Dark Secret

by Avelyn Paige

  “He’s a kid, Wyatt.” I can see the uncertainty on her face. A mother never wants to see harm come to any child. But a mother would also rain down hell to find her own child if they’re in danger.

  “A kid who watched our daughter get thrown into a van against her will and did absolutely nothing to stop it. He’s not innocent.”

  “He’s still a kid,” she cries. “Maybe he can help us. Maybe he’s innocent.”

  Innocent? “Let’s just see what he has to say when we roll up to his house.”

  Shelby looks down at her hands, picking at her fingernails. “Do you think you’ll have to hurt him?”

  “I honestly don’t know, Shel. This boy isn’t just some kid, as you keep saying. He lost the right to play the kid card when he lied to me about how he got her phone.” She nods, but doesn’t look up from her fingers.

  “Do what you have to do.” She crosses her arms tightly against her chest, and it takes a hero’s effort not to glance down at her ample cleavage. Jesus, Hash. This is not the time.

  “We’re gonna find her, Shel. And it’s not like we’re going into this kid’s house, guns blazing. We aren’t heartless bastards. We won’t hurt him unless we have to.”

  Shelby mulls that over before finally nodding.

  My computer beeps from behind me. “Got something,” I declare as the screen pops up with a list of results from the search. With a click of the mouse, I switch over to the maps function. No street view. Pulling up another window, I type in the address on a realtor site. Nothing. We’ll have to go in blind.

  “Fuck, is that Martinsville?” Judge presses a finger to the screen. Shit, he’s right. The kid lives on the outskirts of Martinsville, one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the city.

  “Why is Martinsville bad?” Shelby asks at nearly a whisper.

  Back before the recession, it was the heart of manufacturing in Austin. When the market tanked, all the factories closed up shop or moved overseas, leaving the people who depended on them in the area jobless, and some homeless. Things had only gotten worse as the years went on, with violence and trafficking moving in as the factories moved out. The club had been trying for years to help stop the routes these guys used to move women in and out, but never had much luck. Without an in, anything we did went nowhere. Now my daughter could be in the thick of it.

  The look on Judge’s face confirms what I already know is true. Martinsville is known for trafficking young girls. Hayden was taken for a purpose. Trafficking always needs younger, fresher blood, and she ticks off the checklist. She may not have even realized they were grooming her to be taken until it was too late.

  The last bit causes bile to rise up my throat. Trafficking rings move girls around like pawns on a chess board. She may not even be there anymore. We have to move fast.

  Ignoring the fear on Shelby’s face, I attempt to remain professional about the whole shitty situation. “How do you want to do this, Judge? Getting in there unnoticed isn’t going to be easy.”

  He considers our options. “We need to get eyes on this place without drawing attention.”

  Chewing on my lower lip, an idea pops into my head. “Why don’t we send Priest in one of the club girls’ cars?”

  Shelby stands there silently, watching us lay out a potential battle plan. Her eyes fall to the ground and stay there. She’s scared.

  “It’s risky. If it’s a big operation, they’ll have eyes out. “

  “Single guy driving through the thick of Martinsville looking to score won’t draw any attention.”

  “That’s true,” Judge hesitantly agrees. “I’ll get Missy to loan him her Grand Am. He’ll slip in, get eyes on the place, and report back. We’ll take a couple of the work trucks and follow him, and we’ll decide from there how we want to play it. I’ll get the ball rolling. Wheels moving in fifteen.” Judge stalks out of the room, leaving Shelby and I alone.

  I push out of my chair and stand next to her. Everything inside of me wants to reach out and embrace her. I know she’s scared. Fuck, I am too, but we have to stay strong for our daughter. Falling apart when we’re this close isn’t going to bring her back any faster.

  “Do you think she’s really there?”

  “I don’t know if she is or isn’t, but this kid…” Snagging the ID from my keyboard, I show it to her again before slipping it back into my pocket. “He’s the last person we know of who saw her. We find him, we get our best shot at finding her.”

