Seeking Salvation: A Shadow Elite Novel

Chapter 5

Maya was sittingacross the room in his favourite chair, picking at her fingernails, tearing the skin around the cuticles as her inner turmoil reached for the surface. She was surrounded by members of Shadow, and Titan fought the urge to go to her and run his fingers over her delicate neck to soothe her.

What the hell had he been thinking, saying those things to her? Yes, she was attractive. More than that, she was fucking beautiful and alluring in a way that seemed to scramble his brain, but she was also his son’s aunt and she needed his help. What sort of shit heel went after a woman when her defences were down? Oh, yeah, a shit heel that had no clue he was a father and allowed the mother of his son to be murdered.

“So, let me be the first to say that, while you don’t know us, Maya, we’re on your side.”

Titan watched Maya’s eyes widen slightly at Bás’ announcement before her shoulders relaxed a little. Pushing off the wall where he had taken up sentry, he moved so that he could sit on the arm of the chair she was occupying. Her head tilted up to him as he took her hands and stopped the self-mutilation. She stilled instantly and offered him the smallest smile before turning her attention to Bás and withdrawing her hands.

“Thank you for saying that, and for being so kind, but I really don’t want to endanger anyone here. These people…”

“These people are low-level thugs with a combined IQ of a turnip. They are, however, the scum of the earth and need destroying immediately.” All eyes turned to Watchdog in the corner, who’d slipped in beside Reaper.

Maya stiffened and he placed a hand on her shoulder in support. “How about we introduce ourselves first so that Maya doesn’t feel quite so intimidated when you make announcements like that?”

Watchdog shrugged, and Titan felt a ripple of loss for the friend who hadn’t been the same since he’d been kidnapped and tortured in Africa.

Nudging Maya so she looked at him, he went around the room and introduced the team members that had showed up at his house uninvited.

“Bás is in charge. Then we have his better half, Valentina.”

Bás winked at Val. “Won’t get any arguments from me there.”

“Oh, will you please stop with the mushy stuff?” Reaper groaned.

Titan laughed. “That grump is Reaper. His fiancée is away and it’s making him more of an asshole than usual.”

“Fuck off, Titan.” He flashed the middle finger and then turned an easy smile on Maya. “Maya, it’s a pleasure to meet you. Please don’t listen to a word these assholes say.”

“You’re engaged to Princess Lucía, right?”

Reaper grinned wide, a silly look passing over his face. “Yeah, that’s me.”

“How on earth did an Australian soldier end up with a Spanish Princess?”

“Oh, that’s a whole other story that I’ll be happy to tell you another time, Maya.”

Titan rolled his eyes and carried on with the introductions. “Snow you’ve met, and beside her is Bishop.”

Maya blinked and blew out a breath. “Do any of you have normal names?”

Titan huffed a laugh. “We do, but I guess we use the nicknames for work so often it sticks in real life too.”

“Makes sense when you’re off saving people from the side of a mountain to use call signs like the military, I guess.”

“Exactly, and some of us are ex-military.”

Maya looked up at him, leaning her body closer, her scent invading his nose, something sweet and summery.

“Are you ex-military? You have that vibe.”

“No, my background is a little more complicated.”

“So, how can you help me?”

“Why don’t you start by telling us everything you know. Starting from Rose’s involvement and why you don’t think you can just run.”

“Fine, but can I check on Tyrique first?”

Titan glanced at the monitor Watchdog had set up the moment he arrived and could see the baby was safe and fast asleep but he also understood Maya might need a minute. “Sure, we’ll wait here.”

He watched her rush from the room, stifling the urge to go after her, before turning back to the room and finding all eyes on him, with Snow and Val grinning like idiots.

Val clapped her hands together. “I like her.”

Bás rolled his eyes. “Val, do not start matchmaking. He only just met her.”

Val waved her husband away. “Nonsense. Look at him. He likes her.”

“She’s hot. Smart too. Got a first in her degree and her IQ is Mensa level,” Watchdog added without so much as a flicker of emotion on his face.

“Will you lot shut up? She’ll hear you and I want her to feel safe, not like she’s been thrust into some freak version of The Bachelor.”

“Clearly you do not watch The Bachelor, because that isn’t how it works at all.”

Bás turned to Val, his eyebrows in his hairline. “You watch that show?”

“Of course. When you’re working late or watching some boring crap about how a door knob is made.”

“I thought you liked those shows.”

