Wren was a doctor and had probably heard all sorts of tragedies throughout his career, but there was something too casual about him, something that made her fear he wouldn’t understand the gravity of what she’d endured.
Anything she told to Raven would be told to Swallow and vice versa. She didn’t know the couple half as well as she knew Bess and Wren, but Devon already knew she’d never be comfortable enough to confide in them. Their bond with each other was too great; she’d feel like an interloper if she tried to insinuate herself into their lives with accounts of her own experience.
Maybe that was what bonded her to Zave. Whatever had gone on in that auction hall, he’d been the one to pull her out and bring her here to safety. His serious nature gave her confidence that he’d find her statements as profound to himself as they were to her.
His exhale was slow but unimpressed. “You’re not shy about making demands.”
Usually she would be, but she had to assert herself or the Kindred would own her. “Sleep on it. Figure out if the mission is more important than your seclusion.”
Returning to her room, Devon closed the door and went to bed. Tucking her feet back under the sheet, she halved her body to pull the bedspread too. Adjusting her pillow, she relaxed to let her eyes close. Now that she knew who was behind this and where she was, it was much easier to surrender to sleep.
EIGHT
“You made an impression.”
Devon had her head turned down against a towel and was trying to shake water from her ear when she came out of her bathroom the next morning to find Bess standing at the end of her bed. “Have you guys ever thought about knocking?” Devon asked.
Bess made a dismissive hiss. “You don’t have anything Swallow and I haven’t seen before and Wren is a doctor, he doesn’t care about naked bodies.”
“And Raven?” she asked, hooking the hand towel around her neck.
Devon had been using it to dry her hair and had a bath towel wrapped around her body. It wasn’t likely that she’d be walking around naked anywhere, but that wasn’t exactly her point.
“He wouldn’t let it distract him,” Bess said and propped a hip on the end of the bed. “What about Falcon? Are you ok with him walking in on you naked?”
“Falcon?” she asked, that was a name she hadn’t heard yet.
“Zave,” Bess said. “He told us that you know his real name.”
If Devon had been paying attention, she might have heard the twinge of innuendo in Bess’ voice. All Devon could think about was the word “sex” on his lips. She hadn’t handled that murmur. If he walked in and saw her nude, she’d probably burst into flames.
Zave handled himself with such composure. But maybe walking in on her while she was naked and damp from the shower, he might not find it so easy to hold himself aloof. And that kiss, if it was just the slightest hint of what he was capable of doing to a woman, Devon wouldn’t stand a chance if he made a serious advance on her.
“I caught him spying on me,” Devon said when she caught the suspicious glint in Bess’ gaze.
“When you were sneaking out at two in the morning?” Bess said. “This estate is his, he can wander where he likes, when he likes.”
She wouldn’t suggest otherwise. “Whatever he was doing, I’m glad that I got to meet him.”
“Sounds like you did more than that,” Bess said.
Squirming at the scrutiny of this curious woman, Devon didn’t like the idea that Zave had shared the news of their kiss. She believed some things should stay private, and their impromptu first kiss lost some of its magic now that she knew everyone in the building was aware of it.
“Why do you say that?” Devon asked. Although she kept her head up, she let her eyes drift down.
“Because of this,” Bess said.
In her peripheral vision, she saw Bess hold something up and had to see what it was. The black device was lit and a shot of energy made Devon leap forward. “A cell phone!”
“It’s encoded to call only one number, and after the call, I have to take it back,” Bess said. “We need you, and Zave wants your trust… Call your brother. I’ll come back when you’re done.”
Bess put the phone on the bed and left with a smile on her face. Devon opened the dresser drawer to look for the dress she’d put in there last night. Except it wasn’t there. The drawers were all empty, and she spun on the spot desperate for something to wear. She couldn’t exist in the towels she’d found stacked in the bathroom.
That was when she saw it, the door in the corner—which had previously been locked—was open. Dashing over, she poked her head past the frame and was stunned again. Rows and rows of brand new clothes hung on the rails of the walk-in closet. Grabbing open the drawers, she found underwear, accessories, makeup, everything a woman could want.
Had this been here all the time or had Zave set it up after their kiss? She didn’t want to be seduced by the material, but it had been a long time since she’d had choices and that was what thrilled her, not the high-quality of the garments or the sparkle of the jewelry, but the idea that she could make her own decision about what she could put on her body.
The various styles made her head spin, and it took her some time to remember how to be decisive or even which of the clothes were her type. Trying on a few things, she got to check out her reflection in the vast mirror on the far wall, and although she didn’t usually wear much, she put on some makeup just because she could. She got so caught up in the enjoyment of playing with these frivolous things that she almost forgot about her brother.
Talking to him could lead to so many answers, so as soon as she tied her hair back, she went back to the bedroom, climbed onto the bed and pressed call on the device that was displaying her brother’s number.
“Who is this?” came a stern voice on the other end of the line.
Suppressing the urge to weep, she yelped, she’d never been so pleased to hear her brother’s voice in all her life. Cursing all those times in their childhood when she’d fought with him, run away from him, or made his life hell, Devon never wanted to be away from his voice for this long again.
