Chapter 35
THIRTY-FIVE
STORM
R iale enters our unofficial HQ and gapes at me from the doorway. I’ve been sitting here alone at my laptop for an hour, going back and forth with my jeweler about the setting and design of my next purchase.
Undoubtedly, it’s the most important purchase of my life, so it has to be perfect.
“Are you listening to Fantasia ?” he asks, incredulous.
I glance at my phone, which sits next to the keyboard where I placed it after queuing up Spotify.
“When I See U” by Fantasia is, in fact, playing.
“And were you… humming the song when I walked in?” he asks, his voice going higher.
I sigh and give him a bored look.
“And what of it?” I ask, making a face.
Riale pauses for a beat, then breaks out in hysterical laughter, damn near hollering as he bends over.
I smile slowly at his humor. It seems these days all I do is smile. Shae and I are finally back together, my relationship with the kids is getting stronger every day, and Lakeland is gone.
Lakeland is gone.
Maybe if I repeat it enough times, this edge of paranoia will stop cropping up.
The smile slips right when Riale straightens, wiping his eyes.
“You do know you’re completely sprung, right? It’s a little sickening,” he says, and knowing his attitude toward romance, I don’t doubt my joy does make him feel a little sick.
“What can I say? A nigga’s in love.” I shrug to punctuate the statement.
“To say the absolute fucking least,” he replies, finally stepping into the room. The song ends and flips over to Musiq Soulchild.
I pause the track so we can talk.
“You talked to Axel today?” Riale asks, his face returning to its naturally serious position.
I shake my head.
“No,” I say. “He texted me in the middle of the night saying he had some business to follow up on, but he’d be back later today.”
I didn’t mind because I had Shae asleep on top of me. He could have said he was running off to join the circus, and in that moment I wouldn’t have cared less.
“Well, uh…” Riale starts, looking slightly uncomfortable.
“Good, you both are here,” Axel says as he rushes into the room.
His locs sit on top of his head, and he wears the same shirt he had on when I saw him early last night, which is unusual for him.
He drops a stack of papers on the desk and wordlessly pushes me away from the workspace, the chair gliding nearly halfway across the room from the force.
“The fuck? You all right, Axel?” I ask him, my hands and legs spread out as I stare at him, bewildered.
“Am I all right? Sure. But are things all right? No,” he replies cryptically, tapping on the keyboard as the desk rises to its standing position. Browser windows pop up on the screen in front of him, about five in rapid succession. He navigates from page to page, muttering to himself.
I give Riale a look, and he sighs, his mouth going into a straight line as he grabs a chair and pulls it up next to mine.
I don’t get a chance to ask Riale for more information because Axel twists around and pins me with a hard look.
“Storm, were you serious about getting your cousin?”
My mouth drops open as my eyebrows screw up.
“Uh, I mean, at the time it felt like a good idea, but it’s a moot point now, yeah?”
Riale shifts, but I give Axel my attention.
“Okay, good,” he replies, ignoring the last part of my statement. “I’ve been working with Misha’s team on cleaning up the digital footprint around the explosion, and I came across this.”
He grabs the mouse and pulls up a picture.
“Laura Sandoval, but she goes by Skai. Found wandering downtown Detroit by DPD and transferred to a psychiatric hospital a week ago,” he says, pointing at the image of a rail-thin girl wearing hospital clothes and a surly expression.
“Look, assholes,” he says, growling and moving to his computer. After tapping a few keys, he pulls up what looks to be medical records and session summaries from mental health professionals.
“She’s sixteen, Storm. Still a kid, and she doesn’t have anyone to get her out. She’s listed as a runaway, and the only name she keeps repeating is yours , Storm.”
The fuck?
“She didn’t have anyone looking out for her besides Lakeland?” I ask, a weird feeling settling on the back of my neck.
Axel shrugs, agitated.
“Who knows? Not really relevant because Lakeland’s dead. What is relevant is he left an orphan, your kin, who’s sick and needs your help,” he states.
I lean back, giving him an assessing look.
“Lakeland’s daughter, Axel. You really think I’m just gonna roll up and claim her like some feel-good redemption arc? Why are you even pushing this so hard?”
Axel seems to vibrate, looking at me as if I just sprouted devil horns and a pitchfork.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” he says, his voice deadly in its softness. “You know what I do in my line of work, but you don’t know half of what I’ve seen—the horrors I’ve witnessed. I’m not like you, Storm. I care about what happens to people, even if they aren’t connected to me.”
