Authors: D.L. Roan
“You shut the fuck up!” Matt sneered at Grant. “You don’t get to talk.”
“
Don’t forget that he’s the one who took out Dawes.” Gregory’s monotone, emotionless statement cut through the air like a razor sharp knife. “If it wasn’t for him you’d have lost her and you’re sons.”
A chill ran down Mason’s spine as he remembered the sounds of the bullets whizzing by and the scared look on Con’s face. “Thank you,” he said
to Grant before he could stop the words from leaving his lips. No matter what kind of cluster this whole thing with Claira had become, he knew they owed Grant at least that much.
Grant shrugged and pushed off from the wall he’d been leaning against. “Dawes is a lunatic, but he’s a piss ant compared to Lucien Moretti.” He blushed, and not a fake blush, as he glanced over to Hazel. “Sorry ma’am.”
Hazel frowned but nodded, still unable to speak.
“We didn’t know
the specifics when Cade asked us to keep an eye on her,” their dad Jake said with a grimace as he glanced over to his brother-in-law. “We only thought we were helping his friend. Then we saw how you boys took to her, and well….Believe me, we’d have never agreed to this had we known.”
Mason sat perched on the edge on the overstuffed love seat in the corner, his elbows braced on his knees, his head bowed in frustration, resting in his hands. “I don’t understand,” he huffed. “Why does this bastard want Claira dead? She’s as innocent as they come? Did she witness something? Is that what this is?
Some kind of witness protection thing?”
Cade glanced over and
, after a moment of silent communication, Gregory nodded for him to continue. “There are some things we can’t share with you. Only Gabriella—Claira—has the right to tell you about…certain things, but, overall, yes,” he nodded, brushing his hands over his face. “Daniel—Deputy Marshal Gregory—has spent his career putting her father away. She was instrumental in convicting him on multiple federal counts. In exchange for her testimony, the feds agreed to give her a new start. When he needed to put her somewhere safe I offered to keep an eye on her here.”
“Multiple counts of what?
What is she involved in?” Matt was having an extremely difficult time seeing her as anything but his innocent, little school teacher.
“She wasn’t involved in her father’s business. She was nothing but victimized by that monster!”
Grey darted a glance at Gregory. It was the first sign of true emotion he’d seen from the icy statue that had claimed a position holding up the door frame behind him.
“Monster?”
Matt’s blood ran cold. “What…what kind of monster?” As if it mattered. He knew whatever had been done to Claira was bad. He’d seen the fear in her eyes take such hold on her that it nearly killed her.
“The worst ki
nd, Mr. McLendon.” The Marshal remained motionless as he stared at Matt. “I won’t betray Gabriella’s trust and give you all the gory details but her father, Hector, specialized in human trafficking. Modern slave trade.”
Mason felt bile burn its way up his throat. He thought back to the first time they’d taken her. She was nearly a virgin, of that he was sure, but he had to
ask. “Sex slaves?” The question squeaked through the tightening passage of his esophagus. He could barely breathe just thinking about the possibility of her being sold, or traded, or whatever this bastard did.
Gregory nodded and several agonized groans filled the room.
Hazel sunk to edge of the sofa, her hand covering her mouth as tears filled her eyes.
“Hector Morganti was convicted on thirty eight counts of human traffick
ing and kidnapping, among other things.” Gregory broke away from his position and strolled slowly to the picture window that overlooked their south pasture. “That was nothing.” He shook his head and braced his forearm above his head on the double paned glass, staring quietly at nothing for a while longer before he continued. “We never found his client list but we know there were thousands more. His second in command, Lucien Moretti, stepped up to the plate and took over as if Morganti meant nothing. After nearly a lifetime of working this case, of searching, it’s as if we’ve accomplished nothing. Gabriella is in more danger now than she ever was.”
“So
this…Lucien guy. He’s still working for her father?” Grey stumbled over saying her name.
Gabriella
somehow didn’t fit his baby bird.
