by Donn, KL
“I agree Ty, but we can’t let her know we’re doing it. She might protest about us stirring up the hornet’s nest,” Nate replied angrily. “But you’re right, he can’t get away with what he’s done to her. He needs to know she’s got real men taking care of her now, and that in the future he won’t even be a passing thought to her.”
*******
Nate couldn’t believe what Keeley had told them and her parents. Daily beatings? On a child? Who the fuck does that? He thought. How could anyone harm another human being the way that she obviously had been, and for twenty goddamn years? He couldn’t just let it go. Had he known it was that bad a week ago, he would have hunted the mother fucker down already and disposed of his body in the ocean, or at the very least a desert so the coyotes could eat his remains.
It burned him that they let her leave the restaurant that first day they met her, to go home to him. “Fuck!” He said sharply, getting up. “I need to go for a run or something, man. Get rid of this wild energy running through me,” he told Ty. Nodding his head, he knew he understood.
Changing into his running shorts and shoes, Nate was out the front door in minutes; running up the drive to their property and around the bend leading to the road. He ran the quarter mile that split each house, passing house after house, knowing he was taking longer than he probably should. After he passed the fourth house, he decided it was time to turn around, but instead of running he was walking. Knowing he still wasn’t in the right frame of mind.
Stopping and looking up to the sky, Nate prayed for the first time since his last tour of duty. Please let Keeley be ok. Let her understand that we’re here for her. That she means everything to us. We can’t lose her, not now that we’ve finally found her.
He didn’t know if what he felt for her was love yet or not, but the way she made him feel he was pretty sure it was damn close to it. Not wanting to be any longer than he already was, Nate started the run back home. Passing the woods that Keeley had run into today and had been there for God knows how long, made him give a slight shutter. Had she been in there past dark, who knows what could have happened to her.
Shaking off those thoughts, he concentrated on getting home to her. Knowing she was there waiting on him, asleep or not, put a smile on his face and his running kicked into high gear. Making it to the bend just before his driveway, Nate started to run faster, with anticipation of having her in his arms again.
Once he was close enough to the house, he spotted Keeley and Ty lying on a blanket on the front grass, stargazing. The smile on her face made him wonder how often she’d been able to do that before, or if she ever had. Sighing at his thoughts, he made it close enough to them that they finally looked his way. As soon as she saw him, she jumped up and ran to him.
Bracing his feet shoulder-width apart Nate caught her, when she lunged at him. Catching her around the waist and hoisting her up so her legs wrapped around him, he smiled and said “Hello my gorgeous, Butterfly.” Which caused her to giggle.
“Hi, Nathaniel,” she smiled and whispered against his lips. God, he loved how she was the only one to call him by his full name, and probably the only one he would ever let.
Walking over to the blanket he knelt down beside Ty, with her still in his arms. “Star-gazing, huh? I like that. It’s been awhile since I’ve done this. What have we found so far?”
Getting excited at what Ty had already shown her, Keeley started talking animatedly and pointing them out. “See over there, those clusters that look like a broken spatula? Tyler said that’s the Big Dipper. I wonder how it got that name?” She murmured. “And that over there, where those big stars are? That’s Orion’s Belt. I really like that one,” she smiled at him.
Lying outside under the stars for nearly two more hours, Nate had never felt such contentment before. Like he had finally found who he was meant to be with. This must be love, he thought to himself. It’s perfect.
Chapter 12
After spending the first half of the morning at the police station, filing charges against Tawnya for trespassing, assault, and anything else they could come up with, they finally made it to the office. Walking into the building that looked more like a warehouse, Keeley’s nerves started to get the best of her. She started fidgeting with the hem of her new trench jacket. Head down and not paying attention, she almost ran into what could have been a brick wall but was really an extremely large man. Grabbing onto Nathaniel’s arm and maneuvering herself halfway behind him, she peeked up at what had to be one of the tallest men she’d ever met. He had to be close to seven feet tall and easily three hundred pounds or more. With a chiseled jaw that had a five o’clock shadow on it already, she felt fear course through her entire body. When Nathaniel and Tyler shook the man’s hand and introduced her, she didn’t comprehend anything being said; all she could hear was the blood rushing through her veins. It wasn’t until Tyler pressed his front to her back, and Nathaniel turned around and wrapped his hands around the nape of her neck that she realized she was even shaking so hard her knees knocked together.
“Butterfly, you’re safe here,” Nathaniel whispered to her with their foreheads pressed together. “Dane won’t do anything to you. Hell, he couldn’t hurt a fly if he wanted to,” he smirked. Looking around Nathaniel to the man he called Dane, she looked into his nearly black eyes and saw the compassion there. He knew she was scared of him, yet he wasn’t trying to intimidate her like a lot of men would. He simply stood there with kindness in his eyes and a small smile on his face, while she inspected him from head to toe. He was huge. Bigger than Nathaniel. She had never seen so much muscle packed into one person before.
Moving around her guys, she walked up to Dane. Looking up into his face she whispered, “Hi.” When he wrapped her up in a hug, picking her up and spinning around in circle, she couldn’t help but let out a squeal of surprise.
