"I realise now," I said softly. "That he was... moulding me into what he needed. For C&C, you know? His company was always what drove him. Not Champagne & Chandeliers, but C&C Enterprises. Jaxon only ever came to the club because I was there. And as soon as I graduated and left dancing, he made sure even I didn't go there anymore."
"Sounds controlling," Nick murmured, when I'd stopped talking for longer than I realised.
"He said he cared," I offered as explanation. "He was looking out for me."
"By arranging your course papers, manipulating your career, and denying you access to the place you had worked in for over two years," Jason threw in there.
All I could do was nod, feeling a swell of emotion swamp me. I'd known, or at least, I'd begun to suspect, but having it out in the open, talked about, made it so much more real. Made it hurt.
"I thought he loved me," I whispered.
"In his own way he did," Nick offered. "But, Amber, it's an unhealthy love. It's a love that can destroy as easily as it cares."
"How can you tell the difference?" I asked. "You know, between real love and that?"
"Real love," Nick began, leaning back further in his chair and looking into the distance. "It's give and take. It's compromises and communication. But above all else, it's a sacrifice you're willing to make to ensure the one you love has everything they need. Including their independence. It's putting their needs first."
"It's not obsessive," Jason chimed in. "But it is a type of ownership. Something to protect."
"He wasn't protecting you, Amber," Nick offered. "He had designs on your abilities, fell in love with you while he influenced your career, but ultimately did not put your needs first."
I knew this. I knew it. That's why it was so easy to leave. Forget about the file I'd hacked. I was looking for a reason to leave and that was just the first that made sense.
"I feel so stupid," I said, my throat constricting with the need to cry.
"From what we can tell, he's a master at manipulation," Nick said.
"A high-functioning psychopath with exceptional acting abilities," Jason added.
"You didn't stand a chance once he'd locked on you," Nick finished.
The first tear fell. Followed quickly by another.
"He threatened my dad," I said, my voice thick with emotion.
"We know. He's safe," Nick said. "Eric told you that, I hope?"
I nodded.
"He..." I sucked in a hitched breath of air. "He knew when I cracked that file."
Both men stilled.
I forced myself to keep going.
"He came home early. Acted as though he missed me so much he just had to see me right then and there. I knew it was the file. I knew it. But he was so caring, so tender. He carried me to bed because I was so freaking scared I'd made myself sick. I couldn't stand. Then when he went to leave, to go back to work, he simply reminded me about my dad. That he knew where he was, that the bill for his care hadn't been paid. He never actually said the words. It was never an outright threat, but fuck it. I knew. I knew he was telling me if I ran he'd kill my dad. How do you know something like that? How does someone put such menace in their seemingly benign words to make you know?"
"He's a psychopath," Nick explained softly. "One we know little about. He doesn't exist before 2009."
Ric had said that too. "Jaxon Harding" being a probable alias.
"I'm not sure if I can tell you anything you don't already know," I said. "He never talked about parents, or his childhood. Whenever I tried to steer the conversation around to him, he'd turn it back. Flatter me with compliments." A huff of derisive laughter escaped me. "Ask me to explain the latest code I'd written. Encourage me to show off."
"He knew how to manipulate you, so you wouldn't ask the wrong questions," Jason said. A pause, then, "We believe he came into existence in order to dethrone Declan King. But how and why, and where he came from, are all unknowns."
"What did the file say, Amber?" Nick asked.
The file. The fucking file I'd hacked.
"Do you need that water now?" Jason suggested, and I knew he was really asking if I needed Ric.
"Yes," I said softly.
Within seconds, with neither man doing a thing, Ric was at the door. Not carrying a glass of water. He came towards me like an avenging angel, all wrath and beauty and fierce determination. In the next instant I was in his arms, pulled from my seat and enveloped in a strong embrace. Safe. Protected. Cherished.
"He won't get near you ever again," he swore, his hot breath tingling against the skin of my neck.
"You heard everything," I said, numbly.
"Dancer," he growled. "Remember when I said I've never forgotten a thing we've discussed over the years. That includes the past few days."
He pulled back, ignoring the two silent men beside us, and looked me in the eyes. Bright, electrifying green stared back at me.
"I heard him," he whispered. I just blinked. "The bug," he added and comprehension dawned.
"In his office," I breathed, lowering my eyes, unable to maintain so intimate a connection.
Ric's finger and thumb cupped my jaw and tilted my face back up to his. Refusing to let me hide. Declaring with that one movement and the steadfast, unflappable look in his eyes, that he accepted me. All of me.
Even the part that brought a high-functioning psychopath into his life.
"In his office," he repeated. "And out in the clubroom itself."
I'd forgotten about the clubroom. How Jaxon had been so caring one second and then a lit match the next. And finally, a bomb exploding all over Derek Marks. Eric had heard it all.
"This is not your fault," he insisted. "None of it. The man is lethal and insane and has an agenda that until today we thought we understood."
"Declan King," I supplied.
It was Nick who said, "We assumed he was taking over the former drug lord's businesses. We have circumstantial evidence to support that claim. But with a senior detective waiting on our doorstep to tell us to back the fuck off, we've gotta ask ourselves, have we missed something? Is there more happening here than we thought?"
