And with a suddenness that surprised him, she moved into him then slammed her elbow into his gut, sliding away from him. Her hair was settling around her shoulders as she settled against the opposite counter, arching her brow and lifting her chin in challenge as she stared at him. “No, I could never take you down. I’d never be fool enough to try. But how many people could even manage to move away from you like that?”
Very few. Dylan lifted a brow in acknowledgement. “It takes more than getting away. It takes taking down. It takes a willingness to hurt, to kill if necessary. It takes—”
Kris laughed. “I have everything it takes, Dylan. You’re just too damned blind, or too damned protective to see it. That’s fine. You try to keep me in this silk cage you’ve pushed me into.” With a final, brittle smile, she whirled on her heel and left, the dark red banner of her hair streaming down her nearly naked back.
****
Kris shoved the anger aside. She couldn’t do the work she had to do and be angry as well. A time would come when she could let all the anger she felt out, and she could let it rain down on the bastards who really responsible.
It wasn’t Dylan. Damn his fine ass for trying so hard to push her into a corner and keep her there. It wasn’t him. But he needed to stop trying so hard to protect her. If he didn’t want her in danger then he never should have let her near any of this, from the beginning. Damn it, she’d been living in near constant danger since meeting that bastard Blessett anyway—she sure as hell hoped that sorry son of a bitch was dead.
It was too late now to try to move her back into a world where she was ignorant of such things. She would always be watching over her shoulder from here on out. Damn it, she was tired of being the one who felt helpless.
She wanted to help somebody for a change.
Setting down in front of the computer, she listened to the breathing she could hear just behind her. Oh, she hadn’t heard him come in the room. But he was in there all the same.
And furious.
Part of her was just the slightest bit sorry for that.
But she had to get this done.
There were pieces of a puzzle she could solve laying all over the place, but she couldn’t do it with him around. And he simply couldn’t do it. Besides, if he had let her do what she was capable of, instead of trying to confine her to a damn desk all the time, this wouldn’t have been necessary.
Well, yes it would have.
But for different reasons.
For the girl.
This was for the girl.
But the faces were starting to blur in front of her eyes. Nessa’s, Bella’s, and others. How many others were there?
Many...I’ve taken many butterflies…Kris slammed a door in her mind shut against that dark, insidious voice. Then a shudder wracked her body as Dylan’s long fingered, warm hands came down on her shoulders, thumbs and forefingers nearly encircling her neck as he lowered his mouth to whisper, “This isn’t over, sweetheart. You can bet your sweet little ass on that.”
She couldn’t stop the smug smile that curved her lips as he stomped out of the room, slamming the door behind him. “Hope not, handsome.”
Then she focused her eyes back on the computer.
That bastard, that dark, perverted bastard was here. Somewhere.
Kris pursed her lips, studying the pictures her mom had emailed her. Sheesh. That one would work, easy enough. She had developed early enough, and her hair had been woven back in a French braid so it would hide the differences in style. Her complexion had always been clear, thank the Lord.
She looked innocent compared to some of the pictures kids posted online anymore. Except for her eyes.
Kris studied the eyes of her own picture, nearly twenty years old and frowned. Her eyes looked…old. Mature. Too wise.
Far too wise. Sighing, Kris settled back and uploaded the picture. It would have to work. There were a few others that didn’t show her eyes so completely, but they looked too eighties. This one could easily have been taken now. And it was a damn good picture, showing her well. If there was a man on there preying on lovely young teenaged girls, that picture was the best bait she had for herself.
With a smirk, Kris said, “We can only hope it will be this easy.” Not that she was expecting easy, but a screen name, a first name, anything. Something pointing the way to Bella or Nessa—
When the phone rang, she lifted it up and said, “Stop growling at me. Your papers are exactly where you left them. If it’s that damn bad, hire a secretary.”
“Ummmm…..ooookay,” Nikki said, laughing.
Kris laughed, running a hand through her hair and settled back, drawing a leg up under her as she smiled, a real smile for the first time in days. “Sorry. I thought it was Dylan. He’s pissed at me.”
