Possession: Steel Brothers Saga: Book Three (17 page)

“That’s it, bitch. Yeah,” Low Voice groaned.

I detached. Like I always did. Although it wasn’t Tattoo, I always went to the bird. Colorful bird that I could focus on to get through the pain, the humiliation.

I had learned to see the bird on all of their forearms. And it helped.

So I focused on it, willing my mind to soar out of my body, like the phoenix rising from its ashes. Was the only way to get through it.

Though outside my body, I heard myself cry out.

They liked it when I cried out. If I didn’t, they would clock me upside the head or beat my ass. More pain, more humiliation. Still, I’d have given anything not to cry out, not to give them that satisfaction.

I was the little bitch they said I was. I couldn’t control my reactions.

God… God…

“No, no, no, no, no!”

* * *

I
was back
in Dr. Carmichael’s office, clenching the chair, perspiration emerging on my forehead and dripping down my cheeks.

Or was it tears?

“Easy, Talon,” she said in a soothing voice. “We don’t have to go back if you don’t want to.”

“God. I was there. I was fucking there.”

“You were. We were making progress.”

“What pulled me out?”

“You pulled yourself out. Normally I would bring you out slowly. But remember what I said the first time we tried this? That you would be able to come out anytime if you needed to? That’s what happened. So now you know that you can.”

I breathed in and out rapidly, panting like a damned dog. I had been there like it was fucking yesterday. That motherfucker, the low-voiced one who I had no memories of. He was right there, over me, and I was focusing on his forearm, his blank forearm.

Nothing. Nothing stood out. At least not yet.

I had to go back.

I didn’t want to, but I had to.

“Take me back, Doc.”

“Are you sure?”

I nodded. “I have to. There has to be something.”

* * *

N
o beach this time
. I was back in that dank cellar, Low Voice over me.

Still detached, seeing the bird on his blank forearm…

Look around, an inner voice said to me. Look around and see what’s here.

His left forearm was blank. He was wearing all black. Black short sleeves, like always. Always black with black masks. The only one who sometimes wore something different was the third one, the follower, the lemming.

I’d never seen the other two in anything but black. Sometimes T-shirts, sometimes wife-beaters. T-shirt today.

Though it pained me to do so, I forced my gaze from the invisible fiery bird on his left forearm. I couldn’t see much. He was on top of me, so my visual field was limited. His hands. Fingernails oddly clean and well kept. Long thin fingers, but nothing unusual. I looked over to his other hand, his other arm on the right side.

“Yeah, bitch, I’m getting ready. I’m getting fucking ready.”

“Lube him up good for me,” Tattoo said again.

Bile rose in my throat, but I swallowed it down. I didn’t want to get beaten for throwing up.

I’d throw up anyway. I always did. But I was usually able to wait until they left.

His right hand looked the same. Long fingers, clean fingernails. Forearm was also blank. I let my gaze wander up to his upper arm.

And now he wasn’t wearing a T-shirt anymore. He was wearing a black wife-beater. How had that changed?

I was going crazy. Bat-shit crazy. My mind didn’t know what was real and what was unreal anymore. Walls closed in on me at night, the bird emerged and taunted me. It all seemed very real.

So it made perfect sense to me that the T-shirt had turned into a wife-beater. His upper arm was right at my eye level.

And then I saw it.

A patch of darker skin. A birthmark, on the inside of his arm, very close to his armpit.

It was shaped like something I’d seen before.

An odd shape. Where had I seen it?

“Ah!” He groaned, thrusting.

And then relief.

It still hurt, and I knew it would only be mere seconds before someone else was abusing me, but for these few sacred seconds when he slid out of me, I actually felt relief.

He was gone.

The shape… Where had I seen it before?

Where had I seen it before?

And then the pain was gone. As if it had never been there. I was back lying on my soft beach towel under the California sun. In the distance, my brothers laughed, splashing each other. I opened my eyes and looked next to me. My beautiful mother sat there, reading a book. Her long brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail out of her face, and she wore a wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses.

She was beautiful, my mother. So beautiful.

