Provoked

by Riley Murphy

  Charlotte.

  She silently cried her own name. She needed to push herself. Grasping the sides of the ladder, she widened her eyes and forced herself to focus. It was only a few rungs to climb. Not too far.

  Only…

  Her shirt got stuck on one of the bolts. The tear. Where Cat had torn it. Where was Cat? An image of Cat poking her with that strap-on came to her and she giggled.

  You’re drunk, Charlotte.

  She felt like she was as she tried to unhook the fabric so she could climb up the never ending ladder. It was so cold here and the water was so warm.

  You’ll die if you go in the water…

  No, Neil wouldn’t let her die. He’d taught her to love the water again.

  He’d been so proud of her that night in the pool.

  He’s not proud of you now. He’s disappointed.

  She didn’t want to disappoint him again. She wanted him to be proud of her.

  With that she let go of the ladder and slipped into the warmth.

  *****

  Neil was on his third round of compressions when Lucia jerked once and then coughed up water. “That’s right, sweetheart.” He repositioned her and spoke very softly. “Good job. Breathe. Keep coughing it up.”

  While she did as he told her, he looked around for something to use on her shoulder.

  “Thank God she’s all right. Do you need any help?”

  Neil looked up. At first he thought it was Charlie standing there, but then he realized it was her sister. “I need something to put pressure on her shoulder. You want to keep a handle on her, while I take off my belt?”

  “Sure.” As Cat came down on her knees she gave him a grin. “I can honestly say this is one time I won’t mind a man taking off his belt and giving it to me.”

  Neil stood and while he pulled the leather out of the loops he asked, “Where are the girls?”

  “Safe. Jude’s taking care of them. Where’s Charlie?”

  Neil bent to hand her the belt. After she had a hold of it, he snapped up straight. “Isn’t she right…?” He spun around. She wasn’t there. She was supposed to be right behind him. Had she come up the ladder? Both hands were in his hair when he swung back around. “You got this?”

  Cat didn’t even hesitate. “Go!”

  Neil raced to the part of the rail where the ladder was positioned underneath and looked down, hoping she was still hanging onto it.

  “No!”

  “What? What is it?” Cat shouted, but he wasn’t going to answer. He couldn’t.

  The only thing clinging to the ladder was Charlotte’s blouse.

  *****

  Charlie listened to the sound of nothingness. It was peaceful and soothing as she rocked. With no moon it was easier to spot the falling stars. So beautiful. God, she was tired. She needed to sleep, but she wasn’t going to disappoint Neil again. Had he told her not to go to sleep?

  Charlotte.

  The way he said her name sometimes made her shiver. It came out like a greeting and a threat which made no sense. Nothing about him made any sense to her. Until tonight. Now everything did.

  Charlotte.

  He had the prettiest blue eyes she’d ever seen. A gaze she could drown in…

  “Not so fast, tiger. You’re not going under because you’re coming with me.”

  The instant his arm locked around her a better kind of peace embraced her. He was here. He’d keep her safe. She could go to sleep now, knowing that this time she hadn’t disappointed him.

  But you did, Charlotte. You deviated from the plan...

  She couldn’t help it. This time it couldn’t be helped.

  She tried to open her eyes, to speak to him. To apologize for all those other times.

  I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Her mind screamed, but nothing came out of her mouth.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Neil waited in Jude’s office. This was it. He looked down at the three questions he’d written out, and decided they were enough.

  After the night at Kelli’s club, he figured he was owed some answers and if Jude’s contact could furnish them? All the better.

  He stuffed the piece of paper back into his pocket and when he heard the door open he turned around.

  “Neil, this is—”

  “Greyson Maddox.”

  “Hey, guy.”

  Jude shot a look at Maddox and then at him. “You two know one another?”

  So much for two of the questions he wanted to ask. His first one was whether Grey could be trusted and his second, if the answer to the first was affirmative, was why had Maddox been positioned outside Kelli’s club that night? “Yes.”

  Maddox took a seat and then sighed. “You have every right to be angry.

  “Should I be angry too?” Jude looked between them and Neil nodded.

  “Damn straight. He played us.”

  Maddox shook his head. “Still the same old cynical Neil. I did not play you. I kept you guys at a distance from one another for a reason. But then fate stepped in and brought you together, so I had to work around that connection. I’m not complaining. We did get some of the bad guys without my team having to reveal themselves.”

  Neil came forward to stand beside Jude. “But you didn’t get the bad guy’s boss.”

  Maddox’s eyes narrowed. “And what would you know about that?”

  Jude put a hand on his arm and Neil let him take the lead. “Absolutely nothing unless you give us some info in exchange for what we know about him.”

  Considering Neil had already given him everything they did know on the subject, in that Kelli’d had a boss, he liked Jude’s maneuver. He also enjoyed watching a big guy like Grey squirm.

  Maddox sat forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “Are we going to play twenty questions then?”

  “No, just three.” For a split second Neil thought Jude was going to be looking to him to supply them, but then he added, “I get to ask you one, my buddy here gets to ask you one, and then you get to decide between us who gets to ask the third. That’s fair enough, isn’t it?”

