Chapter 26 #2
She smiled. “He’s dead, hun. Heard about it in passing a while later, and I wondered if his old lady did him in.
Good for her, if she did, the bitch. Anyways, I heard about Arran Daniels and his brothel as a hushed whisper that no one really believed.
But it sounded like heaven to me. I’d saved up a bunch of money, getting two lots of plastic surgery before I was brave enough to return to Deadwater.
Not that my grandparents lived in the city, but they had an office in town.
It was the closest I’d got to them in years. ”
“Did ye try to see them?” They owed her so much.
“No. But once, I hung out in a café across the road from the office. I saw my grandfather climb from his car, laughing as he talked on the phone. It just made me feel sad so I never bothered again, even if I desperately wanted to know what he’d been told about me.
I was so decidedly a different person, I knew I could never go back. ”
Though she spoke quietly and evenly, my heart splintered for all Dixie had lost. She’d been a child, hurt, abused, and thrown away repeatedly. Forced to carve out her own place in the world as best she could.
I knew how it felt.
Not by guesswork, but because, in part, I’d been in her situation.
“Tyler?” Her voice broke into the dark place my mind had gone. Of blood and pain that drew in hers. “Can I get a hug?”
“Sorry, doll. Ye should never have to ask that.” Kneeling beside her, I ran an arm under her legs and around her back, then lifted her onto my lap.
Dixie settled and held me tight. I dropped against the pillows so we could just breathe together. Exist without threat.
When she was in my arms, I could protect her. Fuck the world for all it had done.
“Safe space,” I whispered. “With me, you’re safe. Always.”
She huddled deeper. I took a breath and tried to find the right words.
“Ye should never have been used and hurt in the way ye were. Ye did nothing wrong. I know it’s too little, too late, but you’re owed those words.
I can’t change the past, but I can guarantee the future.
We already agreed we’d stop those who hurt ye from ever doing it to anyone else.
We can add to that the challenge and punishment of the others who should’ve protected ye.
But most of all,” I tipped up her chin, my heart aching at her new tears, “no one will ever hurt ye again.”
“Are you still obsessed with me?”
“Aye, always will be.”
I clamped down on further words because I couldn’t be sure of what was going to come out. She was so strong, I didn’t think she needed me, but I’d prove my worth all the same.
For a long moment, I just held her.
I tried to focus on comfort, but my thoughts leaned to vengeance. Over and over.
Dixie stroked my arm then shifted to see my face. “You’re so tense, and you have an odd look in your eye. One I’ve seen on the nights you go out hunting. Going somewhere?”
“I don’t want to leave ye.”
“But?”
“I have preparation to do.”
She only gazed at me. I stared straight back. I wasn’t asking permission. She was mine now, and I would act for her in the same way I had for myself.
“No, not like that,” she finally said.
My fingers gripped the quilt. “Why?”
“You’re planning a blood frenzy of revenge. I don’t deserve you for how good it feels that you’d do it for me. But I want something else.”
“Name it.”
“I want to bring it all down.”
I stalled, my brain revising every plan I’d made.
Dixie spoke faster. “Everything that happened to me is tied to a wider problem, and the police can only do so much. I’m certain now that Denise’s husband was used to women being brought in for sex.
That’s why he behaved like he did. He was just another rich man who was or is a customer of this trafficking, and no one’s even talking about him and his type.
The businessmen at the top of the chain.
Only how a family company has dirty secrets.
The person most in the firing line is Mila, and she’s suffering. Sullivan is still alive, isn’t he?”
My phone buzzed from my jeans on the floor. I’d only partially dressed for our conversation.
Dixie eyed the pile of clothes. “Better get it. It could be important.”
I snatched it up without losing hold of her and read the text.
Damien: Sorry to report, your P is D.
I palmed my face. Held the screen up so Dixie could read it.
Her eyes widened. “What’s that code for? Your penis is delicious? Why is he sorry about that?”
Christ, I fucking adored her. Even after telling me the worst things that had happened to her, she was ready with a joke.
I shook my head. “Prisoner is dead. Damien is a new employee who’s shite with code.”
“Your prisoner?” Her mouth dropped open. “Wait, Sullivan? He’s dead? How?”
I wasn’t sad, but he’d deserved worse than dying slowly in pain, and I’d cost Dixie a choice. Tapping out a single-word text to Damien, I asked her question. “I’ll find out.”
Damien sent back a broken heart emoji.
I pulled a face. “That means a heart attack. Sometimes it happens. I broke pieces of him. I’m sorry it happened that way. I wish you’d had your chance to do whatever ye needed to him.”
She thought then sighed. “Honestly? I don’t care.
He wasn’t the worst of my demons by a long way, and for weeks, I carried this fear of him being out there.
I felt safer when you caught him. Now he isn’t alive, I like that even more.
He earned a painful death, and I didn’t want to see him again.
Plus I had this horrible nagging doubt that we should set him free so he could vote.
Now that’s off the table, it’s like a weight has been lifted. ”
Relief flowed along my veins.
I’d fucked up, but it wasn’t the worst.
Dixie kissed my cheek. “If you want to capture the others I named, do it. But maybe with fewer injuries so they don’t just die on us, too?”
Thank Christ. I needed blood on my hands.
If I couldn’t drive my fists into those who’d hurt her, I had no right to call myself skeleton crew.
“Thank ye.”
She laughed. “Only you could take that as a favour. In the meantime, I’ve got some ideas to discuss with the skeleton girls.
I’m pretty sure I remember Debrock, the other trusted company owner, being shady.
I bet we can dig something up on him. If he’s the last trusted company member available to vote, leverage could be useful. ”
“Love the way ye think.”
I opened another text. Shade had replied to my earlier message. I finished dressing and gave her a grin. “Be right back.”
Outside the door of our apartment, a small box waited. I carried it to Dixie.
She peeked inside. Lifted the small gun-like device. “What is it?”
“For ye to track me.”
I loaded it for her and demonstrated how to use it, then turned so she could set it to my skin on the back of my arm. She pulled the trigger. A sharp scratch tore my flesh. On her phone, I added the tracking software. A pulsing dot showed me as being in the warehouse.
“Now you’ll always know where I am.”
She trailed a finger over the site then pressed a kiss to my shoulder. “Want to do the same to me?”
A surge of heat washed over me, a demand to knock her back and devour her. “Like ye wouldn’t believe.”
Dixie rolled over and tugged up the underwear she’d put on beneath my hoodie. She tapped her perfectly round cheek. “Right there.”
It was beyond fucked up how turned on I got pulling the trigger.
I brought her in for another kiss, making sure to pause to check if she wanted me. I lost myself in her lips, crazy over how good kissing her felt, then said, “I’ll be a couple of hours. I have to talk to my men. If ye need me—”
“I’ll be fine. I’m going to take a nap anyway. All the talk and crygasms have tired me out.”
“Cry what?”
“Crymax, then?”
I shook my head and tore myself away before I begged to give her another.