I turned the other way, and my big strong father was on my other side. He wasn’t reading. He was watching my brothers. My father never took his eyes off us. If we did something wrong, no matter how sneaky we were, he knew.

He watched us constantly.

It was annoying, but I also knew how much he loved us.

We were loved.

I was loved.

I closed my eyes again and let the warmth of the sun envelop me.

* * *

W
hen I opened my eyes
, I was back in Dr. Carmichael’s office, back in the recliner. Oddly, I wasn’t clenching the arms.

I looked over at her. “I remember something.”

A
fter I had finished
my morning court appearances, I decided to do a little investigation of my own—not on the Steels as I’d been instructed to do by Larry. After all, Larry was no longer here. He had disappeared, just like Nico Kostas and Colin had.

It didn’t seem possible that Larry and Nico could’ve had anything to do with Colin’s disappearance. I hadn’t heard anything yet from Steve Dugan over at the station about whether my phone call had led to anything. If he didn’t call me by the end of the day, I was going to give him a call.

In the meantime, I had some time available, so I decided to do some investigation of Nico Kostas. But no sooner had I started, than I stopped. I had been so upset about Larry bending the rules and bending his ethics when he was city attorney. Now here I was, acting city attorney, and I was investigating something that had nothing to do with my job at the moment.

Damned if I was going to be that kind of an attorney. If I had to, I would do my research here at the office, but I would do it on my own time, after hours. No one would think anything of it if I stayed late working on cases. For now, I was the acting city attorney, and I would behave as such.

A couple hours later, when I’d finished everything on my own agenda for the day, I went back to the last assignment Larry had given me. To investigate the Steels.

He had started out by giving me folders and folders full of bank accounts. The only thing out of the ordinary that I’d found was a five-million-dollar transfer about twenty-five years ago.

One thing I had learned about the Steels—they weren’t above paying to get what they wanted.

That five million dollars had gone somewhere, and I was going to find out where.

Talon had told me once that something horrible had happened to him. I couldn’t begin to imagine what it might’ve been, but I wondered if it had been twenty-five years prior. What could’ve happened that the Steels would’ve been willing to pay five million dollars to cover up?

I didn’t have any idea, but I could start by trying to find out where that five million had gone.

As much as I knew she never wanted to hear from me again, I decided to call Wendy Madigan, the former National News correspondent who had helped shed some light on the Steels a few weeks earlier. I found her number and picked up the phone.

“Ms. Roberts.”

I couldn’t help smiling. “Thank you for picking up the phone, Wendy. Since you obviously knew it was me, I’m surprised you did.”

A sigh met my ears. “I really do wish I could help you. Rather, I wish I could go back in time and do things differently.”

“Would that include your affair with Bradford Steel?”

Another sigh. “No. As much as I hated the idea of being the other woman, Brad and I… Well, we had a connection that I think few people ever find. It was like we knew each other in a previous life or something. Our souls were connected.” And one more sigh. “I don’t mean to sound all esoteric. I’m actually a pretty level-headed and down-to-earth person.” She let out a chuckle.

“I know you are. I know from our previous talks and also from the fact that you were a newswoman. You had to be pretty grounded to do that.”

“I’m glad you can see that side of me. I honestly do wish I could help you. I wish I could help those boys and their sister. There was no love lost between me and their mother, but I adored their father. He was everything to me. Those boys… God, they all look just like him.”

“So I’ve heard. Marjorie tells me she’s the only one who bears even a slight resemblance to their mother. And that’s just in the shape of her face and lips. Otherwise she’s a female version of her brothers.”

“If you had known Brad, it would make perfect sense to you why his genes were so dominant. That’s the kind of man he was. Dominant. Controlling, but in a completely loving way.” She sighed once more. “Why am I even telling you all this?”

I wasn’t sure why she was either, but I wanted her to continue. Desperately. “If it helps to talk about it, please do. I’ll be happy to keep your confidence. I’m really only interested in helping the Steels.”

“Well, to be honest with you, I get a good feeling from you, Jade. I know you’re Marjorie’s best friend, and you wouldn’t hurt her. I have no idea why your boss wants to investigate the Steels.”

