The Darkness of Perfection (28 page)

He turned to me and raised his eyebrow, his expression full of curiosity. “Oh you have me curious now. Do tell.” He crossed his arms over his chest and waited for me to explain, obviously not going to drop it.

I rolled my eyes at him and walked to the sink to pour my unfinished cup in the sink. “It’s complicated and probably wouldn’t make sense to anyone but us.” I shook my head. “Actually, I don’t even understand it really, but it’s working for now.” I stared out the window, giving myself a moment to figure out how to voice the strange relationship Nicholas and I had fallen into. I turned back to him and sighed in defeat.

“I’ve accepted that Nicholas is never going to let me go. I’m never going to see my family again. Hell, I don’t think he’s ever going to let me even leave the property again. I’ve thought about it a lot and I think that’s what the “honeymoon” was for.” I made air quotes with my fingers displaying my sarcasm for my marriage and that trip. I knew deep inside the truth even if I pretended not to. “In return for giving up and accepting the life Nicholas has planned for me, I get to fight back. He lets me get it out of my system so I don’t do anything stupid that could hurt my family.”

“Is that really how you want to live the rest of your life, Jayden?” he asked quietly.

I narrowed my eyes and glared at him suspiciously. “No, William, I don’t, but I don’t have much of a choice now, do I? Why do you even care? What are you doing here? What do you want from me?”

He sighed and set his cup on the counter beside him. “I’m trying to save my family, Jayden, and unfortunately I need your help to do it,” he admitted.

I stepped away from him and laughed sharply. I looked to Antonio who was watching everything with keen interest. Nathan had already left to watch for Nicholas while I was in the bathroom. I shook my head in frustration. Nothing made any sense to me today. Not William. Not Feds standing around drinking coffee in my kitchen. Not my life. Not a damn thing. I turned on William, letting my anger fly.

“Your grandfather gave my mother to my father when she was just a young girl like she was a piece of property and had no value as a human being. I remember my father used to beat her if she even looked at him wrong! Your brother kidnapped me, threatened me, and tricked me into marrying him. Why would I want to help you?”

He stared down at the floor as if weighing his next words and let the silence stretch between us. “I appreciate you spending time with Gracie. It’s good for her to take her mind off things. I don’t want her to stress or worry, but I can’t always take her with me.”

His change of topic threw me off. “I enjoy visiting with her. She has a wicked sense of humor.

Honestly, it surprised me,” I admitted cautiously.

“Yes, she does. She gets me with it all the time.” He smiled and his entire demeanor changed. For a moment I saw all the love he felt for his wife and he was a different person. “It’s what first drew me to her when we were kids.”

“Was she born here? To this?” I couldn’t stop myself from asking.

His expression hardened once again and he walked over to the coffeemaker, filling his cup again.

“Unfortunately,” he replied harshly.

“You don’t have a lot of time left,” Antonio interjected. “If you’re gonna do this, you need to do it now.”

William nodded at the reminder and turned back to me. “I need to be clear with you, Jayden. I’m not trying to save my father. Personally I hope he rots in hell. But I would like to save my brother if at all possible and your being here makes that almost impossible any longer.” At my look of confusion he huffed, clearly aggravated that he had to spell everything out for me.

“You’ve just admitted to a federal agent that my brother kidnapped you and threatened your family.

That’s a little hard to overlook in an investigation. I made a deal for immunity for my brother, which he blew by going after you.”

His voice was rising the more frustrated he became, but at least now I understood the animosity he’d shown me since arriving. Even though I wasn’t responsible for Nicholas’s actions, he still blamed me for ruining his plans.

“What I’m about to tell you must stay between us. Swear to me, Jayden, you won’t breathe a word of this to Nicholas,” he stressed. “I love my brother, but with his actions regarding you I don’t know if I can trust him. My father has already proven years ago that family means nothing to him. If he knew what I was doing to his organization he wouldn’t hesitate to kill me and possibly Grace. Or worse, send her overseas to be brutalized for the rest of her life.”

I shuddered at the picture he painted in my head of all the horrible things Richard was capable of doing to his wife and unborn child. He already didn’t like her so nothing would stop him from destroying her if he knew of his son’s betrayal.

“I swear I won’t say anything,” I whispered.

Antonio nodded and stepped forward. “William has been working with our agency for the last two years, feeding us information to gain evidence against the key players and trafficking routes in and out of the U.S. Everything is about to come to a head in the next couple of weeks. We finally have everything we need to shut down one of the largest trafficking rings in our country.”

I stared between them, processing what Antonio was telling me, when a thought occurred to me.

“What about the girls you have at the facility Nicholas told me about? Are you going to save them, too?”

Antonio’s jaw clenched in anger and William looked ashamed. “We’re trying to save the girls my family has kidnapped and sold over the years. However, once they leave here there’s no way to track what happened to them years later. All I can do is stop it from continuing. I’ve had to keep up appearances while they built their case, but every one of the girls brought to us since I took full control of the day-to-day operations has been rerouted to safety. The trainers at the facility now, as well as any girls, are actually undercover cops to keep up appearances.”

He blew out a breath and rubbed his face with his hands. “I tried to stop Nicholas from kidnapping you. I sent Antonio with him to Kansas to screw up any plans he made. I was hoping he’d get frustrated and give up.”

“Obviously he didn’t,” I smirked. I offered a half smile to Antonio. “Thanks for trying, though.”

