Page 43 of Novice Girlfriend

“We know,” Taylor Reid said as he looked over something from his tablet. He held it up to me. “Do you know this man?”

I studied the picture and then shook my head. “No. That’s not someone who works for my family or their security.”

“No, he’s not. He’s a fixer for the top-tier families.” His eyes were cold. “He’s been tailing you to anything off campus like when you met Gloria.”

“Fixer,” I whispered and then laughed darkly. “I’m not surprised actually. I’m just property. You get rid of property if it doesn’t work right.”

“Or can testify,” Jasmine said gently.

“No offense, but to who? The council can’t handle them and not for spying on another top-tier family,” I drawled. “Me getting smacked around? Oh, okay. So do half of the top-tier women. So? So what? No one fucking cares!”

“I do,” Bevin said firmly. “We do.” She gestured around to the dozen people with her. “And we’re going to start making people pay for it. The crimes they have committed and stop letting it happen. That’s the war we’re fighting.”

I let out a shaky breath and tapped send for the message on my phone. “I’m in.”

10

Bevin

It took me a few days to be able to talk with Nina and Sergey. That shocked people, but I reminded them that I was supposed to be on break. They were all worried about my stress and I’d just made the factory fucking explode.

I needed to not explode too.

Winter was actually the most supportive on that, telling me to take my time and reminding people that I’d never left anyone hanging. That people kept pushing me to tell them what I needed, which was for people to start fucking listening to me when I did and stop making me feel like it was the wrong answer.

Yeah, he was forgiven for how he reacted to the whole bikini cafeteria thing.

I listened to Nina as she explained the night she came home to find people from the family she and Sergey were from sat in the house they’d provided for her holding the lockbox. They’d kept a key to make it clear the house wasn’t really hers—nothing was—and that they lived by their rules.

Or not at all.

She’d inquired about a different job in the human world. That was all, and they went to such extremes and took the last personal items of the people who had raised her on her father’s side of the family. Baby pictures of Sergey that were on photo CDs and more. A bank book from before the deal. Everything that meant the world to her.

Obviously, when it was in a fireproof lockbox.

“I’d tried to tell them it wasn’t to break our deal, but my direct manager touching me and being sexual with me, which wasn’t what we agreed to,” she said in a quiet voice I’d never heard from Nina. “And none of them would return my calls. I didn’t agree to be abused and treated that way. I agreed we would live quietly but with respect.

“I would not become a whore for their employees no matter what they thought of me being some distant cousin or taking care of their unwanted child. I was still a member of their family, so I did what any normal person would and looked into other employment. Not moving. Not disappearing. Just another job. I thought if I had another offer, the manager would stop.”

“Did they at least handle the manager?” Clare asked, having wanted to be at the meeting as well to support me. We actually met for breakfast at Mrs. Oliveria’s with Emma as my guard, Tracey, Winter, Sergey, Rita, Kevin—her son and Kelton’s older brother—and Clare.

“Yes, and they never ignored my calls again but made it clear not to ask for any little thing,” Nina answered. She snorted. “I’d made no requests before. Sergey was two by then and I called for nothing.” I felt her eyes on me, but I didn’t look at her. “They kept the box as my punishment for still not handling it better and a reminder they were always watching.

“That is why I told you and Tracey originally that I could not take the job. It wasn’t allowed. I knew…” She let out a slow breath. “After that day, I learned all I could so we could disappear if we needed to. Quietly. Everything carefully. Made contacts. Perfect at work and followed their rules so precisely they had no reason to suspect me.”

All while Sergey learned how to duck tails and hide using magic before most could think to. While learning to make black market contacts, which was how he’d gotten my mating profiles and more.

“I’m sorry you went through all of that,” I said when she was done. “I’m sorry this brought up your trauma.”

“No, I’m sorry because you gave me back something beyond value,” she rasped. “It’s a miracle you managed to retrieve it, and I acted like a monster.”

I swallowed a flinch at that word. Always that word.

Miracle.

Nina let out a shaky breath. “I have to know where you got it.”

“Dammit, Nina,” Tracey swore under her breath.