“You’re gonna be alright here, little lady. We’ve got your back,” Dane whispered in her ear, when he put her down.
Hearing a sound from behind her, she turned around to see an older woman with gray hair and a huge smile on her face. “Well now, you must be Keeley… I’m Julia. I’ve heard such wonderful things about you. Welcome to Maxwell Secures, where the men are overgrown, and hot as can be!” Julia told her causing her to laugh out loud. It was freeing to be able to laugh like this with people who didn’t want to cause her harm. “Come child, let’s leave these overgrown beasts to do what they do, and you and I will become better acquainted.” Before Keeley could protest, Julia grabbed her hand and dragged her down the hall to what she assumed was her office.
Turning her head she saw the men with smiles on their faces and chuckling, which made her relax enough to know she would be ok with Julia for the time being. Looking around Julia’s office, she admired the warmth coming from this room. The decor and atmosphere were very soothing. The walls were painted a nice light blue with small pieces of artwork hanging around, mostly birds in flight, but a few with what looked like children’s drawings of wild flower fields. “Did your grandchildren make these, Julia?” She asked the older woman.
“They did. They love to paint and I find that having them here, instead of some stuffy over-priced ones, is much more relaxing,” Julia replied with a proud smile on her face.
“I think they’re wonderful. How old are they?”
“Eight and five, now. I can’t wait to move closer; I miss my grandbabies something fierce. I don’t get to see them nearly enough since my son-in-law’s transfer to California two years ago.”
“Oh wow, that’s awfully far away. Do you have other children?”
“Nope, just the one, which makes moving there so much easier,” she said with a smile. “Alright, let me show you Nate and Ty’s schedule for the day, and we’ll get you situated with what your role will be, sound good?”
Nodding her head, Keeley was shocked at how much she was looking forward to helping with their company. “Julia?” She asked.
“Yes, dear?”
“Oh my, ok. Well, they do it all really. It might be something as small as training security personnel for an event, or finding a missing person. Sometimes they go overseas and offer protection for dignitaries or business magnates. I suppose it just depends who needs what and where,” Julia explained briefly.
“Are they in danger?” The question voiced her real fear.
“Sometimes there’s a case where some danger is involved. It’s not often, but they are the best at what they do and take every precaution they can to make sure everyone, including themselves, stays safe.” Feeling better about it, she simply nodded and started to study the schedule Julia brought up on the computer for her.
Once she had a better idea of what they did, Keeley realized it wasn’t often they left the country, which settled her nerves more. Julia showed her how to handle a new case and how to open the file for it, which was much easier than she thought it would be. After learning about the filing system, which was color coded by most urgent cases, they broke for lunch. Not realizing it was nearly one in the afternoon, meaning they’d been at it for nearly three hours already, she was starving. “Let’s get you to those boys, now. I’m sure they’ve had to hold themselves back from coming and checking on you,” Julia said while getting up and grabbing her purse and coat off the rack.
Leaving Julia’s office and heading to Nathaniel and Tyler’s, Keeley realized how excited she was to tell them about the things her and Julia did, and that even though she had been nervous about not having experience on a computer she found it easy to maneuver on.
“Here you are dear, I’ll see you in a bit,” Julia remarked leaving her standing outside their closed office door.
Knocking on the door she waited for them to answer. When Tyler opened the door looking angry and had a huge scowl on his face, she immediately backed up. Not wanting to anger him further, she meekly walked in when he gestured for her to. That is when she noticed the same anger reflected on Nathaniel’s face, and she started to really get scared.
“Wh—What’s going on?” she asked nervously, shifting from foot to foot, unconsciously getting closer and closer to the corner of the right wall.
“You tell us, Butterfly,” Nathaniel snarled the nickname he’d given her like a curse, shattering any illusion she had that what they shared was real. With a lump the size of a baseball settling in her chest, Keeley started to shake her head in the negative not understanding what was happening.
“It’s like this darlin’, we’ve been investigating your family all morning, only to stumble across a list of charges against you as long as my arm. Care to explain?” Tyler asked with malice in his voice.
Hanging her head in shame she didn’t want to answer, they already assumed she was a horrible person. What they failed to realize was she had no choice; it was life or death. She choose to live and now she wished for death. She knew one day her offenses would come back to haunt her, but it was so long ago she refused to think about it. It was best to move past it all for her own sanity. “I’m sorry, I had n-n-no choice,” she stuttered out on a weak whisper.
“No choice?” Nathaniel asked her angrily. “You always have a choice, Keeley, with everything. You chose to steal from people. To con them. To make them believe you were something you’re not. Is that what you were going to do to our parents? Then later to us?” He practically yelled at her.
Keeley was shaking in not only fear, but also anger now. She didn’t know what to do, what to say. She had no way to defend herself against their accusations. With tears streaming down her face she railed at them, “I had no intention of doing anything to you or your family. It was you that burst into my life, Nathaniel, not the other way around. I had no choice in conning people, because it was either do it or suffer a beating to rival all others I’d had!” She yelled at them while shaking so hard her teeth were now chattering. “You have no idea what I was forced to do so my so-called parents could feed their habits. And you know what? The beatings never stopped no matter what I did. Everything I’ve ever done in my life, bad or good, has been with survival in mind.” Breathing heavy she took a break to stare at them. Their faces were still hard and jaded so she knew, just knew, her time in this life was over. “You know I never asked you for anything, never wanted to fall in love with one man let alone two, and you made me. Both of you. Now, I’m once again left with nothing. You act like what I did was so abhorrent, yet look at what you’re both doing now,” she admonished before walking out of their office door, and straight through the lobby and out the front door.
