She was fucking perfect.
I closed my laptop and pulled my feet up onto the couch. I pulled my knees up to my chest and closed my eyes. I'd once been forced to watch some sci-fi slash horror flick where a thing burst out of some guy's chest. I felt like that was what was about to happen to me. Or that it had already happened. My heart ripped from my chest, lungs too. All that was left was a gaping hole.
This was what I'd wanted, I reminded myself. Rylan to be happy and for him to find a woman who could give him what he wanted. I was sure Juliet would be a great mother. And if he didn't get serious with her, someone else would come along. His family would make sure he chose better this next time. Suzette would, if no one else did. And Zeke. I didn't know exactly what his problem was with me, not entirely. I knew he didn't like me, but I didn't know if it was personal for only me or if anyone who dated Rylan would be subject to the same treatment, but I was going to hope for the best and choose to believe that Zeke would finally support one of Rylan's choices.
I didn't want to think about Rylan with someone else, but I forced myself to. I had to get used to it, especially since I was still in Fort Collins. We hadn't been apart that long and I'd already seen him with two women. If I fell apart every time it happened, I was going to have a problem.
He was with someone else. A better choice. I kept telling myself that over and over again, like pressing on a bruise until the pain was just another part of me. It didn't go away or even lessen, but I accepted it, pulled it into myself. I was strong enough to handle it. I'd handled other things worse than this. I could take it. I had to, because the alternative wasn't anything good.
Chapter 16
I needed to go grocery shopping or I was going to be reduced to eating baking soda and drinking tap water. I hadn't been eating much, but I'd known even then I'd eventually run out. I'd pretty much stuck to the apartment and the gym, with only an occasional walk, but I'd stuck mostly to the campus. Some because I liked it, but some because I'd known that it was the place I'd be the least likely to run into Rylan.
I headed to the usual store where I did my grocery shopping and tried to focus on my list without being distracted by constantly looking over my shoulder for Rylan. I didn't even know if he did his own shopping or where he went for it. I allowed myself a sad smile. It hurt to admit that there had been so many things that I hadn't known about him. Simple things that I'd never know.
I pushed the sadness aside before it could become something else. I didn't think it'd be entirely appropriate for me to have a crying fit in the middle of the store.
I turned down an aisle and made a small sound. Short dark brown hair, tall, slender...Suzette Dougall, Rylan's twenty-one year-old half-sister, was standing at the end of the aisle, a serious expression on her face.
Shit. I didn't want to be here, especially not with Suzette. I didn't want to talk to her. I started to turn to go, but had to stop when a man with a grocery cart and a very unhappy toddler blocked the way. He looked frazzled enough that I didn't want to bother him by asking him to move. I glanced back down the aisle and found Suzette looking at me with those sharp hazel eyes of hers. She was pretty, or would've been if she hadn't been scowling at me.
Then she smiled, a harsh, brittle smile, and began walking towards me.
Fuck.
There was nowhere I could go that it wouldn't look like I was running. I wanted to run, but despite everything, there was still a bit of steel left in me. I gave Suzette a fake smile and prepared myself for a conversation I didn't want to have.
“Jenna.”
I watched her gaze move over me, taking in everything about my appearance. She probably intended to analyze everything later, decide what to report back to Rylan, what he should know.
“How've you been?”
Now there was a loaded question. I could answer honestly, let her know just how badly I'd been hurt by what I'd done. I wouldn't though. I wasn't about to let anyone know that, especially not the person who'd been responsible for giving me the information that had led to my decision.
“I'm working with the FBI now,” I said. “Using my talents to do some good.”
Let her read into that what she would. In fact, I was pretty sure this entire conversation would be going through whatever filter she saw through. The filter that had told her that, no matter how much Rylan and I loved each other, I wasn't worthy of him.
“Rylan's doing very well,” she said, even though I hadn't asked.
There was an edge to her voice that made me think she'd been storing all of this up for when she'd finally seen me again.
“He's moved on from you,” she continued without waiting for me to respond. “Didn't take him long either. Granted, he did go out with a few women who weren't much better than you, but those were just typical rebound dates.”
A few women. I swallowed hard. I thought Emmaline had been the only one. She had to be one of the women who weren't much better than me. I couldn't see Suzette being happy with Rylan dating someone like Emmaline. Suzette would see right through Emmaline.
“But his head's on straight now,” she said with a smug smile. “Dating models, high society women. I doubt it'll be long until he finds someone truly worth his attention.”
I didn't need her to state the obvious, that I wasn't one of the women worthy of his attention. I knew she loved her brother and I reminded myself of that as my insides twisted.
“I'm glad he's doing well.” To my surprise, I actually managed to keep my voice even. “He deserves to be happy.”
“Yes,” Suzette said firmly. “He does.”
My throat started to close up and I could feel the tears threatening again. Without another word, I stepped past Suzette and made my way down the aisle. I wasn't going to cry. Not here, not at home. I was done crying over Rylan. I wasn't entirely sure how long that would last, but I was going to keep telling myself it until, one day, it was true.