Something in her tone made me pause—as if maybe she
did
know why my boss wanted to investigate the Steels.

“Can you tell me a little more about Bradford Steel? Marjorie doesn’t talk a lot about him, and of course she doesn’t remember her mother all.”

“All I can tell you is that he was like no one I’d ever known before. His presence, his mere stance, denoted strength, everything a man should be. I can’t explain it any better than that, and I’m sure you don’t understand what I mean.”

Oh, but I did understand. Clearly Talon was quite a bit like his father. And from what I could tell, both of his brothers were too, in more than just looks.

“Have you ever been in love, Jade? Have you ever been willing to do anything for another person? Have you ever been willing to give your whole life to someone else? Because that’s how it was with Brad and me. And I feel confident in saying that he felt the same way I did. If Daphne hadn’t gotten pregnant with the oldest son, I don’t think they would’ve married.”

Oh, how well I did know. And maybe it was time to open up to Wendy, especially since she was opening up to me. Besides, Talon had said we could take our relationship public.

“Wendy, I actually know exactly how you feel. I really do. And the reason I know that…” I cleared my throat and drew in a deep breath. This was the right thing to do. “I’ve kept your confidence. I ask that you keep mine.”

“Of course,” she said.

“The reason I understand is, I’m in love. With Talon Steel.”

Silence on the other end of the line.

“I suppose that’s a lot to take in,” I said.

“No, it’s not that. It’s just…”

“Just what?”

“Talon has…issues.”

That was the understatement of the world. “I know. He’s in therapy.”

“Has he told you? I mean,
why
he’s in therapy?”

It occurred to me that I could say yes. Then Wendy would spill some information that she thought I had. But I couldn’t do that to Talon. I had promised that I wouldn’t pressure him, that I would let him tell me whatever he needed to tell me in his own time. So I turned off the attorney in me. “No, he hasn’t. He’s just not ready yet, and I’ve promised him that I won’t pressure him.”

“I would tell you if I could.”

“Yes, I believe you would. But don’t. I owe Talon more than that. I owe him my trust. If he’s ever going to trust me the way I trust him, he needs to know that I’m not trying to find out what’s going on behind his back.”

“It sounds like he’s lucky to have you, Jade.”

“I don’t know about that. I can only tell you that what I have with Talon sounds a lot like what you had with his father. He fills a room with his presence, with his strength and dominance.”

Wendy let out a laugh. “And it can get pretty fun in the bedroom, can’t it?”

My cheeks warmed. I hadn’t expected her to get that personal. “Well, without divulging anything private, I can agree with that.”

“Like father like son.”

I could almost see her smiling through the phone.

As fun as this conversation had the capacity to be, it was getting far beyond why I had called Wendy in the first place. “I believe Talon will tell me when he’s ready. And in the meantime, I’m not going to try to flush out anything he’s not ready to tell me about. But I am concerned. My boss, for whatever reason, wants information on the Steels. And let me be honest with you. I don’t know exactly why. All he told me was that it was classified. He said it was possible that they might be involved with organized crime and money laundering.”

Wendy gasped. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Honestly, Wendy, I don’t think they have anything to do with organized crime. I haven’t seen anything to indicate that they’re involved in anything illegal.”

“I can tell you right now that they’re not. Neither Brad nor his father would have dealt in any kind of crime or dirty money. They were both true gentlemen. Integrity meant the world to them.”

“I believe you.” And I did. “But Larry wanted to investigate them for some reason. Do you know what it might be?”

Once again I was met with silence.

“Wendy? You still there?”

“I am,” she said softly.

“Well, do you have any ideas?”

“I have some ideas, but I can’t tell you without revealing some secrets that I swore never to reveal.”

Were they secrets about Talon? Because if they weren’t, I didn’t understand why she couldn’t reveal them. But she had been more than forthcoming with me already. I would not push her.

“Can you at least point me in the right direction?”

“Talon will come to you when he’s ready. When he does, and when you’ve heard his story, call me again.”