"The file," I said.
"It would help to know what you saw," Nick replied. "All of it."
Oh, hell. I sank down into the chair at my back, Ric going with me offering what little support he could. He shifted his chair closer, determinedly not releasing my hand.
"Can you do this?" he asked.
Did I have a choice? I nodded, it was stiff.
"How accurate will your recollections be?" Jason asked and my head jerked to face him.
I felt like a robot, functioning merely on basic code.
"I have picture perfect recall," I offered, and all three men snapped back their heads, surprised.
"Picture perfect recall," Ric repeated slowly on a smile that I thought might just be more than a little impressed.
I nodded, feeling an increase in courage at the look of pride he threw my way.
"I remember every single word you've ever typed on screen to me," I whispered.
"Every word?" he asked, the room again just the two of us.
"Hmm-mm," I murmured. "First greeting. 'Hello, stranger. That's impressive code, but can you really do that and keep it clean at the same time?'"
Ric barked out a laugh. "Do you remember your reply?" he asked, eyes dancing.
I nodded. "'Dirty is the new clean. I know my way around code.'"
"'Like swinging off a dancer's pole,'" Ric finished for me, eyes searching my face as though seeing me for the very first time. "Fuck me," he said. "You weren't kidding."
"And the next time you greeted me on-line you asked, 'What are you wearing?'" I said, smiling back.
"The best reply I ever got in a chat-room," Ric whispered. "'Golden glitter and an itty-bitty thong.'"
Someone cleared their throat. Reluctantly Ric and I broke eye contact and turned back to the two highly amused men watching us.
"As entertaining as th
is is," Nick drawled, "Pierce has started kicking the main garage door and actually dented the fucker. So we're letting him in." He nodded towards Jason who had a tablet computer out and was swiping instructions on the screen. "Ben and Adam will waylay him, or I'll stick the women on it, but we'd better press on before he storms in here."
"OK," I said and Ric squeezed my hand in his. "The file," I added, letting out a sickening breath of air. Then had to immediately suck in another to stall for time.
But there was no getting out of this. I'd seen it. I'd forever remember it. In exacting detail. I had to get it off my chest. Put it out there. Say the words aloud.
Somehow, even though verbally I'm not as switched on as visually, hearing what I'd seen was crossing a line. An enormous, psychological line. One that loomed up before me, making the remembered images stutter inside my mind. I wondered distractedly, if this was what the brain did to people who experienced horrific things. Shut down the connection, refused to let you recollect something that caused such mental anguish and harm.
Had I not had picture perfect recall, that reasoning may have been applicable to me. But I did. And even nerves and self preservation wasn't able to combat the stream of information as it rolled behind my closed eyelids.
I kept them shut, and deciding the best approach was to remain as detached as I could, started relaying what I saw in the order that I saw it.
Saving the best for last.
Yeah.
"Bank accounts," I murmured, and then rattled off numbers and names and amounts. I was aware of the tension in the room, the suspended weight and heightened emotion. Not from me. But from all three men.
I was sure Jason was taking notes, although I didn't open my eyes to confirm it. Nick would have been leaning forward, elbows on the desk, eyes target locked on my face. And Ric?
Ric would have been reliving the images right there with me. Not because he'd seen them already, but because I could feel his pain matching mine. The twitch of his hand, the minute tensing of his fingers. The jittering of his bad leg next to mine.
"Properties," I went on, listing addresses, and those purposes that had been noted under a few of them in the file.
"Names," I added, one after another of those names and professions and in some cases uses as pertaining to C&C.
"Product." This is where I had begun to flounder, when I first saw that file. The bank accounts confused me, but didn't seem nefarious. The properties increased my heart rate, but I'd told myself it was because I hadn't realised just how rich Jaxon was. The names confounded me, because there were police officers and lawyers and fast food restaurant owners and a few Joe Blogs in amongst them all. Then I found Declan King's name, and something inside me shifted.
Once I opened the folder detailing product, that something curled up and died.
"Is that all?" Nick asked quietly while I let that flood of information settle.
"No," I said, opening my eyes for the first time in twenty minutes.
The room was too bright, I had to blink. The sting of the light making me tear up, even though right then crying was the last thing I wanted to do. I felt my hands clench. The bandaged one ached, but I welcomed the sensation. The good one, still held firmly in Ric's palm, tightened enough it must have hurt.
"What else, Amber?" Nick encouraged softly.
"Pictures," I growled, more volume and strength than I think any of the men had expected. Jason's head shot up from where he had been writing down the information I'd given on the tablet. Nick sat back accepting the full weight of my gaze and not flinching. And Ric started rubbing that thumb over the back of my good hand, helping me calm. Giving me a focus. Anything other than the images rolling through my head.
"Groups of people, not all of whom I recognised, but I'd be able to pick them out if I saw them again. Socialising, drinking, smoking, snorting. One was that news presenter on TV. The lady."
Nick nodded, knowing who I was referring to.