“Rig!” she said, meaning the word to sound strong, but it came out as more of a whimper.
“Jesus, fuck! Von! Rave said you were calling ten minutes ago, where the fuck have you been?”
She hadn’t been told that he was sitting by the phone waiting for it to ring. “I’m sorry,” she said.
The men were in contact. That was encouraging. It suggested more than a loose association and hinted at mutual respect. Much as she didn’t like to be discussed behind her back, her brother cared about her and if these people were willing to be forthcoming with him then they would rise in her estimations.
“Sorry? What the fuck.”
Drawing up her knees, she hugged them with one arm. “I’m sorry, I got carried away with something else. Oh, God, it’s so good to hear your voice.”
“Do you know what the fuck I’ve been through? What the fuck happened to you? I was so fucking worried!”
His urgency and panic betrayed that he had been through an ordeal of his own, maybe not as horrific as hers, but he’d felt her absence. “I’m ok now. I’m safe.”
He scoffed. “Yeah, well, I know that,” he said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
There was no concern in his voice, no worry, all she sensed was relief “You know where I am? Can you come and see me? I’d feel better if you were here.”
“I can’t come there.”
If they were in such a remote place, that made sense because her brother couldn’t fly a plane or sail a boat. Also, if they were in the Pacific Northwest, her brother was all the way back in New York, which was too far for a quick daytrip.
“I’ll come to you,” she said. “I’ll find a way. I’ve been trying to get them to let me go, but they just won’t and—”
“Rave says you can help,” Rig said. “That true?”
Her exuberance reduced at his ne
w neutrality. “Maybe.”
“Don’t be in any rush to leave there. It’s the safest fucking place on earth.”
“So you do know where I am?” Because she would feel better if he had her exact GPS coordinates as opposed to a vague inkling that she was still on Planet Earth.
“No, not really, just that you’re with the Kindred, and when Rave’s around—”
“I’m not at Rave’s house,” she said, assuming he meant Raven. “I mean he is here, or he was yesterday, but—”
“He’s still there,” Rig said. “I know you’re confused. I know this is messed up and you’ve been through some shit. If I could bring you here and keep you safe, I’d do it. When it’s time, I will, I’ll figure something out for you. But those guys saw me good, they got me set up, and we’ve seen some shit together.”
“You trust them?” she asked the most important question.
“Yes, I trust them, Von. I wouldn’t be telling you to stay there if I didn’t.”
Her brother was a shady character who surrounded himself with men she’d cross the street to avoid. But when it came to her, his heart was pure. “Are you trying to keep me safe, or are you involved in something you don’t want me to see?” she asked.
“I’m always involved in shit I don’t want you to see,” he said as if it was a joke, but there was too much truth in the statement for her to laugh. “When you went missing, Von, I was so worried, and I couldn’t do shit about it. There’s only one guy you call when you need a desperate situation sorted, you know? Tracking people down isn’t his gig, but, like I said, we’ve seen some shit together. Those guys you’re out there with, they’re the real good guys, better than me that’s for fucking sure. And they’ve got skills, proper skills to keep you safe.”
Her eyes were wet, in part because she wanted to be with him, as it would make them both feel better. Also because he was sacrificing his own ego by admitting he didn’t have the ability to keep her as safe as these people did.
Rig had a healthy ego, so healthy that his pigheaded confidence often got him into trouble. Apparently, he drew the line at taking risks with her safety.
“They kept me locked up,” she said. “For days after I got here, weeks maybe, I don’t know.”
“Rave told me when they had you, told me you were sick. They’ve got a guy, he patched you up, right? Rave kept me in the loop.”
All along her brother had known exactly what was happening to her, and she’d been oblivious to his involvement. “Why didn’t you come? Why didn’t you call? If I had known you were friends with these people…”
“Because they like to keep their shit low-key. They did this for me as a personal favor. Rave said he had a guy already on the inside, didn’t surprise me, Rave always knows somebody who knows somebody, you get me? But you were never supposed to see their faces, never supposed to know who they were, that was the deal. They got you out, they got you better, and they got you back to me. You were never supposed to know fuck all about them.”
“But that changed when they found out I had information?” she asked, not sure if she should be grateful or offended. “So now that they can use me…”
“You can be pissed if you want,” Rig said. “Put up all those barriers, hide behind that meek little personality of yours, be the gal who can’t stand up for herself.”
With a growling expression, she pushed back against her brother’s impatient taunting. “I’m not meek,” she asserted.
“Sure you are, ninety percent of the time, and then it’s like you bottle it all up and it blasts out in one short burst of rage or sarcasm. And then it’s as if you’re so mortified by the fact you showed an emotion, that you actually reacted to something, that you shut the fuck up for like six weeks. Are you that scared of losing people, Von, that you keep your mouth shut and just hope to blend in?”
“Please don’t,” she said, swiping tears from her cheeks. “I really don’t need to hear about my flaws.”
“It’s not a flaw, it’s who you are and I love you, sis. It’s better than my personality. I just keep spouting shit, blowing hot air. I make a lot of noise, but don’t say shit.”