  Maddox smiled, looked at Jude, then him and sat back. “Your buddy? Isn’t that cozy? Okay, I hope this is a fair exchange.”

  He could feel the tension pouring off of Jude, so Neil figured he better jump in. “I should think so. After all, we were the ones putting our lives, and the lives of others, on the line two weeks ago.”

  “I didn’t ask you to do that. In fact, I’m wondering why you didn’t contact me before you pulled The Great Escape.”

  “Why were you there that night?”

  “Is that your question?”

  Neil shook his head. That one could wait.

  “All right. Which one of you is going to go first?”

  Jude walked to his desk and leaned back against it. “Who do you and your team work for?”

  Maddox crossed his arms over his chest and locked gazes with Neil when he answered, “The person on the right side of things who pays us the most money.”

  “You’re fucking mercenaries?”

  Greyson’s eyelids never even twitched, he stared so hard at Neil. “That’s two questions, Wilde.”

  “I’ll ask mine now.”

  “Go.”

  “Did you know that Kelli was trafficking children before we found out about it?”

  “Yes.”

  Neil swung away, turning his back on the guy for fear he’d take a swing at him.

  “We had a woman on the inside who was making sure that the kids were okay, and we also had buyers lined up for the auction. The kids we couldn’t purchase, we intended to retrieve. It wasn’t a perfect plan but it was the best we could do given how deeply we’re in this thing.”

  Jude stood and when he spoke there was a commanding tone to his voice that would have made any Dom envious. “Decide who gets to ask the next question.”

  “I’m going to say Cannon.”

  Neil turned back a little surprised that he’d been picked. There we
re so many questions he wanted answers to, but only one he needed to ask. “Did you watch the security footage on that flash drive you gave me?”

  “I did.”

  “So you knew Kelli didn’t do it.”

  “I did.”

  Their gazes locked for a second time. Maddox was on edge. He looked ready to snap. “If it wasn’t Kelli, who was it?”

  “Damn. You don’t know who the boss is. Well played. You managed to get some answers out of me.” Maddox stood and went to the door. His hand was on the handle when he turned back to them, and said, “Too bad the flash drive is missing. Now you’ll never know until all this over. I’ll send you a postcard and tell you all about it. Because after this one? I’ll be rich enough to retire.” He saluted them before he opened the door. “I’m also pretty sure I’ll have earned an automatic in to the pearly gates after this is a wrap.”

  “Speaking of heavenly things,” Jude called after him. “Pearl’s still missing. I was thinking of taking a little trip to Mexico. I thought I’d stop by Los Angeles de Hombres Sanctuary.”

  Jude turned to pop his brows at Neil and then nodded toward the empty doorway that wasn’t empty for very long. Greyson was back and he was furious.

  “Mother fucker! How did you—? You can’t do that, Wilde. It would wreck everything. Three years of hard work, planning. Jesus.”

  It was their turn to cross their arms over their respective chests. Jude looked up at Neil and asked, “Would you like to do the honors or shall I?”

  Neil inclined his head. He thought he knew where Jude was going with this. “You.”

  “All right.” The way he said this was exactly how Greyson had said it earlier. He could tell it annoyed the shit out of the guy. “We want to know what you’ve been working on so hard for three years. You told both of us it was to nail Kelli Sharp, but now he’s dead and we know he’s not the boss. The boss of what exactly?”

  “You want to know?” Maddox came back in and closed the door. “We don’t know.”

  “Bullshit.” Neil stared him down.

  “It’s the truth. In the beginning we thought this was about drugs. A year in it seemed to be about gold, and now with three years under our belts the latest revenue source their tapping is women. The only reason Sharp was brought in two years ago, as far as I can tell, is that he had connections in Mexico that went way back. Let’s face it. With the mess of the borders they’d have an unlimited supply of women to traffic.”

  “Those were children,” Jude reminded.

  Maddox raked a hand through his hair and blew out deep breath. “Don’t you think I know that? There are a thousand more where they came from. That’s why this has to be stopped. From the top. Not the bottom or the middle.”

  Neil thought about Kelli’s upscaling himself and the club. Someone not only financed him, but got him organized. The guy at the top. “So if I’m hearing you correctly, there’s money being generated through several different channels but you haven’t figured out why.”

  “Exactly.”

  Neil uncrossed his arms and went to the window. He thought about Pearl. About Charlotte’s parents’ history, the map, and Kelli Sharp. And when he looked at everything as a whole there was only one common bond. He spun around. “None of this has anything to do with the Woods family, does it? It was just an unfortunate coincidence that Kelli Sharp had dealings with them and the people he became involved with two years ago.”

  “You better tell him.” Jude glared at Greyson and that guy glared right back. “If you don’t I will.”

  “Kelli Sharp left Pearl at the Sanctuary twenty-four years ago to be raised by the nuns there.”

  “Nuns?” Jude snorted.

  “I see you really did your homework, Wilde.”

  “Yeah I did, and my sources tell me they aren’t nuns.”

  Maddox shrugged. “They’re loyal religious followers.”

  “And?” Neil waited.

