit out of her with all the gory details.
The rush of water drew my attention, and I realized we’d reached a creek. Instead of my phobia sending me into a panicked flight mode, like it would have done last year, I gestured for her to sit cross-legged next to me on the embankment. A quick glance at my phone ensured I still had service.
Rafe had promised an ass stuffed with ginger if I went out of bounds. When it came to my safety, he wouldn’t hold back.
And that right there was exactly what I didn’t know how to explain to Angel.
But her expectant face demanded an answer.
“Well, Rafe is in charge.”