It was comical how offended Bás looked as Val dissed his favourite show.

Val patted his arm. “I don’t mind the odd one but after the first two or three, it gets boring.”

“So that’s where you disappear to? To watch dating shows?”

“Well, duh.” Snow shook her head, laughter on her lips.

“I prefer Married at First Sight.” Reaper piped up.

Titan was sure he’d entered an alternate realm. “Can we get back to the conversation at hand?”

“Oh, yeah. You like Maya.” Snow rubbed her hands together like a Bond villain, and Titan groaned.

“I do not like Maya.”

Bás winced and Titan turned around with dread in his veins knowing exactly what he’d find.

Maya looked wounded in a way that made his chest tight and he moved to her, his hand outstretched but she backed up, bumping into the door.

“Maya, wait.”

She was shaking her head as she headed into the kitchen and started to gather her bag and coat. “It’s fine, I get it. I’m particularly annoying. I’ve always known it and I did turn your life upside down.”

Titan sighed in frustration as she prattled on in this self-attack mode, which he recognised as a defence to the hurt he’d caused.

He grasped her biceps, stilling her movements. “Stop.”

Her eyes were down, her shoulders seemingly weighed low and he hated that he’d added to that with his careless words. “I didn’t mean it that way. I was just annoyed because those assholes are playing matchmaker.”

Her head lifted and he saw countless emotions swimming in her soulful brown eyes. He stepped in closer until he was chest-to-chest with her, the warmth of her body making him want to feel her soft skin against his own.

“And you don’t like me that way. I get it.”

“No, Maya. I’m so fucking attracted to you it’s driving me crazy. We just met this morning and I have this overwhelming desire to shut out the world to everyone but you and worship every inch of you.”

“Oh.” Her voice was a squeak, making him grin.

“Yeah, oh. But I know we need to focus on getting you and Tyrique safe, so I denied it.”

“I’m not sure we’ll ever be safe.”

“Why haven’t you run? You got this far, why didn’t you just keep going?”

“Because they told me if I run they’ll hurt the girls I work with.” She shrugged. “Plus you need cash to run and they already stole every penny I have. I can’t run like that with a child and I won’t let those girls get hurt because of me.”

Titan felt his skin prickle, a wave of anger burning under his skin at what she’d endured and was ready to endure to keep others safe. “So you were just going to go back?”

“The girls they have working for them are barely out of school. I can’t have that on my conscience.”

The look she was giving him implored him to understand and he did, to some extent. “Where do they think you are now?”

“I puked on the shoes of the douchbag who runs the girls and he sent me home, thinking I’m sick. Told me not to come back until I stopped. Apparently, he’s happy to murder someone but a little vomit makes him squeamish.”

His brow furrowed at the lengths she’d had to go to alone. “How did you make yourself sick?”

“I bent so he couldn’t see and put my fingers down my throat.”

“Smart girl.”

Maya snorted. “Not smart enough it seems.”

Titan cupped his hand around the back of her neck and forced her chin up with his thumb. “Plenty smart. You found me, didn’t you?”

Her eyes twinkled like he’d hoped and she rolled her eyes at him and a growl rumbled in his chest. The air stilled between them and Maya bit down on her lip as her eyes widened, remembering his words from earlier.

A thick dense fog of desire slammed into him, his dick hardening to steel in his jeans and it took everything he had not to lean in and kiss her like he wanted to. She’d let him too. He could see it in the way her gaze traced his lips, feel it in the way her body swayed just a fraction into his hold.

“Will you two hurry up! I have places to be.”

The sound of Watchdog’s irritated voice snapped the invisible shield surrounding them and Maya jumped back guiltily.

Titan held out his hand for her to proceed him into the living room and he took the moment to adjust himself, his aching cock unimpressed by this turn of events.

Maya took the same seat and he leaned against the door, folding his arms.

“Maya, would you like to tell us everything?”

He watched as Maya pulled her shoulders back and lifted her head high, and felt pride swim through his veins.

“Rose was my younger sister and a bit of a wild child. She wasn’t malicious. If anything, she was the opposite. She believed everything she was told and, if there was trouble in a ten-mile radius, she’d find it. She fell in with a bad crowd when we were younger and got herself hooked on heroin. I got her clean and she was working in a nail salon and seemed to be getting her life together.”

Maya rolled her lips to hide the tremble and Val reached across to squeeze her hand. Maya blinked in surprise but squeezed back and Titan hated how shocked she was by a simple kindness.

