by James Tate
Archer insisted I ride back with him in the Range Rover—apparently my silver-sequined dress made me too easy of a target on the back of Steele's bike—but none of us really spoke much.
It wasn't an uncomfortable silence, though, and I filed that away as one of the many things I loved about our unconventional four-way relationship. No one felt the need to fill silence with aimless chatter. Everyone was just on the same page that we needed to process internally first.
Demi hadn't had much else to tell us, except that the current CEO—Karl Kruger—didn't seem to have any familial connections. Despite saying that, though, she intended to keep her guys digging in case there was a link that had been buried.
After we parked, we all made our way into the house. Steele was in front, making a speedy exit, which reminded me we had a conversation to finish.
"Max Steele, don't even think about it," I snapped and he halted mid-step on the stairs. "You and I have cats to discuss."
His shoulders slumped, but he shot me a good-humored grin. "Fine. My room or yours?"
"Yours," I replied. "I'll be up in a couple of minutes. I need a word with Archer first."
Kody snickered and jogged up a couple of stairs. "Everyone's in trouble tonight. Feel free to come sleep with me when you're done spanking these two, babe." He shot me a wink, then carried on up to his room.
Steele followed him, and the sound of their banter faded away as they reached the second floor.
Archer waited patiently with his thumbs hooked into the pockets of his jeans. "Something on your mind, Princess?"
I leveled a deadpan glare at him. "Understatement of the decade, Sunshine."
One corner of his mouth slanted up in a half-smile. "Come on; I stashed some of those gross pear ciders you like in the back of the fridge so Kody wouldn't find them."
He led the way through to the kitchen, then handed me one of my favorite drinks. Then he opened one for himself, too.
"Uh-huh, so Kody doesn't find them?" I teased with a nod to the open bottle in his hand. "Sure thing, liar." I completely ignored the barstools and boosted my ass up onto the island. I just really liked sitting on the counter. It put me at a really good height against all three boys.
Archer just smirked and took a sip, then licked his lips when he was done. It shouldn't have been as sexual as it was, but nonetheless...
"Stop it," I growled before taking a sip of my own cider.
"So, what did you need to talk to me about?" He stepped closer and trailed his fingertips up my bare thigh. My tiny dress didn't cover a whole lot when I was sitting down. Or standing, for that matter. "Or was that a convenient excuse to get me alone and make up for last night?"
I grinned, sipping from my bottle but held his heated gaze. "Nah," I replied, before I placed my bottle on the counter beside me. "You looked like you had a great time all on your own."
His smile spread wider and more wicked. "So you did get my video. You never answered."
"I was busy." I licked my lips. His gaze dipped to my mouth, his body gravitating closer, but I placed a hand against his chest, stopping him. "I actually wanted to discuss something Demi brought up."
He let out a sigh, moving away slightly and running a hand over his facial hair. "Yeah, I figured you would." He took a long sip, then placed the bottle down on the counter. He laid his palms on my bare thighs, and I shivered at the cold from his cider bottle. "Ask away, Princess. I don't have anything left to hide from you."
I bit my lip, suddenly nervous. "Well, that's comforting," I muttered, somewhat sarcastically. "That certainly implies there's a bucketload that I don't know, but I just haven't asked the right questions."
His grin returned, and his fingers flexed against my skin. "I love that you read between my lines so easily. But you don't need to know all my dark and dirty past right now, do you?"
I arched a brow. "Don't I?"
"Nope," he confirmed. "Because we have the rest of our lives to learn those things, and none of it would change how you feel about me right now."
My heart sped faster. The rest of our lives?
"Oh yeah?" I couldn't help pushing him. "And how do I feel about you now, Archer D'Ath?"
His hands gripped my thighs, parting them and pulling me to the edge of the counter. My legs hugged his hips, and he dipped his face to feather a teasing kiss over my lips. "I think you know, Kate. You're just too stubborn to say it out loud."
I love you.
"Or maybe you're wrong," I countered, full of bullshit. "Maybe this is just a bit of fun and the second I have my shit handled, I'll take off into the sunset with my diamond fortune and never give you a second thought."