He nodded. “I’m just sorry I couldn’t do more to stop him. It’s the part of going undercover that sucks. I could save one or I could save many. Nicholas doesn’t like me as it is and I couldn’t raise his suspicions or risk blowing my cover.”

William continued. “I thought when he brought you here he would send you straight to the facility.

We would have gotten you out and made it look like there was a mistake in paperwork and you were sent overseas by mistake or something. I didn’t count on him keeping you locked up the whole time.

The guards around the house and that watched over you in particular weren’t my men so I couldn’t even help you escape then.”

“We watched for any opportunities when you were in Austin to help you escape as well, but Nicholas hasn’t left anything to chance where you’re concerned,” Antonio explained.

“Yeah, I don’t see that happening anytime soon, either. Not after my mother’s success,” I acknowledged. I thought about everything they had told me and I reconsidered my animosity toward William. I looked between Antonio and William. “I’m still confused, though. What do you need from me?”

William looked pointedly at Antonio, who raised his hands in the air. “That’s my cue to leave. I can’t listen to this.” He walked over to put his cup in the sink and smiled. “Thanks for the coffee.” His phone rang and he answered. “Rodriguez…got it.” He looked at his watch then us. “…it’s cutting it close.” He turned off his phone and looked at William. “You have ten minutes to convince her or not.

No more.”

“I understand,” William replied.

Antonio left the kitchen, presumably to undo whatever he’d done to the security system. I turned back to William. “Well, what do you want from me?”

He took a deep breath. “When this is over I want you to say you ran away voluntarily with my brother and at no point have you been held against your will.”

My jaw dropped and I stared at him in astonishment. “Are you freaking kidding me?” I shouted. “Why would I do that?”

His expression was filled with remorse when he answered. “Because my brother loves you and on some level you care, at least a little, for him, too.” He pointed to my stomach and I covered it instinctively with my hand, earning a knowing smile from him. “And I don’t think you really want the father of your baby to rot in prison.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I snapped defensively.

He sighed. “Grace had three miscarriages before this pregnancy. This is the first time she’s made it past the first trimester. I’m very familiar with morning sickness.” He gestured to where my hand still rested protectively over my stomach. “And you’ve covered your stomach every time I said something you’ve felt threatened by.”

“That could just be nausea because of you, plain and simple,” I retorted.

He tipped his head in acknowledgement of my insult. “True, but it’s not. Do you know how far along you are? Does Nicholas know yet?”

I sat back down on the barstool and chewed on my thumbnail nervously, saying nothing. What could I say? I’ve suspected I was pregnant for several weeks. I lied to Nicholas and told him I’d always been irregular when he noticed I’d missed my period. I don’t know why I bothered hiding it from him. It’s not like I could hide it forever.

Or could I?

I stared at William through narrowed eyes, weighing my options. Instead of answering his questions I asked one of my own. “You said you could help me. How?”

“I know Nicholas has a warped way of showing it, but my brother does love you. He was devastated when your mother took you away. He didn’t have a lot of friends growing up. My family is involved with some of the sleaziest characters in society; it’s not like we can invite many people into our lives.

The only ones he really had were you and Daniel. After you left, he changed. He became cold and closed off.” He raised his hand to stop me from arguing when I rolled my eyes at him. “I know it’s not an excuse for what he’s done, but it does explain things. I don’t think he’d have treated you this way if you never left. He cared about you too much to ever voluntarily hurt you. Am I wrong about that?” He paused, waiting for me to acknowledge the truth of his words.

I huffed, not wanting to agree with anything he said so I turned to stare at the wall, not willing to look into his knowing eyes. The unwanted memory of standing in Nicholas’s dark bedroom, clutching my bear and crying while he reassured me and changed the sheets on my bed so no evidence was left behind of my accident came to mind. When he was done, he’d give me clean pajamas and tuck me into his bed, telling me stories until I fell asleep. He never got mad, made fun of me or told. It was our secret. “No, you’re not wrong,” I admitted softly.

“Jayden, he made you a prisoner because he fears losing you again,” he explained. “When your mother took you away he went nuts.”

“Why, because his kitten got away?” I sneered, hiding behind my fear and anger. It was a safer than letting his words sink their claws into my heart any further. My past with Nicholas was the part of me that worked to accept my life now. I couldn’t give it anymore ammunition. I used my thumbnail to trace the veins in the granite counter for distraction.

“No, Jayden. He was worried because he wasn’t there to comfort you at night. He worried about how you would get through your nightmares without him.” He spoke calmly, but his tone still scolded me for scoffing at his brother’s concern.

I angrily brushed away the tears that threatened to spill over and swallowed the lump in my throat.

“That doesn’t tell me how you can help me,” I pressed. I couldn’t let myself be swayed by any feelings of sympathy for what Nicholas felt as a child. If I did, then I would give in yet again. I had someone else to think of now.

He handed me a napkin from the holder on the counter beside the coffeemaker. “Thanks,” I mumbled.

I accepted it grudgingly and used it to wipe my eyes and blow my nose.

“I’m getting to that. I’m sure once everything is over and he’s away from the influence of our father and this life, he’ll begin to see this isn’t the way to live. I can talk to him and convince him to let you have more freedoms.” He waved his hand in the air indicating the cameras in the room. “I’m sure in time we can convince him to get rid of all this and give you a normal life. Isn’t that what you want?”