“Yeah…I got that. Just talked to him. He bit my head off when I mentioned your name earlier. He told me you were a crazy, insane female and he was madder than hell I let him let you talk him into this blasted fiasco. It took me a bit to untangle those words. Usually Dylan doesn’t say more than five at a time. So that really confused me. I almost pity Shawn. He’s heading your way as we speak. Going to drop in on Dylan…. ah….unannounced.”
“That will go over well,” Kris said, a grin lighting her face. “Maybe they will get into a fight then go get drunk tonight.”
“You’re that mad?”
“Yes…no—I don’t know. He’s frustrating the hell out of me. I don’t think he realizes I can take care of myself. I’m not made of glass, Nik.”
“I’d have to agree,” Nik said succinctly. “I’ve seen you in class, remember. And I’ve seen you knock a man down when he didn’t back down. I know you aren’t made of glass. But Dylan, well, he’s got this odd idea about protecting the women he loves. Even me. He’s just rather well, wrong in this situation.”
“I can’t keep working with him if all he wants me doing is crying on his shoulder when I have a bad dream, or researching somebody for him while I have a few minutes during my day. Hell, I don’t even know if I want to keep editing. Sometimes…”
Turning in her chair, she stared out the window over the rolling hills that were the Lexington bluegrass area. It was so much more than New York City. There was life here and not just the hustle and bustle of big city. She was tired of big city. This was life. This was family, home, friends, country, mountains, life.
She hadn’t realized how hollow her life had been leaving her until she had come here, and found this, found a life with Dylan.
But it was still just a half of a life unless Dylan decided that he could trust her to take care of herself.
“Sometimes what?” Nikki asked.
“Sometimes I feel like I’m not doing what I’m supposed to be doing,” she said quietly. “Then I do something like what I’ve been doing when I’m helping him. And that feels right.”
“Have you told him that?”
Kris sighed. “He doesn’t want to hear it.”
Nikki laughed. “I understand that. Men tend to want to…overprotect a lot. Sometimes to the extreme.”
“Would he trust you?” Kris asked thoughtfully.
Nikki hesitated. The silence on the other end of the line echoed so loudly, Kris fought the urge to gnash her teeth. Finally, a long sigh passed over the line and Nikki said, “Yes, likely he would if I had gone into this with him from the beginning or if I knew something and insisted from the get go I follow through. But Dylan knows me. Knows what I was like growing up. He looks at you and sees this lovely woman he fell in love with. He doesn’t see a brown belt in karate or the woman I watched knock a guy’s teeth down his throat. He doesn’t see a woman who can be hard. He sees…well, soft skin, breasts, a big heart, a sharp mind. Nothing hard. He’s in a business where you need to be hard.” Nikki chuckled. “He obviously knows nothing about the world of publishing or he’d realize how cutthroat it can be.”
“I guess it’s time to show him I can be hard.” A small tune played from her compu
ter and Kris looked up, a cool smile playing at her lips. “I was already on the right path, I think anyway. Listen, hon, I gotta go.”
Focusing on the IM on her screen, she tapped out a “Hullo” to the other person on the box and waited. “Well, well, well, what have we here,” she mused. She hadn’t been expecting this at all.
Not at all.
The girl on the other end of the IM was nervous, very nervous, but not so nervous that she was going to pass up this chance to fix what she was responsible for. She had never meant for any of this to happen.
She should have tried harder to warn them away, Slvrnghtgale and Exxiled. There were others. She knew there were. But they were lost. Maybe forever. If she could stop it from happening again, that would be enough. It would have to be.
When the new name had appeared in their chat room, Kyteendreaming90, an itching had settled in her belly, in the back of her head, followed by a fierce, violent joy. Finally. Somebody who would help her drown out the evil voice in her head, the suffering screams she heard at night when she laid her head down.
There was another one, a man. When she closed her eyes, she could picture him, just his eyes, grim, hazel eyes that had seen far too much, the girl thought. Eyes that would look at a child with gentleness and understanding instead of lust. And flash with something she didn’t completely understand as he came down on those who had taken two of the voices that had helped fill the girl’s lonely life with laughter.
