Chapter 16 #2
Not only had Dragon given her perfect, rough, leave-behind bruises and make her skin bleed sex, but he’d also provided her with the sweetest aftercare.
The bath, the tender way he cleaned her wounds, how he shampooed her hair and smoothed out every tangle.
Even though she’d told him she didn't need to, he insisted she take some painkillers, and he’d dressed her in his clothes and tucked her into his bed like she was the most precious thing in the world.
It was different than treating her like she was breakable, and she’d felt cared for and protected as he brought up more food than the two of them could ever hope to eat, even with Dragon’s appetite. They’d gone to bed early, and she’d easily fallen asleep in his arms.
Perfect.
There was no other way to describe it. It was everything she ever could have hoped for.
There wasn't a single box that she could have had on her list that he hadn't ticked off.
Even down to his lack of judgment and assurances that her need for rough sex didn't mean she should be punished in light of the revelation about her mom.
The only thing she wasn't sure of was what happened next.
This morning, Dragon had still been attentive.
Checking in with her on how she was feeling, where she was hurting, insisting on more painkillers even though it really wasn't necessary, and cleaning and rebandaging her wounds even though the cuts from the zip ties were nothing serious and would heal on their own without any attention.
Despite how gentle he was with her, he hadn't argued when she said she wanted to come and sit in on their intel gathering session this morning. In fact, he’d gone one better and given her something to look through.
A database that he hoped might help them identify the woman who had come up to her at the park to ask her to warn Dragon and the others.
While all six of the Delta Team guys were adamant that the woman was a problem that needed to be eliminated, Cassandra couldn’t help but feel that was wrong.
The woman had information she could only have if she was closely involved in Dr. Gardner’s experimental trials, there was no denying that, but she’d sensed a weariness in the other woman.
And all of that aside, Cassandra had something personally to be grateful to the woman for. Without that woman seeking her out, she never would have contacted Dragon again. Her pride and hurt would have led to her keeping her distance, and she wouldn't be where she was at this moment.
Which felt like right on the cusp of something amazing.
Don’t get scared and back out on me, Dragon.
I know you think you were born a monster first and then it was made so much worse by what that man did to you, but no monster could have cared for me so sweetly last night.
When the phone rang, she looked up from the screen she was absently staring at, and her fingers stopped fiddling with her bandages.
Last time she’d gotten a phone call it hadn't been good news.
Although, to be fair, the evening had turned out a whole lot better than it should have after learning that her house with pretty much everything she owned inside had been burned down.
It didn't surprise her in the least, that Dragon immediately stopped what he was doing and reached over to ghost a hand over her hair. For someone who viewed himself as a monster, he had taken to the role of protective caretaker like a duck to water.
Steel picked up his ringing phone and answered it.
The rest of them watched him like a hawk, and he rolled his eyes at them, but reached for Rose and tugged her up and onto his lap.
The other woman went easily, and it gave Cassandra hope that if both she and Dragon kept making an effort to fight through their personal fears, soon they could be as easy with one another as Steel and Rose had become.
“Hey, Connor,” Steel said, and Cassandra knew the verbal greeting was for her benefit, so she would know this was likely about her and she could prepare herself.
If her brother was calling Steel with this intel and not her, it had to be about her house, and she realized maybe she hadn't done as good a job as she’d hoped of convincing Cade she was fine when he called last night.
Maybe that was a good thing.
Maybe it was time she stopped pretending that she was okay when she wasn't. Just because her brothers had new lives they were building, it didn't mean they wouldn't still be there for her.
It was definitely well past time she let them in and allowed the people in her life to support her as she struggled to make sense of her new identity.
Whatever Connor was telling Steel, he was nodding along, his expression inscrutable, as he listened to her brother. The mostly one-sided conversation went on for a solid five minutes, with Steel asking minimal questions, certainly not enough for her to figure out if it was good news or bad.
When Steel’s eyes finally met hers, he held her gaze. “Just so you know, I'm going to be telling your sister all of this,” he said calmly. After a pause, he nodded. “Damn right she can handle anything. Thanks, Connor.”
“What did he want?” she asked as soon as Steel set down his phone.
