by Voss, Deja
I was only trying to protect him. I’d failed him before and it was the worst pain I’d ever felt in my life. Not the good hurt. The disgusting painful hurt. The kind of hurt that made me shut down.
I threw myself down on my bed, my temper growing steadily inside of me. This man I loved more than anyone in the world was making it very hard to do right now. His unwillingness to let me do this was the worst kind of betrayal in my mind. I was just trying to keep him safe. I was just trying to not fail him again.
I never told him about that day, my last day of basic training. The day they separated us. I sold him out. I’d never forgiven myself. The instant I’d start forgetting and moving forward, something like this would happen. I’d be reminded once again that Landon and me together would only end in doom for one of us.
This time maybe both of us.
Why did I still crave his touch? I pushed myself off the bed and watched out the window as him and Athena walked through the driveway. Why did I still want nothing more than to be the one getting on the back of his motorcycle right now? Why was I feeling a twinge of jealousy about the way she wrapped her arms around him? Why was I sad that she was the one going back to the house and I was the one stuck here with Kevin?
It was more painful than the bruises on my hips. More painful than the feeling between my legs where he took me so hard last night I almost blacked out. I was jealous.
In that dark moment, I forgot my purpose. All these distractions, they weren’t good for the mission. I pulled out my cellphone and brought up the clip that instigated this all. I brought up the Facebook page from the desperate family who lost their daughter in that disgusting incident. The people chiming in that they too hadn’t seen their friend or family member who’d worked in the adult industry in awhile. All these people missing somebody they loved and cared about. All these people worrying about them, and they had every right to.
I slid down to the floor, unable to catch my breath, thinking about what these women must have experienced before they died, the pain and the terror.
I was a selfish bitch, so wrapped up in my own drama, so worried about protecting a man who knew exactly what he was doing, that I was failing these poor women and their families. I was failing the country. I was failing my agency.
I wasn’t here for him or me. He was a big boy. I was here to save the world. I was here to protect these women. Now I just had to figure out what the hell was going on.
“What the fuck was that all about?” Kevin asked. I had locked my door behind me and he was in the hallway screaming. “Sabine, this is not funny. Do you know what your little stunt could’ve costed us?”
I came to the door, pulling it open just a crack. “I don’t like her, Kevin. She doesn’t belong here.”
“Somebody jealous?” he asked, raising his eyebrows. “I mean she is a lot younger than you. She’s got the perfect look for the business.”
“Fuck off,” I muttered under my breath. I wanted to slam the door in his face, but this wasn’t about my ego anymore. I needed to find out who was in charge of filming these videos, and I wasn’t going to get anywhere by shutting myself off in this room. The sooner I got the information, the sooner I could get out.
The sooner I got the information, the less people had a chance of dying.
The sooner I got the information, the more chance I had to actually live my life.
“You know, it’s been a long time since I’ve been in the studio. Would you like to show me something you’ve been working on lately? Some videos maybe? I hate to sound obsolete, but these women in the house, I don’t know who they are. Maybe I need to brush up on my knowledge if I’m going to be working here.” I was hoping to open up the door to some conversation. Maybe I could identify the dungeon I saw in that clip. Maybe it would be as easy as that.
“I can do you one better,” he said. “I haven’t showed you the studio yet. We’re actually doing some filming today.” I still had yet to see this studio. I knew he said the remote location of this place was for privacy purposes, but to me it just seemed odd. It seemed like a massive inconvenience. We were three hours from any major city. Travel was a bitch unless you had a private jet or helicopter. We couldn’t just fly in talent for the night to film at the studio. He was trading privacy for convenience.
That, or he was really really desperate to hide something.
Like the elevator that I never knew existed behind the other side of the stairs.
Or the soundproof studio set up in the basement of the mansion.
Or the entire camera crew downstairs who didn’t even notice us sneak in.
What else was hiding in this weird huge house? What else was this man capable of?
Chapter Twenty
Law:
Fifteen Years Ago - Undisclosed Location
I sat on the edge of the bed, clutching my jaw in my hand. I’d been permanently clenching it for the last twenty four hours, so hard, I felt like I’d just gotten four back alley root canals. Today was Sage’s final day of training. She was off on a mission on her own. To me, this was worse than any torture I’d endured yet.
At least when we were together, I knew the pain she was experiencing. I felt it through her, empathized with her, tried to take as much away from her as I possibly could. Stuck here all alone, I could only imagine what she was enduring. The more I let myself imagine, the worse it got.
The soft knock on my door jostled me from my nightmares. She was back. She had to be back. I threw on a hoodie and opened the door, anxious to see the woman I’d grown to love more than myself. Anxious to have her in my arms, safe, here with me, where I could make everything okay.
Standing before me wasn’t the vibrant beautiful solider I knew so well. Standing before me was a woman with pain in her eyes, her lips blue, her skin white as a sheet. She was hunched down like a beaten dog. She was faking this thin smile, but I saw right through it.
