Salvaged by Love (Thalia Book 3) (The Thalia Series)

by Jennifer Bene

  They were unbreakable.

  Epilogue

  Fourteen Months After the Auction

  Thalia stretched and shifted in the desk chair, her back popping with a satisfying crack that finally let her sigh and relax for a minute. She’d already been staring at the computer screen for an hour, typing and re-typing, deleting and re-typing again.

  It didn’t feel right yet.

  Reaching for the spoon in her cereal bowl she groaned. Empty. She could refill the bowl with cereal, or just grab one of the cupcakes Becca had made for everyone at the studio. Turning the spoon over in the last of the milk she glanced over the words on the screen again. She wanted - no, she needed - them to be perfect.

  And perfect required a fucking cupcake.

  Grinning, Thalia took the bowl to the kitchen and abandoned it in the sink before popping open the little plastic container that Becca had handed her at the sunrise class that morning. “Red velvet. I fucking love you, Becca,” she mumbled gratefully as she peeled the paper off and took a bite. It was heaven, and just as she was starting to savor it her cell started ringing in the office. Of course she’d be interrupted. With a groan she grabbed the container and ran to get the phone.

  “Yeah, hi - hello?” Thalia rambled as she licked frosting off her fingertips, holding the cell phone against her shoulder as she regrettably tucked the rest of the cupcake back in with its two friends.

  “Hello, Thalia.” Ailsa sounded like she had something to talk to her about.

  “Hi, Ailsa. What can I do for you this morning?” Thalia tried to sound peppy as she dropped into the chair, grabbing her coffee.

  “I’m just checking in. How are ye today?” She had therapist voice on full blast. Dammit.

  “I’m great! I taught a class early this morning, I was just about to eat a cupcake, and I’m working on the invitations to the forum.”

  “Hmm. And, how did ye sleep last night?” Ailsa’s question wasn’t innocent. She knew. James had called her. Glaring at her inbox, Thalia contemplated sending a not-so-nice email to him at work.

  “James called you, didn’t he.” It wasn’t even a question. James had told Ailsa about the nightmare.

  “He said it was a bad night. So talk to me. How bad was it?” Ailsa sighed on the other end of the line when Thalia only groaned into the phone. “Thalia, ye promised me that ye would keep talking to me, that ye wouldn’t shut me out. Ignoring it is not what makes you whole, working through it -”

  “Alright!” Thalia cut her off. She’d heard Ailsa’s speech on working through trauma over and over again as she’d worked at healing herself.

  She had to admit, the first month after Marcus had been bad. Okay, really bad. Screaming in her sleep bad. She’d spent half her nights sleeping in the playroom with James so no one in the building would call the police. This time it hadn’t been a fear of going anywhere, or a panic in public – it had been a fear of sleeping.

  Because in her dreams Marcus wasn’t dead.

  Which eventually meant that Thalia had just refused to sleep. She had thrown herself into keeping Nirvana going from a distance since she couldn’t teach yet, thrown herself into researching the girls INTERPOL was working to save, and then into Netflix marathons, and trying to learn to crochet. Night after night of blanketing herself in anything but sleep. Even if James lay down with her, held her, begged her to sleep – she just counted in her head to keep herself awake. Doing math to keep her brain busy until his breaths evened out and she could sit up without waking him.

  Ailsa had shown up in London after Thalia reached three and a half days with no sleep whatsoever. James had called her out of desperation, and she had arrived – and then promptly tranquilized Thalia while she had screamed and begged for her not to do it. James had been the one to help hold her down.

  She had slept for twenty-six dreamless hours straight.

  James had not. While she was out cold James had stayed with her, refusing to leave her side, convinced she was trapped in a nightmare. He had been racked with guilt. And apparently, while she was sleeping, he had said some really terrible things to Ailsa. Kalen had flown in to take James out of the flat and Ailsa had stayed in the house with her. Even months later no one would actually tell her what he’d said, and James said he’d been so stressed he could barely remember shouting at her. It had been a mess.

  The solution? Thalia had to speak with Ailsa three days a week, she had to talk through the nightmares, and she absolutely had to sleep.

  So, Thalia had started sleeping. Even though the nightmares were waiting. Then, they had slowly started to spread out. Her injuries had mostly healed by the beginning of the second month and she had gone back to work with colorful arm socks on to cover the healing scar on her wrist. Becca had done an amazing job of keeping Nirvana running, and the executive assistant James had hired temporarily was now a permanent, and very necessary, member of the studio. Her name was Kimmy, and she was an organizing genius. But it had been months since that dark time. Thalia slept, and she was fine.

  Pretty much.

  Thalia groaned into the phone, “Okay, so I had a nightmare last night, but it’s been seven days since the last one, Ailsa! SEVEN days. That counts for something!”

  “Of course it counts, Thalia. Ye have been doing great, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want ye to talk to me about them anymore. James mentioned ye screamed and when he turned the light on ye were still asleep... like the ones in the beginning. He had to shake ye to get ye to wake up, and -”

  “And then I freaked out. I know. I was there.” Thalia rubbed her eyes and sighed. “James is fine, he’s a lot faster at restraining me now.”

