Chapter 13

My hand was getting numb from all the writing. I had grown so used to writing in my journal that I was using that method to make notes as I dug into the information Cierra had sent to me. It was like a maze working through everything and I was learning things about people who had been in close proximity to me that I would rather not have known.

For starters, Jack's real name was Raymond Walters, and Jessica's was Samantha Stone. This was the third time the two had worked together running the same scam, but Jack had been involved in a few others.

The thing is, he'd been caught in a scam himself going back to his time in college, and that's how these people got their hooks into him. Jessica, too had been involved in something that she didn't want the law to know about and had been sucked into the trafficking game.

Silly me, I always had one perception of trafficking, like the way it's described on the news when they deign to cover it. Mostly, runaways being taken to parties where they're drugged and sold into hell. Or young girls being pimped out on street corners.

I never imagined that there were kidnapping rings targeting children of a certain look according to what the client preferred. The most horrendous cases were the ones that involved kids being chosen randomly and snatched away from their families only to end up on the other side of the world being used by some monster or group of them for sexual exploitation.

I must've showered three times in two hours, and it wasn't enough. But it was the last case that Jessica had worked on that sent me running to the bathroom to throw up. That vile creature. I was sitting on the cold bathroom floor with my head resting against the bowl when I felt him come in behind me.

He didn't say anything when he lifted me off the floor and took me over to the sink to get cleaned up. He remained silent even though I could see the tic in his jaw that betrayed the fact that he was pissed and took me to bed.

I thought he would leave me there since he was still dressed in his suit and tie, but he just kicked off his shoes and climbed in with me, pulling me into his arms just as the shakes began. "Let it out." It's as if I was waiting for his permission to release what was inside of me. I buried my face in his chest, dug my nails into his shoulders, and screamed.

I cried well into the night as a piece of my heart broke and shattered into pieces that I knew would never be mended again. I've known that there was evil in the world, I just never imagined anything on this scale.

Poverty, crime against the elderly, someone taking someone else's property, these things are criminal; the things that Jack and his ilk are into are pure evil. "Do you want to talk about it?" I shook my head against his chest and just lifted my lips to his, telling him without words what I needed.

I needed to feel whole and alive. I wanted to feel alive and loved. I helped him shed his clothes, our hands moving in haste, sending buttons flying without care until he was naked and warm beside me.

His fingers were gentle as they played over my body, his kisses sweet and soft, and when we came together, there was no haste in his movements.

We moved together slowly as he buried himself to the hilt inside me. My heart clenched when he kissed my tears away and soared when he whispered how much he loved me. I couldn't get close enough, no matter how tightly I clutched him to me.

I wanted to crawl inside of him, to become part of him; I wanted to be completely enveloped by him. As if he could read my mind, his arms came around me completely until my much smaller frame was swallowed up by his, completely covered as if he was sheltering me from the rest of the world.

* * *

MARK

* * *

I felther agony before it hit her fully and rushed home to get to her. I had to bite back the angry expletive that threatened to explode from my tongue when I found her curled around the toilet, crying her heart out.

I knew what she'd seen, what she'd learned, and hoped like hell that it was enough to keep her away from this, that it was enough to stop her in her tracks, but when I tapped into her mind as I moved in and out of her, I knew that that was just wishful thinking.

The sweet, docile woman I had married was overtaken by her own nature to champion the innocent. It's her life's passion, after all. All of her charities and volunteer work are centered around children, the elderly, and animals.

I'd seen the way she was with our child. She was the most gentle, caring mother, and I never had any worries when it came to her and our kids because I knew that she would go above and beyond for them in all things. I know her heart, how soft it is, and what she couldn't take.

But what I saw was more anger as it overtook the fear. I felt it in the way she clutched at me as she tried to get me to go faster. She'd cum twice already and was no longer in the mood for my sweet soft loving.

I wanted to take care of her, to show her all the tender loving care I had in me for her, but her mind told me that she needed something more. I didn't give her any warning when I pulled out and flipped her over onto her hands and knees, pulling her up until her pussy was in line with my cock.

I drove into her hard, going deep with one stroke, and she screamed and gripped the sheets in her fists while pushing back into me, taking me even deeper. I grabbed her hair and used it like a horse's reins as I pounded into her hard.

Her mind was a whirl of fire and flames; lust and anger fought within her, battling each other for dominance. I reached around and pressed down ever so gently on her clit while nipping her neck, and lust won. Her screams and moans were guttural, her need for me growing stronger.

I flooded her mind with the image of what we looked like together, primal, animal. She grew more restless in her movements as she fucked herself harder on and off my cock, and I held on, keeping pace with her as she chased the images in her head until they exploded in a blinding light.

She clamped down around my cock with a chokehold and arched her back, canting her ass higher in the air, which sent me off. "Let me in." I didn't have to explain; I'd fucked into her womb almost every time I'd had her in the last week.

She relaxed the way I'd taught her to that would cause the least amount of pain, spread her legs wider, breathed in deep and let me in. One hard thrust forward later, and I was buried deep, already shooting off before her cervix closed around my cockhead, locking me in the deepest part of her.

I didn't pull out when we were both tired and exhausted; I just took her down to the mattress with me lying behind her and my arms holding her close. She's not going to stop; that much I got. So now I have to figure out how to shield her from the worst of it without stomping all over her intelligence and her need to do something about what she now knew existed right under her nose.

I could kill Jack and Jessica, but at this point, that wouldn't do me any good. Cierra and the other women on the island had given him just enough to whet her interest, and even if she didn't know it, I knew it was a test.

A test to see how much she can take without breaking. If I forced her to pull back now, it might do more harm than good. Knowing what she knows now, the things she had been exposed to, there's no way to turn back now; she'd always know that those things were out there. And knowing her, she'd feel more guilt if she did nothing, and she threw in the towel now.

I looked down at her sleeping face and felt a pang in my chest at the loss of her innocence. I kissed her forehead and closed my eyes in resolve. "My poor baby!"