Cade blew out a sardonic sigh and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his faded and torn jeans.
“Hardly.” He stepped toward Gregory but stopped, seeming to think better of it. “Hector considers him a traitor. He wants Lucien taken out as bad as we do. But Lucien?” His Uncle leaned his shoulder against the window frame next to his Marshal friend. “Lucien is much smarter than Hector. Kept himself clean as a whistle while he worked for her father. He’s playing with the same players now, but by a whole different set of rules.”
“So why don’t you just kill him?” Matt scoffed. “That’s why he’s here ain’t it?” He nodded in Grant’s direction but refused to look at the
two-faced bastard. He didn’t know why he didn’t like the guy, he just didn’t. He couldn’t seem to get the pictures of him pulling the trigger on Claira that he’d imagined after hearing her screams of fear in the hospital. “Why not just take him out where he lives instead of bringin’ him here?”
“Because we can’t.”
Gregory didn’t turn away from the window or offer any further explanation. Which just wasn’t gonna cut it with Matt.
“Why the hell not? It’s not bad enough our six year old sons were shot at four days ago, or that our woman is laid up in that hospital, defenseless, with a mad man after her—which, by the way, we still don’t know why—and all you can offer is
‘we can’t’
!” Josiah grabbed his shoulders when he jumped from the sofa toward the Marshal. “If that’s all you’ve got to offer I’ll be damned if I’m gonna just sit around here and wait for more of this shit to come crashin’ down on us. We’ll pack her and the boys up and take her somewhere you can’t even dream of much less find.”
“And you’ll all be dead before you get there.” Matt froze at his uncle’s statement.
Cade didn’t soften his statement with any tone of doubt. “She’s protected, for now. We have a man at the hospital.”
Grey rolled his eyes.
Great. I feel so—much—better.
“What are you saying?” Mason
stood, ready to bolt out the door to get to Claira the moment his fears were confirmed. “He’s already here, isn’t he?”
Gregory turned
from the window and studied the family members standing around the room. He was tired. Tired of all the games and secrecy, the chaos of it all. Tired of fighting forces they rarely saw and losing. Always losing. He had to keep going. Retirement didn’t mean he could just give up. He tried to absorb as much of their fear as he could. Normally he could internalize it, process and either ignore it or discard it. But not with these people. The pain of betrayal shone clear in all their eyes when they looked at their Uncle. Cade was his brother. Not by birth but by the blood they’d shed together. He knew these people would never forgive Cade if they didn’t understand. He’d lose nothing of importance by giving them what he could of the truth. Cade would lose his family if he didn’t.
Ignoring Mason’s correct assumption, Gregory started as close to the point as he could.
“Hector kept meticulous records, a file, of all his….acquisitions and sales.” Gregory’s throat clenched as he spoke. He coughed and tried to keep any emotion out of his tone. “When we raided his compound in D.C. it wasn’t there. It wasn’t anywhere. Lucien had it and now he’s using it to blackmail Hectors paying customers.”
“But what does this have to do with our Claira?” Hazel’s voice trem
bled, as did the rest of her. Josiah and Nate snuggled in closer to her on the loveseat.
Gregory glanced briefly at Cade before he continued, al
most smirking at the grateful look on his friend’s face.
Yeah, I’m getting there. I love you, too, brother.
“Lucien was…
is
obsessed with Claira. He has been since she was just a child. When Claira was twelve or thirteen, Hector owed him some sort of debt. She doesn’t know what it was, but Lucien demanded Claira as payment.”
Hazel gasped and a cacophony of growls spi
rited around the room but Gregory continued. “In a rare show of decency Hector agreed, but mandated that Lucien wait until her twenty first birthday. I suspect the delay was so Hector could hold her as future leverage over Lucien if the need arose.”
Mason’s head swam with
sick images of child exploitations and tidbits of conversations they’d had with Claira. Something about her birthday sounded familiar. “Her brother!”
