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I ignore his question. “You might as well let me see. You want this to work, I need in. I can’t only know one side of your life, Bastian. It’s all or nothing.” I don’t waver in my stance nor do I break eye contact. He sets his drink down on the edge of a beautiful grand piano. Without a word he moves around it and settles his impressive size on the bench.
“Let her see, gentlemen,” he gruffs out before playing a melody on the white and black keys I’ve heard him hum before. It’s calming and sweet. Everything this moment doesn’t feel like. For some reason, I’m afraid a glass shoe is about to fall and my universe is about to come crashing down around my feet for a second time.
“Thank you,” I mouth to Bastian. He gives a soft nod and turns back to the keys.
James opens the laptop and pulls the video up again.
“Be warned, this is graphic,” he says like a big brother who thinks his little sister can’t take the sight of blood.
Earlier today, he would be right. I learned a lot about my limits in a brief span of time.
“Noted. What am I looking at?” I ask.
Con comes over and hands me a cup of coffee and a slice of fresh bread. His smile is gentle and the kindness in his eyes belies the rough life he leads. One day I hope he can find the happiness I’ve found with his boss.
James points at the screen. “Yesterday after the Accandis men left here, they both went back to their club. Noah took a couple of hookers to the back and his father retired for the evening in the apartment they own above the club.”
“Disgusting. Trash with no class. I’m not surprised. And the other brother?”
“Good observation,” Bastian says as he continues to stroke the piano keys.
“Liam went to a meeting. We followed him to a warehouse where I took these while Con recorded with his phone.”
Arthur holds up a phone. I take it and flip through a handful of snaps showing Noah talking to someone in the middle of a dark warehouse. Only the lights of two cars throw light into the cavernous belly of the dilapidated building. I pass the phone back to him and continue watching the video. Crates of weapons sit around them with a couple popped open.
But that isn’t all. Women kneel along the far wall. I can barely make out their slight forms in the poor lighting.
But their whimpers are deafening.
“Are those women getting trafficked?”
Fear grips my heart. I look to Bastian who has stopped playing. He considers me and the anger in his eyes sends me back a step. The ire in him isn’t for me though, I quickly realize. It’s for the women and the truth that he almost handed me over to those monsters. Self loathing spreads over his face.
“Do we call this in? Do you have any cops on your payroll? What happened to those women?”
Before now I am almost embarrassed to say I didn't notice the bruising on Con’s and Arthur’s knuckles nor the ones that color their faces.
“You fought them, didn't you? That is why Liam came here early? You spooked him into acting.”
James nods, but it’s Bastian who speaks.
“He knew if I found out about him breaking our contract that I would call off the wedding.”
Con gives off a nervous laugh. “That little Irish prick knew we were watching and thought a few of his men could take us down. He left them to finish us and rounded up others to come here.”
I join Bastian by the piano, and he pulls me onto his lap.
He touches the end of my nose with his. “Men, if you don’t mind I would like a few moments with my lover. I’ll join you shortly.” He takes the coffee mug and untouched bread from my hand.
“Join them? Do you have to go?”
I don’t see the men leave the living room, but I feel the energy shift once we are alone. It’s calmer.
“Bastian, what’s going on?” I ask in a hushed tone.
His hands settle around my waist. “This nightmare isn’t over. I still have to deal with the other brother. While he is still out there, the Accandis crew will always have a target on our backs. I can’t let that happen.”
“What does that mean?”
