Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
SIRE
On our drive to Hilton Head Island, I twist my neck, popping out the tension while Wren blurts questions and murders songs.
When Queen’s “We Will Rock You” thunders through the speakers, I don’t have the heart to tell my beautiful wife that Freddie Mercury is not singing, “Kickin’ your cat all over the place.”
No, Wren’s the dose of levity we need because this is some serious shit.
Axel and Nash have been following the lead I gave them. The clue my father left me. It’s pointing us to this popular vacation island with a dark world most don’t want to know about.
The problem is, we need more intel on the human traffickers we’re hunting, and the former cop who has that intel is Cade Bryant.
She’s one of The Six.
“So,” Wren marvels once she’s done kicking cats, “Silas and Eily Van de May are partnered with Daniel Pierce and Redix Dean? Hollywood’s hottest men who have that hit show together?”
I hold her hand in the backseat. Axel drives. Nash searches on his laptop, and I get to explain way too much to my wife.
“Yes, Daniel and Redix are married to their wives, Charlie and Cade, and they’re in a secret polycule with Silas and Eily. They’re three married couples who love each other.”
“But,” Wren blinks, “they’re high key famous.”
“But,” I cock a brow, “they’re not out. Only a few know.”
“So, how do you know them?” Wren asks Axel. “Sire married them. They worship him, of course, so why do they hate you? Shocker.”
I laugh.
I love how Wren gives Axel shit.
“Because,” Axel grumbles, “Eily Van de May hosts an epic, erotic Halloween party, and she asked me to scare the shit out of the guests these past two years, and it worked. The husbands hate me.”
“How do you know Eily?”
Axel lauds, amused, “She walked right up to me on Meeting Street and asked for my help. Guess I look sinister, and she’s like you: a little rabid dog with a bow and bone when she’s hungry.”
Wren narrows her eyes. “Is that a compliment?”
“Yes,” Nash answers her. “And they don’t like me, either. I had a run-in with Cade Bryant at Delta’s, the sex shop, and let’s just say I left a bad impression. Now, we need you to ease the tension.”
“Who’s Cade Bryant?”
Nash lowers his Clark Kent glasses. He doesn’t need them. He just looks like a mean motherfucker without them, which he can be, thankfully.
“Cade Bryant,” he explains, “is a former cop who busted a major trafficking ring. The same ring where we found you, and we need to ask her how they operate.”
Axel pulls our Tahoe into the parking lot of a private marina with yachts in every slip.
I reached out to Silas Van de May and secured our guarded invitation.
We have one night on his ship, one meeting with The Six, and I have one chance to figure out how this is all connected to my evil father.
“I gotta say, Pastor. I didn’t know you kept such criminal company.”
Silas Van de May sits on his ivory sofa across from ours. We’ve been friends … until now.
“He’s not a criminal.” Eily, Silas’s wife, sits on his lap, playfully slapping his naked chest. “I asked Axel to scare us. Remember? Quit being a boner killer about it.”
A famine would be more welcome in this room than Axel and Nash.
While me? I’m getting a different vibe from them.
“Wren…” Eily leans forward, all tiny and mighty like my wife. “Please excuse my husband and partners. Normally, they’re sweet, but they got kids and haven’t been laid in a while, so they’ll be uptight until we do.”
“I understand.” Wren curls beside me on the onyx sofa. Nash sits beside her, and Axel’s beside him. “I was frustrated until Sire finally fucked me, too.”
They laugh while our other hot hosts, sitting with Eily, glare at my brothers.
But each time the men look at me, I feel like the famous one, the one their eyes devour.
It’s odd.
And obvious.
The intercoastal sparkles outside the yacht’s windows. It’s a mild day on our cruise toward the Florida Keys. Our hosts are six of the finest people I’ve ever seen—three buxom women and three beefy men—doubling down on their allure by wearing swim trunks and bikinis.
Call me starstruck, but Redix Dean looks like a golden surf God with his arm draped over his wife, Cade, and his other arm slung over his co-star, Daniel Pierce, who’s a British superhunk and hero. All while Charlie, Daniel’s badass wife, proudly reclines in Redix’s lap.
Or call me aroused because I clock how Redix strokes Daniel’s shoulder. How Cade caresses Charlie’s thigh. How Silas has one hand possessively on his wife, Eily, with his other, comfortably touching Cade’s neck, all while his bare leg is snared over Redix’s.
“Have we met before?” Redix aims his famous Romeo eyes at mine. They’re heated and intense.
“Not that I’m aware.”
“I wouldn’t call it a meeting,” Daniel adds with a smirk. “It was more like a performance, and you were the very big star.”
I cock an eyebrow, confused.
“In Atlanta,” Daniel reveals, and my pulse skyrockets. “Redix and I film there, and thoroughly enjoyed watching your show from a VIP room in a club one night.”
“Dear Lord, my pastor.” Silas grins, groping me with a curious look. “They told me about it the next night, and I got a very hard impression of how much they liked what they saw.”
Jesus, Jesus.
My heart would explode if I hadn’t already told Wren about my past at the fetish club in Atlanta. Of course, my brothers are also aware of it. They’ve indulged their kinks there, too.