"Another was a lawyer I'd seen on TV once, who defended that guy who they thought killed his family, but he got off."
Another nod.
"Some pictures of uniformed cops meeting with people. In the same folder was a guy in plain clothes, which because it was there, next to the cops, makes me think he was too. But I don't know him."
I paused to suck in breath and Jason asked, "Anything implicating Harding?"
"In amongst all of that?" I was stalling again. I'd reached the end of my distraction and was facing that picture in my head. "No," I whispered and felt the disappointment on the air as though I could touch it.
"But there was a separate folder. All on its own. The last one I opened. Afterwards I got out of there and covered my tracks." I laughed; it wasn't merry. "At least I thought I had."
Another pause. Another soft stroke of Ric's thumb over my hand. I could do this. I could do it before Nick pushed or Jason jumped in and asked. I could.
Ric shifted closer, wrapped an arm around my shoulders and leaned in to kiss my cheek. The sore one. The one Jaxon had hit with the back of his hand.
Yes. I could do this.
"Two pictures," I said. "Both showing a guy on his knees, hands tied behind his back, face tilted up to the barrel of a gun."
The silence was thick. From all the men. But from the man beside me, still with his arm over my shoulder, it was downright oppressive.
I hadn't thought of that. I hadn't thought of the fact that Ric had shot a man on his knees as well. How would he take this? What would he do?
"His hands were tied behind his back and he'd been blind-folded," I emphasised, and the words had the desired effect. Ric let out the breath of air he'd been holding; the guy he'd shot had been unbound and was looking at his death as it approached. I hoped Ric knew what I had also seen in that shot. The acceptance and acknowledgement of justice in the act that had been apparent on Ric's torturer's face.
"The gun," I said and fucking stalled again. My bandaged hand came up to my sore cheek. It shook. "Jaxon was holding it," I pushed out through frozen lips. "In one image he was just pointing it at the guy on the ground and grinning. In the next the gun muzzle blazed orange and blood spurted from the back of the kneeling man's head."
Silence.
Then, "Fuck," Nick blurted, disappointment at not having a copy of that incriminating evidence obvious in his tone.
"Yeah, fuck," Jason added in resounding agreement.
Ric just said nothing. And the silence was weighted with his unsaid words.
Chapter 24
I'm Right Here, Dancer
"That's a hell of a lot of shit to have in one place," Jason said, as we all sat around the table and digested what I'd just relayed.
Everyone other than Ric talking. I kept glancing at him, but his face was shut down, his features closed off. He wasn't holding my hand anymore.
My attention was brought back to Nick as he spoke.
"Why put it all in one file even if it is security protected?"
"A trap? Bait?" Jason asked.
"I think he knew I would hack it," I offered, getting two sets of eyes flicking to my face with interest.
The eyes beside me were staring at the surface of the table and I thought perhaps Ric hadn't even heard my words.
I ached and I wasn't sure why.
"What makes you say that?" Nick asked.
"It was too easy," I replied with a half shrug.
Both men frowned. "Easy?" Jason queried.
"Well, easy-ish," I qualified. "It did take me almost an hour to get in, and I did miss the trigger once I'd broken down the door. But otherwise it wasn't anything I hadn't had to combat in the past."
"You done this sort of thing for Harding before?" Nick asked, voice neutral. The question was anything but.
I held his gaze and wondered just how close to the cops he actually was. A senior detective was in the building. Nick Anscombe had to work with them and closely if the police were turning to ASI to investigate an alleged criminal.
"And the bigger picture?" Jason demanded.
"In hindsight, I think the bigger picture might have broken a few laws."
"And it didn't occur to you at the time that you were aiding and abetting?" Nick prompted.
I chewed on my bottom lip, but shook my head to say no. I was certain they didn't believe me.
"So, he set a trap for you," Nick went on, moving away from the shady area of culpability. "What did he expect you to do once you hacked the file and saw all his dirty laundry?"
"An initiation," Jason offered.
What?
"Could be," Nick agreed. "Testing her. But so much incriminating information? For a woman he probably knew had picture perfect recall?"
"It's false," Jason said with conviction. And my world suddenly took on a completely different view.
Oh, God. It was false? Oh, God. He hadn't shot that man, bound, blind-folded, on his knees while grinning? Oh, God.
"Amber, breathe," a voice said beside me. Ric's voice. He was listening. He hadn't shut completely down. "Breathe, sweetheart. That's it. In through your nose, out through your mouth. That's it."
The dark spots before my eyes started to fade and the harsh brightness of the room coalesced before me. The shock of it almost matching the shock of me misjudging Jaxon.
Of me making such a horrible mistake.
I panted through another burgeoning panic attack, but managed to remain coherent and aware.
Oh, God. He hadn't shot that man? Did this change things? How could it not?
No.
I was shaking my head, the men in the room all watching me expectantly.
No. Jaxon had, at the very least, tricked me. Played a foul joke. And let's not forget his behaviour over the past two days. The fact he'd threatened - and I am sure his words were just that - my dad. The fact that he'd hit me.
Sweet Seduction Stripped (Sweet Seduction, Book 7) Page 18