55. Emery #3
So, I searched through every news article and report I could find. Sifted through every crime there was, whether it seemed like it could be related to us or not.
Most of all, I searched for the emblem on that vest.
Iron Owls.
A violent MC out of Los Angeles.
God, I must have had a death wish because after almost a year had passed, I went there.
Do you remember when I said I was going out to visit a couple of colleges?
You were terrified for me and begged me not to go.
I knew then that I couldn’t let you in on what I was doing. It would have been too hard for you.
I went to the area where the Iron Owls were known to hang out. In the seediest, scariest parts of Los Angeles. Most everyone I tried to talk to were tight-lipped. Except for a single bartender at a dive bar that I normally would never chance going into.
“I can’t believe she went alone.”
“She was a fighter, too,” Kane whispered.
Swallowing hard, I turned back to her tablet.
He told me their president had been killed, and the members of the MC had scattered.
But that bartender? He was the break I needed. He knew a bunch of their names and gave them to me willingly. With a shrug of his shoulder. Though he told me he doubted that I was going to find any of them since they all had disappeared months before and no one had a clue where they’d gone.
I wasn’t deterred. I searched every name associated with Iron Owls that he’d given me until I finally found one that might have matched the face I remembered.
A mug shot from an arrest for petty theft when he was nineteen.
Kane Asher. Except just like that bartender had told me, the man had disappeared. There was no trace of him anywhere. No known address or social media or a mention of his existence.
I basically gave up hope on finding him, which meant I gave up hope on finding Jana. That sinking acceptance only grew as the years passed.
There was no question she was gone.
Forever.
So, I tried to move on and live. Tried to get you—my sweet, beautiful sister—to move on with me. Only you were stuck there, in that time, too traumatized to move forward with our dreams.
And my store, or our store, which is the way I’ll always consider it, was a testament to that. Moving on. Living when we’d been given another chance to.
I’d grown almost content with it.
At least coming to a concession that I was going to have to live with the loss.
Until years later, when I was on vacation with my friends at a ski resort in Northern California. In a town called Moonlit Ridge.
There was a club there called Kane’s. I’d laughed at myself when I got a buzz of anticipation. That feeling of desperation I’d felt to find Jana coming back at me in a torrent of sensation. I told myself I was being ridiculous. It was just a name.
Except, it wasn’t just a name.
I saw him.
I saw him across the club.
It was him. I’d never been so sure of anything in my life.
I felt Kane flinch as he was taken to this point in time, both our hearts drumming as we prepared ourselves for what she would reveal.
There was something so inherently dangerous about him. The way he moved. The glint of something menacing when he grinned.
Maybe I’d been an idiot. Sidling up to his side to flirt with him. Giving him only half my name. But I thought it was the only way I might be able to get to know him. To see if he was as wicked as he looked or if he had any of the goodness I’d sworn he’d exhibited that night.
Honestly, I was terrified that I had made it all up. That maybe my consciousness had turned a beast into a savior as a way to protect my heart and mind.
But what had compelled me forward was the idea that he might have information on Jana. Even if he knew she was gone, at least we’d have closure.
So I slept with him as a means to an end.
Not that he wasn’t gorgeous. But it wasn’t attraction that had brought me to him. It was the desperation to get close enough to him that I could find something.
Except, the man was a fortified fortress. A wall of secrets and easy grins.
I finally found myself alone in his office, so I searched for…anything.
I would never forget the chill that filled the room when he found me doing it. The steely rage that had emanated from him.
I wanted to blurt it. Tell him why I was really there, and a vacation fling wasn’t it. But I still wasn’t sure that I trusted him enough to do it.
Turmoil spun through Kane, and he held me closer as he released his regret. “I remember that. I found her hunting around in my office. It instantly put me on guard, and I kicked her out. Told her to never come back.”
“You didn’t know,” I whispered.
“But I should’ve looked closer. Should have given her a chance to explain.”
“I’m not sure she would have if she wasn’t confident about who you were.”
Which we both knew he wouldn’t have given her since he couldn’t let anyone in.
No one until me.
And then, when I found out I was pregnant, everything changed. My goals. The reason I was living. I thought to go to him and tell him, but I still wasn’t sure. Wasn’t sure that he could be trusted. I should have left it at that. Went on and just cherished the gift I’d been given.
But every time there was a report of another young girl going missing? I couldn’t stop the clutch of my stomach. This sickness that I’d feel at the thought of someone else going through what we had. No way to stop myself from imagining the things that Jana must have suffered.
And then there were three college girls who went missing from an off-campus party in Los Angeles, and I looked at my little girl and thought…what if it was her?
What if it was her?
I asked you to watch Maci for a few days while I went to LA. You thought I was meeting with designers for a new clothing line I wanted to bring into the boutique.
But I was hunting. Hunting for any clue. The scenario that had been reported by the media was so close to what we’d been through that I couldn’t help but believe it was related.
That one of the monsters we’d been saved from was back. I don’t know if it was fate or horrible bad luck. But I found him. I found the guy in the same seedy bar in LA.
I found the one guy who I remembered most distinctly.
Our tormenter for those three days. The one they called Tyke.
I immediately went to the police and told them I found the man who’d been responsible. They said they would look into it, but nothing has come of it.
Except I’m being followed. I know I am.
Desperate, I told you I needed you to watch Maci again because I had another work trip to LA, but I went back to Moonlit Ridge and watched Kane from a distance .
“She was here.” Kane’s grating voice drew me from my sister’s words. “Fuck, she was here. She came for my help.”
I couldn’t respond, could only gulp around the sorrow before I continued reading.
I saw him with a little boy. A child I found out was his nephew.
And I think I knew then that he was a good man. But I hadn’t quite discovered what that really meant.
