Possession: Steel Brothers Saga: Book Three (4 page)

I
bolted upright in bed
. Something had woken me. Where was Talon?

I sat, my mind jumbled and confused. Then a pounding on the door. Was that what had woken me?

I stumbled out of bed, naked as a jaybird. Luckily this was the Carlton, and lush white robes hung in the bathroom. I threw one on and then went to the door and looked out the peephole.

Talon.

I opened the door. “Where have you been?”

“I’m sorry. I went down the hall to make a few phone calls. I didn’t want to disturb you. Forgot to take a key.”

My heart raced. “How could you leave me? You knew I needed you.”

“Baby, I was in the next bed. I was on alert all night. I just left for a little while.”

“What time is it?”

Talon smiled and walked into the room. He went to the curtains and opened them. The bright sunlight nearly blinded me. Was it morning?

“It’s one o’clock in the afternoon, Jade. You slept for twelve hours.”

My heart popped out of my chest. “What? No.”

“Yes. I had to call the front desk and get a late checkout. We don’t have to be out of here until three.”

I ran around the room, picking up my clothes. “But my mother. I have to go see my mother!”

“Blue eyes, your mother’s fine. I called the hospital this morning and got an update. She’s still unconscious, but she’s stable.”

I felt a little more relieved. “Still, I need to go to her.”

“Do you want me to book you a room for tonight?”

“My father’s coming today. I don’t know what his plans are.” Hurriedly, I grabbed my phone. Yep, sure enough, there was a text from my dad.

Should be at the hospital by three p.m., sweetie.

I turned to Talon. “He’ll be here in a couple hours. He’ll meet us at the hospital.”

He shook his head. “I have to get back to the ranch, blue eyes. I wish I could stay.”

My stomach dropped. “Please. I can’t be alone.”

“You won’t be alone, Jade. Your father’s coming. I’ll stay until he gets here.”

Tears clogged my throat. “No. I need
you
, Talon. You.”

He sighed and pulled me to him, stroking my hair. “All right, blue eyes. If you need me to stay, I’ll stay for a little while.”

“Thank you.”

“I want you to take a shower. I’m going to get us some food, okay?”

I shook my head. “No, we have to get to the hospital.”

“I told you, there’s been no change. She won’t even know you’re there, baby. Please, you have to take care of yourself too.”

He was right. I nodded against his shirt. “All right. But it will be a quick shower. I want you back here in fifteen minutes.”

He mock saluted me. “Yes, ma’am.”

After Talon left, I started shaking, my nerves overcoming me.
No, Jade, keep it together.
I shed my lush robe and took a quick shower, letting the tears fall. I probably looked like shit anyway from crying yesterday, so what did it matter? Talon would see me at my worst. I’d obviously seen him at his worst, and I still loved him more than anything.

I hadn’t brought a change of clothes, so I had to wear the ones I’d worn yesterday. Icky, but I had no other option. Once I got dressed, I went back to the bathroom and combed through my wet hair, deciding against the blow-dryer. I’d let it air dry. Then I grabbed my purse and put on a little bit of lipstick. That was it. I didn’t have the energy for anything else.

Talon returned on schedule with burgers and fries. They tasted like sawdust, but my stomach appreciated it.

As much as I wanted to grab him and take him back to bed, lose myself and escape reality, I held myself in check. I had to get to my mother.

Once we got there, though, I found that Talon was right. She was stable, and there’d been no change. The most I could do was sit with her for a few minutes. They wouldn’t let Talon in with me, so I sat alone, holding her hand that had a pulse oximeter clipped to it.

I wanted to say something to her, even though I knew she couldn’t hear me, but I didn’t know what to say. We’d never been close. She’d never cared enough to be close to me. The one time she’d come back, when I was fifteen, her second husband had cheated her out of her entire fortune from her modeling days. She came back to my father and me stone broke, and neither of us wanted anything to do with her.

I’d never regretted that choice. She hadn’t been there for me during my formative years when I needed her. She had chosen her career over me, and that still burned. But she was my mother, and I did not want her to die.

So that’s what I would say. I took a deep breath and squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry this happened to you, Mom. I really am. But I’m here. Dad is on his way. Nico had to fly to Des Moines. I’m sure he’ll be back soon.” Somehow, I knew that wasn’t true. Nico wasn’t coming back. But I couldn’t say that to my mother, even if she was unconscious. “I know we were never close, but you are my mother. And in my way, I do love you.”

A nurse came in to check her vitals.

“How is she doing?” I asked.

“She’s doing as well as can be expected. I heard you talking to her. I think that’s good.”

I bit my lower lip. “She can’t possibly hear me or even know I’m here.”

