33. Tarquin
33
TARQUIN
The quiet click of the latch is like a gunshot in my mind. I close Synthia’s bedroom door behind us. The three of us stand in the hallway, dripping with tension thicker than the water still soaking Declan’s clothes.
“She doesn’t believe us,” I say flatly, stating what we all know.
“Can you blame her?” Tristan runs a hand through his hair, his expression haunted. “Two years of fighting alone, of being let down by everyone who should have helped her.”
Declan’s jaw tightens. “She will believe us when we put her daughter in her arms.”
I nod once; decision made. “My office. Now.”
We move silently through the house, the only sound, our footsteps echoing on the marble floors. My mind is already racing, calculating, planning. By the time we reach my office, I’ve mapped out three possible approaches.
I unlock the hidden panel behind my desk and retrieve my secure phone—the one that can’t be traced, the one that connects me to people who don’t officially exist.
“What do we know about this Jeremy Rayne?” I ask, settling into my chair.
Tristan stands by the window. “Predator. Found Synthia when she was vulnerable, isolated her, and abused her. Probably not just her. I bet there have been others.”
“Calculating,” Declan adds, still in his wet clothes but seemingly unbothered. I wince when he sits his soaking arse in my leather armchair near the door. “He’s been systematically extorting her for two years. It was quick thinking for him. If he hit her and knocked her out, she couldn’t have been unconscious for more than a few minutes? Maybe a bit longer? She didn’t say specifically that he beat her black and blue or hospitalised her.”
“Would she have?” Tristan snaps.
“Personally, I think so. So he is a quick thinker, or he was planning this for weeks and was waiting for Syn to mess up.”
“If he was planning it,” Tristan states, “why not just take her at any time?”
“Because he needed Synthia to mess up so he could guilt her into paying up, by saying it was her fault he took their child from her because she is a thief.”
“So a gaslighter and narcissist on top of all that.”
“Not unexpected. I don’t think this arsehole has any redeemable qualities.” I sit back in my chair and dangle the secure phone between my fingertips.
“What are you thinking? Or more like who?” Declan asks.
“Elijah St. Clare.”
Tristan looks at me sharply. “The IPP Taskforce Commander?”
“You know another?”
He narrows his eyes at me.
“Who is this person?” Declan asks, out of the loop, in his own little trust fund bubble courtesy of his grandfather, who knew exactly what his son was like and bypassed him in the will.
“Strong sense of justice. Will be persuaded to help.”
“With the right incentive,” Tristan adds. “The Brayfield Trust could fund his department for a long time.”
“What does he do?”
“Cleans up the streets of London with a hardcore team. Drugs, knife crime, assaults, you name it.”
“Then what are you waiting for?”
“A location for this jackass,” I drawl, rolling my eyes.
“Do you really think he is out of the country?”
“No. I think that’s what he wants Syn to think. Has probably made it look that way to an investigator who isn’t motivated to look too hard.”
“He’s another one that needs a kick in the balls,” Declan growls.
“They will all pay in blood,” I mutter.
“Call him, anyway, give him the heads up.”
Tristan nods. “I agree. Eli is a planner. He’ll appreciate the warning rather than just dumping it on his lap. Especially if this is off the books.”
“Fair enough.” I dial the number. It rings twice before a gruff voice answers. “St. Clare.”
“Elijah. It’s Sir Tarquin Brayfield.”
A pause. “Sir Tarquin. It’s been some time.”
“I need your services. Unofficially.”
“This better be good,” he says with a sigh.
“A child has been taken from her mother. We need to recover her.”
“That’s a police matter?—”
“The police have failed her,” I interrupt. “For two years.”
Another pause, longer this time. “Two years?”
“The father took her. Has been extorting the mother since. She’s paid everything she has, but it’s never enough.”
“I’m listening.”
I lay out the details as we know them—Jeremy Rayne, Amélie, the escalating demands. I leave out Synthia’s name and occupation for now. Some things are better discussed in person.
“Why now?” St. Clare asks. “After two years?”
“Because now she has us,” I reply simply.
A low chuckle comes through the line. “I see. The famous Brayfield pack has found its omega.”
I don’t confirm or deny. “Can you help us?”
“For the right price.”
“Name it.”
“Full funding for my task force for the next three years,” he says without hesitation. “Get Tristan to work his magic with that Trust of yours. Put it to good use.”
“Done,” I reply, not even blinking at the cost. “I’ll work up a legitimate proposal.”
“Send me everything you have on this Jeremy Rayne. I’ll start searching immediately.”
“We don’t want you to find him, Commander.”
“Then what do you want?” he asks suspiciously.
“We want you to be there as backup when we find him.”
He pauses. “You want me to be your alibi.”
“Merely to report that the child was alone when we found her.”
“That is going to cost you more.”
“Figured,” I say with a wry smile. “Five years of funding, two scholarships for your mentorship programme, and you keep your name out of the headlines,” I counter, knowing exactly what motivates him. Elijah St. Clare has always preferred to work in the shadows.
“Make it two scholarships a year for five years.”
“Deal.”
“Where do you want to meet?”
“My estate. Tomorrow morning, nine o’clock.”
“I’ll be there.” He pauses. “Sir Tarquin?”
“Yes?”
“If this goes sideways...”
“It won’t,” I say with absolute certainty.
“It better not.”
I smile thinly, though he can’t see it and hang up.
After ending the call, I look up at Tristan and Declan. “St. Clare will help us.”
“I have a confession,” Tristan blurts out.
“Oh?” I ask, turning to him.
“I already have someone looking into Syn. After the heat inducer incident, I went to see Rob, to find out if he knew anything about her. He mentioned her running away and her going off the grid.”
“Who is looking into her?” I ask with a frown.
“John at the IPP. He owed me one.”
“Okay, well that could work in our favour. Text him to connect with Eli and to take anything useful he may have found.”
Tristan nods.
Declan rises, wringing out his wet shirt over the potted plant in the corner of my office. I wince at the water damage on my hardwood floor. “I’m chafing.”
“Go and fucking change then,” I growl.
He chuckles and fucks off, with Tristan trailing behind him.
“Leave her for tonight. Please.”
He turns back to me. “Why?”
“She needs to process everything that has happened tonight. She needs to come to terms by herself that she is not alone anymore.”
“I’ll leave her until sunrise, and then I’m never leaving her again,” he says and walks off.
“That makes two of us,” I mutter at his retreating back. Turning to stare out over the dark grounds, I contemplate my own dark past that has made me who I am today. The pain of growing up knowing that your father murdered your mother in a fit of rage, the cover-up, the lies, the blood. It shaped me into the alpha I am today. Cold. Calculating. Ruthless when necessary. An alpha who will stop at nothing to protect what is mine. And Synthia has become mine in ways I never anticipated.
But I think deep down, I knew that it would happen. When I confronted her on the pavement, my intention was to catch her off guard. I didn’t expect her to do it to me. Her closeness, her scent, her blue eyes that could make a man drown.
I pour myself a glass of whiskey, savouring the burn as it slides down my throat. The irony isn’t lost on me. I’ve spent years cultivating a reputation as the untouchable Sir Tarquin Brayfield—the alpha who needs no one, who keeps the world at arm’s length with an icy exterior. Now I find myself consumed by the need to protect a small, fierce omega with a mouth on her that makes my cock hard and heart beat faster. She brings a smile to my face that hasn’t been there since before mum was killed, and that is priceless.