“I just wanted to let you know I’m back,” she said. “I’m going to go take a shower and go to bed.” Her voice was weak and monotone. She avoided my eyes.
“Why don’t you just come in. I’ll make you some tea. You can use my shower.”
This wasn’t how things worked. We went through shit. We lived through shit. Then we worked through shit. Together. We didn’t just crumple up and shut down. It’s why we were such amazing partners.
“I can’t,” she said. “Not tonight.” She pressed her fingers to her lips, kissing them, and blew me a weak kiss.
“Talk about it in the morning?” I suggested.
She shook her head, looking up at me, her eyes dark. I felt the rage growing inside of me, the same rage I felt every time they hurt her. A pain deep inside of me, worse than being beaten or stabbed. All encompassing. This time, I felt broken. This time, I knew I couldn’t comfort her.
I’d never seen a look so sad from her before, and I knew I never wanted to see it again.
“I don’t belong here,” she said, “I am no good. I’m quitting.”
“What happened?” I asked, reaching out for her. “Did you fail?”
She shook her head no. “Worse.” I didn’t know what that meant. She wasn’t going to tell me. Her eyes rolled back in her head and her knees gave out. She fell forward and I caught her in my arms, her body stiff as a board but light as a feather.
I carried her to my bed and began to strip off the wet clothes on her body. It wasn’t sexual at this point, even though every part of her made me think bad things. Not while she was like this. Just as we could turn off our secret identities, so could we turn off our lust for each other. Right now I was just making sure she wasn’t going into shock.
I tried not to pay attention to the bruises on her arms that looked like fingerprints. I tried not to pay attention to the slashes across her stomach or the brush burn on her knees. She wouldn’t want me to make a big deal out of it.
We signed a contract, she’d remind me, as if it was perfectly normal to be completely brutalized by an ag
ency that was supposedly preparing us for our real world duties. Was this a real world I even wanted to exist in? In my dream world, Sage and I were somewhere safe, living like two normal citizens, maybe she taught preschool and I did construction work. Maybe we had some kids. Definitely we had some dogs. Put all this behind us. The Army. The agency. The war. The trauma.
She snapped her eyes open and let out the longest sigh, the most beautiful sound my ears had ever heard. Her eyes were clear. She smiled and wiggled her fingers, then shivered as she hugged her arms.
“You getting a head start or what?” she said with a laugh.
“Sage, I would never…” I said, appalled at the suggestion.
“I know. Only one of the reasons why you’re too good for me.” The way she could flip the switch, go from a girl who was quivering in my doorway to this laughing, self deprecating, fiery force was something that I wanted to admire. I couldn’t, though. Behind those cheerful eyes was something that I was sure she was never going to tell me about. Secrets. Sage was good at secrets.
“What happened in there?” I asked.
She patted the bed next to her, motioning me to join her.
“NDA, babe. You didn’t tell me about your hell day, did ya?”
“I didn’t come back and pass out in the doorway.” I also didn’t speak to her for three days following. I couldn’t speak to anybody, though. The only thing that got me through was the hope that her hell day wouldn’t even compare to mine. It took me three days before I could even come out of the bathroom.
“Lay with me,” she said. “Just for a little bit. Make me feel normal.”
She leaned up on her arms and I reluctantly pulled down the covers on my bed so we could both climb under.
She faced away from me, staring at the wall.
“Look at me,” I urged.
“I can’t,” she whispered.
I reached for her hand and she pushed me away, curling up into a tiny little ball, hugging her knees to her chest.
Lay with me but don’t. I knew exactly what she was feeling right now.
“I don’t deserve you,” she whispered, and promptly fell asleep.
Chapter Twenty-One
Sage:
Things around the house were getting pretty boring. I was thankful for a respite from Kevin’s constant harassment. Turning him down was getting exhausting, but I’d throw myself down the steps before I caved. He was out of town working on some new website development for another branch of the business, and I was tasked with hanging out here, not really doing anything at all.
A life of leisure in a giant mansion full of porn stars and bottomless margaritas. I was bored out of my skull. I wasn’t making any progress on the case, and the only thing I could think about was when the next chance would be that I could get Landon alone. I had searched the house in and out and upside down. Nothing even remotely resembled what I’d seen on the video, and everyone hanging around seemed to be on the up and up, just a bunch of videographers and directors looking for an easy paycheck, and girls looking to launch their career in the porn industry with a promising up and coming company.
I could blame my lack of motivation on the boredom all I wanted, but that was definitely a lie. Being this close to Landon but feeling like we were in separate worlds was tearing me apart. I didn’t like having to keep him at a distance. I didn’t like sneaking around. Every day I spent here brought me one step closer to admitting my true feelings. I was lost without him. This career had been my life, but without him, it wasn’t a life I wanted to live any longer.
I poured myself a cup of coffee and grabbed a cupcake out of the pretty pink box on the countertop, licking off a huge gob of frosting. Stress eating was the best eating. Everyone here seemed to live on a diet of cocaine, vodka, and microwave popcorn. I was happy to eat the extras.
“Are we alone?”
