Freed (7 page)

“I did remember correctly.”

“I thought you checked him out?” objected Niall.

“I did, I did, but just the usual credit checks and criminal record checks. He came up sparkling clean, no sign of a police record or of not paying his debts. I wasn’t thinking of him as someone with a bunch of shell companies. But now we know, as soon as we’re allowed back online, he’ll be my top priority.”

“That’ll be too late. If the authorities take out the call center people, and he’s connected with them, the money will be gone and so will he. Just because we haven’t fingered him yet, he’s much too smart to stick around if the investigation’s that close to him. This will be the second time his operation has been closed down. He won’t stick around to risk a third,” said Niall.

“He’s right,” agreed Aurelia.

“Fuck it! Yes. Call your friends, Niall, and let them know. But I want to follow the paper trail, too. Not to boast, but my success rate is better than theirs.”

They all returned to the living room, and Niall made the call.

“Just as well Ms. Sommers thought of it now. Another hour and it would have been too late. Lay low tonight. I should have some news for you tomorrow.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

* * * *

Niall slept lightly that night, wondering about the operation, and wishing he was involved more directly in it. Then he thought of the potential danger to Aurelia and Mas and knew that his current job was much more appropriate for him nowadays.
You’re not eighteen years old anymore,
he reminded himself, stretching his muscles without disturbing the other two in the bed.

However, it was after nine o’clock before both he and Mas received calls saying the usual fee was in their accounts and the standard confidentiality clause applied. “There’s also a small bonus for Ms. Sommers as well,” the chief added before clicking off the call.

“Oh, cool.” Aurelia smiled.

“Thank God we can get back online. There’ll likely be a trillion e-mails in my inbox,” groaned Mas.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if I had a hundred myself,” replied Niall.

“Plus now we can leave the apartment. I have a ton of shopping to do, and you never know, there may even be an e-mail or two for me to answer.”

“Don’t forget to send your financial predictions to Ormonde. It’d be pretty exciting if that financial newsletter man wanted to add you to his sources,” Mas reminded Aurelia.

Niall had wondered about that. Could Aurelia make money with her predictions? She really was better than average with her forecasts. She seemed to have a genuine knack for understanding what shares would go up and what down.

“Oh yes. I’d almost forgotten about that. It’d be even better if someone wanted me to plan a party for them, though. An expensive party, with a lot of guests. I need to start making the bookings for our own ceremony, too.”

Niall and Mas left the apartment together, running down the stairs instead of waiting for the elevator and pushing through the glass door out to the parking lot.

“I hope to God it really is all wrapped up this time,” said Mas.

“I want to know in what way Blake was involved, if he was involved. I have a gut feeling he may have been one of the ringleaders. Likely today is not a good time to try to find out though. I really need to do some work to keep my own clients happy,” Niall replied.

“Me, too. I’ve been spending rather a lot of time on this whole call center thing instead of hustling my butt out there, looking for paying work. Gotta do something about that today.”

Niall nodded and waved as Mas headed farther through the lot to his car. The money the government would have paid them for their help with the call center case was welcome, and he was grateful for it, but he still—they all still—had to keep their own clients happy and coming back to them. “Working for myself is wonderful, but taking a few days off without warning is really bad for business,” he sighed.

* * * *

Aurelia hurried to the store, rushing up and down the aisles as if she was on a reality TV program with only ten minutes to choose whatever she wanted. She smiled at herself, but she knew once she started booking caterers, and music, and all the other things for her own commitment ceremony, shopping would never cross her mind again. And if they planned to eat any time soon, shopping was a necessity. It was amazing how much the three of them had eaten when they’d had to stay inside all day. Of course, they’d had a hell of a lot of exercise with all the sex, burned off thousands of calories, but still, the refrigerator and freezer were seriously empty and needed filling right now.

Back home, the shopping unpacked and put away, Aurelia settled in front of Mas’s old laptop, which was now her laptop, and opened her e-mail. “Wow, thirty messages. I think that’s a record.”

