EPILOGUE ONE
KASHTON
The clock on my dash shows almost ten p.m. I slam on my brakes and get out of the car, walking into the house like I own it.
A man comes rushing into the living room with his gun raised, dressed in slacks and a button-down. “Goddammit, Kash.” He sighs, lowering it to his side. “What in the fuck are you doing here?”
“You texted me,” I remind him. He sent me one last night, but I never responded. I was busy with my wife.
“I asked if you could meet me today at noon,” he growls, checking his watch, knowing damn well it’s late. “And you never responded.”
“I’m here now.”
Giving me his back, I follow after him.
Entering his study, I slam the door shut behind me and notice there are two other men already in here.
They both stand in front of the couch as if they were sitting but jumped up when they heard me enter. “Kashton, this is the Decker—”
“Can you give us a minute?” I ask them, interrupting Adam. Respectfully, I don’t give a fuck who they are.
“Of course.” One of them nods before they both exit.
“Did you find her tapes?” I demand.
“No.” He answers with a shake of his head.
Of course not. That would be too easy, but I won’t give up until they are all found and destroyed. “Well, since I’m here…” I don’t even care why he called me here if he doesn’t have what I want. I brought something of my own. I slam the file on his desk, getting to the point as to why I stopped by.
He sighs, opening it up, and his shoulders stiffen. He immediately slams it shut and leans back, glaring up at me.
“You fucking piece of shit,” I say through gritted teeth.
He gets to his feet. “Kash—”
“No,” I shout, interrupting him. “How long have you fucking known that Eve was never pregnant?”
“I just found out,” he snaps defensively.
“Bullshit.”
“I’m telling the truth.”
I snort. “You’re telling me that you didn’t know she wasn’t pregnant when we all stood in the basement at Carnage?” I arch a brow. “When you told her that she had a twin?”
He looks away, and I fist my hands. “Fucking knew it.” He had a chance to fill us in then, and he chose not to. “At the very least you could have pulled me to the side and told me.”
“It would have crushed her,” he snaps.
“She deserved to know,” I shout and take a deep breath.
“I got what I wanted,” I tell him. “Another thing you’re keeping from us.
It will never end.” Adam opens his mouth to argue when I go on.
“Stay the fuck away from my wife. She has a new phone number and, in case you haven’t figured it out by now, she’s no longer working for you.
” Eve isn’t happy, but she doesn’t want to fight me on this.
She will live a life chained in our basement if that’s what it takes to keep her from working for him.
He opens his top desk drawer and holds out a manila envelope.
I yank it from his grasp and open it up. “Dawson Hues.” I read the name out loud. “What about him?” I shut the folder and slap it on his desk.
“You saved him.”
I snort.
“He was kidnapped while he and his mother were at the grocery store when he was five. He’s now nine.”
“What does that have to do with me?” I growl.
“He was living with a man…a man he believed to be his brother. When that man didn’t come home, Dawson went to a neighbor’s house who called the police, and one of the officers recognized him. Remembered his case.”
I run a hand through my hair. I’ve already been here longer than I wanted to. “Who is his brother?”
“Christopher,” he answers.
My neighbor kid? “So Christopher kidnapped him?”
He shrugs. “No one knows the specifics. Hell, it could have been my mother. But somehow, he ended up with Christopher.”
I shake my head. I should have killed him more slowly. Without another word, I turn to leave, done with this conversation. But I stop and turn back around to face him. “How did you do it?” I have to know.
His jaw sharpens as he looks away. I begin to walk toward his desk. I’ll beat the answer out of him if need be.
He picks up his cell, glances down at it, and taps away on the screen before he hands it to me.
I huff, yanking it from him. It’s a video. I’m so fucking tired of watching my wife being raped and beaten. Not to mention the last one I watched where she was shot three times. “How the fuck did you get a video of it?”
“Body cam,” Adam explains.
Making my way to the couch, I plop down on it and press Play. I sit motionless while watching my wife lying on the cathedral floor, all alone, bleeding out. I should have been there with her. I should have known that’s where she was going.
The cathedral is filled with gunshots, Adam barking orders, and blood—so much blood.
Eve’s and Vivian’s. Honestly, it’s hard to tell the difference once the bitch is lying where my wife was, now wearing her bulletproof vest and my zip-up hoodie.
Getting a closer look, I see the gunshot wounds weren’t in the exact same places but close enough in order to make me think they were.