  Shelby places her hand on my arm and locks her gaze on mine. “I saw the way you looked at Judge. What aren’t you telling me?”

  She deserves to know of my suspicions of why Hayden was taken, but that knowledge comes with an entirely new set of heartbreak. With a sigh, I make my decision.

  “The last few years, there’s been a route of human trafficking going right through Martinsville. The club has tried to cut it off, but they always start right back up again.” The words taste foul on my tongue.

  “Oh my God, Wyatt. You don’t think...?”

  “I don’t know. But honestly, the way she was taken, and knowing where that asshole kid is from, it’s not a possibility we can rule out.”

  “No, not my daughter. It’s not possible. I refuse to believe that!”

  “I don’t want to consider it either, but everything points in that direction. The sooner we find her, the better. Traffickers usually stash the girls for a few days before moving them out. There’s still time.”

  “What if we… don’t?” she sobs, a line of glistening tears streaming down her face. I reach out my hand, and with a gentle swipe, wipe them from her face. Her skin feels so soft under my touch. She leans into my hand, allowing me to touch her for the first time since she came back.

  “I promise you, come hell or high water, I will find her.”

  “Trucks are loaded up. Judge is ready to roll,” Karma informs me from the door, and then disappears just as quickly as he arrived.

  I turn back toward my desk and open the top drawer, retrieving my handgun from its resting place. Stowing it in the back of my jeans, I say, “I made you a promise, and I intend to keep it.” I walk out of the room, leaving her there with the knowledge of the fate our daughter could be facing, and no means to anything herself. It eats at me with every step I take as I make my way outside.

  I reach for the passenger side door when I notice GP’s eyes trailing over to the door behind me. I turn to see what he’s looking at, and find Shelby heading toward me.

  “Where the hell do you think you’re going?” I bark as she slips past me and opens the truck door.

  “With you.”

  “The fuck you are. You need to stay here where it’s safe,” I fire back, closing the door on her.

  “I don’t care what you think. I’m going in this truck or following behind you in my car. Your call.” You have got to be shitting me right now. We have no idea what we’re walking in to. Fuck. Judge is going to have my ass later for this, but I’m left here with little choice. We’ve got to get a move on.

  “Get in,” I growl, opening the door. GP scowls as Shelby jumps up and into the front cab, settling into the middle seat. Climbing in after her, I close the door.

  “The fuck she doing here?” Stone Face complains from the back seat. “Ain’t no place for a woman.”

  “Try telling her that,” I respond. “Let’s just go find this kid and get back before Judge realizes she’s with us.” I shift back into my seat as GP takes the truck out of park and heads south.

  Martinsville is about a fifteen-minute drive without traffic, and tonight, it figures everyone’s out on the fucking road. We barely make it a mile before we come to a full stop. GP stews behind the wheel.

  Shelby’s knee bounces anxiously next to mine. If she only knew the fury swirling around inside of me. One of my foster fathers used to tell me that I was like a duck on a pond. On the surface, it seemed as if I was still and calm, though under it, I was a raging storm of feet, kicking and fighting to stay a
float. It wasn’t until today that I understand what he meant. Compared to Shelby, my demure is even keel.

  It takes another forty minutes before we finally make it to the right exit. As we do, my cell phone rings.

  “Yeah.”

  “Priest called. He made it to the address,” Judge declares.

  “What’s the situation?”

  “Place is burned to the ground, and still smoking. I’m sorry, Hash, but there’s nothing left there.”

  My fingers pinch the bridge of my nose. Fuck. And just like that, we’re back to square one, and no closer to finding Hayden.

  Shelby

  “What now?” I ask, tamping down my fear as I follow Wyatt down the hall and into his room.

  “I don’t fucking know!” he shouts, his hands flying up as he whirls around to face me. “I don’t fucking know what to do here. I’m off my game. You might not know this, Shelby, but finding people is kind of my thing. I can find anyone online, but I can’t find my own fucking kid.”

