Chapter 23

Mav

It was late when I finally heard my phone vibrating on the nightstand next to the other bed in the room. The last thing I wanted to do was get up and answer it, but mostly because of the warm body that was pressed up against mine. At some point after we'd fallen asleep, Eli had rolled over and turned into me so that his face was pressed against my throat and his arm was wrapped around my waist. One of his legs was thrown over me, putting his dick precariously close to mine. But even though I was turned on, I was content to just lie there and feel his heart beating against mine and his slow, even breathing that meant he was finally finding some peace.

Unfortunately, I couldn't ignore the phone, especially when it began vibrating again within a minute. It was well past midnight and although Eli and I had managed to get a good eight hours of rest, I knew we both needed more. But clearly the rest of the world didn't give a shit.

I carefully untangled myself from Eli's body and climbed out of bed, but not before I brushed a soft kiss over his temple. I left the lights off as I walked naked to the phone which started ringing again for the third time and my heart sped up when I saw Jace's name come up on the Caller ID. There could be only one reason the man was calling me.

Eli's stepdad.

"Hello?" I said softly as I began heading towards the bathroom so I wouldn't wake Eli.

"It's me. We have a problem."

"Eli's stepfather?" I asked as I searched out my pants on the bathroom floor and began pulling them on.

"No, Caleb."

I stilled and said, "Did something happen to him in the hospital?"

Jace was quiet a moment before saying, "I got him out of there."

"What?" I asked as I pulled up my pants and then sat down on the toilet.

"After I checked on him a couple days ago, I couldn't get past the feeling that something was off. So I went back this morning to see him again. He was more lucid this time around and he begged me to help him. They had him tied down, Mav," Jace said, the anger clear in his voice. "Ronan says you're in South Dakota and you're with his brother."

"I am."

"The kid's pretty messed up. Can you get down here as soon as possible? There's something you need to see."

My body tensed up at that, but before I could ask Jace for details, I looked up to see Eli watching me from the doorway. "Where are you?" I asked.

"West Virginia. I'll text you the information."

"We're on our way."

I hung up the phone and stood up and flipped on the bathroom light.

"What is it?" Eli asked nervously and I couldn't really blame him since the last time I'd taken a call like this, I'd ripped him to shreds with my cruel words.

"It's Caleb."

Eli stiffened even more and asked, "Is he okay?"

"Yeah, he's with Jace. But Jace needs us to come down there. Can you get dressed and I'll tell you what Jace told me on the way to the airport?"

Eli nodded and began scooping up our clothes. He handed me pieces of mine as I called the pilot to have the plane readied. I also called Ronan and told him the plan. I suspected he already knew what Jace wanted to show me, but with Eli in the room, I wasn't prepared to ask him about it. We were on the road within ten minutes and stopped only long enough to grab some food from a 24-hour fast food place. I explained to Eli what little I knew about Jace getting Caleb out of the psychiatric hospital, but he didn't say much.

The pilot and co-pilot were as professional as ever when we arrived at the airport and while it took a little longer to get through the security process since it was a major airport, we were airborne within a couple of hours of Jace's call and dawn was just breaking over the horizon when we landed in West Virginia. Ronan had already gotten a car for us so we were on the road within minutes of touching down and I asked Eli to navigate to the motel using the GPS on my phone. I did it more to give him something to do because his anxiety seemed to be increasing the closer we got to our destination.

The place Jace had selected was deep in the Appalachian Mountains and the fact that it was so secluded had me even more worried. I remembered Ronan's comment about how many of Jack Cortano's former army buddies had hired themselves out as paid guns. I had my knife on me, but when we arrived at the motel, I grabbed my Glock from my bag and quickly reloaded the gun and stuck it in the waistband of my pants at my back. The motel was quiet and there was only one car parked in the lot. I knew it was Jace's since it was right in front of the room number he'd texted us, but I still kept my eyes open as we approached it. The door opened even before we reached it and I quickly ushered Eli inside.

"Hey," Jace said as he reached out to shake my hand. I had worked with Jace quite a bit in the few years he'd been on the team, but like most of the men that found their way to Ronan, I knew little about his background. He was about my height, but with a slightly leaner build and his brown hair, while still on the long side, was nowhere near as long as mine and had considerably more curl to it than mine did, making it almost pretty. But nothing else about Jace was "pretty." With his ripped body, trimmed beard, dark, penetrating eyes and bronzed skin, he was stunningly gorgeous and I'd often wondered which team he played for early on when we'd first met. I'd eventually gotten the answer to my question, but by that time we'd built a professional relationship that neither of us had been willing to mess with just to slake our physical curiosities.

"Eli, this is Jace Christianson. Jace, this is Eli."

Jace nodded. I looked around the room, but didn't see anyone else. But before I could ask, a young man rounded the corner from the bathroom. I knew from my research that Caleb was only seventeen, but he looked younger to me and he'd clearly had it rough because everything about the way he held himself screamed "hands off!" He was a good looking, all-American boy next door type with light blond hair and startlingly blue eyes. He was on the slimmer side, but I suspected he would fill out as he got older.