  “He was supposed to return to collect her on her twenty-first birthday, but he didn’t have the ticket in.”

  “The key,” Neil whispered.

  “And guess what?” Jude said turning to look up at him. “All the money those channels of revenue have generated? The funds all get funneled right through The Angels of Man Sanctuary.”

  “Where are Pearl and Regina?” Neil asked Greyson.

  “They’re safe.”

  “And Gabriela?”

  He shook his head. “She was our woman inside. We have no idea where she is. You can see now why I need you to step the fuck back here, can’t you?”

  Neil nodded, but Jude stood, saying, “I’ll give you some room, but that’s all, because I made a promise to my brother that I’d find Gabriela.”

  Greyson shook his head. “That’s a bad idea. Once she’s located, she’ll need more help than you can give her.”

  That was an interesting comment. It prompted Neil to ask, “Why? Do they make a habit out of damaging their assets?”

  Greyson turned and opened his mouth to say something and then held back. After a second or two he swore under his breath and said, “The more damaged, the greater the asset.”

  Which could mean several things. Not one of them good.

  “That went well.”

  Neil gave Jude a withering look after Grey left, and sighed. “I thought Maddox was working for the FBI.”

  “I had him pegged for Homeland Security.”

  Neil frowned. “Really? How did you meet him?”

  “He bailed my brother out of jail. You?”

  “He bailed me out of jail.”

  Jude crossed his arms over his chest and scowled. “A couple of days later he turned up here with a deal for us. If we agreed to steal a shipment coming into the museum, he’d make the charges against Dillon disappear.”

  “Let me guess. He said the massive investigation he was spearheading was ongoing and you’d be doing the community a great service?”

  “Verbatim.”

  Neil turned away and then turned back when he recalled what Kelli had said just before he died. “So Maddox was the one that told you about the shipment?”

  “No, I got the details from one of his contacts. A guy named George. Actually his name was—”

  “Jorge.”

  “Yeah, how’d you know?”

  So Kelli had told the truth. Shit. The one man who hadn’t was the only one he’d trusted. Maddox. “You’re going to have to be careful about whose toes you step on while you look for that woman.”

  Jude sat back down and let the rock of his chair carry him for a few seconds, before he put his hand on the desk and stopped moving. “I’ve already stubbed a few getting the information I did get about the sanctuary. Hey, speaking of women. How’s Charlie doing?”

  Neil shrugged. “Fine. Last I heard she and Catherine were staying with their parents at the ranch.”

  “What are you going to do about her? Have you decided?”

  He hadn’t, so he switched gears. “What are you doing about Catherine?”

  “You see? That’s the kind of shit I have to learn. Deftly turning the tables on a person without knocking over the glasses. If I’m going to do anything with Cat I think I’ll need your help.”

  Finally something he could expertly handle. Neil grinned. “You may need more than me, but I’m in.”

  By the time he left Jude’s place he had more questions than answers. That seemed to be the theme his life had taken on. More questions about Jorge’s accident, questions about Kelli’s boss, but oddly enough the biggest questions that plagued him most were ones about Charlotte. They hadn’t seen each other for nearly two weeks, and it was one hundred percent his fault. He was the one who walked out of that hospital room as soon as he knew she was going to be okay. He was the one who said goodbye the minute she woke up. He was the one who left before she even had a chance to say hello.

  Why?

  Because she broke all his rules.

  She didn’t listen.

  S
he never did what she was asked to do.

  She ran head first into trouble.

  She never apologized.

  She lied to him.

  But her biggest crime? She’d turned his steel heart into fucking quicksilver.

  He couldn’t forgive that one.

  Hell the fact of the matter was she’d never understand what kind of commitment a guy like him needed from his woman to be the man he hoped to be in life.

  If all this wasn’t enough, he could add pressure to the list. Plain old fashion vanilla-with-no-cherry-on-top stress.

  He’d nearly died a thousand deaths when he spotted her floating in the water that night.

  Again, why?

  She had no caution.

  No common sense.

  No backbone when it came to turning Catherine’s crazy-ass schemes down.

  She thought copious stars and numerous underlines were a good idea on her risk sheet.

  She used euphemisms just to piss him off.

  When that didn’t work she tried idioms.

  She was butterscotch.

  Or rocky road.

  She definitely wasn’t kinky.

  But she was.

  That acknowledgement stopped him cold and he quit making up excuses and lying to himself because…?

  She…she—fuck, she’d charmed the Dom pants right off him.

  *****

  “Good morning, doll face.” Charlie’s mother snapped open the navy blue drapes and spun around to face her. “It’s nearly noon.”

  Charlie didn’t want to get up. If she did she’d have to start rehashing how everything had gone wrong despite all things that had gone right. The good things? Pearl and Regina were a regular part of the family now, albeit virtually, as Regina felt it still wasn’t safe for Pearl to come home. The young girls they’d gotten out of Kelli’s that night had been returned to their families, and Lucia had made a full recovery. With Kelli’s death the club immediately closed so there was no chance that any auction could take place, and on a more personal note, her mother’s health had completely returned to her. She was back to her old, smart, intuitive self.