I tried to get up the nerve to talk to him, and I went in and sat at the bar at the club he owned.
There was a bartender. Her name was Mallory.
She kept watching me strangely, chatting with me a little before she leaned over the bar top and asked if I was in trouble.
She said I couldn’t be in a better place if I was.
There was something inside me that twisted with the way she said it, and I knew I was on to something. So, I told her I was. She was hesitant. Swearing me to secrecy. Saying the hope of so many was riding on it.
She told me about Kane’s secret group called Sovereign Sanctum.
These men who would help me. It was something they did in the shadows.
Behind the scenes. I don’t know all the details yet.
I couldn’t find it on the internet. But I think it means that he will help us.
That he has the power and the will to do it.
I tried to get up the nerve to go and talk to him right then, but I lost it at the last minute.
I have to go back. Ask him for help before it’s too late. So, I took the bracelet. You know the one. You thought I didn’t know, but I knew you kept it hidden at the bottom of your drawer for all these years.
I don’t know how you got it, but I saw him wearing it that night, and I believe he will know exactly who I am when I show it to him.
I know what it represents to you.
Those horrible three days .
Everything we lost.
Our innocence.
Our belief.
Jana.
But to me, it’s come to mean something else.
I’m sorry. I’ll give it back. I promise. But I need to do this first. I have to face him, demand to know his involvement, beg him for help.
But if something happens to me and I can’t get to him, Emery, I think maybe you can.
I left the letter for you to go to him, and I have faith that once you meet him, you will discover what’s happening and get into this folder. I couldn’t leave this out in the open for someone else to find it.
Understand now why I wrote you that first letter for you to go to him. Why I believe he’s the best thing for Maci.
He’ll take care of her.
I believe he’ll take care of all of us.
Take this folder to him and give him the information. It has Tyke’s address plus pictures of the places in LA and Seattle I believe he is using to smuggle girls. Kane will know what to do with the information.
I believe it. I trust it.
I’m so sorry I did it this way. I wanted to protect you. Make right what had gone so terribly wrong. Bring back your heart and your belief.
I hope you know through it, I would do anything for you. For you and Maci. And for Jana.
I love you forever, my sweet twin. Be strong. Be wise. Be free. Don’t be afraid of love. I can feel it waiting for you. All around you. And no matter what, know I will always, always be with you. No matter where I go.
Emmale e
A deluge of tears streaked down my face, my throat nearly closing off from the grief.
“Why didn’t she tell me?” A sob wracked from my body.
Years. She’d spent years knowing all of this and didn’t tell me.
Strong arms curled tighter, and Kane rocked me, that soothing voice whispering, “I don’t know. I don’t know. But I know that everything she did was because she loved you. Because she loved all of you so much. She was a fighter, too, Emery. A beautiful fighter, just like you.”
My head shook. “I wasn’t brave.”
I hid myself away.
Kane released a haggard breath, and he shifted me around to straddle his lap.
With his index finger, he tipped up my chin. “You fought when it was your time. When you had that little girl who needed you. You stepped up and you protected her. That’s brave, Emery. When you’re terrified to do something, but you do it anyway because you know it’s the right thing to do.”
Sadness tugged through his striking, harsh features.
Emerald eyes awash in pain. “We both have massive regrets, and I wish I could go back and do it all over. Look at her and recognize her. Look at her and see what she really needed. But I can’t, just the same as you can’t go back and know what she was doing, either.
But the one thing we can do is continue fighting in her honor.
For women. For children. For all who are vulnerable.
For that little girl who is sleeping down the hall. ”
“I knew, Kane. Even when I ran, I think I knew there was no chance you were responsible for it. Each step that took me farther away from this house?” I spread my palm out over the beat of his glorious heart. “You drew me back.”
He gathered that hand up and pressed gentle kisses all over it.
My palm.
My knuckles.
His nose breathing me in as he gazed over at me.
“It made me sick for so long, Emery. Sick knowing that I was there. That I was this close to being a part of it. But I know now…I know I was meant to be right there. Drawn through all the heartache an d grief and crimes and regret to stand in that very spot. My only regret is that I couldn’t get the rest of them out. ”
Sorrow pulsed between us. “Do you have any idea where they took Jana?”
Bleakness took to his features, and he hesitated before he gave.
Fully surrendering.
Giving all of himself to me.
Every facet of his life.
“I found the bastard she ended up with about a year later. Some rich, sick fuck who lived in Florida.” His big hand settled on my cheek and his mouth tweaked down on the side. “I’m so sorry, but she was already gone.”
I knew what he meant with the way he carefully phrased it.
She was dead.
Another sob ripped out, and I nearly bowed in two.
Kane held me up, arms cinched tight as he murmured, “I know, baby. I know. I would have done anything to stop it. I destroyed that motherfucker for it. He can’t hurt anyone else.
I wanted to let her family know, but I couldn’t find a way without bringing attention to myself.
Because I knew I had to keep doing what I was doing.
Going after these monsters. I’ve been trying to track that bastard Tyke for years. I never could pick up a trace.”
He kept rocking me, rubbing his hand up and down my back. “He’s gone. He’s gone. Thanks to you and Emmalee, he’s gone.”
I could barely nod into his bare shoulder. “He’s gone.”
Kane held me that way for the longest time. Both of us processing through everything that had happened.
The tragedy.
The loss.
The things that we would give anything to change.
Except for this one single thing.
The connection that burned bright between us.
Blinding.
Gripping.
Perfecting .
He finally eased back, gaze fierce and sincere.
“I love you, Emery Voss. My soul recognized you in a heartbeat. This beautiful girl who’d fought with everything she had.
One who’d struck a chord inside me. One that lit a fire in the depths of me.
And maybe your light was dimmed, but no more.
And it will be my honor to watch you glow for the rest of our lives. ”