by Jana Leigh
She pulled out her money and laid it on the shelf in front of her. She didn"t have to count it to know that they had not touched a dime.
She reached into the bag and pulled her laptop out. Then she pulled the lining from under the bag and pulled the flash drive that she had hidden. Taking a deep breath, she stood up and exited the closet. Drew and Rex had remained in the same spot that they were when she left the room.
“My laptop has some stuff on it. When my mom died, she left the documents that I showed you as well as a safety deposit box. When I went to the bank to get the contents of the box, I found more papers and a letter she had apparently written just before she died. I had no clue she was even that in touch with reality still. For years, she sat and looked out a window without talking to anyone. It took me a while before I was able to read the letter. I assumed it would have something about dad. I was wrong.” Jazz said and then booted up her computer and put the flash drive into it.
“She hired a private investigator. I was so shocked that she had done that, I almost put everything back. The past was the past, or so I thought. My mother was obsessed with finding something to nail that bastard with. I figured it was because of my father, and that was it partly. Everyone assumed that Digrossi and my mother met for the first time when Lily"s mother introduced them. In the letter she admitted that it was not the first time.” She said and turned her computer so they could read her mother"s words without her messing it up.
Dear Jasmine,
I know that if you are reading this it is because I am dead. I hope that for your sake, it was of natural causes, but we both know there is a possibility the man who killed your father returned to finish the job. He would have done this because I sent him a letter a few days ago, letting him know that I remained vigilant on finding something to send him to jail. In this letter, I explained to him the depths of my hatred for him.
Your father is the only one who knew the truth, he accepted me anyway. When I was a young girl, I went to a catholic school in the city. My parents were very strict, and I just wanted to see the world. One night, a friend, and I went out to a club; they were all the rave then. I wanted to see how the other half lived. My friend and I were almost turned away at the door, but a young and handsome man vouched for us. He took us into the club and introduced us around, bought us drinks and paid a lot of attention to us. We were both flattered, and naive.
At the end of the night, he offered us a ride. My friend was dropped off first and then as we were heading the two blocks to my home, he pulled over into a parking lot. As you can imagine, at first I was flattered that he wanted to kiss me. When it started to go beyond that, I refused and he became angry. Telling me, that I had to pay for the time, and energy he wasted on us. So he raped me, then took me home and dropped me off like nothing had happened. He even kissed me on the forehead before letting me out the door.
I just wanted to forget. Then I found out a few weeks later, I was pregnant. I was scared to tell my parents, they would have killed me. I was sixteen and alone. I called an Aunt I trusted and talked with her about the situation. She agreed to call my parents, and ask me to come and stay with her for a year. She said it was to expand my horizons. My father argued at first, but then he gave in when she told him that I would be meeting with a local college there. I went to her, had the baby, put it up for adoption, and then went home. I wanted to forget and for years I was able to, I met your father and loved him so much. I told him the first night about my past and he did not care.
Then the unthinkable happened. I was outside taking you to the park when a man came out of the house next door. I knew instantly who he was, he however, never recognized me. I told your father, when he came to me and offered me a job, I was disgusted. I wanted to say no, but your father and I knew who he was. He could have hurt us, so I went to work for him. I intended on gathering information. And I did, you should have found all the copies. Most of them are old, but I kept them updated by hiring a private investigator to make sure.
I also, had him find your sister. I knew it was a girl. It took him a long time to find her, the records were sealed. So her information is below. I know I should be telling you that I love you, instead of all this. You should know I do love you, and because of that, it was why I stayed silent all these years. I thought I was protecting you. If Digrossi thought I was keeping quiet, you were safe.
Now, I am leaving you this and the name of the investigator who I hired. He has all the information and will help you find the right person to turn it over to.
Love you,
Mom
There was a name, and phone number at the bottom of the page and Rex assumed it was to her sister.
Both men stood up and paced the room a little. Jazz let them take all the information in before speaking again.
“I tried to contact the number, it was out of order. I went to the PI, and he gave me all the stuff and a contact card to the FBI. I went in and told the story about my father to see if they would take me seriously before I gave them the rest. On the flash drive is all the information that he had. You have all probably found most of it out, but you never know.” Jazz said and sat waiting for them to say something.
God, she hoped that she had not fucked this up already. It"s not like she was trying to keep things from them. In the beginning, she didn"t know whether she could trust them, and after that, she had just forgotten. There had been too much shit going on, too many secrets popping up, and basically too much emotion.
Drew stopped and looked at her and she held her breath. “Darlin", it"s okay, we understand. Is there anything else that you need to tell us?” Rex had stopped too and looked at her. “Let"s get it out now, we aren"t mad. I completely understand why you didn"t tell us.”
Jazz felt the tears in her eyes gather and she smiled. “I love you, both.”
“Oh Darlin", we love you too.” Drew said and they both kissed her and then stepped back. “Let's take this up to the guys.” Drew said and grabbed the flash drive.
Chapter 9
They entered the main house to a flurry of activity. Jazz watched as all the men were on the phone walking around with papers and Lily was flitting around with drink and food.