Her voice was familiar, but out of context, I wasn’t sure who it was. I set my cupcake down and spun around. “Athena, hello. I didn’t realize you were here. What can I do for you?”
Something about her made me uncomfortable. Her fascination with Sabine was a little too much for me. I made it a point to avoid her, but I had to play it cool. I didn’t have any reason to act strange around her.
“I need to talk to you, and I need to do it privately.”
I nodded enthusiastically. Maybe she’d seen something. Maybe she heard something. She had connections in the industry that reached far beyond my scope. If Kevin was up to anything shady at all, she’d probably know for sure. That’s why even though my common sense told her not to sign her on, not to bring her into this mess with the ties she had with the MC and everything, she’d definitely be a huge asset. “Of course,” I said.
I knew most of the house was filmed 24/7. It was another publicity stunt Kevin came up with, and it was quite brilliant. Subscribers paid great money to watch these girls in action, even if they were just laying around watching TV.
“Coke room?” I suggested. It was exactly what it sounded like. We couldn’t rightly have girls on camera doing illegal drugs. That would just be asking for it.
She followed me to the closet built into the stairway. At least, it looked like a closet. It was actually a decent sized room with couches, a mini fridge, and apparently some random sex toys laying around. I plucked a tissue from the box and picked up the double sided dildo from the chair, tossing it on the floor before sitting down. She laughed and locked the door behind her, sitting down on the couch next to me.
“Are you sure this room is safe?” she asked. “Nothing is being recorded?”
“Are you here to murder me?” I asked. I was a step ahead of her. I had software on my cellphone that could detect interference from recording devices, the best technology the agency could get their hands on. The room was in fact safe.
“I’m here to save you, Sage,” she said, emphasizing my name as she smirked.
I balled my hand into a fist. “That fucking asshole. He sent you here to spy on me. I knew he was full of shit.”
“Just calm down. He didn’t send me. I came on my own accord.” She dusted her fingertip across the mirror on the table, coating it in white powder and stared at it in fascination. “Old me would’ve licked this sucker clean in a heartbeat,” she said with a laugh before brushing it on the chair.
“What do you want from me?” I asked. “You do understand this is a federal investigation and anything you do in this house can be held against you in the court of law.”
“Yeah, yeah. I get it. And you understand that you’re fucking with my boy’s head and the club my daddy built, right?” She leaned in towards me.
“I’m not fucking with anybody, Athena,” I said, absolutely flabbergasted. “I was sent here on a job. Law knows better. I told him to stay away. If anything, it’s you people that keep wedging yourself into my business. Stay on your side of the fence and nobody has to worry about anything.” I was livid. If there was one thing sacred between Landon and I, one thing I always held him to, it was the fact that he would never blow my cover. If Athena couldn’t keep her mouth shut, she’d blow the whole damn mission.
“Well it’s too late for that, now isn’t it,” she said. She tapped her long red fingernail off the table anxiously. “I knew you weren’t Sabine the second I met you. I was the one who blew it to the club.”
“I had a feeling,” I said. “Yesterday was a little too close for comfort.”
“What are you even doing here?” she asked. It wasn’t a demand, but more a morbid curiosity kind of thing. I knew better than to engage in this kind of conversation. It bucked everything I’d ever learned in my training, in all my years of experience. I hadn’t even discussed it with Landon.
“The more I tell you, the harder it’s going to be to keep you safe, Athena. If anybody finds out you’ve been working with me, you could be in a lot of danger. You have a baby to take care of. You have a husband. I know it seems glamorous and exciting, but you have so much to live for
.”
“And you don’t?” she asked.
“This is what I live for.”
“I think you’re lying.”
“Then you don’t even know the first thing about me.” I stood up from the chair and headed for the door.
“I saw how you looked at him. I know how he feels about you.”
“You wouldn’t understand even if you did see or hear something. What we’ve been through, it’s complicated. We’re not normal people. There’s still a chance for Landon. Me?”
I didn’t know what I was. Being here, being near him outside of a work environment had brought out some complicated feelings. Imagining a life outside of the agency was growing less and less scary as the days went by, and that was driving me insane. I wasn’t sure how I’d function without my career, and now I wasn’t doing a good job functioning inside my career because it was only a few days in and I was already outed.
“Save your histrionics, sister,” she said, and she started to laugh. “You’re just in the denial phase.”
She wasn’t wrong. My denial was deep. I knew I loved him no matter what the circumstances were. I just didn’t know if I was strong enough to love him like he deserved.
“Now do you want to learn how to be Sabine without getting busted or not?” she asked, picking up a thin leather whip from the table and slapping it off her hand.
My eyes grew wide. She wasn’t unattractive by any means, in fact, if I was going to question my straight as an arrow sexuality at all, it’d probably be with someone like Athena, but this wasn’t the time or the place.
“I’m not gonna touch you,” she said, leaning in closer to me. “I’m a married woman. And Law already read me the riot act, anyway.”
I raised my eyebrow. It was cute how protective he was over me.