Standing in the parking lot, Keeley turned around and gave the building one last look of regret before walking away. With nowhere to go and no one to call, she was left with little option but to keep walking.
*******
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!!” Nate exploded out of his chair chasing after Keeley, with Ty hot on his tail; running past a startled Julia on their way out the door. They both skidded to a stop as they saw her getting on a bus a block away. “Fuck, Keeley, wait!” He yelled hoping she’d hear him. Relief swamped him as she paused and turned half way. Looking right in his eyes, she shook her head and turned her back on them. “Get the truck, Ty!” He yelled while running back inside, stopping when he saw Julia standing by his office door looking very angry.
“You want to explain to me why I saw that girl with tears pouring down her face, and how when she saw me she ran into traffic to get on that bus?” Julia asked impatiently, tapping her foot.
“No,” Nate told her before grabbing his phone and calling Dane, then running back outside to Ty, who was waiting in the truck at the front door. Climbing in as Dane answered, he told Ty to go. “Yo man, look, I can’t explain, but Keeley’s gone. We’re following her on a bus right now, but I think we might need back up and I really don’t want to call my parents. Can you meet us? I’ll text you the address.”
“What the fuck did you guys do to cause her to run?” Dane asked sharply. “I only spent five minutes in that girl’s company, and I know that while she might be fragile as hell, she’s got a heart of gold and a spine of steel.”
“We were looking into her father. He’s a shitty guy who spent his life beating her, and we wanted to make him pay. But then we came across her juvie record. Its long man, all sorts of things but mostly theft and conning people.” Nate tried to defend his actions, even though he felt like shit for exploding on her. He knew she wasn’t doing that to them, nor had she planned to. She was just too innocent to pull something like that off. Which if he thought about it, made her perfect for it, except she was too honest. They had only just finished reading the information when she knocked on their door. It had barely sunk in, and the accusations flew out of his mouth before he could even filter them.
Silence on the other end of the line had him pulling it away from his ear and checking to see if the call disconnected. Seeing that it hadn’t, Nate waited for the explosion he was sure was coming. “Text me the address,” was all Dane said before hanging up.
“What the fuck are we going to do if she doesn’t let us apologize, Nate? We just got the info, but fuck! The look on her face when she got on the bus almost brought me to my knees.” Ty said evenly. “What did Dane say?” He asked as an afterthought.
“We’re fucked,” was all Nate said, while watching the bus like a hawk.
*******
Not wanting to give voice to his fears Ty just drove, following the bus in the hopes that Keeley would get off soon. Seeing Nate texting out of the corner of his eyes, he figured he was telling Dane where they were at now. After following the bus for over an hour, it finally turned it’s out of service sign on. As it stopped at the bus station, Ty put the truck in park and they both hopped out going to the front door, waiting for her to get off.
Hearing another truck door slam shut, Ty turned to see Dane striding their way. Ty wasn’t scare
d of many men, if any at all, but Dane was in a league of his own. He was an extremely large man, standing at six feet nine inches tall and weighing just over three hundred pounds. He scared a lot of people with his size, but it wasn’t his size that put Ty on edge, it was his combat training that made him a deadly weapon.
Dane stopped in front of them. “You fuckers are lucky you’re my friends or I’d kill you both for this, I hope you fucking know that. Shit. I still might,” was all Dane said before knocking on the bus doors, waiting for the driver to open them and boarding it. They watched him walk all the way to the back, before bending down and trying to coax Keeley to get up and go with him. After about twenty minutes of back and forth between the two, they could see Dane clearly got exasperated and just picked her up in a fireman’s hold, before walking back off. Putting her down in front of them, he told them all, “You two fuckers fuck with this girl again, and you’re dead. She’s a hell of a lot more mule-headed than you two combined. And you, little lady…,” he quieted, grabbing the back of her head gently. “Listen to what they have to say. I’ll be in my truck waiting for whether you want to leave with them or me,” he said before doing just that.
“You are not leaving with him, Butte—”
“Don’t call me that,” she snapped, interrupting Nate and shocking them both.
“Oh Butterfly, I will never stop calling you that no matter how much we fuck up, or how mad you are at us. You are and always will be my Butterfly,” Nate told her. “I’m sorry we jumped on you like that Butterfly. I won’t offer any excuses because none would be good enough, but let us explain what happened, please?” At her nod, they started to tell her how and what they were doing. That they were shocked from the record they found on her. They didn’t have the time they needed to process the information, before she knocked on the door. When they finally finished with an apology, and promised to not jump to conclusions again and simply ask her what was going on, she still hadn’t said anything to them or even looked up at them. The wait was killer. To know whether she could forgive them or not was almost Ty’s undoing.