  Not like at first. Until Ailsa had told him it was okay to restrain her so she didn’t hurt him, or herself, he refused to do anything to protect himself. One night he hadn’t moved back in time and ended up with scratches on his neck before she remembered where she was. He was always gentle when he restrained her now though, grabbing her wrists and holding them in front of her so she could see him, and he was quick when he was awake. All the sparring he’d done with Kalen when they were younger finally coming in handy with his instinct to block. He liked to joke that she was keeping him sharp whenever she apologized about it - and he’d remind her that there were no apologies needed. No apologies for any of it. That was their rule.

  Post-traumatic stress disorder is a bitch.

  “I know that James is fine, how are ye, Thalia?” Ailsa repeated her earlier question, clearly expecting a more detailed answer.

  “Ailsa, fuck, I’m always fine once I realize where I am! Once I remember that he’s dead... it doesn’t last. The fear, the panic – it’s a flash in the pan. The one last night just felt real. So real. And in the dream he’d had me pinned under him and I just wanted him off me, and...” Thalia shrugged and drank more of her coffee, trying not to let the images back into her head. Instead she thought of the last image she had of Marcus. Just before they’d gone to the helicopter she had looked in the room and seen him in a pool of his own blood – exactly where she’d left him. Marcus was dead. That was the first thing she told herself after every nightmare.

  The fact that it wasn’t the first thing she told herself every morning was progress.

  “And?” Ailsa prompted when Thalia didn’t continue.

  “And so I woke up fighting, and when James reacted I wasn’t quite awake yet so I tried to kick him away from me,” she smiled weakly. “He grabbed me and started talking to me. He talked about when I’d worn this green dress when we were in Barcelona, and that he still listens to Travesuras by Nicky Jam at work sometimes when he misses me.” The memory made her smile more. She had gotten drunk at a little restaurant there and danced to it, singing the parts she’d memorized even though she didn’t speak Spanish. It had been on the radio a lot.

  “So that’s working?” Ailsa asked calmly, and Thalia sighed. When she was having the nightmares more frequently Ailsa had been the one to suggest that James remind h
er of who he was, of where she was, by telling her a memory they shared. A good memory that would help to push back the nightmare.

  “It always works, Ailsa. I told you, everything is fine. It was a bad night, but it’s been seven days since the last one, and I didn’t freak out that time. Before that it was four days. Before that, five days. I’m averaging just one a week!” Thalia felt exasperated.

  “Ye know James only called me because he loves ye, and he wanted to make sure ye were alright. Ye are so focused on feeling normal that ye don’t want to address the trauma anymore. And before ye interrupt me, I agree, ye are doing phenomenally well. It doesn’t mean we ignore the lingering effects from your time with Marcus. It’s only been a little over three months. Give yerself a break, Thalia!” Ah, Ailsa had dropped the therapist act. It was always easier to listen to her when she didn’t sound like she was running a radio therapy line like some kind of female, Scottish, Frasier.

  “I know. I know, Ailsa. I don’t mean to be a bitch about it, and I’m sorry. I appreciate your help, I just hate feeling fragile.”

  “Ye are not fragile, Thalia, and we have discussed that as well. Ye survived him not once, but twice. A fragile person could not have done that.” Ailsa had said it over and over in their talks. She had even repeatedly addressed that the suicide attempt was just an attempt at self-preservation, at avoiding the drugs again, at keeping herself away from Marcus. Ailsa had told her she had no concerns over a repeat attempt because it was situational, not psychological. That had helped some, and eased James’ overprotectiveness a little. Although the security detail he’d hired still followed her everywhere. Ailsa sighed into the phone, “Alright, as long as ye assure me yer doing well, I won’t bring it up again today. Go on, tell me where yer at with yer project.”

  That made Thalia smile, and she launched into an update on the number of girls located, on the number that had been rescued, on the tiny number who had found good men and happiness. On that very short list was Kaia. She had learned through court transcripts that Thomas had apparently been blackmailed as well, that Marcus had actually threatened Kaia to keep him involved. Kaia had never even known about the threats, which explained how her twisted affection for him could have ever continued. Even thinking of them reminded Thalia of the care in Thomas, the gentle way he’d touched Anna and Kaia at the house, the sad way he had looked at her, commented on her injuries. After everything came out, Thomas had cut a deal to stay out of jail for not reporting the crimes, for aiding Marcus with the tattoos, and for being involved in the trafficking of Kaia.

  Thomas, Anna, and Kaia had moved to Colorado when Anthony’s trial was over.

  Marcus was still wanted by the FBI and INTERPOL, and a scrabble game’s worth of other agencies. But Jake had assured James that there were no bodies to find. The warehouse had been cleaned. Like she had never even been there. His team had sent her flowers after she’d returned to London along with a care package filled with snowballs and coca-cola. In the package had been a note: For our favorite badass. Heal fast. All of their names had been underneath. James had laughed and kissed her, saying she was the only girl in the world with a fan club made of mercenaries.

