by V. Hunter
The worst part of it all was the sudden doubt I felt. Could I really trust any woman that could go from hot to cold so fast? Being unpredictable made her dangerous. I was starting to second-guess whether it was safe to let her have such unrestricted access to my home and to Sofia. And all because I wanted to fuck her so bad I hadn't been able to think straight.
Hell, now that I'd fucked her I still couldn't think straight.
The best thing would be to send her away. I got what I wanted from her and sending her home now would greatly reduce the chances of things going sideways.
Damn if I felt like I wasn't done with her yet though.
"Boss."
I turned to find Tomas standing in the doorway, a duffel bag positioned on each shoulder. I was half-tempted to tell him to deal with whatever it was on his own, but I knew better than that. I unlocked the bottom drawer of my desk to retrieve my gun. I didn't walk around the house with it, but I did like to keep it nearby.
Especially knowing my brother was killed in that same office.
"What's the situation?" I asked as I holstered my gun.
"Brunetti is saying he's not happy with the latest shipment."
"Bullshit." The only thing Brunetti wasn't happy about was that the shipment was drugs instead of women.
Tomas shrugged. "Brunetti Sr. says he's not happy. Wants to meet with you himself."
Tomas knew as well as I did that Oscar must be using it as a cover for whatever conversation he really wanted to have. But if we turned him down, we risked escalating the situation, which we couldn't afford to do while I still had my team busy trying to figure out a plan to extradite ourselves from the Brunetti's business for good.
"Dammit, his timing is shitty," I bitched as I stood and took my bag from Tomas.
I would strangle Oscar Brunetti to death with my bare hands if ever given the chance. The man was the worst kind of scum and he needed to pay for all the damage he'd done. Not only was he the biggest source of human trafficking out of the United States, but he was also responsible for the deaths of my brother and sister-in-law.
Not personally, of course, because the man would never get his own hands dirty. But he was the one to order the hits when he couldn't convince either of them to buy into the bullshit plan he kept trying to sell them.
The Brunetti empire was older than dirt and with enough heirs to probably keep it running forever. But not if I had any say in it. For the last year-and-a-half every move I made was done with the sole purpose of taking them down. They were already struggling enough financially that I got some small hits in, manipulating away the other drug connections they had so that now they were forced to trade solely through me.
It gave me access that I needed in order to get a full picture of how Oscar was running their empire. So far, everything I learned indicated he was holding on only through pure fear. If their financial situation didn't pick up soon, they would be in serious trouble.
There was big money in human trafficking, but also big costs. Especially since the clientele they catered to didn't just want drugged up runaways. They wanted authentic American daughters, girls whose lives were perfectly charmed until they got ahold of them. It was fucking sick—but they wanted the kind of girls they could ruin themselves.
I wanted no fucking part of that business.
Brunetti still thought the conversation was open, and he kept pressing me to move forward with his plan to use my operations to double the amount of product he could safely move. There was no way in hell I would ever do it, so my only hope was to find a way to get rid of him before he got tired of waiting and decided to get rid of me.
I was all Sofia had left.
If something happened to me, I knew Tomas would make sure she was taken care of, but it would never be the same as being with someone who was family. Even if I did seem to fuck everything up every step of the way.
It was late, so we moved quietly through the house. Any time we had to leave at night, Tomas made sure someone would notify Sofia in the morning so that she would know I wasn't there. With a half-dozen employees on staff at all times for the house alone, someone always made sure to look after her. Plus, extra security got called in when Tomas and I went anywhere.
I started to ask Tomas to make sure Brooke was notified, too, but when we stepped out on the porch she was standing at one end of it looking out over the property.
I handed Tomas my bag and walked over to her while he stepped away to give us privacy. She turned her head just enough to acknowledge she heard me approaching, but she didn't turn to face me. I stepped into place beside her, close enough that our arms brushed as I tried to figure out what she was looking at so intently.
"I'm sorry about borrowing this," she said, gesturing to the oversized robe she was wearing pulled tight around her. "I didn't bring anything to sleep in since I didn't expect to still be here."
"I'll have someone bring you something in the morning." The view of her in only the robe was incredible, but I didn't particularly want every man on my payroll getting the same eyeful that I currently was.
The front of the robe gaped enough that I got a clear shot of her breasts from where I was standing. As if she felt my eyes on her, she glanced down right at her own cleavage. To my surprise, she made no move to cover herself. Instead, her eyes moved over to me and then over my shoulder to where Tomas was loading the car with our bags.
"Where are you going?" she asked, her voice laced with genuine curiosity.
I hesitated, unsure how much information I really ought to give her. She was a smart woman, I didn't think she would take too kindly to a blatant lie, so I decided to go with as much of the truth as possible.
"Some of the work I do is sensitive, and right now I've got a client who says he's not happy. I think it's just a ploy for him to try to talk me into doing some other stuff that I'm not interested in, but I can't turn down the meeting. He's a bad guy, but pissing him off could be dangerous. So, even though, I'd much rather stay here, I have to go," I explained. I wanted to make sure she knew I wasn't running away from—or because of—her.
