Chapter 22
Callum
Send him my way…
Hours later, and his words still play in my head. I think Dallas fucking Jaeger has had enough to eat.
My footfalls pound the treadmill, the stock exchanges playing on all four monitors in our home gym. Shanghai and Tokyo closed while Dallas and I were in the Ministry office, and I try to concentrate on the Nasdaq, but everything hurts.
He went too hard last night, and I don’t know why I let him.
But he wanted me to be a piece of meat, and I needed the reminder that that’s all I am to him. I could see it in his eyes when we were facing each other. It got too intimate, and I felt it, too. I’m glad we’re on the same page about one thing.
Glancing at the time on the treadmill, I read 8:09 a.m. Where the hell is Sophia? I could’ve slept longer, but I’d texted Barnes last night to grab her early. It doesn’t take that long to get back from the Bay.
I should’ve gone to get her myself. I don’t need the driver today, and making him come in just for that feels stupid.
But with the curfew, it’s not wise for me to venture over there alone. If they decided to kill me, my body would never be found. I’m not sure they wouldn’t do it, so that’s reason enough to give them a wide berth on their own turf right now.
There are many stories about the Jaeger family, but a St. Carmen doctor is still missing after fifteen years, disappearing around the same time one of Dallas’s siblings went missing for eighteen hours. And that’s the story I believe.
Some versions say it was Iron who was taken, some say it was Liv, but we all know what happened to Robert Stanton, even if we can’t prove it.
The police don’t really want to solve the case anyway. The Jaegers did them a service, as they see it.
They’re more than capable of ridding themselves of problems, if they’re pushed far enough. Best not to dangle myself from a hook in their backyard.
“Morning!” a cheerful voice sings.
Looking up, I watch Sophia leap over the treadmill, all smiles.
Taking my towel, I wipe the sweat off my face and the back of my neck. “How was your night?”
It occurs to me too late that I’m shirtless and Dallas left marks on my neck and chest.
“It was nice.” She steps from one foot to the other, shifting her weight. “They had a big breakfast. There was Mr. and Mrs. Jaeger.” She starts listing off the family on her fingers. “The police officer—Army—and another one with all these tattoos. I forget his name.”
Iron had his fucking shirt off. Great.
She breaks into a smile. “Then Dallas came home, and their little brother, Trace. I liked him. He smiles a lot.” She laughs and pauses as if she remembers something funny.
“And let me see, their sister, Olivia, and some children. Paisleigh and Mars—short for Marshall—and Dexter Jaeger. He’s like five years old. ”
I press stop, grabbing my towel again and wiping off. “They were nice to you?”
She nods, still bobbing from one foot to the other. “I like them. There was so much talking and arguing like you and I do where it’s not really mean.”
“Teasing,” I point out.
She beams up at me. “Yeah, I liked it.”
Her clothes sit right, her shirt tucked in. No dirt or stains that I can see, and her hair is freshly styled in two Dutch braids, her glowing skin rosy.
She fidgets, but she doesn’t leave, just standing there and looking everywhere but at me.
I uncap my water bottle. “Why are you rocking?”
I take a drink, and finally she lowers her eyes. “Did Dallas call you last night?”
“We spoke.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she breathes out quickly. “I just want to forget it.”
I start to speak, but I stop. Anna-Katherine surfaced because she thought being Sophia was something bad. Or maybe she thought being Sophia attracted bad things.
The doctors said she adopted a persona she thinks will keep her safe, but I know it’s more dangerous for Sophia to believe that. If it weren’t for her mania after the Wolfe Room, my father wouldn’t have cared that she’d regressed to a little girl. Hell, some monsters would even love it.
For now, I don’t want to push her to face things. She may regress further.
Slipping the water bottle into the cup holder, I step off the treadmill. “Anna-Katherine, you were brave.” I look down at her as she stares at the ground. “You did exactly what you were supposed to do by running.”
Lifting her eyes, she meets mine.
“You won’t be alone with him again,” I state. “If anyone makes you feel unsafe, you tell me, and I’ll believe you.”
She nods once. “ ’Kay.”
She’s pleasant but curt, telling me she doesn’t want to think about it anymore. She just wants to forget everything, and that’s fine with me. For now. I’ll worry about Milo.
She twirls in the center of the room.
“You better hurry,” I say. “You’re going to be late for work.”
But just then, she stops, her eyes lighting up again. “Oh, I forgot. Mrs. Jaeger is downstairs.”
I grimace. “What?”
Mrs. Jaeger.
Krisjen?
