Shit. This wasn’t going to be easy. Natches had just gotten his sister back, thought she was finally safe and secure, and now this crap. And Janey, Alex knew, hadn’t mentioned a word to her brother.
He stepped out of the pickup, tense, wary. Dealing with the Mackays all at once wasn’t a fun time to be had, and bringing news like this?
He couldn’t get those letters out of his head, though. They were brutal, filthy trash. No wonder Janey was so damned wary, almost frightened, last night. She couldn’t know who was doing this to her; she would suspect everyone, and he couldn’t blame her.
He moved quickly from the parking lot along the docks. As he neared the Nauti Dreams , Natches’s houseboat, the door opened and Natches stepped out. He was still as wild as the wind, Alex thought.
Dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and bare feet. His black hair was mussed, his dark green gaze sharp despite the drowsy look on his face.
“You’re working early, Major,” Natches drawled as Alex stepped onto the boat. “Playing Cranston’s lapdog again?”
Alex sighed. He’d been working with Cranston for years. His team was one of the agent’s favorites to call out for the hairier assignments. Alex had already been called before a review board twice because of the insanity that was Cranston. But damn if the agent didn’t make life interesting.
They called him the Rabid Leprechaun, and Cranston was inordinately pleased with that title. So much so that his agents and Alex’s team worried that he took it a little too seriousl
y. The thing about Cranston that the Mackays never understood, though, was that it wasn’t about the manipulations he conspired to do; for Timothy, it was all about the past and everything he had ever lost. It was about retribution. And in ways, it had been for Alex as well. He understood that. For Alex, though, the thoughts of retribution were melting away beneath thoughts of Janey.
“Not this time, Natches. ” He shook his head as he stopped in front of his friend. “We need to talk. ”
Natches’s eyes narrowed dangerously before he inclined his head into the houseboat. “Well, we’re all here as you asked. Keep your voice down, though; Chaya’s still sleeping. ”
Evidently, all the Mackay women were sleeping. Ray, his son, Rowdy, Dawg, and Natches were waiting, but Crista, Kelly, and Chaya were absent.
He stepped into the wide front room and stared at the men huddled around the table at the side, a pot of coffee between them.
“Alex, good to see you. ” Ray Mackay, Rowdy’s father, with his sharp Mackay green eyes and graying black hair, waved him over. “Get a seat, son. We have a cup for you. ” He poured coffee into a cup as Alex stepped over to the table.
He didn’t sit down. Neither did Natches.
“Seven in the morning,” Natches commented with a drawl. “Must be trouble. ”
“Trouble follows Alex,” Rowdy grunted. Evidently he didn’t like getting up early anymore either.
“So does Cranston,” Dawg commented mockingly. Another less-than-polite Mackay. Hell, they were nicer than this before they decided monogamy was the spice of life.
“No Cranston this time. ” Alex pulled the letters from inside his jacket, unfolded them, and handed them to Natches. “I got these last night. They’ve come in the past two months, to Janey. ”
Natches took the letters slowly, his gaze locking with Alex’s. He could feel the sense of danger, the ragged, burning fury already building as he stared into the other man’s gray eyes.
When his eyes moved to the letters, his blood began to boil.
Traitor’s whore. Slut. You’re not wanted. Get out of town before you’re carried out in a casket.
Traitor bitches aren’t wanted. You dirtied yourself with daddy and auntie. Did you moan for them? Did you beg like the bitch you are? Take your dirty ass out of town before you’re taken out.
Fucking daddy and auntie isn’t nice, little bitch. Get the fuck out!
Natches could feel the fury burning, building.
“She didn’t tell me about these. ” Natches handed them to Dawg and Rowdy, knowing what was coming once they read them. “She would have told me. ”
Fear was balling in Natches’s gut now. This was what Janey had been keeping from him for months?
Was this why she had moved from the marina to that apartment in town, so he wouldn’t find out?
God, she didn’t even trust him, her brother, to help her? But why should she? He hadn’t been able to help her in all the years Dayle had controlled her. What would make her think he could help her now?
“She made Zeke swear not to tell you about them. It was the only way she agreed to turn them over. I’m still officially on the investigation from last year. He turned them over to me instead. ”