His eyes stayed on me only for a moment before shifting to Eli, but he didn't say anything and the young men just stared at each other. It was Jace who broke the tension when he stepped past us and went to Caleb's side. He murmured something in Caleb's ear that seemed to relax him and then led him to one of the beds and had him sit down. Eli finally moved and sat down opposite him.

"Are you okay?" Eli asked.

Caleb nodded, but didn't say anything. He fidgeted nervously and couldn't seem to stop running his hands over his legs like he was trying to wipe something off of them and onto the gray sweat pants he was wearing.

"What happened?" Eli asked.

The question seemed to drive Caleb's anxiety higher, but surprisingly, he calmed when Jace sat down next to him and covered one of Caleb's hands with his own. Even though they'd been together for only 24 hours, they'd clearly formed some kind of bond .

"I don't know where to start," Caleb whispered, his voice sounding ragged. His statement was directed at Jace.

"Start wherever you feel comfortable," Jace murmured.

I went and sat next to Eli, but didn't reach for his hand even though I was tempted to. I made sure our bodies were touching though.

Caleb's pain-filled eyes shifted back to Eli and he shook his head. "We didn't know, Eli," he said softly, his voice barely audible. "Nick and me…we thought...we thought you wanted it. That you liked what he was doing to you."

I felt Eli stiffen next to me and he sucked in a deep breath.

"What is he talking about?" I asked Eli as my insides knotted up. Eli looked at me, his eyes wide and his mouth open, but nothing came out and he'd gone deathly pale. He climbed to his feet and took several steps away from me. Fear gripped me as I looked at Caleb. "Liked what?" I asked more angrily than I'd intended and Caleb automatically shifted closer to Jace.

"Caleb, don't!" Eli whispered, his voice cracking.

Caleb looked confused as his eyes shifted back and forth between me and Eli. "Eli, I'm sorry." He fell silent after that and I knew he wouldn't be giving me the answers I needed. I stood and went to Eli who immediately began backing away from me.

"Eli," I said gently as I reached for him, but he whirled away and tore out the door.

I ran after him, but with the few seconds head start he had, he made it to the woods before I finally caught up to him. I grabbed him, this time expecting him to lash out at me, but he didn't. He just began screaming the word "no" over and over again. Deep down I already knew what Caleb had meant, but I hadn't wanted to believe it. But now that Eli was shaking and crying against my chest as his fingers twisted in my shirt, I knew it was true. I held him as tight as I could and murmured inconsequential things in his ear at first, but when that didn't work, I whispered the Lakota prayer that had helped soothe him once before. I repeated it over and over until he settled in my hold. It had to be at least ten minutes before he quieted enough to hear me .

"Nothing you tell me changes anything, Eli," I murmured against his head. "Do you understand me?"

Eli disengaged himself from my arms and took several steps back. He wiped the tears from his face with his sleeve. "I was the one who started it," he whispered.

I didn't believe that for a second so I said, "Eli-" but he cut me off.

"It was a few days after my sixteenth birthday. My mom had flown to Mexico to visit relatives and Jack…Jack and I were celebrating the fact that I'd gotten my driver's license with an action movie marathon." Eli took in several deep breaths before continuing. "He let me have a beer. I liked it so I asked for another one and he gave it to me." Eli's voice cracked when he said, "It was so much fun hanging out with him like that. But the second beer was too much for me. When I woke up the next morning…"

Eli shook his head and wiped at the tears that had started to fall again. "I was still on the couch in the den and there was a blanket over me. I knew right away that…that I'd had sex. I was really confused and when Jack came in to check on me, I started crying and asked him why he'd done that to me."

Eli began sobbing, but when I reached for him, he pulled away. "Please…please just don't touch me right now, okay?" he begged.

"Okay," I said softly, though touching him was all I wanted to do. Except for finding Jack Cortano and ripping his fucking head off.

"Jack was really upset and told me it was a mistake. He said…he said I'd gotten drunk and had started touching him inappropriately and that he'd tried to stop it, but that he hadn't wanted to hurt me. He said I seduced him."

"Bullshit," I snarled.

"He showed me proof."

Fury was rolling through my blood so my voice was louder than I'd meant for it to be when I asked, "What proof?"

"There were security cameras throughout the house. They were always on, including in the den. He showed me the video of what we'd done. "

Disbelief tore through me and I started shaking my head.

"It's true," Eli whispered. "I saw myself performing oral sex on him…I wasn't fighting him and there was a point when he tried to stop me, but I didn't. I didn't struggle when he was fucking me either."

I grabbed Eli, even though he'd asked me not to. "Even if I believed that shit, it wouldn't fucking matter! He was the adult and he had no right to touch you. He raped you, Eli. Pure and simple!"

Eli flinched and tried to escape my hold. His despair quickly turned to anger. "Don't you get it, Mav? I let him do it! That time and all the others! I never told him no! I whored myself out just like when I was a kid!"

"Others?" I bit out. "How long did it go on for?"

"Until I left for college and a few times after."

