“Because they wanted to hurt something I’d vowed to protect.” Lucas’s face had slipped into an emotionless mask, and his voice was a deadly calm when he responded, letting me know he was done talking about what had happened that night.
I’d wondered so many times how the women who were forced into this world would ever want to stay, especially when they would never have the kind of relationship that Lucas and I had. After meeting William’s women and hearing their stories from their previous lives . . . in a way, I could understand. But only to an extent.
Even more, I’d wondered how these men had ever entered this world, and how their minds had been warped and twisted into thinking this life was okay. I’d been sure they’d all come from money—given what I’d seen of Lucas and William, and knowing that they paid for all the women—and had disturbing fetishes. But after being given the smallest glimpse into Lucas’s past, I couldn’t help but wonder how someone like him had stumbled into this life, and why his past had been essential for it.
“So, you’re dangerous,” I mumbled softly.
“Not to you.”
“In general.” I let my eyes gloss over the scars that littered his arms and wondered what all the other ones were from. “Why was that a necessity for William? What in this life would require you to be that way? The energy industry can’t be so . . .” My words died when he laughed darkly.
“Not all of the men in this world work in energy. There are some in oil, gas . . .” He eyed me and dropped his voice. “The government, the police . . . which is why we’re able to live the way we do. We control Houston and everything that happens in the surrounding cities. Police, weapons, drug—”
“Sex trafficking,” I added bitterly.
Lucas made a face like he was going to deny it. “Human trafficking.”
“There isn’t a difference—”
“There is,” he argued. “It’s different than the sex trafficking that you hear about in the news. If you hadn’t been bought at the auction, you would have found yourself in a situation like what you see in the news. The sellers would have just sold you off to a brothel, or taken you overseas and sold you to a whore house where they keep their women of all ages pumped full of drugs so they can’t try to run.”
My stomach churned. “Oh God.”
Lucas nodded. “But I guess, in a way, we control that too. We don’t outright say anything to, or against, the sellers, and they don’t expose our world. But since we have law enforcement in our world and in our pockets, every couple of years or so we tip detectives off when we know they have a shipment of children coming in or going out of the Gulf, and law enforcement conveniently looks the other way when we bring in weapons. And the cocaine that runs along the Gulf and up through Houston? It doesn’t get bagged or pass hands until it goes through William and then me, and it comes from an Irish-American mob.”
“Comes from a what?” I choked out, my words nearly silent from the shock of his admission.
His eyes searched mine for a minute before he spoke again, his tone soft, yet urgent. “So now you see, my work is so much more than just going and sitting in an office, and I am surrounded by the worst kind of people. That is why William was so interested in my past.”
My head shook absentmindedly as I tried to comprehend all that he had told me.
Knowing the man Lucas was behind the darkness, I couldn’t grasp why he had ever fought to get into this life at all.
“I’d been wondering what had happened in your life to make you into the devil I saw so often at the beginning,” I began, my voice soft . . . almost hesitant. “But now I wonder how you were able to remain you, instead of letting the devil completely consume you.”
“Don’t ever make the mistake of thinking that that part of me isn’t there.”
“I couldn’t,” I said honestly and huffed a small laugh. “He’s always there . . . I see you fighting him all the time. Now, more than I have in a long time.”
He held my stare, and his dark eyes burned with something I couldn’t define. “You’re afraid of me.”
I wished in that moment for my room so I could have something to hide behind, at least for a minute, because I knew I couldn’t hide any of the emotions coursing through me, and I couldn’t lie to him. “Yes,” I whispered and hated that he seemed to not only expect my answer but accept it. Reaching out, I traced around the outer edge of his eye, thankful I wasn’t shaking. “I’m afraid of the eyes I’m looking into right now. I’ve been afraid of them for a long time. I’m afraid of what I know about you now, but I wonder if I haven’t always known. If you haven’t hinted at it before . . .”
“Briar—”
“But the things you see in your mind that force me to see these eyes? They’ve been there this whole time. They were there when I fell in love with you, and I knew when I fell that they would always be there.” I watched as he fought with whatever haunted him and lowered myself back onto the bed and curled against his side. “The darkest part of your soul can terrify me, but it won’t cause me to leave.”
He gripped my hand in his, and mumbled, “Sometimes I wish it would.” Before I could react or respond, he continued. “If you think I’m dangerous, maybe you understand what my life is like, and maybe you can grasp the danger in throwing out the rules for you. Eventually someone other than William will see what you mean to me. And with who we are and what we do, we all have so many enemies who’ve been waiting for a chance to get back at us—to hurt us.” He raised our joined hands to kiss my wrist and let his lips linger on the skin there. “We don’t have weaknesses, Briar, but you are mine. They’ve been waiting for you.”
Chapter 31
Day 87 with Briar
Lucas
“Mr. Holt?” my driver called out in a reverent tone that bordered on terrified.
I paused from walking into my house, my fingers still over the screen of my phone from where I’d been responding to an email, and turned slowly.
His eyes quickly fell to the floor of the garage, and I rolled mine in response.
My driver was lethal and willing to die for Briar, or any other girl I would have in the future. That was why I had him, why I trusted him, and why I paid him as much as I did.
But he nearly pissed himself whenever he had to address me.
Maybe it was the product of him witnessing my behavior for the last three and a half years, having seen the man I became in order to do my job well. The fear I saw in his eyes and heard in his tone wasn’t uncommon, and I’d had to prove myself to instill it in the men we dealt within our business, but it was irritating coming from the man I employed.
Especially one I saw daily.
He, of all people, should know if I was going to shoot him, I would’ve already done it long ago.
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Holt, it’s just that I was wondering if you’ve noticed the date?” His eyes bounced up and down, each time holding my blank stare longer and longer before he eventually stopped looking away.