Gregory nodded. “Hector killed Stephen
when he tried to stop Lucien from taking her, Afterward, when Claira refused to go along with Lucien peacefully, he knocked her out and had her arrested for his murder. None of which she can remember or prove, but it doesn’t matter. Gabriella—Claira, she accepted the Fed’s offer the moment Lucien posted her bail and threatened to take her from the jail.”
“Again,” Matt choked back another wave of rage
and nodded at Grant. “Why didn’t you just kill this bastard there instead of sending
him
here to do it?”
Gregory glanced at Grant. He had to be car
eful here. Grant—one of his more likable aliases—was an enigma, a far cry from the ‘wet behind the ears’ kid he’d taken under his wing just over twelve years ago. He hadn’t lasted long with the Marshals before the CIA grabbed him up. Now, although he was thought of as a practically rogue asshole by his superiors, he was a Triple-D class agent—dangerous, dedicated and deadly—and didn’t want to cause him anymore grief than necessary to get this bastard. Gregory knew he was already on thin ice asking Grant for this favor. He was actually a little shocked that his friend had stuck around this long. He didn’t usually do messy clean ups.
“Just spit it out, already.” Grant barked from the open doorway.
“I’m done after this.”
Gregory
huffed and shook his head, unable to picture his friend stuffed into a Hawaiian shirt with flip flops sipping a hot pink mai-tai on some exotic beach. Regardless, he still held his cards close about who Grant was. “When we learned that Lucien was still searching for Claira, dead or alive, we used Hector to recommend Grant as an assassin for hire. The only stupid move Lucien has made is still trusting Hector.” No matter how hard he tried he still couldn’t figure that one out. “Anyway, we’d planned on using the down payment as evidence and busting him then, but Lucien got impatient. He disappeared before we could cut through the red tape. Grant took leave and followed her out here. When Lucien started pinging flight reservations using one of his lesser known aliases, Grant needed to be able to keep a closer eye on her.”
“
So you pushed her toward us with hang up calls and flat tires!” Matt scowled as the scenario played out in his memories. The fucker had tormented her for days!
“The fire.”
Grey sighed, not believing what he was hearing. The bullshit and torture he’d put himself through. They had all been manipulated into this. Had any of it been real? Would she have told them any of this?
She said there was something.
This wasn’t just
something.
This was deal-breaking huge.
Nothing about her is real.
How could she keep something like this from them after knowing what Sarah did to them?
She’s not Sarah. This isn’t the same.
“I told you it wasn’t
the water heater we installed!”
Grey didn’t respond to Mason’s defensive outburst. Their entire lives
had been upended over this woman.
None of this is her fault.
Although
Grant had nothing to do with the pictures and the phone calls—sure that Dawes had cornered the marked on those—he also didn’t acknowledge responsibility for the fire. He didn’t have to. None of that mattered now. “Lucien is here and he will
not
stop until he rapes Gabriella and kills her, and trust me, I don’t think it matters to him in which order that happens.”
“So Gab…” Hazel
choked off her question then lowered her forehead and rubbed her brows with the tips of her fingers.
Running his hand in comforting circles on her back, Nate leaned forward and tipped her chin for her to look at him. “Haze, can I get you some water, babe.”
She nodded and rubbed absently at a spot on her chest. “Thank, you. I could use an aspirin, too.” Nate gave her a peck on her cheek and immediately left to tend to his wife’s needs.
“So.”
Jake took Nate’s place next to their wife and continued to comfort her as he spoke to Cade. “You here to protect Claira? Or she just the same pawn in another game you’re playing with this sick fuck?”
Joe chuckled to himself as their
wife slapped his brother’s arm. Jake was so much like Matt. No beating around the bush, and if you did, God forbid you use someone in their family to do it. He was going to enjoy joining his brothers in beating the hell out of Cade when this was over. He looked up at his brother-in-law and caught his pleading glance at Gregory. “What are you not telling us, Cade? Or should I ask what
else
?”