This again.
“I do care about people. I care about a lot of people. Just not at the expense of my family,” I reiterate, so fucking tired of this merry-go-round. Axel waves off the words.
“Listen, I get she’s my family, how-ev-er , don’t you think it’s weird as fuck she’s asking for me when I barely remember what she looks like? C’mon now. This situation has Lakeland all over it.”
Riale shifts in his chair next to mine.
“I have to say I agree with Storm,” he says. I nod, already dismissing the topic.
“No,” Axel says. “Storm, I know you have no good feelings toward Lakeland, but I can promise you, neither does Skai. She’s not on his side.”
“How do you know?” I throw back.
“Because she’s been hurt so deeply by Lakeland, I can’t see her having any good feelings toward him.”
Axel’s jaw flexes, and his voice takes a tone I’ve never heard from him.
“Lakeland trafficked her for years,” he grinds out, his fists clenched tight. “She’s been so abused, her medical records from intake—” Sucking in a breath, Axel pinches the bridge of his nose.
“I’m putting my foot down on this, Storm. We’re getting her, or I’m gonna get her and fake your ID. Whatever needs to happen, she needs to be out of that place. It’s a state hospital with a documented history of patient abuse.”
I lean forward, putting my elbows to my knees and my hands to my mouth.
Sick. I knew Lakeland was a sick motherfucker, but trafficking his own daughter?
I keep my gaze steady on Axel, and I know there’s more that Axel isn’t telling me.
Looking at him, I think maybe he physically can’t, because what my cousin suffered is just that bad. I start to soften to the idea of helping Skai, but I can’t set aside my wariness.
“Why is she in the hospital and not in a home with other runaways?” Riale asks.
“Because she was bleeding out from a suicide attempt in a back alley when she was found,” Axel says.
Fuck.
“Axel, for real. What do you expect me to do? We just killed her father for fuck’s sake!” I say, feeling sick.
“That’s exactly why we need to get her. Bring her here. There’s enough space in this mansion that you never have to interact with her outside of when you want to, but she needs good help. Good doctors. Safety. A place to heal.”
“And you think that’ll be my home with my kids and girl inside?”
Axel groans, rolling his eyes heavenward.
“Out of curiosity, where were you planning for her to stay if we’d followed your plan earlier?” he asks.
I twist my lips to the side for a second.
“I mean…Shae’s condo is sitting empty. I planned on putting some security on her until we needed to drag her out.”
Axel stares at me open-mouthed.
“Are you fuck— You know what? It doesn’t matter. What matters now is getting her out of there,” Axel says.
“I kind of see his point about her care, Storm,” Riale says, and I give him a sharp side eye. “Plus, we can keep security on her, so if anything does get weird, we’ll be on top of it and can put it down.”
I don’t look too closely into what “put it down” would entail.
“Axel, why do you care about this so much?” I ask, throwing my hands up.
“And why don’t you care?” he takes an agitated step toward me. “You were completely fine with using her, but now she needs help, and you’re pushing back? Make it make sense. What if it were your daughter?”
My heart rate picks up at the vile thought. Axel doubles down.
“What if it were Tempest who was taken to that fucking island at eight years old? What if it were Tempest who was used as a goddamn bargaining chip for perverted freaks at twelve? What if it were Tempest who was sexually assaulted by the person whom she should have been able to trust most in this world? What if, Storm?”
“Enough,” I rasp, the vision of my daughter being hurt nearly causing me to black out with rage. What if it were my daughter in my cousin’s shoes?
“Fuck,” I grit out, but looking at Riale and Axel, I already know what I’m going to do.
Even if I have a terrible feeling about it.
A few hours later, in my garage, I remember the reason why I wait in the dark for the smallest amount of private time with Shae.
“Jesus, Sweetness,” I growl, one hand on the back of Shae’s neck as she deep-throats me and the other holding on to the oh-shit handle in the backseat of her Benz for dear life.
She’s got me all the way in her mouth, her throat muscles working the first few inches and her nose pressed to the base of my dick.
Heaven. I’m in heaven.
And I’m also about to come.
“Bring that pussy over here. Now,” I command, sweat rolling down my neck. But in response, Shae hums and works me over once, twice?—
“ Shae !” I bark, and she pops off my dick with a laugh and wipes her shiny lips with the back of her hand.
“Okay, okay, grumpy,” she says with a yip when I flip her skirt up and slap her ass cheek.