I finished my shopping and put away my groceries in a fog. I wasn't even sure I'd put everything in their normal places. I showered mechanically and went to bed. I'd known Rylan was moving on, but it was one thing to observe a couple things and make my own deductions. It was something else entirely to hear it stated so baldly.
I closed my eyes and wondered what nightmare I'd be treated to first.
His mouth was soft against mine, gentle. The heat of his hands warmed my cold face and I leaned into the kiss. I wanted to feel his body pressed against mine. His skin burned where I touched him and he parted my lips with his tongue. I ran my hands up his chest and then down his back, fingers tracing along his tattoo. I wasn't sure when we'd lost our clothes, only that there was nothing between us now.
He ran his hand down my spine to take hold of my ass, pulling me more tightly to him so that I could feel his erection, urgent, against my stomach. He pulled my bottom lip into his mouth, sucking and worrying at it with his teeth. I made a small sound in the back of my throat and he released my now-swollen lip. His mouth made its way across my jaw, teeth and lips working together. He pulled my earlobe into his mouth, treating it with the same care he had my lip. I moved my body against his, nails scratching at his back.
“I'm going to tie you up now,” he said in my ear.
I nodded. My body was on fire, aching for him. One hand slid between us and cupped my pussy. His finger teased along the outside of my folds and then slipped inside. My knees felt weak as he lightly rubbed my clit for a moment before sliding down to dip inside.
“Mmm. So wet for me, baby.”
My eyes closed, focusing on the sensation of his finger moving inside me. Of course I was wet for him. I wanted him all the time. Just thinking about him turned me on.
“You'd do anything I asked, wouldn't you?” He licked the top of my ear. “Spread your legs in public, let me finger you until you came, not caring who was watching.”
I started to frown. What was he saying?
“Get down on your knees and suck me off under a table at a
restaurant.” He added a second finger. “I bet you'd even let me share you with my friends.”
I stiffened and tried to pull away, but the arm around my waist tightened, keeping me in place as his fingers continued their steady in and out motion.
“What do you think?” he asked. “Should Zeke join us?”
I was still shaking my head when I found myself tied to the bed, arms and legs spread wide. I tried to speak, but my mouth was gagged. I tugged at the restraints, but they were tied tight. I couldn't get free.
“Why don't you keep her occupied while I sample what else is out there?”
I realized now that Rylan was standing at the end of the bed, his hand moving slowly over his cock. Next to him was Zeke, also naked. His eyes were dark, his expression unsmiling.
“Do whatever you want to her,” Rylan continued. “She's done it all before. And don't worry about protection. She can't get pregnant.”
Tears began to stream down my face. Why was he saying these things? I didn't understand.
“Who are you going to fuck first?” Zeke asked, his tone casual, as if this were the kind of thing he and Rylan did all the time.
“I'm thinking Emmaline,” Rylan said.
The room brightened and now I could see behind the men. The room was crowded with naked women. I recognized Emmaline, Lara and Juliet. The others were nameless pretty faces with great bodies.
Zeke crawled up on the bed as Rylan stretched out his hand to Emmaline. I wanted to look away, but I found that I couldn't turn my head or close my eyes. Zeke's hands were on me as Rylan bent Emmaline over the bed and began to fuck her. Her eyes were practically glowing as she gave me a smug smile.
“She can give me what I want,” Rylan said. “All of these women can. Why would I want you when I can have them?”
One after another, I was forced to watch as he took them. Sometimes he tied them up, taunting me with how much better it was to have a woman who wouldn't freak out about the things he liked. Other times, he told Zeke what to do to me while he did the same thing to the woman beneath him. They all laughed when I cried and tried to beg them to stop.
Then Suzette walked in, beautiful in an elegant evening gown. She walked towards the bed, ignoring the decadence around her. The jewels she wore glittered as she approached.
“See,” she said. “I told you he'd gotten over you.” She gestured towards the crowd of women. “And aren't these women so much better than you? None of them whored themselves out. They aren't broken. They can give him a family.” She crouched down so that our faces were only inches apart. “You don't deserve him. You deserve this.”
A hand buried itself in my hair and yanked my head back as Zeke slammed into me. I screamed, the sound muffled by the gag, and no one tried to help me. They watched and they laughed and I remembered who I really was...
My pillow was wet with tears when I woke, the echo of laughter still in my ears. I shook my head, trying to rid myself of the last vestiges of my nightmare. I wiped at my cheeks, but they were dry now. The details of things were slipping away, but I knew the gist of what had happened.
It wasn't real, I reminded myself. Not a memory of any kind. Rylan would never do anything like that. Even Zeke and Suzette, as much as they disliked me, never would have been involved in anything remotely that cruel. Zeke may have had a bad temper, but what had happened in my nightmare wasn't that kind of violence. I knew the difference.