Archer let out a low, dangerous chuckle. His hand left my thigh and wrapped around my throat as his lips brushed my earlobe.
"You run, and I'll chase you, Princess." With his tight grip on my throat, he brought my lips to his for a kiss hot enough to set my panties on fucking fire. His teeth grabbed at my lower lip, biting me hard enough to draw a little blood and make me pant like a bitch in heat.
Archer laughed again, releasing my throat before he skated his fingers down to my wet-ass pussy. "But something tells me you'd get off on that, huh?"
"Fuck you," I replied, but it came out sounding a whole damn lot like a plea, not an insult. It didn't help that my cunt was already aching and my nipples were tight. Damn him for being right.
Archer just grinned, and stroked me through my panties. "So, what did you want to discuss? I'm guessing it has to do with the financial transaction with your father."
My breath shuddered, and I tried to find my train of thought. Easier said than done with Archer teasing me like he was. "Yeah. You paid fifty-two million dollars for me?"
His expression didn't change. "I did."
"Is that the going rate when a debt-crippled businessman sells his underage daughter?" The whole concept made me sick, but Samuel Danvers would get his the next time our paths crossed.
Archer shook his head slightly. "Not even close." His jaw tensed, and he stopped teasing me through my panties. Instead, his hands rested lightly on my thighs. "There is no going rate. Every sale is unique and will attract a unique set of bidders. But if you're asking the average purchase price? Anywhere from one to twenty million isn't uncommon. Much less in the mainstream human trafficking rings, but the market your father intended to place you in caters to a specific clientele."
I swallowed hard. It was a lot to wrap my head around. "What do you mean by that?"
Archer shrugged. "Heiresses, celebrities, models—basically anyone of a certain status in society. People who would be noticed if they just up and disappeared. People who are easily controlled, despite their public profile."
I shook my head, hardly believing what I was hearing. Archer wasn't being an asshole about it; he was just that desensitized. That jaded toward such a vile underbelly of the one percent.
"So why pay so much?" I asked him, my voice rough with emotions that I desperately shoved aside. So many what-if scenarios crowded my brain whenever I thought about the fact that my father had sold me... but they did me no good. What-ifs held no weight in my present because none of them had come to be. Archer had been the one who’d purchased me. Archer had been the one to save me.
He dragged his thumb over his lower lip, and took a moment before he responded. "It was personal."
My brows rose. "Oh? How so? Fifty-two million dollars is a hell of a lot of money, Arch."
A small smile touched his lips. "You hardly ever shorten my name like that. I think you're going soft on me, baby girl."
I rolled my eyes. "Shut up and answer the question, asshole." He cocked a brow at me, and I stifled a frustrated growl, knowing damn well what he was about to say. "Just answer the question," I amended.
His eyes searched mine for a moment, then he ran a hand over his hair and let out a pained sound. "Alright, but before I answer, I need to tell you something. Okay?"
Nervousness fluttered in my stomach.
That didn't sound good.
"Okay," I replied, intrigued as hell, even though I was dreading what he might say.
His fingers ruffled his inky hair again, then his hands dropped back to my thighs and his gaze held mine. "I love you, Kate. I've been in love with you for a really long time, but I just needed you to smack my own stubborn bullshit out of the way before I could see the truth of it."
There was nothing but sincerity and—fuck—love in his gaze, which only made my heart race faster.
"Now I'm really worried," I whispered back, not brave enough to blink for fear of losing this moment between us. "Answer the question, Archer. Why did you pay fifty-two million dollars to buy me?"
His eyes tightened a fraction in a wince. "Because I knew it would piss you off."
What the—
"If it's any consolation, I also wanted to save you. I couldn't stand the thought of one of those other revolting, depraved fucks on the exchange buying you, owning you, doing whatever the fuck their sick fetishes demanded. But yeah, my first thought was how furious you'd be when you found out, and I liked that." He didn't look pleased by his own confession, but he did look honest.
That was something, I supposed.