  His frustration does nothing to make me feel better. In fact, it scares the holy hell out of me. I’d come to Wyatt because he was the only person on God’s green earth I knew would find my baby girl. But he hasn’t done that, and now it sounds like he’s giving up.

  “I’ll pay you,” I blurt out without thinking.

  Wyatt’s face twists with confusion. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “I don’t have much, but I can find the money. Whatever you need, I’ll pay you. Just find my daughter.” Tears pour down my cheeks like waterfalls as the panic I’m feeling builds. But Wyatt changes everything with his reply.

  “Fuck you, Shelby. Fuck you. Fuck Kasey. Fuck your goddamn offer to pay me.” I gape up at him as he places his nose a couple of inches from mine. “In case you’ve forgotten, Hayden is my fucking daughter too. I’m not some hired tech nerd you can pay to track her down. I’m her fucking father. Not that you’ve made it possible for me to have a relationship with her.”

  With every word he spews at me, I shrink farther and farther away. “I’ll find Hayden, but not because you paid me. I’ll find her because she’s my fucking blood.” He shakes his head in disbelief and steps back, his angry eyes looking me up and down. “Who have you become, Shel? You may look pretty much the same, but I don’t even recognize you.”

  “You’re right,” I whisper, realizing the truth of those words as I speak them. “I’ve fucked it up. I ruined what you could have had with Hayden. But you aren’t innocent in this, Wyatt.” I straighten my spine and look him dead in the eyes, finally ready to confront him about the pain he’d caused me in this very room all those years ago. “You chose being a slut over me. I thought we were going to be together forever. I thought we were going to be a family.”

  His eyes narrow. “What the fuck are you talking about, woman? You never gave me a goddamn chance to choose anything.”

  Heat washes over me as my anger reaches its breaking point. I shove past him and point toward the bed in the center of the room. “I’m talking about the night you were patched in! I’m talking about the two bimbos you had in that very bed, catching God knows how many diseases.”

  His eyebrows furrow. “What bimbos? What are you fucking saying?” He sounds so sincere, I almost believe him.

  “I was here that night, Wyatt. I showed up to your little party and went looking for you. One of the guys told me which room was yours, and when I came down the hall, I saw you. I saw you fucking Sasha and Layla in this very room, in this bed.” My body trembles with buried emotions. “You fucking broke us that night, you know. I was coming to tell you I was pregnant. I was so scared to tell you, and then…” I shake my head. “You just fucking broke us.”

  “I broke us?” he snarls. “I didn’t fuck anybody that night. Ask Judge. Ask GP. They’ll all tell you the same fucking thing. I was going to propose to you that night, but you never showed up.”

  Before I can stop myself, I shove him with all my might. “You’re lying! Stop fucking lying! You ruined everything. You ruined me!”

  “Shelby,” he intones, his voice softer now, more soothing. “I’ve never lied to you, not once since I met you back when we were kids. Whoever you saw in this bed wasn’t me.”

  I search for the memory of that night and mentally blow off the cobwebs. It was so long ago now. Is he telling the truth? Was it someone else?

  That bitch.

  Sasha’s back was to me as she rode the man lying on the bed. Layla was facing me, up near the headboard, riding his face. When she saw me, she looked pleased with herself.

  I’d never actually seen the man’s face, as she was on it. The only part of him I saw was his legs and feet. It could have been anyone.

  “Layla and Sasha,” I whisper. “They were in your bed, riding you.”

  “It wasn’t me.”

  “Layla saw me. She made a show of it, smiling at me, like I caught you cheating on me with them. She was happy about it.”

  “Shel, it wasn’t me. The second I realized you weren’t here, I went looking for you. I went to Kasey’s, and even your dad’s. Fucker gave me a shiner when I tried to go inside to find you.”

  I look into his eyes and see the sincerity in them. It wasn’t him. I step away from him.

  “Oh, God,” I sob, clapping my hand over my mouth.

  I’d abandoned him that night. I’d taken off and never looked back. I’d kept his daughter from him.

  “Shelby,” Wyatt calls, pulling me back to the present. “Please tell me you didn’t keep my daughter a secret from me for all these years because of some fucked-up assumption you made.”

