Caught in the Dark

by Ann Jensen

  Angela looked at Tek and realized he looked as shell-shocked as Pixie.

  “The beginning. Okay.” She wiped her sweaty hands on the sides of her shirt. “So, after I met you the second time I thought if I did something nice for you, maybe you might want to get to know me better and overlook my uhm...” Angela looked around and realized there would be no saving herself embarrassment. “Lack of experience.”

  Tek nodded, his confusion seeming to grow. She powered on. “I’d heard about your sister’s kidnapping seventeen years ago. Well, seventeen years ago facial recognition software sucked, and most records weren’t searchable. Aging software has come really far since then as well, so I figured I might be able to get you closure even if it was only proof she had died.”

  Comprehension started forming on Tek’s face. She looked at Joshua. “Remember when I said we had to go back inside?” Joshua nodded. “The data mining program I’d started had found something. Look.”

  Angela pulled out her phone and pulled up the photos. “Nicole Vallier, age four.” The photo she showed them all was of a smiling blonde child with bright green eyes in expensive clothes, her hair done up in ringlets. She swiped the screen to the next photo. “Jane Doe renamed Phoebe Smith six months later.” The girl in the photo was skinnier, with dirty hair and bruised green eyes. As she flipped back and forth, the resemblance was apparent.

  “The aging program I did on the original photo matches the photos in Phoebe’s Foster records. Here is the one of her at her current age.”

  The computer-generated photo was almost an exact match for the stunned woman sitting at the picnic table.

  “When I saw her here, I guess, I assumed you knew.”

  Tek shook his head, then looked over at Pixie with a look of wonder that filled Angela’s heart.

  “I think Pixie and Tek could use a moment. Everyone give them some space.” Hawk’s voice cut through the stunned silence like a blade.

  Angela backed away with Joshua at her side, not sure where to go. A table a little ways away looked like it held desserts. She decided a sugar fix was the perfect solution to her stress.

  She looked back, making sure Tek was all right.

  Joshua snorted. “You have it bad for that man, don’t you?”

  “Yeah. I think I do.”

  “After what he did, you’re still going to give him your treasure.”

  Angela giggled. “My treasure?”

  Joshua waved a hand. “Your V-card, your honeypot, your budding flower. What I call it is not the point. You are going to lie down with a man who hurt you so bad you came sobbing to my door at one a.m. and spent the night proving what an ass he was.”

  “I can’t explain it but, yeah, I think I am.”

  Joshua studied her like she might have the secrets of the universe etched somewhere on her face. “Okay. You are a big girl so you make your own choices but know I will always be there for you.”

  Joshua wrapped her up in a big hug, then let her go.

  “Besides, I don’t know if he’ll even want me anymore after I botched telling him about his sister.”

  “Honey, that was like a Fairy tale meets Jerry Springer.” Joshua’s flippant comment seemed to break the serious mood.

  “No kidding. That had to be the worst way I could have broken the news. I thought she was going to pass out.”

  “Nah. Our Pixie is like a willow branch, she bends but she don’t break.” Angela turned towards the voice dripping with a southern accent. The owner of the voice was a woman who was the spitting image of a red-headed young Dolly Parton. Her jeans were painted on and her sparkly top hugged cleavage that was almost too big to be real. She stuck out her hand. “I’m Val.”

  “I’m Cami, I mean Angela.” Angela sighed. Her southern accent, much like Joshua’s when in his Jojo persona, had made her slip for a moment.

  “No worries, honey bunch. My proper name’s Sue-Ann, so you just tell me what you prefer to be called and we’ll go with that.”

  What did she prefer? Cami and CA-million were alter-egos that she fell back on when she was doing something wild or outside the bounds of the very strict rules she had placed on her life. Did she want to be Angela the boring stuttering introvert or Cami the risk taker who danced on stage and lived life by her own rules?

  “I think I want to be Cami.”