The nurse smiled at me. “I’ve been working ICU for fifteen years, and I’ve seen a lot of patients like your mother. The ones who do the best are the ones whose family members sit with them, hold their hands, and talk to them, just as you’re doing now. She knows you’re here. You can bank on it.”

Did she? Did she care? A couple of weeks ago, she had invited me to have dinner with her and Nico. I’d figured she was making an obligatory gesture. Had it been more than that? Now that I was an adult, did she want to try to repair our relationship? Better question—was I open to that?

My once-beautiful mother, now bruised and battered and fighting for her life, lay in silence. And the answer emerged in my mind. Yes. I did want to mend the relationship if possible.

The nurse finished checking my mother’s vitals and went on to the next patient. I closed my eyes and sat quietly, still holding my mother’s hand.

“Hey, sweetie.”

I opened my eyes. My father stood in the doorway. I dropped my mother’s hand, rose, and ran into his arms.

“Daddy, I’m so glad you’re here.”

“Me too. How’s she doing?”

“They say she’s stable, but she’s unconscious, and she has a shattered knee, fractured ribs, and a bruised pelvis. And of course she looks like shit.”

My father chuckled against my hair. “Poor Brooke. If only she knew what she looked like right now.”

I couldn’t help but return my father’s chuckle. It was the God’s honest truth. My mother hated not looking her best.

“You know, I don’t think Brooke ever really knew just how beautiful she was,” my father said. “We did have some good times.”

I pulled back a little from my father and regarded him. His blue eyes, so much darker than mine, were sunken and sad. My dad had dated over the years, but he had never remarried. Was it possible he still held a torch for my mother? He had rushed out to be here by her side, but I’d thought that was because of me. My father adored me, so it was probably true. But had he also come out because of Brooke?

“You never talked much about her,” I said.

He shook his head. “No. I couldn’t. The emotion was too raw for a while, and then I didn’t want to talk about it because of you, sweetie. I didn’t want you missing your mother any more than you already did.”

“But
you
missed her. I never knew.”

“I had to be strong for you. One day, when you have your own child, you’ll understand.”

I gulped. “Obviously my mother didn’t feel the same way.”

My dad gripped my shoulders. “Listen, Jade, you are everything to me. And I know that’s the way you’ll feel about your own kids. Your mother did the best she could in her own way. She was just never satisfied with who she was.”

“She ran out on me to be a supermodel. She could have done both. Didn’t she know that?”

“I’m not sure she did. I said just a minute ago that Brooke never realized how beautiful she was. I meant that in more ways than one. She was never satisfied with anything. She thought she wanted to be Brooke Bailey, supermodel, instead of Brooke Bailey, wife and mother. It never occurred to her that she could be both, that she was good enough to be both. She was never satisfied in her career either, and as gorgeous as she was, she never thought she looked her best.”

Thinking of that famous blue swimsuit poster my mother had made when I was a teen, I shook my head. “That’s unbelievable. She’s freaking beautiful.”

My father sighed. “Even strapped down in the hospital bed hooked to all those machines, her face a mangled mess, she is still Brooke Bailey. And she is beautiful.”

I looked into my father’s eyes, and I saw more than just sadness there. I saw the way I looked at Talon and the way he looked at me. I saw love. My God. How could I have been so blind to it?

My father was still in love with my mother.

I sniffed. “I’m surprised they let you come back here. They told me only one person could be back here at a time.”

“They told me the same thing, but I begged and pleaded, said I was her husband and that she needed both me and her daughter. Little white lie never hurt anybody.”

Yes. He still loved her.

“Why don’t you stay here for a little while, Dad? I have someone waiting for me.”

“Do you? No one was there when I came through the waiting area.”

“He probably went to get a soda or something. He loves Coke.”

“Jade, are you…seeing someone?”

What a loaded question. I hadn’t even realized I never told my father about Talon. But heck, I hadn’t told Marj—my best friend and his sister—for the first couple months. I’m not sure why, but I just didn’t feel like I could go spreading the news about it.

“Yes, actually. I’m seeing one of Marj’s brothers.”

My father widened his eyes. “They’re so much older than you are.”

Wow. I hadn’t seen that coming. There was a lot about Talon that he could object to, but I hadn’t even considered the age difference. If that bothered him, everything else about Talon was sure to give him nightmares.

“Actually, I had only met two of her brothers, Jonah and Ryan. I’m dating the middle brother, Talon. Remember? He was overseas while Marj and I were in college.”

“And how old is he, Jade?”

I fidgeted, looking away from my father’s gaze. “He’s thirty-five.”

“You’re twenty-five.”

“Yes, I know, Dad. I’ve done the math.”