"Why?" I asked, for lack of any other coherent thoughts. "Why did you want to piss me off? What did I do that hurt you so much?"
Despite my irritation at his motives, I couldn't deny how he'd inserted himself into the very fiber of my being. He was tattooed on my damn soul, and he owned a third of my heart. At this stage, there wasn't much I wouldn't forgive him for.
I was so totally screwed.
"That's the thing," he replied, looking somewhat ashamed. "You didn't do anything. Or nothing to warrant the grudge I held for so fucking long." He snagged his cider bottle again, and drained the rest of it.
"Are you deliberately killing me with suspense here?" I muttered, scowling. "Or is that just a bonus?"
He coughed a short laugh, placing his empty bottle back on the counter. "Just searching for my balls, Princess. I thought maybe I’d left them in the bottom of that cider bottle."
Despite the conversation, I snickered. "Just spit it out, Arch. We've already established the fact that we... you know... don't hate each other. Tell me what the hell happened in the past so we can move on."
A smirk touched his lips. "Yeah, alright. We don't hate each other." He gave me a sarcastic eye roll. Fucker. "Back when we met, when you came to the Reapers HQ with Deb… I know Steele told you a little bit but not everything."
I nodded. "Yeah, but he gave me the impression you weren't a big fan of preteen me?"
He gave a soft laugh. "Uh, yeah, pretty much the opposite of that. I was too much of a fan—but so was he, so he can't judge. Anyway, some shit went down on the last night you stayed with us. Reapers shit that should have stayed Reapers shit, but you were sneaking around and saw something that frightened you. Steele and I tried to calm you down, but the second my back was turned, you called the cops." His lips tilted in a nostalgic smile, but I was shocked.
"That seems like a pretty stupid thing to do," I commented with a small laugh. "What the fuck was I thinking?"
Archer stroked his fingertip down the side of my face, then tilted my chin up to meet his eyes. "You were thinking you'd just seen a guy get shot, and you were scared. It was dumb of us to think that you were okay, when you hadn't grown up around that kind of violence."
"So what happened next?" None of this was jogging my memory, but I didn't question the truth of his story. One day, I'd work harder on recovering those missing memories.
He winced. "Cops came, of course, but the SGPD know better than to stick their noses where they're not welcome on Reaper turf. After they were gone, Damien was out for blood. He was in a murderous rage, wanting to know who'd tattled to the PD."
For the first time since he'd started talking, a flicker of recognition hit me. I sucked in a sharp breath. "You took the blame for me," I whispered, horrified at my own past self.
Archer nodded. "He would have killed you without a second thought," he said softly. "We knew it. Steele tried to come forward first, but I tripped him and took the blame myself."
I swallowed heavily. "What did he do to you?" My voice was hoarse, thick with guilt and regret.
"Nothing he hadn't done plenty of times before," he replied with a shrug. "I was probably the only one he would have let off still breathing, though. That's why it had to be me, not Steele."
"He beat the shit out of you, didn't he?" I murmured, jagged slices of memories flashing across my mind. It was all so broken, just a jumbled mess of fear and anxiety and pain.
Archer gave me a humorless smile, sliding his hand into the hair at the back of my head like he needed to constantly touch me. I was the same with all three of them, so I got it. "Yeah, that's putting it mildly. Anyway, afterward his guys dragged me home and dropped me on the front porch. You, Steele, and Rachel had to carry me inside and call the Reapers’ medic."
I gasped. "I knew Rachel?"
"You only met her that night," he replied. "She wasn't in the Reapers; she just came around to spend time with Steele during school breaks."
"Oh." I bit my lip and tasted a trace of blood from where Archer had kissed me so roughly only a short while ago. "So we called the Reapers’ medic for you?"
Archer nodded. "He'd been told by Damien to only provide enough care that I wouldn't die and nothing more. Part of my punishment. That meant no painkillers. It was a rough night, that first night, but you stayed with me the whole time. You sat on the floor beside the couch and stroked my hair, and talked to me to provide a distraction when the pain was too much to sleep."