She looked me directly in the eyes as I spoke, and I could tell she was surprised that I gave her a real answer. Her lips parted like she meant to say something but then she closed them again as if changing her mind.
"What is it?" I prompted her. Anything she could say at that moment had to be better than silence.
"I just wondered..." She glanced back at the house and then back to me. "What would happen to me if you, uh, didn't come back? And what about Sofia?" I could see her cheeks redden even with only the glow from the porch light to illuminate her.
"It's okay." I reached for her hand and squeezed it to reassure her the best I could. "It's always a possibility. One that I don't take lightly." I squeezed her hand again just to make sure she would pay close attention to the next part. "In the event anything happened, you and Sofia should both leave only with Tomas. I trust my team, but sometimes when there's no clear leader to take over things can get hectic. And Tomas is someone both you and Sofia are familiar with.”
"But he's leaving with you, what if neither of you came back?"
"Then the safest place for you is here until federal agents show up. We have safeguards in place, Brooke, if neither of us can make it back then the whole operation here will come crashing down within twenty-four hours. My guys will scramble, but you and Sofia can both trust the feds." I watched her face as she struggled to take it all in.
"Okay," she agreed, softly repeating, "Tomas or feds."
"Good girl." I leaned towards her and kissed her quickly on the lips, relieved when she didn't pull away or complain. I was always careful to make sure I could make it home to Sofia, but now I would consider Brooke an extra incentive. There wasn't anything in the world that could stop me from coming back for my girls.
16
Brooke
I couldn't fall asleep and it had absolutely nothing to do with the unbelievably comfortable mattress I
was lying on. For hours, I laid there restlessly while I worried about where Jairo was going and whether or not he would come back. When I asked him about what would happen if he didn't come back he answered so quickly... it made it seem like too real a possibility.
Those weren't the circumstances I wanted to go home under.
Plus, there was the other thing—the undeniable attraction I felt to the man. For every five crappy things he did, he seemed to manage to do one sweet one that balanced it all out. The way he held my hand and comforted me outside was completely unexpected, but it made my heart melt into a messy little puddle.
A gentle knock at the door interrupted my worry-fest. I had a pretty good guess who it was.
I wrapped the robe tighter around my body as I got out of bed, making sure everything was covered so that I didn't accidentally give anyone else an eyeful like I'd given Jairo before he left.
When I opened the door, Sofia flung herself at me, wrapping her arms around my legs as she buried her face against my stomach. Her breaths came in short puffs that gave away she'd been crying. I knelt down with her and wrapped my arms around her as more tears came. She buried her face against my shoulder and sobbed.
I stayed silent as she sobbed herself out until finally, her breathing started to regulate again and her cries turned to soft hiccups
"I had a nightmare," she told me as soon as she could get the words out.
"Oh, honey." I hugged her tighter. "Do you want to stay in here with me for the rest of the night?"
"Yes, please." She nodded vigorously.
There were only a few hours left until daylight anyway, so I scooped her up, set her on the bed, and climbed in beside her. She immediately curled up into a ball next to me and let out a long breath. I rubbed her back the way my mother used to do for me when I was upset. After a while, her breathing grew quiet and I assumed she'd fallen asleep.
Then, just as I started to drift off myself, she spoke.
"I had a bad dream about my mommy and daddy," she explained, tucking herself tighter against me for comfort. I held my breath as I waited to see if she would continue. She did. "Sometimes I have bad dreams because I saw Mommy get hurt at a party and everyone ran away except me. And Daddy wasn't there because he already died."
My eyes widened in the dark, her words sending sharp shooting pains to my chest. So many things started to make sense. If it were any other kid, I might wonder whether they were just making up a story based on the residual fear of their nightmare, but that clearly wasn't the case with Sofia. In one short day, she trusted me enough to share these deep, dark memory she held inside of her.
"Oh, sweetheart." I held her tighter as I put so many pieces together.
No wonder Jairo kept her so close to home. The world wasn't always a safe place and she'd been forced to see that firsthand with only a child's brain to try to make sense of it all. I wondered if she'd talked to a therapist after it all happened.
More importantly, I wondered if Sofia herself might be a target, too.
I really, really wished Jairo were home. And Tomas, too. I knew there were other men on the property meant to protect us, but I didn't know any of them. My heart already ached for his quick return and now fear made my head hope for the same.
I kept the same tight grip on Sofia long after her breathing evened out and she started to emit soft snores. She was fast asleep with no sign of nightmares, but I still needed the comfort myself.
Outside, it started to rain. I could hear the raindrops hitting the glass of the bedroom window.
I caught myself starting to think about home. I wasn't sure what Jairo did with my phone so I had no way to know if Mom actually tried to call me back after Bridget's engagement party. Somehow I doubted it. After growing up in such a close knit family, it seemed strange to suddenly feel like a black sheep. I knew they didn't mean for me to feel that way, but it was hard not to.
No girl ever expected to see her high school sweetheart end up with her older sister. Older sisters were supposed to be protective and safe, at least that's how Bridget used to be for me.
