Chapter 13
Alex turned to Dylan and asked, “When is the last time you saw her?” He knew his friend had never gotten over losing Melita, even though Dylan had never said exactly what had caused their split, it was obvious it hadn’t been something Dylan had wanted. Alex watched as pain reflected in the sheriff’s eyes, and Alex knew he was working to swallow down the emotion before he answered.
“The night before I moved back to Climax, we had dinner and were sitting on the terrace talking as we often did. Suddenly she slid divorce papers over to me and told me she just couldn’t give up her career ‘at this point.’ I knew she was working on a case involving a suspected sex trade operator. She’d lost a good friend in college when the woman had answered an ad about living abroad. The ad sounded a lot like what most sex traders set up, you know the script. ‘Live in exciting places for free, all you have to do is perform light household duties or be a nanny, etcetera.’ Her friend was found a few weeks later in an alley behind a brothel in Paris.” Sighing, he added, “She’d been beaten and raped to death. Mia never got over the anguish or her anger at the injustice she’d felt when the crime was basically swept under the rug and overlooked by authorities both here and in France.
“Christ, Alex, I tried to talk her out of the divorce, I told her to keep working, and when she was ready, I’d always be here waiting for her. She insisted that wasn’t fair to me, that I was too good to be left waiting like that, and she knew I wouldn’t touch another woman unless I was really free to do so. I finally signed the papers, and I was sick about it, but I really didn’t see that I had any choice. She never would look me in the eye and tell me she didn’t love me anymore, she just kept saying it wasn’t right to keep me tied to her, always trying to emphasize that it wasn’t fair to me. Fuck, you know I haven’t taken a sub any time I’ve been at The Club, hell, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve even taken a woman out for a meal, and I haven’t fucked one since that last night with my wife. I always wondered if she wasn’t trying to protect me from something, you know, like if we weren’t married, the bastards she was chasing wouldn’t be able to use me as leverage against her.” Leaning back in his chair, Dylan said, “I’ll contact my old boss at the DEA and see what he knows. Even though he knows we aren’t still legally married, he knows how it ended, so I’m hoping he’ll share whatever he knows. Christ, this is my worst nightmare come to life. I wanted her to be happy and fulfilled, but I wanted her safe, too. Was that so wrong?” Pushing his hand through his shaggy, dark-brown hair, he looked to Alex like a man whose heart hadn’t even close to healed, and now it was being battered again.
“I’m sorry, my friend. Of course, you know everything we have is at your disposal. Is there any chance she would try to contact mutual friends or try to make her way to you if she was in trouble?” Alex thought there had been plenty of time for her to make that contact, but he felt he needed to ask.
“I don’t know. Maybe. But this feels darker to me. I’m going to head back into town and make some calls. Can you let Grayson know I might be asking for his help? I know he has computer skills and access to resources that I can’t utilize.” Dylan smiled because they both knew the other man could hack into just about any computer in the world in a matter of hours, hell, Alex and Zach had laughed about how the damned geek had broken into the Pentagon’s top-secret levels in under an hour just to prove to their commander it could be done.
They’d made their way to the front door of the house, and Dylan patted his friend on the shoulder as he spoke. “Absolutely, I’ll let him know to expect your call and to help you in any way he can.” Just then, Alex’s phone rang with the tone assigned to Colt Matthews. “I need to take this, keep me posted on what you find out.” Dylan turned to leave just as Alex opened his phone and said, “Talk to me.” Smiling to himself, Dylan thought, You can take a man out of the forces, but you couldn’t take that soldier mindset out of the man.
* * * *
“I want to talk to you face-to-face about this, but I don’t want you coming out here, and I’m not going to leave Jenna alone here, so it’ll have to wait a few days. She’s okay, it was a tough afternoon for her, but I’ve gotten through her first layer of defense, so that’s something anyway. I know you want details, but right now, you’re just going to have to be patient.” Colt felt awful for stalling Alex when he knew both Jenna’s brothers were worried about what might have happened to her and what part they’d played. Even if it had been unknowingly, they had still put a sexual predator in the house with their teenage sister. When they found out all the details, they were going to be completely guilt ridden, and Colt wanted every bit of information he could gather before he had to tell them everything she’d endured.