Why would I even question it? A twin never even crossed my mind, but it should have. The signs were there.
I stop the video, having seen enough, and stand facing his desk. “What if she would have died while she was in your care?” I growl. “Would you have told me that I buried her sister?”
His eyes meet mine when he answers. “I wasn’t going to let that happen.”
All I can do is shake my head in disappointment and fucking rage that he took her from me. But as I look at him, I realize I shouldn’t have been surprised. He knew where Ashtyn was and never told Saint. Four years he kept that secret. I would have gone mad. Lost my fucking mind.
I start walking toward the door.
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry,” he says.
I turn to face him so I can look him in the eyes when I say, “For what it’s worth, go to hell.” There are a lot of things I can forgive, but making me think I buried my wife for three weeks isn’t one of them.
“Kash—”
Exiting his office, I slam the door shut. I pass by the two guys standing in the living room when I hear Adam rushing after me.
“I did what I had to do. You would have done the same.”
I spin around. “No. I would never take someone you love from you.”
“You should be thanking me.”
“Thanking you?” He’s lost his fucking mind.
“Yes,” he snaps. “If I wouldn’t have stepped in, she would have been dead, Kash. I saved her.” He slaps his chest. “I fucking rushed to her side. I did that. For you.”
The fucking nerve of him. “You can say whatever you need to tell yourself. And you can believe whatever you want to believe.” I step closer to him.
“I don’t give a shit if you speak to Haidyn and Saint, but you died,” I remind him through gritted teeth.
“We buried our brother. And to me, you’ll always be dead. ”
“And Bill?” He shoves his hands into the pockets of his slacks. “You going to cut him out of her life too? Where do you think I got my information from, Kash? You can’t cut us all out of her life.”
“Just you, Adam. Just you.” I turn and storm out of his house.
I barge into Bill’s house. My second stop for the night. I’m just making my rounds while I have my chance.
“Kashton?” Bill greets me in the grand foyer with wide eyes. “Everything okay?” He looks behind me, searching for my wife.
“We need to talk.”
He leans into Janice, whispering in her ear, and she nods before walking off. Turning, I follow him down the hallway and into his study. “It’s late, Kash.”
“You have some explaining to do.” I get to the fucking point. Believe me, this is the last place I want to be tonight.
“About?”
“Whatever it is that you fucking know about my wife but have kept from me,” I snap. “I just came from Adam’s, and he said everything he knows about Eve he’s heard from you. Why in the fuck would he know more about her than me? Her husband?”
He leans back in his chair. His eyes drop to a picture frame on his desk, and he picks it up.
“Start from the beginning. The night on the Isabella. My Lord was going to rape her. Was that a setup?”
“Coincidence,” he answers.
I snort. “I don’t believe in that shit.”
“Just because you don’t believe in something doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.” He frowns at me and I roll my eyes. “She was still a doll at the time.” Bill sighs. “Evan talked Isabella into letting him test her.”
“What the fuck do you mean by test her?” My pulse quickens at his choice of words.
“She had never been out in public, Kash. Garrett kept her locked at Carnage. Then she was given to Dollhouse and remained caged. Evan had decided he didn’t want to sell her, but clients wanted to see her.
In person. To them, she had come so far in her training.
So Evan convinced Isabella to let him take Eve to the party. ”
“How many?” I run my hand down my face, pacing his study.
“How many what?”
“How many was he going to sell her to that night?” I shout.
“Four,” he whispers.
Evan was going to let four Lords pay to rape my girl. “I stopped him…” I trail off. “But the others?”
“As far as I know, it didn’t happen.”
I stop pacing and turn to face him.
“Everything became so chaotic that night. I found my best friend dead. Isabella was inconsolable when she found out Trent had been killed. And Charlotte…they needed me. I looked for Eve but couldn’t find her anywhere.
” He sighs. “I had a deal with Trent. If something happened to him, I’d marry his wife to protect Charlotte, but Isabella didn’t know that.
So I went to her and told her I’d marry her to protect her from getting regifted to another Lord if she’d release Eve.
It wasn’t even a thought. She couldn’t get rid of her fast enough, but we couldn’t find Everett. ”
“What do you mean you couldn’t find her?”
“Evan had her. It took me six weeks to track him down. He was holed up with her in a cabin. She was tied to a bed…severely beaten.” He swallows. “I thought she was dead.”