One for Three [Elite Dragons 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (12 page)

The atmosphere at dinner that night was charged with tension. The men hardly spoke, and she knew their thoughts were on the day’s events. She wanted to ask what it was, but didn’t in case she put her foot in it. She noticed the other women were quiet as well and knew something was going on. When dinner was finished, Brooke rose to her feet and began collecting dishes. A hand on her shoulder pushed her back down into her seat.

“You need to rest, Brooke. The other women have volunteered to clean up tonight,” Coulter stated.

“I’m fine, Coulter, I can help.”

“No,” he stated firmly.

“There is nothing wrong with me. I said I can help out,” Brooke said through clenched teeth.

“You’re lying, Brooke. Do you think I don’t know you’re still in pain? You’re holding your arm stiffly, and your eyes are half-closed. You have a headache and your face is pale.”

“Just because I have a bit of a headache and a sore shoulder doesn’t mean I am incapacitated.”

“I know that, baby. I am just trying to look after you. You agreed to obey my rules, Brooke, and this is one time I won’t relent. Go and lie down before you fall down.”

“I don’t need looking after,” Brooke yelled as she stood and stormed from the room.

“What the hell was that all about?” Corbin asked.

“Go easy on her, boys. She’s fighting her feelings for you,” Martha advised. “She had a big scare today. We all did. She thinks they were only after her and she has put everyone here in danger.”

“That type of thinking is just ludicrous,” Trace said, frustrated.

“We know that, but obviously Brooke doesn’t,” Martha stated. “I have gotten to know Brooke rather well over the last few weeks. She has never had anyone care for her, and she doesn’t know how to handle you three. She’s not used to being put first. She’s only had herself to rely on and doesn’t know how to take us all.”

“That makes sense, I guess,” Corbin said. “I’m going to see if she’s okay.”

Corbin left the kitchen and went in search of Brooke. He found her curled up on the bed in her room. He got onto the bed, wrapped his arms around her, and pulled her back to his front. She sniffled, and he knew she was crying but trying to hide it from him.

“What’s wrong, honey?”

“I don’t belong here, Corbin,” she whispered.

“Yes, you do.”

“No. I am a danger to you and everyone else.”

“What made you come to that conclusion, honey?” he asked.

“Because that man didn’t look at any of the other women. He locked onto me as soon as he saw me,” she replied.

“Brooke, you were closer to him than the others were. You were the only one he could get to. You don’t know for sure he wasn’t going to try to get one of the others or all of you,” Corbin stated.

“Yes, I do. He knew my name and said he had been looking for me for a long time,” Brooke sobbed.

“Shh, honey. We’ll find out who he was. We won’t let anyone else get to you,” Corbin said, trying to soothe her.

“You can’t promise whoever is after me won’t try again. He could have been hired to look for me. Why, Corbin? Why am I being targeted?”

“I don’t know, Brooke, but believe me, we will find out,” Corbin replied.

Brooke turned over and hid her face in his neck. His cock hardened and he desperately wanted to make love to her, but he ignored his body’s urges. He held her in his arms and stroked his hand up and down her back and over her hair. It took a long while, but finally the tension left her body and she fell asleep. He was thankful, because he knew she would feel much better when she woke again. He silently cursed that they had all fallen for one of the oldest tricks in the book. They had allowed themselves to be distracted, and their woman had been hurt. They were better trained than that.

He eased his arm from beneath her head and stood. He covered Brooke with a blanket and left the room. He needed to talk to his brothers. There was more going on here than just selling women and organs on the black market. He could think of no reason for the masterminds of that operation to track Brooke down here at the stud. Nor did he think they’d send a solitary man on foot, when all evidence suggested they were a well-financed and organized group. They needed to dig deeper into Brooke’s background to find out what the hell was going on. He went searching for his brothers.

Corbin found Coulter and Trace in the office. They were searching databases trying to find who was involved in the organ trade. They were getting closer, he could feel it in his gut. What Brooke had remembered about this Dr. Smith was a step in the right direction, but it was still going to take some time. He told them what Brooke had said about the fucker who had tried to take her. They agreed that they needed to shift their focus if they were to protect her. They got down to work.

He and his brothers listed every fact they knew about Brooke’s life, every tidbit she’d inserted into intimate moments, every reference to a family member, a friend. After assembling a nearly complete picture of Brooke’s life before her abduction, they determined that there was nothing else they could learn by asking Brooke. At least, nothing else that warranted waking their sleeping lover. He knew there had to be something, some lead, but he was frustrated when they couldn’t pinpoint anything.

“What about her grandmother? Do you remember her telling us she was quite well off? Well, what if this is not about Brooke at all, but about her grandmother’s money? Has she mentioned what her grandmother’s name was?” Corbin asked.

“Shit. I think you’re on to something, Corb. My instincts have just gone haywire,” Coulter stated.

“Mine, too,” Trace replied.

“We’ll have to ask her tomorrow. I’m not waking her up. She needs to rest,” Corbin declared.

“Have the others found anything on that fucker yet?” Coulter asked.

“The John Doe? No. They found false registration papers in his car and his ID’s fake,” Trace replied. “If anybody on the stud knows who he is, they aren’t talking.”

“Shit. I don’t like this. How the hell did that bastard find this place?” They had not exactly advertised that Brooke and the other women were here. “I wonder if our cover’s been blown,” Corbin speculated.

“If it is, that means we have a traitor amongst us,” Trace snarled.

None of them could see an alternative. The organ dealers shouldn’t have known of the existence of the stud. Someone who worked for or with them had turned traitor.