“Fuck this, Matthews, tell me what’s happened. And what do you mean by ‘a tough afternoon’? Tell me what’s going on right now!” Alex was nearly shouting as he finished speaking.
“It was an emotional afternoon for her. You know how it is with subs when you break through a barrier, there is always an emotional catharsis that accompanies that, and it’s exhausting. She’s fine, she’s resting now. I’ll call you back in a day or so when I have all the details. Christ, Alex, for a Dom who is always preaching patience to the subs he’s trained as well as all the Doms he’s mentored, you sure don’t practice what you preach. I’ve got to go, I’ll be in touch.”
Alex stared at his phone, dumbstruck that Colt had disconnected.Goddamn it! Doesn’t being the boss mean anything to people anymore? Shit, he’s not the team leader anymore!Alex knew better than to call Colt back, hell, he knew perfectly well he’d be sent directly to voice mail. He walked back into his office and sat in his oversized leather chair and stared out the floor-to-ceiling window. He was so lost in thought he didn’t even hear Selita walk into the room.
Selita watched Alex stare outside, and thought about how people tended to forget about household staff. They didn’t worry that things they said made it down the hallways and around corners. And while her “two boys,” as she considered Alex and Zach, were always careful to make sure they sheltered their wife, they weren’t nearly as careful about making sure she was out of earshot. She finally cleared her throat, and when he turned to her, she asked, “Alex, I can talk to you for a few minutes, yes?” When he nodded and started to get to his feet, she held up her hand to stop him. “I just wanted you to know that I be worried about your sister for a long time also. She not the same after I had to be gone and that soldier boy who think he an ocean rider was here alone with her. She only would wear long sleeves and high turtles for weeks, very strange. And she not her usually popping self. I’m glad you are having Mr. Colt try to get the story, I tried to ask her questions then, but she think I’m a busy body of woman and tell me no more questions.”
While Selita was talking, Colt was trying to figure out the messed-up slang and still listen to what she was telling him. Damn, it was like trying to decode the message as it was coming in.Let’s see, “ocean rider,” shit, surfer? “Turtles” probably meant turtlenecks. “Popping”?“Selita, I think I was with you up to ‘her usually popping self.’ Umm, think you can help me out with that one?” Smiling at the older woman, he knew Jenna and Kat had always loved listening to her butcher common American expressions and slang, trying to decipher it all, but honestly, it had always just not seemed worth the effort to him and Zach. They’d always been happy to just let her rant, nod, or shake their heads based on her tone and call it good.
“You know, popping, like in soda? Those little things that tickle your nose!” She looked at him like he was a dimwit.
“Aha…you mean she wasn’t her usual bubbly self?”
“That’s what I say, right? Were you even listening to me?” Uh-oh, now she was sounding indignant.
“I appreciate you telling me. And I agree, we’ve been worried about Jenna for a while. Did Mom and Dad ever know she’d been alone with Ted Scott?”
“I tell them I had to be gone that night, but not until after they got home later that week. And by that time he was gone.” She had started twisting her hands together, clearly worried that she’d somehow caused whatever had happened to his sister.
“Not to worry, we’ll get it all worked out. Please don’t let it trouble you. Jenna will be fine. As I’m sure you have heard, Colt Matthews has some pretty strong feelings for our little sister, and you can rest assured he plans to take very good care of her, okay?” She nodded, clearly relieved, and when she would have turned to leave the room, he stood and walked around the desk and hugged her. “Please don’t ever doubt how important you are to each and every one of us, Selita. You are a valued member of this family, don’t forget that, keep it etched in your heart, all right?” She looked up at him and smiled, big tears pooling in her dark eyes. She wrapped her arms around his waist and hugged him tightly before turning on her heel and scurrying from the room.
Alex walked slowly up the stairs. He was undecided about how to proceed with the questions about Jenna. On the one hand, he felt he owed it to his parents to let them know what they suspected and make sure they were aware of the fact that there might be a lot of fallout to follow, but on the other hand, he trusted Colt completely, and if he said he was handling it, then he was, it was that simple. He’d talk it over with his brother in the morning, and they’d decide what all the options were. But for now, he needed to get upstairs to his wife. It humbled him that just holding her could bring such peace to his soul, and besides, why should Zach be getting all of her attention? Smiling to himself, he turned and started taking the stairs two a time.