  “You go for it, girl.” Joshua patted her on the shoulder then held out a hand to Val. “I’m Joshua but when I look half as fabulous as you, people call me Jojo. I just have to know where you got those boots and if they come in my size.”

  Cami looked down and saw that Val was wearing a pair of black, knee-high, wedge boots with rows of rhinestones down the side. She held her breath, wondering how the woman would react to her flamboyant friend. Val cocked her hip, looking Joshua up and down.

  “Think you can walk in these?”

  “Oh, I can walk, dance and as my girl will attest, kick ass in those heels,” Joshua snapped as if demanding she talk.

  “No doubt. Jojo took out two of my attackers today wearing six-inch heels.”

  “Like that, is it?” Val smiled. “Teach me to judge a flower by its bud. Well, I’ll happily take you to the boutique in Denver where I find most of my fabulous footwear. Can’t say they will have your size, but I’m sure they can special order what they don’t have.”

  “Fabulous.” Joshua gave a surprised Val an enthusiastic hug.

  “So you’re Tek’s woman?”

  “Well, he brought me here, if that’s what you mean. We’re something, but I wouldn’t say I’m his.” Cami wasn’t sure what they were yet. Heading towards something, but not there yet.

  Joshua snorted. “If you’re not his, what was all that caveman ‘mine’ shit I walked in on in the kitchen?”

  Cami giggled. “Oh God. Tell me you didn’t hear that!”

  “Every testosterone laced word from the safewords on.”

  “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “Safewords? Huh, and here I thought Tek was the most vanilla of the Brothers.”

  “Oh my God! Stop it both of you.”

  The two laughed and gave each other a high five. Guess her best friend had found a partner in crime. The idea of Jojo teaming up with Val had hilarious disaster written all over it.

  Val gave her a wink. “You come over to the Clubhouse on a Friday or Saturday night and you will see a whole new side of the Brothers. We may like our family time, but we love our grownup time even more. But seriously, these men don’t bring casual to family events like this, so I’m guessing it won’t be long before you’re wearing his cut.”

  “Doesn’t the cut mean you’re a Dark Son?” Cami was confused by all the new information she was having to take in.

  Val twisted so her back showed. On the top was the same Dark Sons logo the men wore, but the bottom of the patch didn’t read Denver, instead it said, ‘Property of Dozer’. “All of the women here are Old Ladies, but we usually only wear our cuts when going out or if civilians are present. Ever since Dozer found out I was pregnant, he has insisted on it. Says it makes him feel secure that people know who I belong to.”

  There was no sign of a baby bump on Val, so she assumed it was recent news. “Congratulations! Guess there is something in the water.”

  “You pregnant too?” Val seemed excited by the thought.

  “Not unless there is a holy star rising in the north,” Joshua snarked.

  “Hey! Not nice.” He was right, but still.

  Val’s jaw dropped as she obviously got the Jesus reference. “Let me get this straight. You’re a virgin, who is with Tek, and talking about safewords. How kinky are you?”

  Joshua burst out laughing. “Even crazier, her side hustle is as a stripper at Darklights. That is how they met.”

  “Lord, give me strength. I thought I had heard it all.” Val looked her up and down with an assessing eye. “You any good?”

  “At stripping?”

  “Yeah. I always wanted to lea
rn those tricks the girls do on the pole to drive Dozer wild.”

  “I think I could teach you a trick or two.” Cami smiled.

  The three of them burst into laughter. Her life was pretty crazy. She looked over to where Tek sat with his sister. The two of them sat gripping each other’s hands. Their expressions of happiness clear even at this distance. He was a good man who had done some bad things. But hadn’t they all? Maybe it was time to give in to her desires. What fantasy worked best to convince a man to make her first time unforgettable?

  Chapter 25

  The truth will set you free, or fuck you up. Your choice.

  Tek stared at Pixie with fresh eyes. He could see bits of both their parents in her features now that he knew what to look for. They both had blond hair and while he had his father’s pale blue-gray eyes, she’d inherited their mother’s green ones.

