“What the fuck, who’s he?”
“I don’t know yet, she asked me for some time to tell me and I agreed but…”
“Fuck that, can you imagine if Carrie was in that predicament that I would let that shit slide? Or dad, do you think he would let some shit like that linger where mom was concerned?”
“I’m not like you and dad…”
“I know Matt, you’re worse.” That jolted me enough that I lifted my eyes to his. He couldn’t know there’s no way. I’ve always kept myself in check, always walked the walk.
“I’ve always known Matt, you forget who you’re dealing with? But I think now is the time to let yourself go. You’ve always kept that tight rein on yourself, afraid of what will happen if you let you be you. You know I used to wonder what you saw in that crazy ass viper; then I figured it out. You were playing it safe, she didn’t bring out the Steele passion in you and you convinced yourself that that was best. You let her do her thing because at the end of the day you weren’t really invested. You were willing to marry her, spend the rest of your life with her just so you could play it safe. Look where that got you bro. Now this girl has you tied up in knots and that beast is rearing its head. If ever there was a time to let that shit loose it’s now. If your woman is in danger bro you’ve got to step the fuck up. Is she yours Matt?”
“You better believe it.”
“Well alright then let’s get this shit started. Did you get a name at least?”
“No nothing.”
“Fine we’ll trace back from her.”
“What do you mean trace backwards from her? I get the feeling that this guy whoever he is has eyes on her if not here then back home. If we go looking he’s bound to see and then if he doesn’t already know where she’s hiding out we’ll just be leading him to her.”
“That’s why you have me bro, all I have to do is tinker with the router he’ll never know where the ping is coming from.”
“The what?” Brainy fucker.
“Watch and learn bro.” He moved over to my computer desk and cracked his knuckles as if he was about to go to battle. I stood over his shoulder as he fiddled with keys and some shit came up on the screen that looked like gibberish to me but he was reading it off like nothing, mumbling to himself as he hit even more keys and got to work.
“Now where should we send this fuck? Hmm, Russia looks good right now maybe he’ll hop on a plane and head over there. We can only hope he gets caught in the middle of the fuckery that’s going on in that part of the world right now.”
“I don’t understand, what’re you doing?”
“I’m reconfiguring the router so it would appear that we’re in Russia instead of Sea Crest, this way if anyone’s tracking her digitally and they see inquiries coming from Russia they’ll think that that’s where she is.”
“Slick.” I watched him for the next hour or so as he did his thing; by the end of it he had her transcripts downloaded. My girl was smart as fuck; maybe she could give the brain a run for his money.
“Fine now that’s done, now all I need to do is find out who this guy is and exactly what he’s done to her before I go fuck his shit up.”
“That’s next, you want to do this part? We have the state and town she’s from all you have to do is work backwards from her name like I said. If there’s any record of him we’ll hit on it.” I shooed him out of the chair and took his seat. My heart decided to act up at this point. I was about to cross a line here and I knew it. I’d given her my word to wait but was that really me? was I being honest? If we were going to have a life together wouldn’t it make more sense to begin as I meant to go on?
I couldn’t see me leaving her safety up in the air like that in the future and just because this, whatever it was, had happened before we met, that didn’t change things. I’ll deal with the fallout from her later, right now her safety was more important than whether or not she would be mad at me for going behind her back.
I felt that lock inside me open up for the first time since I was a kid as I entered her name in the search box. There was no real fear, just a wild feeling of freedom. Sink or swim the beast was loose…
I was surprised to even get a hit, I don’t know what I’d expected but to see her name come up in little blurbs here and there was kind of humbling. There were snippets here and there about a young girl being terrorized by a local man. At first there was no mention of her name maybe because she was a minor, but somehow my gut knew. As I kept scrolling the story unfolded and then I found her.
There was a story about a court case. I glanced over everything at first just getting the gist of it, my anger growing with each line. I’d forgotten that Josh was still in the room so engrossed was I in the shit that was unfolding right before my eyes. My first inclination was to go get her and bring her here with me. We had high walls and enough security to keep out Blackwater.
“Matt calm down.” My ears were ringing and my head was stuffy, I had no idea what the fuck Josh was talking about, and why the fuck was he holding me down?
“It’s okay bro we’ll take care of it, just calm down.” I looked up at him not knowing for a minute what was going on or even where the fuck I was. A quick look around the room showed the chaos, what the fuck? Did we have a quake? I don’t remember feeling anything. The computer was on the floor on its side, the desk was thrown against the wall and there was shit everywhere.
Dad came bounding into the room with a look of terror on his face. “What is it boys what happened?” he looked from one to the other of us as Josh shook his head at him.
“You two have some sort of disagreement?” his look of parental disappointment was almost comical and I would’ve laughed if my senses didn’t choose that moment to return. I pushed Josh off of me and stood, prowling the room like a cornered animal.
“No dad it’s Kadyn.” Josh patted my shoulder as he answered dad.
“Kadyn? Matt’s lady, what happened to her is she hurt?”