She skips back over to me. “Dallas said it was okay if I skipped school today.” Her teeth flash white, lighting up her face again. “She’s going shopping with Clay and Olivia, and they invited me.”
And they thought asking her to go with them before they even talked to me would make me not want to refuse her? Not only is she not fucking going, but Krisjen needs to be reminded of the manners she was raised with.
I jerk my chin at my stepsister. “Wash your face and brush your teeth.”
She jumps. “I have to change my clothes, too.”
She races out of the room, and I look around for my shirt, but then I remember that I didn’t put one on this morning.
Leaving the gym, I charge down the hallway and find Krisjen in the foyer. She stands in front of a painting, purse slung over her shoulder with her arms crossed over her chest.
I let my gaze scale down her body. Dallas must love having some eye candy under the roof all the time.
Tanned, toned legs in black shorts and flip-flops and an oversize linen blouse.
Beach hair with streaks of blond from the summer sun.
When she dated Milo, we all saw one another every day. Parties, laughter…
Now she gets to see Dallas every day.
I stop within a few feet of her. “How much sugar do you all eat for breakfast over there?” I gripe.
Krisjen turns, lifting her brow.
I gesture up the stairs. “She’s bouncing off the walls.”
Krisjen holds up her hands in defense. “Just waffles.”
I cock my head. Yeah, right.
“With some toppings,” she adds under her breath.
I shake my head. Maybe that’s what they feed their kids, but Sophia gets two proteins, one fruit, and one grain. It would serve Krisjen right to have to deal with her sugar rush for the rest of the day.
We stare at each other, and it occurs to me how different she looks.
Pretty. She was always good-looking, but I don’t know…She’s stunning. Happy.
Drawing in a long breath, I straighten my spine, calming. “I’m surprised your husband let you come here alone,” I point out.
She offers a tight smile but keeps her arms folded over her chest.
“He didn’t,” she says. “Clay’s in the car.”
She is?
Moving to the window, I peel back the curtain. The girl who was almost my girlfriend senior year sits in the driver’s seat of her 1972 baby blue Bronco convertible. She had that in high school.
I falter, realizing that she’s out there because she didn’t want to come in.
And Olivia Jaeger is going with them, Sophia said?
But she’s not in the car.
My mind drifts back to a few days ago at Fox Hill Country Club. I showed her I was still a prick. Looks like she got the message.
I square my shoulders. Good.
Letting the curtain fall closed, I spin around. “What is Sophia talking about?” I ask Krisjen. “Shopping?”
Most of her clothes are tailor-made. It’s not like knickers and suspenders in her size are stocked in most stores.
But Krisjen replies, “To the paint store. We’ve been renovating the lighthouse, and we thought she might like to help us pick out some colors. Maybe get some lunch with the girls.”
“Why?” I stroll into the middle of the foyer, my back to the stairs as I face her. But I don’t wait for an answer. “You’re trying to assimilate her. Which one of them wants her?”
Krisjen’s eyes widen, the bitch looking almost amused, but I’m not stupid. It’s how they operate.
“Who is it?” I press. “Trace?”
Sophia said he smiled at her.
“They know what they’re doing with you girls,” I spit out. “Macon must’ve given you the best dicking of your life. Now you’re his wife.”
She walks up to me, smirking. “Well, they must know what they’re doing with you boys, too.” She turns my chin to see the bruises on my neck. “I recognize Dallas’s handiwork.”
I whip my jaw out of her grasp. “I’ll bet you do.”
She screwed around with Trace after she broke up with Milo back in high school. It wouldn’t be hard to imagine she fucked more of her husband’s brothers.
But she just chuckles. “The only thing of Dallas’s I ever touch is his hair when I cut it.”
I don’t say another word, trying to ignore how I’d rather she slept with him. Somehow, cutting his hair feels more personal.
She sighs, leveling me with her gaze. “Trace slept at the bar, thanks to you. He barely spoke to her this morning, okay?” She tries to put my mind at ease.
“Dallas was out all night. My husband only wants me, and Army and Iron are not in the habit of seducing…” She lowers her voice to a whisper. “…people who act like children.”
Sophia is more beautiful than ever, but a good man would know not to take advantage of her just because she has a woman’s body.
And I don’t believe for a second the Jaegers are good men.
“You think you’ll make friends with her, and it’ll change things with me?” I ask.
But she just shakes her head. “I think I’ll make friends with her, because I almost was her.” She inches closer, lowering her voice again. “Your friend Jerome Watson would’ve married me and taken me in there, and…”
And…
Yeah.
“Don’t think that I don’t know what went down,” she tells me.
I bite my tongue to keep my emotions in check.