  Months they had known each other and not once did he notice what was right in front of him. Even her laugh, though deepened with age, held the musical quality he remembered from the little girl he’d chased around the yard.

  “Is she right? Am I your sister?” Pixie’s voice trembled.

  “I don’t think she’d make it up. From what I’ve heard, she’s the best at what she does.” Tek ran a nervous hand through his hair. “I’m so sorry I didn’t find you sooner. It must be hard to believe, but I never gave up looking. Though apparently, I’m shit at picking PIs. All these years and millions of dollars and they brought me nothing. She finds you in one day.”

  Tek would take the hide out of someone. If he’d only found her sooner, his sister would never have gone through the hell of the last year. Abducted, raped, and fleeing a psychotic mobster, it was only luck his Brother Sharp had been there to rescue her.

  “No.” Pixie grabbed his hand and squeezed. “You can’t go down that path. We can’t think like that. Nothing can change the past and I’m happy where I am.” She placed a hand on her stomach and looked over at Sharp, who was sitting a few tables over with concern written across his face.

  “You love him?” Those two had something special, but the question needed to be asked.

  “Yes, more than anything.”

  “You sure? ‘Cause Angela wasn’t wrong, you are now a very wealthy woman. Our parents kept your trust fund, and we all put into it every year. I continued putting in even after their deaths. I think it was the only thing we three ever agreed on. Keeping hope alive.”

  “Our parents are dead?” Pixie looked down at her hands.

  “Mom died of cancer five years ago. Dad in a car accident a year later.” Their father had been drunk and angry all the time, mourning his wife and daughter. No one believed the crash was an accident. But she didn’t need to know that.

  “Oh.” Her crestfallen expression tore at his heart.

  “They loved you dearly. I’m sorry you won’t ever get to meet them.”

  “It’s weird that an hour ago I was happy. In my mind, my family was long dead. Now my whole world tipped sideways, and I am upset I’ll never get to meet parents I didn’t know I had. Add in the money thing and none of this feels real.”

  Tek gave her a small teasing smile. “Well, it is real enough that you never have to settle if you don’t want to. You can ditch all these peasants and go live the life of a queen.”

  She laughed, and Tek was glad to see the sadness lift from her eyes. She lifted her nose and put on an adorable snooty accent. “I don’t know, I have awfully expensive tastes. It would take a lot to keep me in the lifestyle I’ve become accustomed to.”

  Tek chuckled. “Well, last I checked, you have over five hundred and forty million in trust.”

  Pixie choked and started coughing. Sharp sprinted to her side seconds after she made the first sound of distress.

  “You okay?” Sharp rubbed her back.

  “Yeah, Sharp, I’m fine. Tek surprised me that’s all.” She gave Tek wide eyes. “That number isn’t a joke?”

  “Nope. I was letting my sister know she doesn’t have to be a kept woman anymore.”

  Sharp shot him a glare. “So you’re sure she’s your sister?” Sharp asked.

  “Yeah. It will take a DNA test to unlock the funds, but I’m convinced.”

  “So I might be your sister, and a millionaire?”

  Tek nodded, not sure he could talk around the lump in his throat.

  Pixie leaned forward and gave him a hug. “We should take this one step at a time. Today has been overwhelming.”

  “We’ve got a lifetime to catch up. You should probably go rest.” Tek wanted to process everything himself. His week had been filled with so much change, and from the multiple calls he had ignored in the last half hour alone, it didn’t look like it was slowing down any time soon.

  Hawk walked over, his face serious. “Kane called me since he couldn’t get you. I can tell him to pound sand if you want, but it sounded serious.”

  Sharp stood, helping Pixie to her feet. “I was about to take Pixie back to our place, anyway. Text me if you need anything, Brother.”

  They exchanged backslapping hugs. Tek felt a strange peace as he watched the two walk away. It was like a weight that had been riding his shoulders had slipped to the ground. His sister was alive and being watched over by a man he would trust with his life and already part of the family he had chosen for himself.