Josh righted the desk and the computer fiddling with it to make sure I hadn’t killed it. I couldn’t talk there was something blocking my throat and my heart hurt like a son of a bitch. I wanted to punch something, hold her and cry all at the same time. I just kept seeing her little face so full of fear as she told me he’d find her. I saw her the first day we’d met and the way I’d treated her and bile rose in my stomach. My poor Kadyn.
“Is this a curse?” I had to ask, first Carrie was almost raped and killed and now this shit. Was my family cursed or some shit that these things kept happening to our women? Had mom ever faced anything like this?
“What’s he talking about Josh?”
“Give me a minute dad I’m trying to get the comp up and running so I can show you.” I heard the barely restrained anger in his voice as he tried to undo the damage I’d done. The three of us read the shit again and I was able to restrain myself this time but barely.
“Well shit son.” That’s all dad could say as he turned to me with a look of sadness. Seems I was destined to be embroiled in drama when it came to the women in my life. “I’ll be back.” No one bothered to ask me where I was headed as I ran from the room and headed for one of my rides in the garage.
All the way back to her I kept trying to figure out the next move. I was no longer worried about her reaction to my going behind her back, after the shit I’d just uncovered it didn’t matter to me if she was mad or not. The only thing I cared about now was her safety and wellbeing. The story I’d just read almost seemed like it had been about someone else, it couldn’t be the girl I’d just left not too long ago.
The fucker was free to roam the streets after the fuckery he’d done and I’m sure the reality was way worse than anything I’d just read. I can’t imagine the horror she’d lived with. No wonder she’d ran here to her dad. But what was being done now to see that she stayed safe from this lunatic? Was she supposed to live the rest of her life in hiding? Fuck that.
Something dark and lethal rose up inside me at
that thought. When I’d promised her a few short hours ago to stand between her and whatever was in her past I had no idea it would be something like this, but knowing it only solidified my intent. I pulled up outside the diner a few minutes later. I figured she’d be upstairs but it was her father I needed to see first. I needed to get a feel for what the fuck had gone on, the things that hadn’t been in the report. I wasn’t sure if she’d be ready to talk to me about it but maybe he would.
He saw me coming and maybe the death glare in my eyes tipped him off that there was trouble because he left the counter where he’d been chatting with one of the regulars and headed towards me. “What is it?”
“Is there somewhere we can go to talk?” he took my elbow and led me towards the back where he kept his offices. As soon as the door was closed I started in. “I know what was done to her, well some of it anyway.” He sat down heavily and held his head in his hands. “I want to know what’s not in the report, I want to know everything he did to her.”
“Leave it alone son, trust me I wanted to go after this asshole more than you’ll ever know but the cops said my hands are tied. He has more rights apparently, rights that say if I go after him I might end up in jail. That’s a hard thing to swallow as a father.”
“I don’t understand that shit. It says he stalked her from the age of fourteen, four fucking years and they did nothing? She was a fucking kid when he started his sick fucking campaign…”
“I know boy, you think I don’t know? You think I don’t lay awake at night thinking up ways to remove him from the face of the earth? My child wakes up screaming sometimes and it tears at my heart but there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it. He has more damn rights right now than we do don’t you understand? One wrong move and I’ll be behind bars for the rest of my life, then who’s gonna protect her. This is the best we can do for now, all I can do.” He shook his head like a broken man and that just added fuel to my fire.
Be a Steele. That refrain kept playing through my head over and over as I fought to overcome the feelings that threatened to overpower me. I was going in blind all across the board here, our relationship was new, my knowledge of the situation was literally a few hours old and I had no experience with this shit. My life up until a few months ago was one of high school ball and whatever hoorah mom came up with to make us kids happy. I knew nothing about the seedier side of things, nothing outside of having to put my foot in somebody’s ass for messing with me or my brother.
This was a whole new ballgame, this, as they say, is the big time. It looked like I wasn’t going to be allowed to tread the natural order in the dating game this go around. I’m being pushed into the deep end of the pool straight off the bat. I have to ask myself had I known all this was waiting for me would I have gone after her anyway? The truth was very simple when it came. I hadn’t gone after Kadyn Daniels; this thing between us was set in stone long before we ever laid eyes on each other. Something neither of us had any control over.
“I want to see everything you have on him.”
“What makes you so sure I have anything?” I just gave him a look to remind him that my birth certificate might say one thing but in my chest beat the heart of a man. And right now that man was in combat mode because some fuck had messed with his woman. Whether I’d had her for a year or a day, she was mine; time made no difference to a Steele, we laugh at that shit. The minute the decision was made it was a done fucking deal.
“You’re her father, you love her, you have everything I need. Your hands may be tied but mine aren’t.”
“No son leave it alone, if you want to be with my daughter then the best thing you can do for her right now is be there for her. She has problems still I know, that’s why she goes to doc Graves, but going after this guy might only open up a can of worms that’s best left uncovered. She’s doing a lot better since she came here…”
“She’s afraid of her fucking shadow, no disrespect, I’m not saying you’re not doing all you can for her but there’s something you need to know about me, about the Steeles period. We don’t hide and we don’t back down. I have a sister, a mother and a new sister in law. If anyone had done this shit to one of them I’d lay his ass out, I can do no less for Kadyn.”