“That’s a big difference.”

“You were six years older than Mom.”

He sighed, sitting down next to her. “True. And you see how that worked out.”

“Mom was eighteen when she had me. She was just too young. She wanted a career. There’s a big difference between an eighteen-year-old girl and a twenty-five-year-old woman.”

My dad smiled. He was still so handsome. His eyes were dark midnight blue, so different from the light blue that I got from my mother. But his hair? It was the same as mine, only with a few streaks of gray at the temples. Golden brown and thick. He was about six feet tall, only slightly taller than my mother.

“Yes, and you’ve got a better head on your shoulders than she ever did. That’s for sure. But don’t you think this is a little soon after the whole Colin thing?”

The whole Colin thing.
What a mess that had turned into. “You know what, Dad? I’m so sorry you lost all that money on the wedding, and if it’s the last thing I do, I’ll make sure you’re paid back every single penny.”

“Don’t worry about that. It wasn’t your fault.”

“I know that. But I don’t think I was ever really in love with Colin. It was more of a habit with us after a while. I think things happened the way they needed to happen. I just wish I had been the one to realize it first.”

“Well, if you’re sure it was the right thing.”

“I am. And that’s because I’ve met someone amazing.”

He sighed. “All right.”

“Look, if you’re worried about Talon, why don’t you come out to the waiting area and meet him? He’s probably back by now.”

“I’ll meet him later, sweetie. I want to sit with Brooke for a while. You take a break. Get yourself something to eat or drink.”

The look on my father’s face was one I’d never seen before—sadness, worry…love. He needed to be here right now, holding my mother’s hand.

“Okay. If you need me, just text. I’m not leaving the hospital, at least not until tomorrow night. I’ll have to go back to Snow Creek to go to work on Monday.”

“I’m making this an open-ended stay,” my father said. “We have some projects in the works, but I trust my men to take care of them. They know the situation.”

I smiled. “It will be nice to have you here for a while.” Then I clamped my hand over my mouth. “Not that I think it’ll take a while for her to recover. I didn’t mean—”

“Jade, it’s okay. I know what we’re dealing with here. I want to be here with you and Brooke.”

I nodded. “Text me if you need me.” I left the ICU and headed back to the waiting area. Snuggling up to Talon, feeling his warmth—that was what the doctor had ordered for me, what I needed. My father might need to hold my mother’s hand. I needed Talon.

But he wasn’t in the waiting area.

M
y phone beeped
. I knew before I looked that it was Jade responding to my text.

I let out a breath. I was a coward, truth be told. And I told her as much.

A few moments passed before my phone beeped with her response.

Was that said with understanding or resentment? Damned texting. I decided not to ask.

Again, nothing for a few minutes. Then,
Don’t bother. My father can drive me back.

I stopped typing for a moment. The three words that had been so difficult for me to say now hovered on my fingertips. Why was it easier to say them than to type them into a text? I forced them from my fingers.

I waited a few minutes, but she didn’t respond. No “I love you” back. Not that I blamed her. I was running out on her when she needed me. I had to get back to the ranch. I had told the guys and Marj to meet me tomorrow, and this was something I had to do. And there was truth in what I’d told her. I wasn’t quite ready to meet her father. Yes, I loved Jade, and yes, I wanted her for life, but I had so much more to get through myself before I could meet the man who’d raised her, who’d helped shape her into the amazing person she was. Right now, I still wasn’t good enough for his little girl. He would see right through me.

An hour later I arrived back at the ranch. I had a text from Marj.

I texted her back.
How about lunchtime?

Then I texted the guys.

It was time.

* * *

I
slept fitfully
, though that was nothing new. I’d texted Jade a few times to check in. She sent me back robotic texts with no “I love you.”

I didn’t blame her. Once I got through everything, she would understand. I just hoped she’d stick around long enough.

Jonah and Ryan arrived right at eleven. I had already poured myself a Peach Street.

“A little early, huh, Tal?” Ryan said, joking.

I heaved a sigh. “There’s a reason I wanted you guys to come early. Before we tell Marj, I need to tell you guys exactly what happened.”

Ryan smiled. “We’re here for you.”

Jonah gripped my shoulder. “Yes, we are,” he said.

I took a big sip of my whiskey and let it singe my throat. “I am. It won’t be easy for me to say, and I’m going to tell you right now, it won’t be easy for you guys to hear. But I made a breakthrough in my therapy on Friday. And it’s time.”

“If you’re sure,” Ryan said.

My little brother. Always having my back. Never wanting to push me. I was his hero. For the first time, as I thought about that, I felt that maybe his faith in me was not misplaced.

“I’m ready. I owe this to you guys. And to myself. Pour yourself a drink if you need one and then meet me on the deck.”