When Michelle Danbury made fun of my puppy t-shirt in the third grade, Bridget was the one that stood up for me. The first time I got my period, Bridget was the one who snuck out of class to bring me a tampon and the change of pants she always kept for herself in her locker. Even though my sister grew up spoiled as hell, she always looked out for me.
At the very least, I would have expected her to be upfront with me when she realized she was interested in Alex. But she hadn't even done that and I, for the life of me, couldn't understand why.
Things at home were changing. I needed to figure out where my place would be in all of it. I couldn't very well avoid home forever. The only really choice I had was to accept Bridget and Alex together, just like my parents had said. Only, now I could feel like I did that on my own terms instead of theirs.
After sex with Jairo, it was a little hard to be concerned with their relationship anyway. I kept replaying it over in my mind as I wondered why the heck I overreacted afterward. What kind of lady got that offended about a man not rushing out of bed after sex?
I didn't give him a chance when I first arrived, but for the most part he actually did make sure I was okay. He even brought dinner up to me after I ran off. Which I only discovered after my post-sex shower when it was cold and definitely not still edible. But still, it was thoughtful. Jairo seemed perfectly capable of being a gentleman when he wasn't going out of his way to rile me up.
Maybe staying wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.
Except, there was still the whole part where he essentially kidnapped me by tricking me into coming and then making it impossible for me to leave. I wondered what he would do if I said I wanted to leave now. Was the sex all he wanted and now it would be no big deal to send me on my way? Or did he still intend to make me stay until I did it of my own free will?
I didn't want to feel trapped inside his house like it was a big, fancy prison. If I stayed—and that was a big if—I needed to feel like I still had control of coming and going.
But again, there was no guarantee Jairo still intended me to stay.
When he got back from his work errand, he might send me straight away. I had no way of knowing. That uncertainty made it all that much worse. I wanted to make a decision about how I was feeling, but I wasn't comfortable doing that without knowing what Jairo was thinking.
Knowing I wasn't getting anywhere by losing sleep, I tried to focus on the sound of the rain. It helped me relax a little but I still couldn't fall asleep. Every little sound coming from the house started to freak me out. Between Jairo's ominous exit and Sofia's nightmare, my brain seemed to be working on overdrive.
When a door slammed sometime later, I nearly jumped out of my skin.
I climbed out of the bed carefully so I wouldn't wake up Sofia. I tip-toed carefully across the room and pulled the door open. When it squeaked I sunk my teeth into my lip and paused, hoping it wasn't as loud as I thought it was.
I waited long enough to feel relatively certain no one would come to investigate the noise I made before I chanced opening the door enough to squeeze my body through. I moved quietly down the hall as I tried to figure out where I heard footsteps coming from. When I saw Jairo coming up the stairs, I felt myself relax instantly.
His face was down-turned, so he didn't notice me until he reached the top and looked up. He stared right at me for a moment but then turned and walked in the opposite direction.
I watched him go, confused that he didn't acknowledge me. Tomas was right behind him but he actually stopped next to me. He eyed me warily, a dark look in his eyes that hadn't been there before. He didn't say anything and I was too curious not to wonder what was going on.
I started to follow after Jairo, but Tomas put his hand out to stop me. He shook his head as he grimaced.
"You don't want to do that right now," he said.
I didn't understand why but I nodded anyway. T
omas seemed to know Jairo better than anyone, so I knew I needed to trust his judgement... but that didn't mean I liked it. Everything in me longed to go check on Jairo.
As Tomas followed Jairo to the office, I stood rooted in the hallway. Something was obviously wrong and there was nothing I could do about it.
17
Brooke
"I can't believe you did all of this without a calculator." I typed the last problem into the calculator in front of me to confirm it was right and then handed the paper back. Not one mistake on a whole sheet's worth of division that she solved entirely by hand.
Sofia shrugged and tucked the paper away into a drawer.
I wasn't sure who checked her work before I came, but the job had now fallen to me. A lot of stuff had, actually.
After Jairo came home early that one morning, he disappeared again with no word. Ever since he went MIA, it seemed the staff had turned into a skeleton crew, too. The guards were all still outside from what I could tell, and Cooke still turned up every day to fix meals, but maids and tutors all stopped coming.
Of course, I didn't know that personally. It was something Sofia pointed out from the first day. Apparently, she was used to being surrounded by a lot more people. She seemed overjoyed when she realized it was mostly just the two of us being left on our own.
I tried to keep up some semblance of normalcy for her life. I did her lessons with her every day even though I had no training in education. All I really had to do was check over everything—and I barely needed to even do that—but I always stayed with her while she worked. I took to reading the books on her shelves. For such a young girl, she had quite the collection.
It was kind of nice, getting to read classics I hadn't seen since my own childhood.
We also did things that weren't usual for Sofia, like eating every meal together and playing games. Despite the number of people in her life, she'd never been taught to play like a normal child. I introduced her to Go Fish and Hangman, the latter of which she particularly enjoyed. We also drew pictures, which I kept encouraging even though Sofia seemed less than thrilled every time.