Back in the day, this would be my kind of party. I know The Six are bisexual. Anyone with a pulse would find them attractive.
But today? It threatens to be a bloodbath.
Most of them despise Axel and Nash, while I feel like a visual buffet for ravenous men. My dick would soar if I didn’t have an even bigger problem.
“Look…” I squeeze Wren, and she palms my chest. That’s her signal; she’s not mad about the Atlanta comment. “Clearly, we have a lot in common. But we’re here today because my associates and I are after the same people you were, and we need your help. We’re missing puzzle pieces, and you have them.”
“Why should we give them to you?” Cade asks. She’s the former cop and the one who needs to trust us.
“Because you busted Senator Evans and Claude Olan Turner the third,” Nash answers her. “They’re in jail, and now Turner’s son has taken over. He’s young, ruthless, and ambitious. He’s expanding his trade.”
Redix lifts his chiseled chin. “Why do you care?”
“My parishioners come to me for help,” I explain. “They tell me about people in trouble, and Axel, Nash, and I are part of a secret group that gets justice when the cops don’t.”
“Why do men like you want justice?”
Charlie challenges us. She’s almost as famous as her husband, Daniel, but for heroic reasons. She’s a former Marine with a scar on her stunning face to prove it.
“Because it’s wrong,” Axel fumes. “Isn’t that reason enough?”
“Because I’m a father,” Nash adds. “I have a daughter, and I give a shit about those girls. We want to help them.”
Eyes read eyes.
Muscles tense.
There’s not a smile in the room, while the tension is so heavy, it could sink this vessel.
“Because,” Wren calmly explains, “I was one of the women they rescued from those traffickers. Sire even let them cut off his finger for me. My men work for a woman who survived trafficking, too. They’re good men, doing dangerous work, and we need your help. Please.”
Sweetly, Nash touches Wren’s thigh. It’s not sexual. It’s protective. It makes me agree with Wren; Nash is meant to be her second king.
Cade nods at Wren, and it makes me agree with Nash, too.
We needed Wren here. We need women to make us put our swords, egos, and dicks down and focus on the real problems.
“Okay.” Cade opens her hands. “What do you need to know?”
“How did they move the money?” That’s Nash’s department.
“They inflated the price of the golf tours,” Cade explains. “They offered VIP access, luxury accommodations, and bullshit to cover the trade. Then, they laundered it through high-end real estate sales.”
“How did they move the victims?” That’s Axel’s area.
“Boats on the intercoastal and trucks on the interstate,” Silas answers. “They wait for high season and use rental properties to blend in with the tourists. They’re damn hard to catch.”
I know all six but Daniel, who’s British, grew up here in the Lowcountry. They know these waters and islands better than we do.
“How would you do it?” I ask Silas. “Where should we focus?”
Silas tousles his long, bronze hair. Damn, I must admit, he’s a beautiful man.
He tsks, “If I had to guess? Myrtle Beach for its crowds. Savannah for their port and trucks. Then again, maybe I’d go small, rural, so they wouldn’t find me.”
“How is this coastal ring connected to Tennessee? The mountains?” I press, and Cade narrows her violet eyes.
“Tennessee?” She shakes her head. “I’m not sure.”
“What about Russia?”
Wren blurts it, and I suddenly tense. Without looking, I can sense Axel instantly seething and Nash sitting on a razor’s edge.
My angel just fucked up.
Damn, Wren’s wicked smart, but we all make mistakes. Fatal mistakes.
“Russia?” Daniel, with his proper English accent, asks, “Why do you think Russians are involved?”
I open my mouth, but Wren blurts again, “Because when I was blindfolded with the other girls, I heard a man speaking it. Maybe it was another country or someplace—”
“Slavic?” Daniel offers. He’s warming to Wren.
“Yeah.” Wren nods. “Some place like that. But of course, it stood out, so I was curious.”
“Maybe it’s nothing.” Axel tries to cover for us.
“Actually…” Cade snaps her fingers. “Maybe you’re on to something. One of the men we busted with Senator Evans was a top-level Russian diplomat. The asshole was immune. We had to let him go.”
Bomb.
Drop.
“Who?” Nash sounds nonchalant.
But our world just exploded.
Cade confides, “Valentin. I remember the first name, but the last name was something like Sheremet-something.”
Sheremetev.
Valentin Sheremetev.
I know who he is. So does Axel, who’s probably hiding his conniption right now. Fuck knows, I’m hiding mine.
Valentin Sheremetev is our father’s sworn enemy. They’ve been warring over territory for decades.
“So, what are you gonna do?” Silas asks us, oblivious that our secret world just flipped.
“Follow the money trail,” Nash assures. “Intercept shipments, eliminate the demand and the suppliers.”
Murder the fuckers.
That’s what he means.
The Six nod. They seem appeased. The tension in the room evaporates while I hide the war inside me, making me rage.
Is this the connection?
My father wants me to think he’s sending me on missions to save victims when really … I’m destroying his enemy’s operations here?
Fuck, I’m going to kill him.
But I can’t.
If I kill him, his soldiers will kill us. All this, while my father has Axel’s child.
It’s like any war. No one really wins.
Except there is one thing I will do.
I will die getting Axel’s child back.