  Ailsa let her ramble for a while about the security measures in place for her website, all of the technobabble that filled her inbox talking about VPN tunnels, proxy servers, and scattering IP signals. Then Ailsa had laughed and finally stopped her. “I am so proud of what ye are doing, Thalia. I think of anything, this is going to heal ye the most. And ye do promise me that ye are doing alright? The nightmares aren’t affecting ye during the day?”

  Thalia sighed and leaned back in the chair, thinking for a moment so she’d answer honestly. She went with most of the truth, knowing there were some things Ailsa couldn’t help with. “Ailsa, I’m sleeping again. I go to bed with James every night, and I’d be lying if it didn’t cross my mind before I closed my eyes that something horrible might come up while I’m dreaming. But I’m not trying to avoid sleep anymore, and I know when I wake up that James will be there and I’ll remember that Marcus is dead. I don’t even really think about it during the day, it just hits me when I lay my head down on the pillow.”

  “Alright. I believe ye. I have an appointment now, but we’ll see each other soon.” Ailsa sounded warm and kind, because she was, and an inkling of guilt threaded through Thalia but she pushed it away. She’d talk to James about the rest of it. They said their goodbyes and finally hung up. With a sigh Thalia grabbed the cupcake as she turned back to the letter on the screen. It was as perfect as it was going to be, but she reread it once more anyway.

  First, I am sorry for what happened to you. It happened to me too, although our experiences were likely still very different.

  The man who took you was named Marcus Williams. He had a brother named Anthony Williams. Anthony is in jail for life, without the possibility of parole, based on his involvement in the abduction, rape, torture, and human trafficking of numerous others. Marcus is dead. I promise you that this is true. I’m writing to you because I hope that even if you ignore the rest of this letter you will sleep better knowing these things. I know I do.

  Second, I also want to offer you the below log in information for an anonymous forum. You were not the only one they took. You were not the only one they hurt. And no one understands like those who actually experienced it, and no one will listen to your story like those that went through it themselves. It’s a place for all of us to talk, to reach out to each other. We are the only ones with access to this forum.

  It’s your choice to log in, to speak with me, and with anyone else that logs in - but I hope you do. It helps to know that you’re not alone. Maybe only a little, but it does help.

  I am TR0414, and I will be here when you’re ready.

  Thalia took a breath and pulled up the file of victims’ names, current addresses, and the document with which brother had taken each of them. All she had to do was register them on the site to generate their username and password, adjust the letter to switch the brothers’ names if needed, and then print them out. The letters would be sent through an anonymous mail service, accompanied by a tablet that came with a data plan so they wouldn’t need access to the internet. Just a power supply. That had been James’ idea, and he had happily told her which ones to order and how to order them anonymously.

  From the moment Thalia had told James her plan, he had supported her. He’d stayed up at night talking with her about it, handed her the team of hackers who had originally found the information on the Williams brothers, and hired people to build the site she needed. He had also been making a series of anonymous, obscene donations to human trafficking organizations around the world. The last part was his own penance, and his own crusade, and she didn’t pressure him to discuss the decision. It was a good thing, after all, and if it helped him ease his conscience – all the better.

  Hours later and Thalia was staring at a stack of letters that was too tall to be real. Each one represented a life the Williams brothers had done their best to destroy. She bit her lip against the urge to cry as she flipped through them, and her hand stopped on the one that read ‘Beth Doherty’. Not in Germany anymore, she was back in California with her family, but living in a facility. James had anonymously taken care of her bills, relieving the financial strain on her family, and she was awake now. She just didn’t speak to anyone. Ever. Of every name on the list, the two she wanted to see log in most were Beth and Victoria. Beth, because Marcus had told her the girl’s story - and Victoria, because she was the one who Marcus had taken to replace her. The resemblance between Thalia and Victoria had been disturbing to discover. They could be sisters.

  She heard the front door open and wiped her eyes, setting the stack of letters on the desk where it slid to the side and fanned out. Thalia took a breath and called out to James, “Hey, I’m in the office!”

  “Hi, baby.” He walked in wearing a suit and she smiled at him. She really did have the hottest boyfriend. Leaning d
own he pressed a kiss to her lips and grinned against her mouth, his hand sliding down her side after a moment, but she grabbed it with a quick laugh.

  “Oh no. Nuh-uh. You’re in trouble.” She looked up at him, and he arched an eyebrow at her. Then realization dawned on him.

  “Ailsa.” He sighed and crossed his arms.

  “Ailsa.” Thalia confirmed and crossed her arms as well, leaning back in the chair to look at him. “I told you this morning I was fine.”

  “Your attempt at body kicking me off the bed begs to differ.” He shrugged, “You were due to call her anyway.”

  “Not the point.” She stood up and pointed at him, “You do not get to tattle on me to my therapist!”

  A wicked grin slid over his mouth and he reached for her hips, tugging her against him, “What if I promise to make it up to you?”