Chapter Twenty-Five
Indie
They knew my secret.
Once my father told them about me, there was no keeping it to myself. I knew it was him the first time they put his picture on the screen. I was too scared to tell them the truth.
War had already started, and knowing they had the daughter of an enemy under their roof would only make things worse. I’d thought for sure they would use me to hurt my father. I could have told them it wouldn’t work.
He never cared about me.
He never looked for me.
And I was pretty sure he was the reason I ended up at the Trick Pony. Still, I was a commodity. I was a commodity for the Trick Pony. Something to be bought and sold. Something to be leased out for a few hours a day. A way to make money.
If my father had any feelings for me at all, I could be used as a bargaining chip. The crazy thing was, King had no idea about my relationship, or lack thereof, with my father. As far as he knew, my father wanted me.
But King protected me.
He told my father I was an old lady.
Mimic’s old lady.
“I didn’t want you to be my first, Indie. I wanted you to be my fucking only.”
His words ran through my head on a loop. Did he mean it? Would he still want that? Still want me? Now that he knew the truth, I doubted it.
“What are you screaming about?” Kytten asked as she marched into church. “And what the fuck did I tell you about calling me that name?”
She stood there, hands on her hips, her head kicked back, glaring at Cash. She was so small; the top of her head barely reached his chest. Mimic was tall. Somewhere around six feet if I had to guess. All I knew was that when he held me in my room, my head fit perfectly against his shoulder.
Almost as if I were made to be there. Like we were made to fit together like puzzle pieces.
“This involves the Nyght Nymphs,” Cash said, his teeth gritted together. Kytten turned around and caught me staring at her.
“No.” She closed her eyes and leaned into Cash. He wrapped his arms around her, and I felt like a voyeur, not wanting to take my eyes off them. Unable to tear my gaze away from the love they shared so openly.
Kytten pulled herself together with a deep inhale. Cash kissed the top of her head, and she turned toward me. Sitting in the chair on my empty side, she took my hands in hers.
“Who?” she asked. No one said a word as Kytten asked me questions.
“Magyk.”
“When?”
“Six years ago.”
“Where?”
“The Trick Pony.”
Kytten glared at Cash. “I was fifteen. Val had just started letting me help. She wouldn’t have let me help with something like the Trick Pony.”
“Kytten, I need you to call Magyk,” King said softly.
“Why?” Her question wasn’t defiant. She didn’t glare at King the way she had Cash. Her features were soft, relaxed.
“We need to know about the others,” he answered.
“Others?” Kytten asked as she pulled out her phone.
“There were twelve of us. Now eleven.” Her hands dropped into her lap. With a heavy sigh, she placed her phone on the table, then gathered me in her arms and whispered, “Kindred spirits. Though I wish more than you know that we didn’t have this connection.”
She pulled back and huffed out a breath before dialing a number and putting it on speaker.
“Kytten?”
“Hey, Magyk, can you tell me where you are?”
“No.”
“Is there any way you can come back to Diamond Creek?”
The line was silent longer than we all expected.
“Magyk? Are you still there?”
“I can’t come to Diamond Creek, Kytten.”
“Okay, then do you have a minute to talk?”
Another silent beat passed before Magyk answered, “Two minutes, Kytten.”
“Six years ago, you rescued twelve girls from the Trick Pony—”
“Kytten, are you alone? Is Val still with you?”
Kytten looked up at King, her brows furrowed in confusion. “No.”
Before she could say anymore, we heard a heavy sigh through the line. “Kytten, how do you know about that?”
“I’m with one of the girls.” Kytten looked at me, her eyebrows raised in question.
“Kate Porter,” I supplied.
“Kate? Are you okay? What happened?”
“Hi, Magyk. I’m okay.”
“Magyk, I need to know where you put the others. Kate said her, Jenny, and Alice were placed together.”
“Kate, I’m so sorry about Jenny.”
I didn’t say anything. Mimic reached over and held my hand, reminding me that Kytten and I weren’t alone.
“Magyk, the others. I need to know where they are.” Kytten’s question put us back on track. It reminded me that life didn’t pause for death. Especially the death of a broken whore. That was who we were.
Whores, broken by Devlin Scott and the Trick Pony.
“It doesn’t matter. None of them are where I left them. I went back to check on them. They all disappeared.” Another beat of silence and Magyk confessed, “Kytten, Val doesn’t know.”
“I didn’t ask Val. Kate said you were the one who rescued them, so I wanted to ask you directly.”
“No, I mean Val doesn’t know I pulled that job.”
Kytten picked up her phone, taking it off speaker. She stood from the chair at my side and walked to the corner of the room. “What do you mean, Val doesn’t know? Why doesn’t she know?”
Kytten froze. Her head dropped back and she faced the ceiling, and her eyes slid closed. Everyone around the table sat quietly as we listened to one side of a heated conversation.
“We don’t pull jobs without Val’s approval, Magyk,” she growled into the phone.
“So who did the new IDs? Does he know Val doesn’t know?
” Kytten continued pacing as she listened to Magyk.
