We stood in front of him while he tried all the keys. We did this at three doors before we hit pay dirt.
The door opened, and inside were two children. Boys. Both had blondish hair, could pass for brothers—maybe were brothers. They were dressed only in large T-shirts, and their wrists and ankles were bound with white rope. Both cowered in the corner when we entered the room.
Talon went rigid.
I could see it in his eyes. He was flashing back.
And that damned siren kept blaring!
“Hold it together, Tal,” I yelled at him. “Please! We’ll get them out of here!”
Then his eyes went feral. He ran to the two little boys and grabbed one of them.
“No!” The little boy yelled. “No! Please! No more!”
“We won’t hurt you!” I yelled.
And the siren stopped blaring.
Thank God.
But the little boy was yelling, and the other was quietly weeping.
“Hey, hey,” Talon said. “You need to be quiet if you don’t want the bad people to come. We’re not going to hurt you. I promise.” He quickly unbound the little boy’s hands and feet.
“Can he walk?” I asked.
“Of course he can’t walk. Look at him. Look at both of them. They’ll stumble. They’re starved and malnourished. They’ll need our help.”
Talon knew. He knew just what these boys had been through. And it was eating him up inside. I could see it. See what it was doing to my hero.
This had to stop.
“Tal,” I said. “Get a grip. We need them to be strong if we’re going to help them. You walked out, remember?”
“I had help.”
“You had Larry, who let you out, but you didn’t have anyone to help you walk. They do. They have us. They’ll be okay.”
“Listen, mon,” Raj interjected. “We can’t take them right now. We don’t know what we’re walking into. The siren has stopped. Things will settle down and get back to normal. We need to find who’s in charge here and get him taken care of. They’ll slow us down.”
“We are not leaving them here,” Talon said through gritted teeth. “I’m paying your bills, goddamnit, and you’re going to help me get these boys out of here.”
My mind whirled. The fact that Scotty had a key to this room meant he’d probably had a hand in abusing these young kids. Abhorrence erupted in my throat. I hadn’t been able to rescue Anna, but we could rescue these two little boys.
Not just for them, but for Talon. For the little boy my brother had been. For the little boy I had been, saved only because I had a different mother—an evil woman who had orchestrated all of this.
I so couldn’t go there right now…
“Talon’s right,” I said to Raj. “We’re not leaving them here.”
The boy Talon held let out a scream.
I clamped my hand over his mouth. “Hey, I know you’re scared. But we’re going to help you. We need you to be quiet. If you scream, someone will find us and we won’t be able to help you. Do you understand?”
The boy nodded shakily, but when I removed my hand, he let out another blood-curdling howl.
“He doesn’t trust you, Ryan. He doesn’t trust any of us. He can’t. He’s been through hell.”
I hated what I was about to suggest, but we had no alternative. “Raj, you still have the tape?”
Talon turned on me. “We will not tape his mouth! Damn it, Ryan. We can’t put them through more shit.”
“Tal, I understand, but they have to be quiet.”
“I’ll get them to be quiet,” Talon said. “I know what they need right now.” He set the little boy down next to the other and then sat on the floor with them. He removed his mask.
The little boy let out a heart-wrenching shriek.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Ruby
He was tall. Tall and broad. In his hand, he held a black Stetson. His eyes were dark as strong coffee, and his hair was the same color, though silver streaked through it, especially at the temples.
In his sculpted jawline I saw Ryan. In his profile I saw Talon. And the rest was exactly what Jonah Steel would look like in twenty-plus years.
“Brad Steel,” I said.
“Hello, Ruby.”
“You know who I am?”
“You’re Theo’s daughter. My son’s girlfriend. I helped bring you here.”
I nearly lost my footing. I’d seen two blurry faces that day as I lost consciousness.
Two…
No. Ryan’s father wouldn’t participate in kidnapping me.
But I didn’t know Ryan’s father. After all, Ryan was nothing like his mother, thank God. His father could very well be just as monstrous.
“So Wendy was telling the truth. You are alive.”
“I am. I’m sure you have a lot of questions.”
Questions? They swirled through my mind at a hundred miles an hour. What to ask first? But all that came out was, “How could you do this?”
“I need to tell my children the truth first.”
I couldn’t fault his logic, but damn, I was standing right here. “Please. Just tell me.”
“I had reasons for everything I did. Reasons you—and my children—may not understand. But someone broke a promise to me, so all bets are now off. My children deserve to know the truth.”
“They deserved that a long time ago,” I said, seething.
“I was trying to protect them.”
“By not letting them deal with anything? I’m sorry, but you were wrong. Talon is only now getting the help he needs.”
“I know that. And I’m thankful.”
“And Ryan…” I couldn’t finish.
“Ryan was never supposed to know about his mother. His biological mother. Daphne was his real mother. She treated him as one of her own.” He shook his head, his eyes heavy-lidded and sad. “He was never supposed to know.”
“Well, he does now.”
“I know, and I’m sorry. Daphne loved him as much as the others. She raised him as her own. She did that for me.”
“But why—”
“That’s all I can say for now. My children deserve to hear the truth before anyone else does.”
“I understand.” I did. Didn’t make it any easier to have Brad Steel standing right in front of me and not get the answers I was yearning for. And then it dawned on me. “I do understand, really. But I’m Theodore Mathias’s child, and I deserve some truth as well.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I can’t tell you anything about Theo. He and I aren’t friends.”
“But you used to be. My uncle told me. Rodney Cates.”
“That changed long ago.”
“When he took your son.”
“I can’t talk about that yet.”
“Or did your friendship end before that? When they went into this disgusting business they conduct on these godforsaken islands?”
He didn’t answer.
“Why? Why did you build a replica of this house here? Who is the woman who lives here with you? Is that your baby?”
“Miss Ruby,” Marabel said. “Please. The master is tired.”
“It’s only midmorning.”
“The master gets up early to do his work.”
“His work? What work? There’s nothing here. Only this house. Outside these concrete walls, there are crimes being committed, Marabel. Vicious, heinous crimes!” I turned back to Brad. “What the hell do you do here all day? Whyever you did it, was it worth it to leave your family? Jonah is going to be a father soon, for God’s sake. You’re going to have a grandchild. So what did you do? Come here and start a new family with that woman and her baby?”
“Miss Ruby, please,” Marabel said again.
“It’s all right, Marabel,” Brad said. “She is understandably upset.”
Juliet’s face flashed in my mind. She’d freak if she noticed I was no longer on the deck with her. I looked out the French doors. She was fine, still in the yard playing with Bo, Beauty, and Ernie.
I turned back to Marabel. “Do you have any idea what goes on here? On these islands? What these people are doing?”
“Enough!” Brad Steel’s voice was loud without actually being a yell.
The fire in his eyes. I’d seen the same fire in Ryan’s eyes. He meant to be obeyed.
I didn’t care. I was in love with Ryan. I eagerly welcomed his commands.
I hated the man standing before me.