Nausea rolled through my belly. Eli must have taken my silence as proof that I believed what he was saying, because he yanked his arm free and said, "I told you, I deserve whatever I get."

"Just because you never told him no doesn't mean you wanted it and it sure as hell doesn't mean you consented!" I snapped. I stepped forward and grabbed Eli by both his arms and forced him backwards until his back hit a tree. "He raped you, Eli! And when I find him, I'm going to make sure he never hurts you again, do you hear me?"

Eli refused to look at me and my anger intensified.

"Tell me the truth. Did you want him to do that to you?" I asked. "The truth," I said firmly. "Forget the guilt about what you think happened that first time, forget what you think you deserve."

"No," Eli answered without hesitation. "I didn't want it."

"Then why-"

"He never let up!" Eli cried out.

"What do you mean?"

"After that night, he kept telling me I'd done something to him. I'd changed him. He still loved my mother, but he loved me too…that I could give him something that no one else could. I told him that it couldn't ever happen again. That I didn't want it to happen ag ain, but he wore me down until one night I finally stopped saying no. I didn't let him fuck me again, but I…I…"

"You performed oral sex on him," I finished for him.

Eli nodded. "And then that stopped being enough and he wanted more. The guilt of what I was doing was killing me. My own mother's husband," Eli whispered. "I told him I couldn't do it anymore…that it was wrong and I wanted to stop. He started making threats after that…subtle ones. He talked about leaving my mom because he couldn't live with being around me and not being able to touch me. He…he made her so happy. I couldn't let that happen."

"So you gave in," I ventured, easing my hold on his arms so I could run my hands up and down his chilled skin.

"I hated it," Eli whispered. "I threw up every time he did it to me. Every single time. I told him it was making me sick, but he didn't care."

I reached up to wipe at the tears that were still slipping down his face.

"About a year after it started, I finally told him I wouldn't do it anymore. I told him if he ever touched me again, I'd tell my mom and Dom the truth. He laughed at me and told me to go ahead. He said no one would believe me after they saw the video. Then he…he threatened to pull his support for Dom's contracts with the army."

I stilled my movements at that as things finally started to click into place.

"He told me how much money Dom and his brothers would lose. He said he could ruin their business. I knew he would do it so I stopped saying no after that."

"Why didn't you tell Dom?" I asked. "He would have helped you. He wouldn't have cared about the money."

Eli shook his head. "I couldn't let him find out what I'd done," he said quietly. His eyes lifted to meet mine and he whispered, "I fucked my own mother's husband. He's one of Dom's closest friends."

"Eli- "

"You saw me in that parking garage, Mav. You saw what I was capable of."

I knew he was talking about the day he'd tried to trade a blowjob for the self-defense lessons he'd wanted. He'd been on autopilot in that moment and if I hadn't seen how empty and dead his eyes had been, I would have let him suck me off and from the seemingly eager, expert way he'd handled me, I would have thought he was completely into it. But none of that negated what had been done to him…what that fucker who'd claimed to be the father he wanted had done to him.

"I don't care if you stripped all your clothes off and begged him to fuck you, Eli! You were a kid and you were in no position to consent! He raped you!"

Eli closed his eyes and shook his head and I bit back my frustration. Nothing I said was going to convince him otherwise. "When did it stop?"

"It stopped for a while when I left for college. It was why I picked a school on the east coast. Then Jack got the job at the Department of Defense. The first time I went to see their new house in Virginia, he did it again. My mother was in the house," Eli whispered on a broken sob. "I stopped going there after that unless I absolutely had to and I avoided being alone with him. It happened a few more times, but he finally stopped pursuing me my sophomore year. But I didn't trust him not to want to start things up again so I decided to go back to Seattle for school."

Eli slumped against the tree. "I thought things would be better if I was around Dom and his family, but every time I'm with them, all I can think about is what I did. They'll hate me if they ever find out," Eli whispered just before looking up at me.

"No they won't," I said softly and then I leaned down to kiss him. "You didn't do anything wrong, Eli. I know it. Dom will see that."

"No," Eli cried out as he shook his head violently. "Dom can't know. My mom…it would kill her if she knew. Please, Mav…please promise me you won't tell anyone. Please, I'm begging you," Eli said desperately as he grabbed my arms .

"He needs to pay for what he did to you."

"Mav, please. I just want to start over somewhere else. Please, please, please," he repeated over and over until I dragged him into my arms. I could feel his breathing ticking up and I knew he was seconds away from a panic attack.

"Okay," I said softly against his ear. "I won't tell anyone," I reassured him.

Eli's relief was palpable as he sagged against me. I held on to him for several moments until he completely relaxed in my arms. "We need to go back and talk to Caleb," I said quietly.

Eli nodded.

I took his hand in mine and led him back across the parking lot. I gave the door a light knock and waited for Jace to open it, then tucked Eli against my side as I sat him down on the bed. Caleb was still in the same position and his worried eyes stayed on Eli before finally shifting to Jace who went to his side and nodded his head.

Caleb took a deep breath and then started talking.