“She met you when she was the best she’d been. Her life was going so well and then she found out she was pregnant and she was so excited. I can honestly say I hadn’t ever seen her happier. She adored Tyrique from the second she knew about him. She got her own flat and life was good. Then an old friend of hers moved into the building and they re-connected. I was worried sick she’d relapse into her old ways but she promised me she wouldn’t.” Maya shook her head, her shoulders heaving a sigh. “I was silly to believe her.”

“No, you weren’t. We always want to believe the best, it’s human nature. Unfortunately, it’s also human nature to self-destruct. Humans have gotten so emotional that, unless we evolve, we won’t survive.”

Titan’s gaze flew to Watchdog in surprise. It was the deepest thing he’d said in a good while.

“You really think that?”

Watchdog nodded. “I saw a study which suggests that the increasing diagnoses of neurodivergence are actually an early sign of human evolution.”

“Wow, okay.”

Snow tapped her watch. “Can we focus, please, and have the science lesson later?”

“Yeah, go on, Maya,” Reaper encouraged, casting a side eye at Watchdog, who’d gone back to typing on his laptop.

Their friend was getting worse, not better, and everyone was worried sick about him but, for now, Maya and Tyrique needed his focus.

“Well, she was fine until Tyrique was born. Don’t get me wrong, she loved him and she was a good mum, but having a baby is hard work and she struggled with sleepless nights. I tried to stay as long as I could after he was born, but my company wouldn’t let me take any more leave. I thought she was fine. We talked every day on the phone, but I could tell after the second week that she was using again even though she denied it. She began to make excuses as to why she couldn’t FaceTime me because she knew I’d see it on her face. I urged her to contact Tyrique’s father and she said she had, and he didn’t want to know. I had no reason to think she’d lie about that, but she clearly did.”

Maya gave Titan an apologetic look and he tried to reassure her that he wasn’t mad about that with a wink.

“I’d just decided to quit my job and move in with her to help when I got the call that she had died.”

“What did the police say about her apparent suicide?”

“They tried to tell me that she cut herself in the bath, but I know my sister and she hated the sight of blood. If she’d really meant to kill herself, she would’ve taken something. She never would’ve done that and she wouldn’t have done it with Tyrique in the house with her.”

“My son was there?” Titan felt his belly coil with anger that his son had been put in that position.

Maya nodded. “Yes, which is why I’m certain she didn’t do this.”

“So, the police ruled it a suicide and then these thugs turned up?”

“Yes, they said Rose owed them money and now she was dead I’d be paying her debt.”

Snow pursed her lips in thought. “But why kill her? Why not make her work off the debt?”

Titan caught her eye and nodded. “I was thinking the same thing.”

Maya shrugged. “I don’t know, but I do know they’re into some nasty shit. A few of the girls have disappeared from the club and I was sure they were dead, but then they were back a few days later looking sick and moving like they’d been hurt.”

“They could be pimping them out and the Johns are getting rough?” Bishop ground his jaw as he spoke through his teeth.

Maya shook her head. “I don’t know. They wouldn’t talk about it.”

“Did any of them know Rose?” Val asked kindly.

Maya shook her head, her dark curls moving about her shoulders. “Not that I know, but I haven’t exactly been trying to make friends.”

“Watchdog, can you get us some names if Maya gives you the name of the club?”

“Already got them. That’s why I know they’re just thugs.”

“We’ll fix this. I promise.”

“Titan’s right. We won’t let this go. We’ll take them down.”

Maya turned to Snow as she spoke. “Who are you people?”

“We help people, and we have specific skill sets that allows us to do that.”

Maya seemed to battle some internal struggle before eventually nodding. “Okay, what now?”

“Now we eat and then we plan.”

As a unit, his friends stood and began to file out of the room, and he got up to see them out, giving Maya a few moments to process it all.

At the door, Bás stopped. “We’ll have a plan in place by morning. You just take care of your family tonight.”

Instinctively he went to deny she was his family but the truth was she was, and he felt it on a subliminal level. From the second she’d opened the door at the hotel earlier that morning he’d felt a connection he couldn’t explain. Was that family? It was different to how he felt about his team and he knew he’d die for them but Maya and Tyrique had, in the space of twelve hours, superseded all of them.

“I will.”

He closed the door feeling shaken by the revelation but there wasn’t time to wallow as his son let out a loud cry.