Still, I began to shiver and pulled my blankets more tightly around me. I'd spent enough time with Dr. MacLeod to know that while, sometimes, a dream is just a dream, other times, it's the subconscious telling us to deal with things that we'd rather not face. I knew which this had been.
Chapter 17
I'd behaved myself and not hacked into either my or my mother's files. I trusted that what Agent Matthews had told me was true. I didn't, however, stop looking into that website I'd found. It was the weekend, so I doubted anyone was going to get around to shutting things down before Monday, no matter what kind of priority Agent Matthews put on it, which meant I had two days to find something that would either prove or disprove my suspicions.
Saturday night, I managed to break through the last level of encryption and find what I was looking for. An address. The person who'd set up the site had been good, rerouting things so that the IP address didn't show its true location. I was just better. Once I had the address, the rest was easy. A bit of digging into county records and I had a nice little pile of evidence to take to Agent Matthews.
When I walked into the police station on Monday morning, I had a paper file as well as a flash drive with all of the same information. I'd made copies of both and had the originals on my laptop back home. I wasn't about to risk someone accidentally losing my work or the evidence mysteriously disappearing simply because WITSEC was involved. I didn't know how trustworthy any of them were. It was hard enough trusting Agent Matthews with this information.
“Great work this week,” Agent Matthews said as he motioned for me to sit. “My bosses are quite impressed with how well your software is working. They'd really like to sit down and talk to you about allowing other agents to use it.”
“I'm sure I can work out some sort of arrangement,” I said. “I'm not looking to sell my programs outright, but I'd have no problem allowing them to be used, for a small fee, of course.”
“You're going to charge the US government to use your programs?”
I wasn't sure if he was amused or annoyed. “I wrote them long before the FBI asked me to use them. They’re mine. I didn't use anything of the FBI's in their design.”
He shrugged. “I'll pass that along.”
“And you can tell them they can contact me directly, if you're not comfortable being the go-between.” I set the file and the flash drive on the table. “I sent you the week's reports, but I wanted to bring these in person. I've been working on it off the clock.”
He took the file and opened it.
“As you can see, the website I found leads back to the address where my mother's been staying for the last eight years.” My fingers were twisting together so tightly that my knuckles were turning white. “I've been able to link her recent activity to six different child pornography sites, all run by different men. I have their names and addresses too. I don't know whose kids they're using, but at least one of them used images I recently scrubbed.”
Agent Matthews didn't say anything for several minutes as he read through my information. “You obtained these names and addresses without a warrant,” he said.
“Didn't need one,” I said, stretching the truth a bit. “Even though I wasn't doing this on company time, I made sure that I did things by the book. Once I found the physical address where the IP was located, I just used public county records to see who lived there. I did the same for the others.”
He looked at me, his expression unreadable. “Why didn't you do it on company time?”
“Because there was a chance the marshals would get involved and shut me down before I could find anything out.” I leaned forward slightly. “Maybe this is a sting operation and I'm wrong. It's possible, but my gut is telling me that's not the case.”
“You really think your mother would risk being kicked out of the program?”
“I think she's a junkie who knows how to make fast money,” I said. “And I think eight years is a long time to go without a fix, especially if she never wanted to stop in the first place.”
“You do know that she's been given random drug tests over the years? Staying clean is part of the program.”
“I know that she was smart enough to convince the DA that she was a victim,” I said. “I don't want that happening again. She needs to be in prison.”
“I can open a case,” he said. “But I can't make any promises.”
My mouth flattened into a thin line. “She got a second chance based on manipulation and lies. Look what she's done with it. If she waited a year before getting back into it, I'll be shocked.”
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“The thing is, Jenna...” His use of my first name made my temper flare. He was trying to placate me. “The connections you have here, those guys are the bigger fish and we both know if your mom flips on them, she's going to come out ahead.”
“There's enough evidence in those files that you shouldn't need my mother's testimony.” I fought to keep my voice calm.
“I'll do what I can,” he said. “But it's out of my hands when it comes to deals. The federal prosecutor will be the one to have the final say.” He hesitated, and then added, “And based on how things went with Christophe Constantine, I wouldn't count on anything.”
I immediately went from hot to cold. “What about Christophe?”
Agent Matthews looked distinctly uncomfortable, which only made me feel worse. “The prosecutor called me this morning to tell me that the deal's done. I can head back to Denver by the end of the week.”
“What sort of deal?” My lips felt numb, like they'd been shot full of Novocain or something.
“You won't need to testify,” he began.
“Just tell me.” The words came out a bit harder than I'd planned, but Agent Matthews didn't seem offended.
“For his testimony, Christophe is getting no jail time, minimum probation and witness protection after the trials.”
I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach.
“He gets to stay out on bail until he testifies, and because he'll be given a new name, he won't be registered as a sex offender.”
“You promised.” I spoke in barely a whisper. “You said you'd make sure he couldn't hurt anyone else; that he'd at least be on the registry so people could know.”
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