“Cops got the man who set fire to your house. Fire investigators were doing their job at the scene, when they noticed a man hanging around watching. He looked nervous, odd, out of place, so they called the cops, who took him in for an interview. He confessed to being the partner of the man who broke into your place. Said he was desperate, and his brother-in-law promised him this would be an easy job. He backed out last minute on going inside that night, said he’d be the getaway driver instead. ”
“Coward,” Dragon muttered.
“When he realized his brother-in-law was dead, he admitted to tampering with Dragon’s car.
Said it was just supposed to kill you, for punishment, revenge.
When he didn't hear any reports of a car crash killing two people, he assumed you were still alive and decided to try to draw you out.
Decided he may as well go for the money since he wouldn't have to split it two ways anymore.”
“He folded quickly. He wasn't the mastermind,” Blade noted.
“He get paid an advance as well?” Thunder asked, his fingers already poised above his keyboard, ready to input whatever information Steel gave.
“He did.” Steel rattled off some banking information, and Thunder went to work.
Cassandra waited for the relief to come, knowing that the person who had set fire to her house was in prison, but it didn't come. Instead, she rifled through the intel she’d been looking at on the screen for the last hour.
Any database the guys could get their hands on they’d been searching to ID the woman from the park.
They’d had no luck, and neither had she.
Only …
“What are you thinking, Cassandra?” Voodoo asked, studying her.
Suddenly, all eyes were on her, and she squirmed. “Nothing much.”
“We don’t do that here,” Dragon told her. “If one of us has an idea, we share it and talk it through.”
“It’s probably nothing,” she cautioned. After all, she was the one who didn't know what she was doing. If the guys hadn't picked up on it, she doubted it was anything significant.
“Or maybe it’s the missing piece,” Lion reminded her.
Nodding slowly, she flicked through the images on the database she’d been searching and stopped at one in particular. “This woman. She reminded me of the one we’re looking for. I discounted her because she was too old, but maybe … I don’t know,” she finished somewhat lamely.
Picking up her laptop, Steel studied it for a moment and then began to read whatever he’d found. “She’d be old enough to be the woman’s mother,” he told the others. “She used to work for a pharmaceutical company but retired about a decade ago.”
“She would have been young to retire,” Blade noted.
“She would,” Steel agreed. “And the company went under not long after.”
“Went under or changed hands?” Lion asked, and she shot him a quizzical glance. “If this woman is somehow related to the one who gave you the warning, and she worked for a pharmaceutical company, then that’s two possible connections to Dr. Gardner.”
“What's the name of the company?” Thunder interrupted.
As soon as Steel gave the name, Thunder’s fingers flew over his keyboard all over again. Had she found something useful? Had she been helpful in pointing out the woman who had caught her attention?
“Just because the woman who kind of reminds me of that girl works for a drug company doesn’t mean anything,” she cautioned, worried she was getting her own hopes up.
“Doesn’t matter if it does or it doesn’t, we work it through, and if it goes nowhere, no harm, no foul,” Dragon told her.
“You shouldn’t doubt yourself, Cassandra,” Thunder said with a grin as he turned his laptop around so everyone could see it, only she wasn't sure what she was supposed to be looking at. “For a company that’s been out of business for almost a decade, they just made two bank transfers.”
“To them?” she asked, stunned that she’d actually contributed something this big.
“To them,” Thunder confirmed. “Two transfers to the man Dragon killed in your house and the one who set it on fire. There is no way in hell that’s a coincidence.
From Nature, is the company’s name, and Dr. Gardner was always on about how his experimental drugs were derived from all-natural ingredients.
That he was merely utilizing nature as it had always been intended. ”
“So this woman really is connected?” she asked.
“Maybe she really is the woman’s mother,” Lion said.
“There’s an address,” Blade said. “Only one way to get our answers.”
“I'm coming too,” Cassandra blurted out before anyone had a chance to say otherwise.
“Oh, I am in total agreement with that,” Rose quickly piped up.
“There is no way in hell you are coming with us to check out an address that may be connected to the man who wants us back under his control and who put out a contract on you,” Dragon said, so calmly that it spiked her anger.
“Yeah? And how do you plan on stopping me?” she snapped back.
All her life, she’d let other people take the lead.
She’d never stepped up and helped her brothers try to unravel the truth of what had happened to their parents.
This time, she wasn't sitting quietly in a corner and letting everyone else handle things.
“I care about you, and I want you to get answers.
Besides, this was my lead, and I'm following through on it whether you like it or not.”