She quickly went to help her friend. Jazz gave them all the information, her work was done for now. She needed to wait and see what they dug up.
Drew went to Drake and Shane, handed them the flash drive, and whispered in their ear.
Rex went to a bucket, pulled out a new phone, plugged it into a computer, and booted it up. Once it was done, he looked up and went directly to Bear who had just hung up the phone. They spoke quietly for a few minutes and then Rex took his new phone and made a call.
“Andre.” She heard him say and then he turned away.
For hours, they worked in silence, only with the occasional question coming from one of them. Jazz was impressed, none of them took breaks. Jazz and Lily spoke quietly in the kitchen while they made coffee and snacks constantly, it gave them something to do, and they guys all had huge appetites.
Finally, when the sun was ready to set again, Rex called for a meeting. Jazz and lily sat in the background, but wanted to listen to what was going on.
Rex spoke first, “I called Andre, and his reaction was what I expected. Getting him to understand that it would be bad if we were all together, I convinced him to talk with his friends and increase security. They are using Steve and Jolly"s private firm so they know the people are solid. However, there have been some FBI people poking around lately.
They are going to try to find out why. If they need to, Bailey and her husbands have a backup plan, and somewhere to hide.”
The men all nodded and then Drew spoke up. “Your phone number was given out by the carrier. I guess someone owed someone a favor and whatever. They tried to access your GPS, but our security overrode it. From now on, we need to make sure that we are not staying with one carrier. In fact maybe we should go international, harder to trace.”
&
nbsp; “Or Nextel, we can block that GPS easy and we can also change frequencies.” Blake said and everyone agreed.
Bear spoke up next. “Jazz"s flash drive was fairly up to date. All of the addresses and names are people he is still dealing with. We did get the address of the main house that they traffic women through. Trent called in a favor and he has a few guys watching it.” Trent nodded, “The guys are clean, just some retired SEALS, looking for some action.
They assured me they would call us first. I had to tell them what they were watching, if something bad goes down they said they would go in.” Blake and Shane smiled and Blake said, “I guess we are last. So we have found the two women left on the list. We made contact and they are willing to talk to us. Of course, we had to tell them the danger they were in and Jolly and Steve are providing them protection, it should be in place now. Uh, we also looked into the phone number at the bottom of Jazz"s letter. We found the adoptive parents. Not a real good relationship with their daughter. Apparently, they were rich and wanted a child to show off to their society friends. The girl took off when she was twenty one and no one has heard a thing from her. She has a degree in computer engineering, and was at the top of her class.
Trust me, she is good, but we still found her. Her name is Phoebe.” Jazz sat up and gasped. “You found her?”
“Yeah, but one small problem. Apparently, she found out who her parents were too.
She is currently working for Digrossi Jr. as a secretary. We are going to have to get her out of there. She has to know by now what she got herself into. Also, pretty sure that she has not come out to the family, since she still has a job.” Shane said.
Jazz swore and closed her eyes. She knew that Jr. was just as bad if not worse than Sr., the sister she had never met before was in danger and probably did not realize it. If they found out she was their sister, she was dead.
Rex looked at her and nodded. “We have to make her the priority right now. She is in a lot of danger.”
Drake and Shane stood up. “We got this. We will go now, do surveillance and get to her when she is alone.”
“Be careful and call when you make contact.” Rex said and then turned back to Bear.
“You and Trent are in charge of talking to the two women and finding out what they can do to help us. Lily, it is up to you how you handle your birth mother. We are going to start going over records and getting them sorted out. We have to find the weak link to take this fucker down.”
Epilogue
Blake and Shane were sitting in the coffee shop that Phoebe came to every morning.
They had been watching her and knew her routine down to the last minute. The girl was on a mission. They had all been wrong. Phoebe knew that her birth father was dirty and she was trying to find out the same thing we were. They just did not know why.
Blake broke into her house and planted a bug, and searched her computer. She was not storing anything or making notes, but she did have Andre and Rex"s name. They assumed she was trying to find the rest of her family.
Shane and Blake had been surprised when they saw her for the first time. She was a mousy little girl who probably only came up to their chins. She dressed like a matron, they did not know if that was her style, or she was playing a game, but looking in her closet and underwear drawer, they figured that she was not playing a game.
Shane saw her for the first time. He posed as a delivery man and went right into Digrossi"s office. She looked up at him with her big brown eyes that were hidden by the large, framed glasses and he was lost. When he returned to Blake and told him about his reaction, Blake demanded to see her.
He went and waited outside the office building until she came out and then he followed her home. Walking with his raging hard on had been difficult. When she first stepped out wearing her business suit that was cut modestly, his cock stirred to life. Her skirt was below her knees and she wore sneakers, carrying what looked like old lady pumps.
When she tripped over the curb and almost fell over he wanted to run and grab her, but he held back. It was too soon and they knew nothing about her.
For three weeks now, they watched her and made sure she was safe. Rex and Drew gave them the okay last night to make contact with her. That conversation had been a little odd. Shane told Rex that they would bring Phoebe in tonight, but they wanted him to know that they fully intended on convincing her to stay with them. She was the one they had been looking for. Now it was time to claim their woman.