She laughed, the only time he was self-deprecating was in front of her and when there was no one within earshot. “I am grateful for what they did. If they hadn’t gotten me out…”
And that was the thought she’d tried not to confront because for whatever reason, Zave was there, he made the purchase, and brought her to his cloistered home. That act had saved her life, had saved her from a horrific fate.
She’d thought about the women who’d been in those metal boxes with her, terrified of the fates that laid in their futures. Those women were tied to beds and floors, or maybe they were chained to walls or trees, God only knew where they were and what they were enduring. They were being subjected to appalling treatment, she knew it because the type of men who would buy another human being weren’t the type who would have a strict moral code. Except Zave. Except the Kindred.
It would be a nice fairy tale fantasy to believe that every woman was rescued by their own knight in shining armor and that they were all staying in houses like this on remote islands, discovering closets full of clothes, bathing in luxurious bathrooms, and being brought food and clean water while being treated like a decent human being.
But it was just that, a fairy tale, there was no way it could be true.
“You should be grateful. I’m grateful,” Rig said. “And I’ve made it damn clear to Rave that I’ll do whatever the fuck he wants. My ass belongs to him for this.”
Concern shook loose her melancholy thoughts. “Will he call that in? What favor will he want?” Hoping that her brother hadn’t sold his soul, or whatever soul he had left, she didn’t want him to be roped into anything negative just because he cared for her enough to barter himself for her safety. Whatever they asked him to do could be a thousand times worse than the fate he’d saved her from.
“He’ll call it in,” Rig said. “When the time is right. But he only calls in favors when he needs them; the Kindred keep as much in-house as they can. He’ll keep it real. It won’t be shady. Well, it’s always shady.” She could hear his smile radiating down the phone line. “But it won’t be any kinky shit, and I won’t be asked to take the fall.”
Rig seemed to have it so under control. He was calm and she didn’t know how he could be so together when he’d just admitted owing such an intense man a favor. “I owe Rave from way back,” Rig carried on. “It kinda works on tit for tat, we end up even eventually.”
“What about the rest of them?” she asked, since she had the opportunity to find out what her brother knew. “The other people he works with, what do you know about them?”
“He works with his girl, Swallow, she’s hot. That’s about as much as I know about her. Rave’s protective, seriously protective.”
So Swallow was still a mystery. “What about the guy who patches them up?” she asked, referring to Wren as he had. “And…” As much as she trusted her brother, he’d made it clear the Kindred didn’t want to be exposed and he hadn’t mentioned Zave, so she didn’t know if he knew him. Searching her recollection for what Bess had said, she elected to use his apparent alias as opposed to his real name, just in case. “Falcon, what do you know about them?”
“They call themselves the Kindred,” he said. “Haven’t met them all. I know Rave and Swift the best.”
Swift was an unfamiliar name, and he wasn’t here. Remembering what they’d said about their computer genius, about the man on their team who could hack any computer system, and she wondered if that was his name.
Torn between her instinct to flee and her desire to stay, she couldn’t decipher what the right course of action was. “All I wanted to do was get out of here,” she admitted. “But they’ve treated me so well and I didn’t trust them. But now they need my help and if you’re vouching for them… I suppose I should do what I can.”
“There are worse groups to get involved
with,” he said. “You know how I feel about you messing with gangs or ex-cons or anyone like that.” He’d always been adamant about her staying far away from criminality, and she’d never had a problem with that. “So it should tell you something about how decent these folks are that I’m not telling you to get your ass out of dodge.”
That was a fair point, she thought, lying down on the bed and stretching her toes toward the end. After being stuck in that metal box where she couldn’t even lie down, let alone stretch out, this was a luxury that she didn’t want to take for granted.
“Those there are good people,” Rig said. “They go about things in a… direct kinda way. But they’ll protect you, Von. Wherever the fuck they’re keeping you, I guarantee no bullshit human traffickers will get their filthy hands on you there.”
The Kindred needed her help now, but she couldn’t live here forever. She would eventually have to venture back into the real world, onto the mainland of the United States, into a city somewhere, an apartment. She’d have to get a job, she’d have to use the subway and eat in diners and buy clothes. Devon couldn’t stay locked in a fortress forever.
Sitting up to look towards the window on the left wall, past the end of the bed, she could see tiny segments of the ocean through the clear square panes of the mosaic window. Here was unknown. But it was safe. Out there was danger and when she had to face it, she would be alone. She wouldn’t have anyone with her to watch out for her. There wouldn’t be fingerprint locks to hide behind or Bess to bring her food and look after her. There would be no Wren to nurse her back to health and no Zave to make her blush.
“I’ll help them,” she said. “But when I leave here, can I come and stay with you for a bit? You said you had that big house now, there must be space for—”
“This isn’t a place for you,” he said. “You know I’d love to have you, and I’ll never see you on the streets, but all my guys are here and I don’t trust them. Shit goes down here that I don’t want you involved in, you could get hurt.”
Falcon (Kindred #5) Page 8