Several of them were questions about the seniors’ party she was planning, which she left to answer until later. She opened the one from Ormonde.

Hey, girlfriend, Talbot liked your work. I’ve CC’d this e-mail to him so you have his address because he asked you to contact him ASAP. Way to go, Aurelia. —Ormonde.

Oh wow! Ye gods, how long has it been waiting for me? Oh, only since yesterday, that’s okay. What should I say? Hell. Um.

Aurelia pulled herself together and wrote a polite, succinct, businesslike reply, reading it through three times before hitting the send button to Mr. Talbot.

“It’s hard to believe someone would pay me for playing my little game, but, hey, I’m not going to say no. Of course, it might not be very much money, but even twenty dollars a week would be something regular coming in.”

Aurelia calmed herself down and started answering the other e-mails, but a bubble of happiness kept rising in her chest. She was planning a commitment ceremony to the two most wonderful men in the world, she was getting a few nibbles for her event planning business, and every party she orchestrated would introduce her to more potential clients. If only she knew what had happened about the call center demons. Had the people at the top been caught this time, or not? Of course, freeing the enslaved workers was incredibly important and worthwhile, but until the bad guys were locked up somewhere, it would just keep happening.

“Oh, that reminds me, I wonder how much my bonus was.”

Aurelia clicked through to her banking details and sat there, her eyes wide and her mouth hanging open. A thousand dollars! One thousand dollars! Ye gods, that was wonderful! “I’ll buy a dress for my commitment ceremony. Something elegant I can wear to really special parties. Yes, and I’ll encourage Mas and Niall to buy a tuxedo each, too. If I’m going to be running a business, it’ll be better value if they have their own formal attire than hiring it all the time. But I’ll still hire different dresses. I can’t arrive in just the one dress too often. My commitment dress, however, that I’ll buy and keep. Oh wow.
Wow
!”

Aurelia jumped out of her chair and danced around the room. Life was good. So very good. Since she’d met Mas and Niall, she’d been truly happy. Now, if she could get her business stable and making a regular income, and if she knew what had happened yesterday…“I bet Niall and Mas will find out. I bet they’ll tell me tonight.”

Aurelia danced around the room one more time then settled down to work. Work. Answering business e-mails. It felt so good to be working.

* * * *

While a trillion may have been somewhat of an exaggeration, there were several hundred e-mails waiting for Mas when he finally logged on to his computer. He worked through them as quickly as he could, dealing first with ones from important clients or close friends. Nevertheless, it was after two before his rumbling stomach made him stop work to buy some lunch, and he’d by no means reached the end of his in-tray.

He ran down the stairs then walked briskly down the sidewalk toward the nearest restaurant that served take-out. Today he couldn’t spare the time to choose from the menu or go to his favorite coffee bar. The backlog of work dictated this be a brief break. Consciously, he pulled his shoulders back and drew deep breaths of air into his lungs, trying to make this short walk at least a tiny effort at a workout.

I traced the call center demons through violet, indigo, blue, and green. It’d be really interesting to know if they were tracked all the way to red. Damn shame I can’t afford the time to find out. Although that little search program I wrote for Clivendens would work, if I used various words for red. After all they used teal instead of blue, and jade instead of green. Hmmm I wonder…

“Ah, go for it,” he encouraged himself when he was back in his office. Mas typed one-handed while shoveling forkfuls of special fried rice into his mouth with the other hand. “Blush, brick, burgundy, cardinal, carmine, cerise, cherry, claret, coral, crimson, fuchsia, garnet, magenta, maroon, pink, puce, red, rose, ruby, russet, salmon, scarlet, titian, vermilion,” he typed into the program, running through a paint color chart then going back to add in “amber” as well.

“Okay, if they haven’t used one of those colors for red, I’d be mighty surprised. None of their other colors were particularly imaginative.” Mas smiled and hit execute, leaving the program to run in the background while he grabbed his coffee and took a long drink from the cup.