  I pull in a deep breath, hoping to keep the tears from falling. I’ve never cried as much as I have in the past few days. “I’m so sorry, Wyatt.”

  “You’re sorry?” he screams. “You’re fucking sorry? You left me! You fucking walked out on me without a word, all because of a fucking misunderstanding, and you’re fucking sorry?”

  Any hope I had of keeping my tears at bay disappear at the tone of his voice. His face is red, his eyes full of rage. Violent sobs rip from my throat.

  Placing his hands on my arms, he gives me a gentle shake. “You destroyed me.”

  I don’t know what else to say. “I’m sorry.”

  He presses his forehead to mine, his shaky breath fanning across my tear-soaked cheeks. “You fucking gutted me.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You left me.” His lips barely graze mine, but that simple touch is like lighting a torch. The darkness of my mistake, and the pain of what I’d done, disappears in an instant.

  I pop up on the tips of my toes and reach up, spearing my fingers into the short hairs at the back of his neck. My lips peck tentatively at his once, twice, and then a third time.

  And that’s all it takes. Before I know what’s happening, my legs are wrapping around his waist, his hands gripping my ass, pulling me closer. Our kiss is fierce and hot, passionate and punishing, and it captures the breath from my lungs.

  My heart races out of control as he walks me backward and toward the bed. My back hits the mattress with a soft bounce, and I can’t look away as he whisks off his shirt.

  The years have been kind to Wyatt. He’s thicker, more muscular and toned. His face is more manly, yet somehow more handsome than when we were kids. He’s even better than what I remember.

  “Take off your pants, Shel,” he orders, his voice husky.

  Lifting my ass, I wiggle out of my skinny jeans, my gaze never leaving his as he strips out of his own pants. Just as I’m about to peel off my shirt, I pause.

  The last time Wyatt had seen me naked, I was so young. Since then, I've had a kid of my own. I have stretch marks, and my breasts aren’t nearly as perky as they used to be. What the hell are we doing?

  I need to call this whole thing off. It’s stupid. We shouldn’t be doing this. “Wyatt…”

  His face twists in anger as his hands shoot out to grasp the hem of my shirt. “Take it of
f.”

  “No, this isn’t—”

  “I need you, Shel. I need you so fucking bad.”

  That’s all I need to hear, because fuck me, I need him too.

  Lifting my arms, I hold his gaze as he pulls my shirt up and over my head. He takes me in before leaning forward, staring directly into my eyes as he presses a kiss to one nipple, and then the other.

  He stands back, and I see his cock ready for me. I want it more than I’ve ever wanted anything.

  “You’re still so fucking gorgeous, Shel. That hasn’t changed.”

  I moan, rolling my hips when he drags a finger through my center, collecting the moisture and placing it in his mouth. His eyes fall closed. “God, I’ve missed the way you taste.”

  Need claws at me from the inside out. I need him inside of me. I need him to fill me. I need to feel at one with him.

  “Please, Wyatt,” I beg.

  “All these years,” he says, crawling lower, his face just inches from my sex. “All these years, I’ve been with different women, but not one of them have ever mattered.” He kisses my clit once, twice, and then thrusts his tongue out, pressing hard, dragging it along my slit, hitting every nerve.

  I can hardly breathe. Frozen, I pop up onto my elbows and watch every movement he makes.

  “They never mattered because they weren’t you. This pussy here?” He sucks my clit, flicking his tongue back and forth, sending lightning bolts of pleasure throughout my body. “This pussy owns me. Always has, always will.”

  I moan, grinding my hips against his face. I can’t tear my eyes away as he licks and sucks, driving me closer to the edge than I’ve ever been before.

  “Please,” I beg.

  “So good.” Burying his face deeper, his tongue moves faster.

  My release hits me like a ton of bricks, coming on hard and fast, making me tremble with pleasure.

  “God, Wyatt,” I gasp.

  His tongue begins to slow. Though my release was incredible, I need him to fill me.