"Is that..." I almost didn't want to ask. "Is that what made you hate me? Because my stupidity caused you to be beaten so badly?"
His smile was soft and his lips, when he brought them to mine, filled with apology. He kissed me tenderly, then gave a small sigh when it ended.
"No, baby girl. I fell in love with you then, even though I was too young and dumb to know that's what was making my heart hurt so bad when you were gone. We all knew you were going home the next day. Your dad was getting back from his trip, and Deb needed to play her part as the faithful wife once more. I was all bitter and twisted up that we'd never see you again, but you swore to me over and over you'd come back, that you wouldn't forget your first real friends. That's what we were to you. Friends."
I gave a small laugh. "Yeah, well, I didn't know any better."
"I know. It was adorable. But then the next day your mom dragged you home, and that was it." He tried to smile, but I could see the shadows of hurt in his eyes.
Shaking my head, I frowned. "Wait, what? We never saw each other again?" Until Riot Night, of course.
Archer wrinkled his nose. "I came to Deb's funeral—Steele and I both did—seeing as Zane was in lockup and couldn't attend. We stayed near the back, not wanting Samuel to see us, but then when everyone was leaving, you headed straight toward us. I thought you'd seen us and wanted to... I dunno. You walked straight past like we were total strangers."
My heart sank. "I'm so sorry; I never—"
"I know that now. We figured you had some trauma-based memory loss but just never realized how much until Halloween when you blew up about Zane." His fingers massaged the back of my head, and his body was warm between my knees. He was comforting me when it should have been me apologizing...
"Arch, if I'd known..."
He shook his head. "You didn't. Not then or at the party when you were sixteen and I punched out some punk rich kid who was bragging about fucking you to his buddies." I gasped, and he smirked. "You were pretty wasted; it was no surprise you didn't recognize me then. But it wasn't until Riot Night that I fully comprehended the fact that you had no clue who we were. Then I was just bitter and pissed off, so when I saw the email about your contract of sale an hour after we left you on the side of the road..." He shrugged.
"Wow." That was the best response I could muster
up. "I kind of get where you were coming from. I mean... nothing really justifies buying a human being, but you did save me from a potentially nightmarish fate so, yeah. I guess I'm glad you were pissed enough to pay that much money."
He scoffed. "Yeah, that's true. If I hadn't spent so many years obsessing over that feisty little girl who’d held my hand and told me I had worth, then maybe I wouldn't have looked twice at your contract."
"Wait," I said, another worrying thought occurring to me. "Why did you see my contract? How do you even join that mailing list?"
Archer's fingers trailed through my hair, then he rested his hands on my waist once more. "It's not a mailing list, Princess. It's... well yeah, I guess it's like that, in a way. I have access because of Phillip. He worked a lot of anti-trafficking cases, and when I inherited everything, I also inherited his passcodes. I don't use them often because I don't have any interest in becoming a civil servant or even a vigilante. But I'd used it once before, and something sent me to access it a couple of days before Riot Night. I couldn't even say what it was, but I logged in and forgot to log out. That's how I saw your name pop up."
My stomach churned, and I fidgeted with one of the buttons on his shirt. "You used it once before?"
He jerked a nod. "As a favor to a friend. There was a girl, Seph. She was barely thirteen when her father listed her contract, a punishment for someone else's infractions."
"Oh fuck," I murmured, and pressed a hand to my lips, disgusted. "Your friend... am I right in thinking it was a favor for Hades?"
"It was." He met my gaze steadily, not giving anything away.
He didn't need to, though. "You saved a thirteen-year-old girl from sex slavery? Yeah, I can see now why Steele said Hades would take our side if push came to shove." Then another piece clicked together in my brain. "Seph. Cute. What's it short for?"
Archer grinned. "Persephone. It's not her birth name, but it's the name she uses, much like Hades. It works for them."
"Can I meet them one day?" Because I was all kinds of curious to put faces to names. Not that they were integral to my story, not at all. But I got the feeling real friends were few and far between in Archer D'Ath's world. I'd like to meet one of the few he had outside of our house.