“But you just met…”
“Doesn’t matter, my heart knows her, my soul owns her that’s enough for me. Now are you going to give me what I want or am I going this alone?” He studied me for the longest time but I didn’t back down and I didn’t look away. When he saw whatever it was that he needed he took a key from his pocket and opened a drawer throwing a manila envelope across his desk to me. I didn’t open it, not yet, not here. I had something else to do first.
“She upstairs?” he nodded and I turned to leave.
“I’m going up.” I didn’t wait for him to say yes or no just headed back the way I came and walked out and around. I knew there had to be a way in from the inside but I didn’t want to scare her. I pulled my phone from my hip and called her on my way up the stairs. “Kadyn I’m at your door open up.”
She was dressed like a typical teenager, something I’d stopped being about two hours ago, in a halter-top and shorts. The thing with Patti had barely tipped me over into adulthood, this shit, what I might have to do now to protect had finally taken the shine off the once happy go lucky kid with the silver spoon in his mouth and the world at his feet. My eyes had been opened and I didn’t like none of what I saw.
I looked at her standing there and it pissed me off that my first thought was to get her back inside behind closed doors. This had been her reality for how long, this hiding and barely existing while this sick fuck was living his life free and clear? The report on the net had said that because their state had no stalking laws at the time of the incident he had walked with a mere slap on the wrist and a restraining order, which everyone knew wasn’t worth shit. He’d been free to torment her while she and her mother had lived in fear no doubt.
I crowded her in the doorway until she walked backwards into the room her eyes never leaving mine. I tried to fix my face and dim the kill lights maybe a little but I could see from her apprehension that I wasn’t doing a very good job. “I know.” Her eyes fell to the envelope in my hand before her shoulders scrunched up to her ears before they fell and she lowered her head as if in shame. That too pissed me off.
Lifting her chin I looked into her eyes hoping she could read what was in mine. It was a fucked up situation all around. How could I ask her to trust me after everything that she’d been through? We’d only just met, she knew next to nothing about me, only that I’d stormed into her life and decided that she was mine. That wasn’t about to change but I had to find some way of getting it through to her that this was for real. That I meant everything I’d said to her on that beach. Was that only a few short hours ago? Felt like a lifetime.
“You have nothing to be ashamed of Kadyn, but now I understand certain things. I want you to listen to me, as hard as this might be for you to accept you no longer have to live in fear, I won’t allow it. I know you’ve felt cornered for the last four years but that shit ends here and now. Tomorrow I’m taking you home to meet my parents, if my words alone won’t convince you then being with them will. What we love we protect, when you become one of us you gain the same care as everyone else in the Steele clan. And we are a force to be reckoned with believe me. So far it’s just been your mom and dad and their limited resources, well now you have Nathaniel Steele in your corner and he’s no light weight.”
She had no idea what the fuck I was talking about, it was evident in the questioning look she gave me but I figure it was best to just show her. I can imagine that being given the run around all these years by the people who were sworn to protect her had made her a little doubtful, but now it was my job to see that she had all the protection she needed. I felt raw inside and although all I wanted was to go home and dive into the file her dad had given me I needed her more.
“What were you doing before I called?�
�� she looked back into the room where I could see a puzzle of some sort laid out across the table. “I was playing with the puzzle.”
“Fine, I’ll stay with you for a little while before I leave. Now that I know the basics Kadyn one day soon I want you to tell me everything.” She swallowed deeply and nodded her head. “Aren’t you going to yell at me for going behind your back to find out the truth?” She was suddenly very shy and unsure of herself, which was understandable. I hope one day soon to break her out of that shell. For some reason I wanted to see her like my sisters are, care free and full of life.
“How did you find out?”
“I looked it up online. Don’t panic I was very careful there’s no way for him to trace anything back to you. Tell me again why you’re so sure that he would even know if someone went looking?”
“There were things that he knew, things that he had no way of knowing unless he had our phones tapped or my internet hacked. He used to contact me using different user names, even when I changed my ID and password he’d still find me. Then he started sending things to my friends using my handles so we figured he’d hacked me. It got to the point where no matter what we did he would still find me.”
“Ssh, it’s okay he’s not here now.” I hugged her close when her body started to shake. Standing there in her father’s living room I asked myself what strange twist of fate was at work here. My ex had turned out to be a monster who had set out to terrorize someone else and had almost got her killed. And now my future was running from a monster set on destroying her. Was she my redemption for the horror I’d unwittingly brought into my family? Was this inexplicable rush of love that I was beginning to feel for her somehow part of some master plan? Whatever it was it was now mine to deal with.
I lifted her chin so I could reach her mouth for a long overdue kiss, one that was meant to erase all the darkness of this day. I only meant to share some of me with her, didn’t mean for it to become anything else but when she collapsed into me, her body becoming pliant and soft I took it deeper feeding her my tongue as my hands roamed her back down to her ass.
Rebound: Passion Book 2 Page 8