“No more fucking secrets, Magyk. Okay, I love you, too. Bye.” Kytten disconnected the call and turned to face King.
“Val only gave one person permission to deal with the Trick Pony.”
A tear ran down her face, and Cash rushed to her side. He pulled her into his arms and lifted her off the floor. Cash turned cold, dead eyes on King.
King closed his eyes. “Syrena.”
Mimic’s hand tightened around mine until I winced. “I’m sorry.” He brought my hand up to his mouth and kissed where he crushed my fingers.
“King,” Cash rasped.
“Go. I’ll fill you in later.” He waved him away, and Cash strolled out of the room with Kytten in his arms.
“Is Kytten okay?” I asked Mimic.
“She will be.” He turned to King. “Now what?”
“We need to know whether the information in the files is true. Then we need to find out who knows about it. I’m guessing Vulture knows, and that’s why he wants her back.”
“What information?” I asked, looking between King and Mimic.
“Indie,” Nav began. “When the Trick Pony was shut down, all the files were stolen. We have those files.”
“Nav,” King warned.
“She has to know, King. If this shit is real, there is no keeping it from her once it’s activated.”
“What shit?” I asked again.
“Indie.” Mimic called my name, and I turned without question. “This is going to sound fucked up, but living at the Trick Pony, I guess you already know how fucked up Devlin Scott was. Nav has files on you, and the other eleven girls that were rescued with you.”
“Oh my God.” I dropped my face into my hands. “He kept records, didn’t he? Of all the men and women I...” I couldn’t bring myself to say the words out loud. Not in front of these men.
“He did,” Nav confirmed. “But that isn’t what we’re talking about.”
My head popped up, and I looked at Nav. “What else is there?”
I followed Nav’s gaze to King. He stared at me with his head cocked to the side, as if he were trying to answer a riddle but he didn’t have all the information.
“What can you tell us about your time there?”
I narrowed my eyes at the man. “Did you want a play-by-play? Maybe a blow-by-blow? Maybe a demonstration of what I learned while I was there?”
“Actually, I do.” King had a smug grin on his face.
“Well, fuck you,” I shouted, jumping up from my seat. Mimic and Gunner followed. Mimic pulled me into his arms as I struggled to get away from him.
“You can be a real asshole sometimes, you know that, Prez?” Gunner growled.
“Indie, please stop. Just listen.”
“Listen to what? Your president tell me I have to submit? Maybe treat the men to a little taste of everything I learned from Devlin Scott and his son? Maybe the old ladies would like to get in line too. I can show the men everything I learned about how to really please a woman.”
“Shut your fucking mouth,” Mimic snarled. His hands were vise grips on my biceps as he shook me. “I don’t care what the fuck they made you do. It wasn’t your fucking fault. And you won’t be doing any of that shit with anyone but me.”
I huffed out a laugh and opened my mouth to say something nasty about teaching him everything he hadn’t learned yet, but Mimic slammed his mouth over mine, shutting me up immediately.
Mimic’s kiss shut out the world around us. I forgot about the men in the room, about Kytten and how upset she was. I forgot about Magyk and the Trick Pony. My head was an empty vessel being filled with the scent of the man who held me in his arms.
All my thoughts were about him. And the way he was kissing me. For someone with no experience, he learned quickly. His lips moved over mine like a concert pianist playing a concerto by Beethoven.
His tongue warred with mine as we fought for control. The things I could teach him if only he’d let me. He demanded my submission. And I gave it to him willingly.
When he pulled back, we stared at each other with panting breaths. Until Jack broke the spell.
“Damn, boy. I really thought for sure you were still a fucking virgin.”
“Ain’t no fucking virgin kissing like that,” Jingles teased.
The corner of Mimic’s mouth tipped up a fraction on one corner. Whatever they thought before, that kiss they just witnessed would keep his secret a little longer.
“Can we get back to business?” King scoffed.
I turned a glare on him. “If it isn’t about sex, what other information is in those files?”
Mimic held my chair and silently pleaded with me to sit back down. I fell into the chair and slumped back, waiting to see what the files said. No one spoke for a solid minute, while everyone stared at me.
“What?”
“You really don’t know?” King asked.
“No, I really don’t know. We didn’t do anything there other than have sex with whoever we were told to have sex with.” Fuck it, they all knew. I knew what had happened to me wasn’t my fault. Sure, it didn’t stop the guilt and shame. It certainly didn’t stop the fucking nightmares.
But somewhere in the rational part of my brain, I knew it wasn’t my fault. That was what I clung to right now as I waited for them to drop their bomb.
“Did you do any special training?” Colt asked.
I cocked an eyebrow at him. “Everything we did was specialized training.”
“What about self-defense?” Gunner asked.
I threw my head back and laughed at his question. I laughed so hard, tears slipped down my face as I tried to catch my breath.
“You really think they would teach us to defend ourselves? They wanted us submissive. Compliant. No way would they let us kick a sick pervert in his precious balls.”
“According to the files, you took regular classes in self-defense and weapons training,” Nav pointed out.
“How would I not remember that? Hypnosis?” I asked, as another laugh bubbled up until I looked around the table and realized I was the only one laughing.