“My fault,” Pamela Jo Atwood whispered quietly.
“And damn it, I’m going to fix it.”
The girl was a bleeding genius.
Kris had no idea how old this child was, and for a few minutes, she had questioned whether or not it was a child. Though the girl’s fear was obvious, as was her naiveté. She had tried to go to the police, and couldn’t understand why they hadn’t done anything, just based on her feelings.
A cop couldn’t do anything based on the feelings of a kid. Even one as extraordinary as this one seemed.
The girl was also the best damned hackers Kris had ever come across. She had known a few, not many but a few. And they were damned good ones.
But this child blew them out of the water.
The oddest thing of all, though…she was like Kris. She IM’ed Kris with the disconcerting message, You are not a Kentucky teenager dreaming. You made an itch start in my belly and in my head the moment your name appeared in the chat room. You know what kind of itch I’m talking about. You get them too. You’ve listened to them, or ignored them, just like I do, depending on whether or not they help you. This time we can help somebody else. Are you going to listen?
Bet your tail I’ll listen. Exactly what do you know and how long has this been going on?
For a long moment, there was nothing. Kris wondered if she had left. But then the letters assured her partner was typing away.
Slvrnghtgale was the first one that I know about. But it started long before her. Then they took Exxiled. She’s the one you came looking for.
Kris’s breath locked in her throat. Damn. The kid really did know. She hadn’t asked about Slvrnghtgale, hadn’t done more than look for her.
And Exxiled…was it Nessa? “Shit.”
Yeah. Shit. It totally freaked me out when you came into the chat room.
Kris jerked her hands away from the keyboard. She hadn’t typed a damn thing, had only spoken the word aloud. Slowly, she tapped out, Kid, you’re starting to freak me out.
LOL. J. I’ve been freaking myself out for a couple of years. You’ve been blocking this longer than I have. I’m a little more used to it. I was five when I started to realize I was different. And not just because I could read the Magna Carta in Latin as well as English.
Ahhh…Kris was dealing with a child protégé. Narrowing her eyes, she crossed her arms over her chest and asked aloud in a slow, purposeful voice, “How much do you know?”
A smiley appeared in the IM box, followed by the familiar acronym, LOL. The girl had heard her. Somehow. Enough to know that I’m being tested right now. And…enough to know that Exxiled…Nessa…is running out of time. But you can help her. You and that guy. He has intense eyes. The guy is gonna bring her back. He bought her, ya know. For his master. He isn’t from here. He’s from Turkey and he was getting ready to take her back to his master, but Nessa won’t eat. She hardly sleeps. She just…sits. And stares. He’s angry. She was fiery at first, and that was the way it was supposed to be. His master wanted a young, pure American, one he could break. But Nessa—
Quietly, Kris whispered, “Nessa is already broken.”
Yes. The words, even though they only appeared on the screen, seemed forlorn and full of desolation.
Kris shook her head, clearing it. “What did you mean he’s bringing her back?”
His master doesn’t want a girl that’s broken. He wants a girl that is fighting and struggling. That’s what he is going to bring back with him. Well, he is going to try. There’s going to be another sale and he knows about it.
“A sale?” Kris demanded, standing slowly, feeling the blood draining out of her face. Her hands were sweating and she felt both hot and cold at the same time. A sale…a sale…a sale…surely, she had misunderstood. Please, let me have misunderstood.
Yes. The buyer isn’t the real bad guy. He’s just a minor player. The real bad guy is the one online trolling for girls he thinks might work to pick up, girls that might look like runaways, that won’t be missed. And he sells them. He took Slvrnghtgale and he took Exxiled. He’s been taking more, for a very long time.
Kris felt her legs give out from underneath her. Her hands clutched at the arms of the chair and she shuddered while nausea, hot and rancid, roiled in her gut. I will not be sick, she told herself.
The IM box sounded.