  His phone vibrated in his pocket again, and he answered.

  “Yeah.”

  “Christ, you’re a hard man to get a hold of.” Kane’s voice held none of its usual teasing tone.

  “Well, you have me now.” He shouldn’t take out his frustration on Kane, but Tek found he had no patience for the usual back and forth.

  “All right then. Lisen instituted the fix your girl suggested herself and says the customers’ servers are back online. Need your authorization to run the CIA level background checks she is demanding on every programmer we have. She’s driving me crazy and saying no one works on any live code till they pass it.”

  Tek pinched his nose in frustration. “Start the checks but tell Lisen she is going to have to keep everyone working until you are finished or there won’t be a company anymore. If she has specific people, she is concerned about, move them to the top of the list.”

  “Is there any way you can sweet talk Angela into helping us out? The amount of data she pulled in only a few hours is impressive.”

  “You do realize all that data was obtained illegally, right?”

  “Figured. We need to find Rick. Those names and emails she pulled are for some heavy hitters. Outside the usual scumbag corporations, he tried to sell shit to Russians, Mexicans, and even a few guys from the middle east. FBI is freezing us out in the investigation into the attack earlier, but we got facial recognition on two of them and it’s not good.”

  “What do you have?”

  “Mercenaries out of South Africa, high dollar.” Kane’s sigh was clear even through the phone. “Don’t think your girl read through all the data she sent us or she would’ve known she was in danger.”

  “What do you mean?” Tek wanted to reach through the phone and drag the information out of his friend.

  “Rick sent an email from his not-so-secret account on Thursday saying he had a problem with a nosy coworker to an account linked to a Russian hacking group. They are big time into identity theft but have been known to do other jobs for hire.”

  “Did he give specifics on her?”

  “Name and a photo. They set up to have her followed and taken from home.”

  “Why did they come into the facility then?”

  “Don’t know, but we do know before we could pick him up, he called a burner phone from his cell and the call lasted just over a minute.”

  “Fuck! How did he get away?”

  “All you said was to bring him to your office and make sure he didn’t leave. When the man down alert went out, forgive me if I thought that was more important than a desk jockey about to get yelled at.”

  Kane was
probably beating himself up now that he knew the whole story. Pulling on that guilt wouldn’t help anyone. It was as much his fault for not explaining more at the time.

  “It’s been a long fucking week. I shouldn’t have yelled. How did he get off the property?”

  “Walked out to his car and left. You know there is no security on the way out. We’ve got men on his apartment, but he ditched his phone so we can’t track him that way.”

  “You think they’ll keep coming after her?”

  “Group like that gets their hands on a hacker like her, they’d be set for life. Depends on how much they’re willing to spend on the possibility she’d work under duress.”

  “So in other words, we have no idea. Okay. Anything else?”

  Kane hesitated. “What happened between you and Lisen? She’s always a ball-buster, but I’m starting to get the impression she actually hates you.”

  “Long story. Not the right time. She and I will work something out.”

  At least he hoped they would. Maybe he should turn over the digital side of the house to her and focus back on what he originally wanted the company to do.

  “All right. Don’t ghost me again this is not the time to go silent. I’ll reach out if anyone picks up anything else on Rick or your girl.”

  “Right.” Tek hung up the phone and realized Hawk was still standing there.

  Tek looked over and saw Angela laughing with Joshua and Val. He wanted more than anything to go over, wrap her in his arms and keep her safe from the world. Night darkened the sky and most of his Brothers had headed over to the Clubhouse or back home with their families.

  His company had been betrayed, and its information sold to criminals. He’d found a woman so interesting she made him imagine the future. Then he had betrayed that same woman, she had almost been taken from him, and somehow she was still willing to give him a chance. His sister was alive and well. And the woman who made that all possible might still be in danger.

  It was enough to drive any man insane. And the week wasn’t over.