Chapter 33
Dixie
Anxiety crept into my sleep. All my dreams twisted into nightmares. I skipped down a quiet road, and a car mowed me down. I ambled along a sunny hillside, then a drunk man snatched me into the pretty bushes.
Tyler was facing demons I’d run from years ago. I hated him being in their line of fire. Even if he was more than capable of handling them, he wasn’t invincible. No matter how much I wanted him to be.
I moaned, trying to break out of the dreams.
It was only his quiet hushing that finally had me surfacing.
I jerked up in his bed. Ran my hands over him in a panic. “You’re okay?”
“Perfectly fine, doll.”
Light streaked the sky outside the arched window, dawn approaching. He was warm to the touch and not hurt.
I hugged him. Tyler hauled me onto his chest and settled in the pillows, the scent of the night on him. He held me just as tight.
“Terrence Harford is locked up in a dark place he’ll never walk out of.”
Oh God. A cry flew from my lips. All the pain that had shaped my dreams surged to the surface, and I heaved a sob. For a long minute, I became a crying mess in Tyler’s arms. The big emotions had to come out somewhere. Poor guy that it always seemed to land on him.
At last, I wiped my eyes. The tightness inside my chest had eased. “He’s really locked up?”
“Yes, baby.”
“I didn’t know how badly I needed that. For all this time, I’ve almost held him innocent in my mind. But he wasn’t. He still did what he did.”
“He’ll suffer for it.”
I stared into the eyes of the only man to ever put me first. “And he’ll never get to do that to anyone else.”
“He’ll die knowing exactly what crime he condemned himself for.” He brushed my hair. “We also brought in Sullivan’s men, Rhys Jacobs, and we already have Salter, another flesh merchant. We failed to lure in Presley, but that’s a battle for another day.”
I pressed a kiss to his knuckles. “And Denise?”
“I saw her. She stared right at me and asked me to put her husband down.”
I widened my eyes. “Boo, what?”
His lips curved at the new nickname that had popped out of nowhere. “I stared back, and she triggered an alarm.”
“But she didn’t look scared?”
“The opposite. Entirely in control.”
I tapped my lip. “Then she was performing.”
Something like pride came over his features. “Exactly what I thought. The more I play it through, the more certain I am that she was waiting for us. Or for someone. Her security team was close at hand, but she didn’t send them after her husband.”
“She didn’t care what happened to him.” I stared into the middle distance, trying to work her out.
Tyler voiced my thoughts. “She’d used him as a puppet in the past. With two other trusted companies’ CEOs taken, it makes sense for her to see the pattern.”
“But not to run from it.” I shivered, wondering at what Denise’s plan might be. Was she scared of us, or was she in control?
Tyler yawned big and muttered an apology. “I need some sleep so I’m good to handle whatever we decide to do this evening. Want to stay here or go home to the ridge?”
“Stay here. Can I cuddle up next to you?”
“Nowhere else I’d want ye to be.”
He shucked off his clothes then pulled me onto his chest once more. He was hard under me but was out like a light in seconds.
I hadn’t expected to sleep so easily again, but I did, and when I woke, the sky had brightened around the blinds.
Carefully, I climbed from the bed without waking Tyler. Then I dressed and holed up in the living room, sitting in a patch of sun from the brick-lined window. It was after midday. I’d slept over twelve hours. All the nightmares and sobbing had exhausted me, but at least now I felt refreshed.
My phone was full of messages, Cassie having added me to the Skeleton Girls Detective Agency group. I read them, snacking on toast, Tyler having stocked the cupboards at some point since yesterday.
Cassie was mid-rant about Presley who she’d laid a trap for last night, but he’d never showed.
Cassie: What kind of psycho ignores a distress call from his own parents?
Everly: What did you say?
Cassie: We used his ma’s phone. Said there’d been a break-in and something stolen from their home address, told him to come alone.
Cassie: We figured he might’ve scoped the lake house and knew they weren’t there, and home was the better option and a place he’d care about.
Cassie: He read it. No reply. No show.
Mila: We need to workshop a lure he can’t resist. Something he actually cares about.
Cassie: Gotta be cold, hard cash, then. How about we fake an inheritance? His parents aren’t around to confirm it. Maybe like: Your grandfather left something off the books. Needs to be handled before the vote.
A debate continued with the women refining the idea. I’d reached the most recent texts, where Mila told them the solicitors would publicise any meeting, so they needed to rethink, when my phone buzzed with a direct message from my sister.
Mila: Can I come up to talk to you? I just had an email from the solicitor.
Sickness wound through me.
I replied to give me five minutes, then darted into the bedroom.
Tyler sat up, his grey-eyed gaze settling on me. “Something wrong?”
It felt like it. I couldn’t be sure why, as Mila’s message hadn’t said there was a problem. Yet I was certain there was.
“Mila’s coming up to talk to me. Is that okay?”
“Course it is. I’ll get dressed.” He left the bed, grabbed clothes from the wardrobe, and kissed me on his way to the bathroom.
He was out and ready by the time her knock hit the door.