Glancing up, she read the message and couldn’t help but smile slightly at the words, Why not? I was.
****
Dylan slammed the door. He hurled his jacket at the couch and in a blind fit of fury, slammed his fist into the oak filing cabinet on his way to the desk. Stubborn, stubborn woman.
The desk across the room didn’t have her stuff on it.
And the office sounded too quiet. “What in the hell happened to her coming in here and running names for me?” he swore.
He still couldn’t fucking believe what she had said. More often than not, you like having me on hand so you can fuck me when you see fit.
His temper had been simmering just below murderous all damn day. And his smart ass sister’s call hadn’t helped. Damn it, Nikki sounded like she already knew how badly he had fucked up and she didn’t even know what in the hell had happened. He had even lowered himself to asking if she knew. And she didn’t. She wouldn’t have lied about it.
Then he launched into Nik, yelling at her for talking him into letting Kris help him so much. That was bullshit. Nikki hadn’t talked him into anything.
“Shit.”
Dropping his long rangy body into his chair, Dylan muttered again, “Shit,” as he stared up at the ceiling. How long was he going to have to crawl to get them back on even keel? To get her to understand that he needed her to be safe? Damn it, she just didn’t understand how dangerous this could be. Her life hadn’t prepared her for any of this.
And what was it going to take for him to come to grips with that fact that he couldn’t leave her out of this part? He couldn’t.
Dylan was trying to work himself into leaving and seeking her out when the door swung open and Shawn walk in, whistling tunelessly and cheerfully, his pale green eyes youthful, cheerful, direct as always. Scowling, Dylan settled back. “What the hell are you doing here? Don’t you have some men to boss around, little brother?”
“Vacation. Wanted to check in on my big brother. See if you needed any help with your pretty girlfriend,” Shawn teased, waggling his eyebrows. Skimming the office with a quick glance, he added, “I talked to Nikki a few minutes ago. She seems to think there is trouble in paradise. Las
t I heard, you were foaming at the mouth because she talked to a grandma and got some information that you didn’t. The rebel. That old lady must have been real dangerous to get you into such a mood.”
Dylan’s brows dropped in a scowl. Fuck. Was it that noticeable? Shawn wasn’t even around and he knew how damned bad it was. “She’s at home sulking because I don’t want her following me when I go around questioning the prime suspects,” Dylan said flatly.
“Surprised she didn’t kick your ass. Especially if that’s how you told her.”
Dylan briefly recalled how she had thrown his hands off her, slamming that powerful elbow into his solar plexus, evading his hands and sliding away like smoke in the wind. Easily, quickly, before he had even a clue what she was up to. Kick his ass? No. That wasn’t likely. But the average guy? She damned well might have a chance at laying somebody out long enough to get away, though. Guys didn’t expect a woman to know how to fight.
“I didn’t say a damn thing to her,” Dylan said, lifting one shoulder and dismissing his smart-assed brother.
Or trying too.
Shawn on the other hand…Dylan suppressed a groan as Shawn flung himself into a chair across from Dylan’s desk, chuckling. “She faced you down on it, didn’t she? And you weren’t expecting it. Dylan, that is one lady I wouldn’t worry about. Hell, she’d probably freeze a guy in his tracks and chop him down to size with that tongue for daring to look at her wrong. And if he laid hands on her, well, then she knows how to break them, too. Kris isn’t helpless.”
So I’m learning, Dylan thought evilly. But he’d be damned if he’d take advice from his baby brother. No fricking way. “Why don’t you go jack off or something?”
Shawn smiled slowly. “Don’t need to. Spent the night with a pretty little waitress. So feel free to unload all your lady troubles on me,” he drawled, kicking his black boots up on top of the edge of the oak desk, a pleasant smile on his smug face. His hair, longer than Dylan’s, tumbled into his eyes, dreamy pale green eyes that no longer looked so grim and dull. Dimples still lingered in his cheeks, though Dylan suspected in the next few years they would deepened to slashes like those Dylan now sported. It would take a while longer for Shawn’s newness to wear off of him.
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