“Now, back to work,” he sighed.

* * * *

Two weeks later, Aurelia felt like a fairy princess in her new gown. It was the most beautiful—and most expensive—dress she’d ever owned, but the layers of pink lace frothing around her feet and breasts made her skin glow with a healthy pale-pink, and the soft touch of the silk underlay against her skin was dead sexy. As soon as Niall and Mas had seen her in the gown, their suit pants had tented in the most interesting way, and she was almost ready to swear Niall’s eyes had crossed.

Unfortunately, the sex wouldn’t be happening for many hours yet, but she knew the men had planned something special for when it was time to be alone. Meanwhile, the caterers were bringing out platters of tiny delicacies, the waitstaff were serving champagne, the background music was not too loud and not too soft, and Aurelia didn’t think she’d ever been this happy in her life before.

She’d been concerned that the guests might form into little groups instead of mixing, as they were drawn from very distinct groups—Mas’s friends and clients, Niall’s clients, friends, and a few former marines, and her own friends and family. Yet somehow they seemed to blend well, and no one seemed to be lonely or left out.

Her new nipple ring rubbed against the silk of the gown’s lining, reminding her again of the vows they’d taken today to care for and cherish each other. No vow could make her love these men more than she already did, but speaking the words in front of other people made it more real. Sort of like accountability, in a way, she thought.

“It’s time for our dance,” said Niall, as he and Mas moved up to stand beside her.

“I just know I’m going to fall flat on my face,” moaned Mas.

“Nonsense. The dance instructor was very pleased with our dress rehearsal yesterday,” said Aurelia.

“Yeah, right. What he said was he didn’t think he’d be totally ashamed to have his name mentioned on our program,” argued Mas.

“Shut up, and concentrate. This wasn’t my idea either, but Aurelia wanted it, so we’re doing it,” said Niall.

Aurelia hid a smile. Neither of them had wanted to dance, but both of them had mastered the steps of the
pas de trois
perfectly. Niall was fit and well coordinated from his years in the Marines. Mas had a very intelligent brain that made learning the steps and the patterns easy for him. They’d be fine.

The music began, the guests stood around the edges of the dance floor and watched, and Aurelia began the slow, stately steps that took her from man to man, up and down the length of the floor, around and around the space, until, after dancing with one, then the other, being passed back and forth, she ended up in the arms of both of her men.

It was an old-world sort of dance, but the ending was highly evocative, and the guests clapped hard. And neither man had put a toe out of place.

Trevellyan made a speech, and seeing him there, so blissfully happy, with Evelyn looking stunning in palest-green and Merrick, Vaughan, and Trevellyan in matching cummerbunds, almost made her cry. If it hadn’t been for Trevellyan, helped by Merrick and Vaughan, then aided by Evelyn, she would never have met Niall and Mas. Never found the true joy that filled her to the brim. And possibly she’d still be enslaved in that call center. Her one wish was that she knew the ending of that story. But she wasn’t going to think about it today. Today was her commitment ceremony, her day of complete happiness.

* * * *

Aurelia, Niall, and Mas held hands and ran to the waiting limousine, piling into the back, laughing as friends threw rice and flower petals at them. The driver took off smoothly but quickly, driving through the city to an area Aurelia wasn’t familiar with. “Where are we going?” she asked.

“It’s still a secret. It took us two weeks to think of the idea, and we aren’t going to spoil it by letting you know until after we arrive,” said Mas.

“Just be patient, my sweet,” added Niall.

Aurelia harrumphed, but inside she was still bubbling with happiness. It didn’t really matter where they were going. The point was the men had worked together to think of something they’d all like. She was sure it would be wonderful whatever it was.

The limo stopped at the end of a street, and the driver handed the three of them full-face masks. Obediently, Aurelia put hers on, smiling at the men. Niall was, predictably, an ancient warrior. Mas, equally predictably, was a cartoon hero. She was the fairy princess. Well, it suited the dress she was wearing, that was for sure.