They were each going to have to go through the information on their ranch hands and their teammates. He didn’t want to think about one of the team turning against them. They had all been together for over ten years. Pain stabbed his heart, but he pushed that scenario aside. It couldn’t be any of the Elite Dragons. They had been through too much together, and he trusted them all with his life. He wouldn’t think about that now. It had to be one of the stud hands. They were going to have to do another check on their help but dig a lot deeper this time around.

Corbin sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. He pulled up the information on their hands and split the list. He printed out the required forms and handed some to each of his brothers. It was going to be a long night.

* * * *

Corbin glanced at his watch and saw it was two a.m. He hadn’t found anything on the hands he had been scrutinizing. He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes.

“Fuck,” Trace snapped.

Coulter lifted his head. “What?”

“Did any of you get a read on Pike?”

“Jason Pike? The foreman?” Corbin glanced at Coulter, who looked just as confused as he felt. “Why would we do that?” They didn’t read minds unless it was critical.

“It’s Pike,” Trace answered. “I don’t know if he hired the John Doe, but he’s involved.”

“What? Are you sure?” Corbin asked.

“Who’s responsible for the horses’ feed? Coulter, you checked the new supplies a couple of weeks ago and it was all fine. Pike got the horses good and sick so we’d be distracted.”

Corbin felt horrified. Pike had been working with them for years. “Shit, how did we miss this when we hired him?” Corbin asked. “We did background checks.”

Trace shook his head. “There’s nothing to miss. His record is squeaky clean. Something must have changed.”

“Fuck. Get ahold of Seton, Wolf, and Lander. Tell them to bring Pike in,” Coulter commanded.

Corbin called Seton on his cell, and fifteen minutes later Seton led Jason Pike into the office, Wolf and Lander bringing up the rear.

“What the hell is going on?” Pike asked, looking perplexed.

“You tell us, Jason,” Corbin demanded.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“How long have you been taking kickbacks, Pike?” Coulter snapped.

“What? Are you out of your fucking mind?”

“You can play dumb as long as you like, but we know it’s you,” Trace stated.

“Who’s paying you to infiltrate our operation?” Coulter barked.

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” Jason yelled back.

“We know someone has given us away. We have checked into everyone and you are the only one ringing any bells,” Coulter stated. “Tell us who you’re working with, Pike.”

“I don’t know what you’ve found, and I don’t know what the hell you’re yammering about,” Jason bit out.

Corbin narrowed his eyes at the foreman.
I don’t know what you’ve found.
Pike spoke as though there was something to find.

He made a snap decision. Gritting his teeth, he took a deep breath and lowered the mental barrier that kept him out of others’ thoughts. He focused on Pike. The man’s expression was defiant, but his thoughts were panicked. He was afraid of Corbin and his brothers finding something out. Pike knew he’d been caught.

And Corbin knew he’d caught him. He put his barrier back up. Aware that his brothers were watching him curiously, Corbin met Coulter’s eye and nodded, his meaning clear. “Take him to the lockup,” Coulter ordered. Wolf and Lander led Pike away.

“What was that all about?” asked Seton.

Coulter outlined to Seton what they had deduced about Pike’s involvement in Brooke’s abduction. They waited to see if he would get any advice from him.

“Fuck. Do you think our cover is blown?” Seton asked.

“Could be,” Coulter responded wearily. “Fuck. What the hell are we dealing with? Someone on this property has sold us out and I want to know who.”

“How can we be sure it’s
just
Pike?” Seton inquired.

Corbin hated the thought, but he had to admit that Seton had a point. Pike had been a loyal employee until sometime recently. Someone must have approached him and convinced him to change sides. As Pike lived on the farm, it seemed likely to Corbin that there were other hands involved.

Coulter was on the same page. “We are going to have to question Brooke and see if she can shed some light on why anyone would want to kidnap her.” Coulter slammed his fist down on his desk. “Shit. I don’t want to get her involved in this.”

“She’s already involved,” Trace pointed out.

Corbin rubbed his hands over his face. “That’s the part that I hate most.” He lifted his head and took a deep breath, meeting his brothers’ eyes. This was going to be difficult. “We need to go deeper.”

* * * *

Corbin and the others sat silently. His guts began to churn. He could only come up with three possibilities other than Pike, and he didn’t like that one little bit. The thought that someone he trusted could be out to hurt his brothers or the members of his team made him feel ill.

“Who has only just arrived?” Corbin asked as he stared at his brothers and Seton.

“The women,” Seton answered. “You think one or all of them are a plant?”

“They are all under suspicion except Brooke,” Coulter informed him. “They kept away from her and didn’t even know she was sick while they were in that basement. Seton, I want you to alert the other team members that we may have more possible spies. We all need to be on full alert at all times. No one comes in or out unless cleared by me first. Is that understood?”

“Yeah. I’ll go and spread the word,” Seton said and left.

“Corbin, see what you can find on the other three women,” Coulter said. “Trace, see what else you can find out about Brooke’s family. There has to be something, somewhere, which can point us in the right direction.”

“Fuck, I hate this shit. I hate that we have to make her remember what she went through as a child. God, she wasn’t much older than a baby,” Corbin said anxiously.

“You think I don’t know that, Corbin? I hate it as much as you do, but what else do we do?” asked Coulter, running the palm of his hand over his face. “How the fuck are we going to protect her if we don’t know what we’re up against? The cops haven’t made any inroads into the black-market-organ case and we can’t find anything either.”

“I think we should pack it up for the night,” Trace suggested. “There are only a few hours left until daylight. Come on, let’s go get some shut-eye.” He rose from his seat.