I opened it, Tyler at my back, fear tightening my gut. Mila’s ashen expression did nothing to help my nerves, and Tyler eyed Convict in the hall then raised an eyebrow at me. I inclined my head for him to go outside if he wanted, then drew Mila with me across the room to the same little sun patch.
I curled my legs under myself. “Why does it feel like the solicitors are about to ruin our day?”
She swallowed, then wordlessly handed me her phone.
An appointment was open, sent via email. For a second, my brain fritzed, but the words slowly filtered through.
All voting members of the Marchant Haulage family board are instructed to attend…
I raised my head. “They’re going ahead with it?”
“They are.”
“When?”
“In three days.”
Three days to fix everything. Or lose it.
Mila tapped the attendee list. “This went out to me, Kane, Wallace, Primrose, and Denise Harford. I rang the solicitor to ask why it was suddenly going ahead, and he explained that Denise had pushed for it, forcing a decision this morning. They agreed with her surmising that a single vote in the trusted companies met the requirements. From what I picked up, they’re just relieved for it to be underway. ”
I stared, bile rising up my throat. “We took her husband last night, and the next day, she does this?”
My hand shook, but I grabbed my phone and dialled Lovelyn. She answered, her voice thick with tiredness.
“I did it. I found a connection.”
The bitterness spread across my tongue. “Financial links between MH and the trusted companies?”
“Yep. I’ve been working at this until my eyes crossed, but I knew there was something lurking in plain sight.
” She paused for effect. “An investment company, established years ago by Austin and his cronies. They fed money into it at regular intervals. Big amounts. They then put that into high-risk funds. The payouts were split four ways, and one went to Austin’s personal income.
He paid tax on it, legitimising the cash neatly. ”
Mila stared at the phone. “I have the worst feeling about this. Where did the money come from in the first place?”
Regular cash injections…
My brain gathered in a dozen loose threads. Rhys Jacobs in my grandfather’s office. The close relationship between Austin and his business friends.
The way he kept Mila away from one of the ships.
“How often did they make the investments?” I asked.
Lovelyn rattled off dates in a year range. “Same the previous year and the one after. Regular as clockwork, bar a slight delay once or twice.”
I turned to Mila. “Do you have the sailing schedule for the Eden?”
Her mouth fell open. “He never allowed me on that ship. He said it was—”
“His pet project,” I answered for her.
Mila’s eyes shone with sudden tears. “He told us both the same story.” She stabbed a search into her phone, then a minute later, brought up a manifest. “The sailing dates are publicly available.”
She read those for the same year Lovelyn had documented.
I counted on my fingers. “The Eden docked. Four weeks later, money hit the account. Every time. Lovelyn, how do those slight delays work out?”
Our friend’s voice came back haunted. “It matches. Why would there be a delay?”
Mila whispered, “The ship was hit by storms.”
The three of us shared a shocked, horrified moment of silence.
Mila’s hand shook when she pushed her blonde hair from her face. “Our grandfather’s ship that I was never allowed to audit. That the women died on. This is it, isn’t it? The proof of trafficking.” Her voice broke. “This is how they did it.”
More slowly, I built the picture. “The ship docked with women on board, then they held auctions and hid the profits in a shared company.”
Lovelyn sucked in a breath. “There’s something else I’ve just thought of. Give me some time to work the idea through and I’ll come find you.”
We bid goodbye to Lovelyn, and I centred my gaze on Mila.
My sister’s hands tightened to fists. “There’s one way to be sure.
Convict told me they brought in the auctioneer last night.
I’ve been searching for that bastard for months.
We can interrogate him and the other, Salter, but we have another problem first. How do we handle the vote?
I don’t want to upset you, but you told me Denise couldn’t take your vote, and that’s exactly what she’s done. ”
My brain spun. Denise was a villain of the worst kind. I didn’t want to do anything with Marchant Haulage, but I didn’t want to give her the rights either.
Mila dropped her gaze to the floor. “I’ve been thinking about her endlessly. She mostly ignored my presence, but oddly, when she did speak to me, Primrose would nearly always interject.”
“What about Austin?”
Her cautious gaze returned to me. “He didn’t have the same reaction.”
My heart hurt. It suggested he didn’t know. Mila’s experience was a mirror of mine, every image flipped and reversed. Where there was a big picture that appeared the same, the devil was in the detail.
Mila opened her mouth as if to ask a question, but then closed it and looked away. I knew what was on her mind. It was exactly what I would want to know if a girl sat in front of me so clearly broken.
“She had her husband rape me, hun.”
Mila’s shock rippled through me and away. Since I’d told Tyler and allowed him to capture Terrence, the gut wrench had gone.
My past was losing its control. For the first time, it didn’t own me.
Mila didn’t speak. Only took my hand and held it, the tears she hadn’t released now rolling down her cheeks.
She hugged me. Managed kind words through sobs and snot. But my focus had already changed. Away from the mess my life had been in and over to something far better.
A reset, revenge. Whatever I wanted now, I was the one in charge.
“What happens if the vote goes one way or the other?” I asked.
Mila dried her eyes and took a shuddering breath. “If we can get out of the building safely, I’ll show you.”