I walked out the French doors in the kitchen to the gorgeous redwood deck. Instead of sitting down at the table, I took one of the chaise longues beside the hot tub. I at least wanted to be comfortable if I was going to do this. For a moment, I was sitting in the hunter-green recliner in Dr. Carmichael’s office. Gripping the wooden arms of the chaise longue wouldn’t feel as good against my hands as that supple leather.

Jonah and Ryan came out—Joe with what looked like a gin and tonic, Ryan with a can of soda.

“Sorry,” he said, when I eyed the can. “I’m just not ready for alcohol at eleven.”

I nodded. After all, he wasn’t the one about to divulge his guts.

“I asked you guys to come before Marj gets here because I can’t tell her everything. Not the worst of it. But I need you guys to know a few things. I may not tell you everything, but you deserve to know what happened. And you deserve to know what happened to Luke.”

Jonah widened his eyes. “You know what happened to Luke?”

“Yeah.”

Luke Walker had gone missing a couple of weeks before I had. He was my age, skinny little kid with buckteeth, a basic nerd. He wasn’t a close friend of mine, but for some reason I had decided to save him from the bullies who were always after him. And then one day Luke disappeared. My first thought was that the bullies had taken him, but they hadn’t. Jonah’s best friend was Bryce Simpson, Luke’s cousin, and the three of us and Ryan decided to try to figure out what had happened to Luke.

I cleared my throat. “The day I was taken, I saw Luke.”

“Was he alive?” Ryan asked.

I let out a breath. “No, he was already dead.” I paused a moment, getting my bearings. “That old shack where two of the guys were, they had Luke in there. I don’t know what they had been planning to do with him so close to his home or whether my presence changed their plans. He was already dead but…”

“But what?” Jonah asked.

I closed my eyes, but the image swirled like a kaleidoscope inside my head. “They hacked him up with an ax. They… They made me watch, threatened to kill me if I screamed or threw up.”

I opened my eyes. Both my brothers’ faces had turned pale as ghosts. Neither said a word. What was there to say?

“They put what was left of his body into a giant trash bag. I don’t know what they ultimately did with it. They shoved it in the back of a pickup, tied my hands and legs, and shoved me in the backseat. I think I was in and out of consciousness as we drove. I don’t know how long we were driving.”

My brothers still stayed silent.

“It’s hard to remember the details. I think it was dark outside by the time we got to wherever we were going. Seemed like we had been driving for hours.”

“Tal,” Jonah said, his voice cracking, “if you’d been driving for hours, how did you make it back home when you escaped?”

I shook my head. “I have no idea. So much of it is a blur. We’ll get to my escape in a while. But for now, I need to tell you what I told Dr. Carmichael.”

My brothers nodded.

“They pulled me out from the back of the truck and unbound my feet. They pushed me into an old house and down the stairs into a basement. I had wet my pants, but it didn’t matter because they took my pants and underwear away from me anyway. All I had was my shirt and a ratty old gray blanket they gave me.” I stopped, squeezing my eyes shut again.

“It’s okay, Tal,” Ryan said, his voice lower than usual. He was trying so hard to be strong for me. My little brother.

But it wasn’t okay. Nothing about my life since then had been okay. If it was ever to be okay again, I had to get through this.

“There was another one at the house, also wearing a black ski mask. Remember, Ry, there were only two guys at the old shack off the Walker place.”

Ryan nodded.

“Anyway, once I got out of the basement, I found out why I was there. They each…” I gulped. “They each…
raped
me.”

My brothers’ faces were unreadable. They didn’t look surprised at my admission. But why would they be? Why else would three psychopathic degenerates keep a young boy prisoner for months? Surely they’d known, or at least guessed. I’d been taken to a pediatrician and poked and prodded after my return, so my parents must have known, even though I never spoke of it.

“Once they were done, I threw up. I couldn’t help it. They left me, and I lay down on my blanket. What might’ve been a couple of hours later, one of them brought me a glass of water and a sandwich, along with an old paint bucket I was told to piss and shit in. I ate the sandwich and drank the water. Sometimes they tormented me with water, holding a really nice clean glass of crisp ice water just out of my reach. I still have nightmares about that sometimes. I still have nightmares about all of it.”

Jonah cleared his throat. “That’s perfectly understandable.”

Of course it was. I looked to my older brother. “Now that you know the gory details, do you still wish it had been you instead of me?”

The question was unfair, I knew. But Joe had always wished he had been there to protect me. I wanted my brothers to be happy that this hadn’t happened to them. I wouldn’t wish that horror on either of them. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, except the three psychos who’d done it to me. On them, I wished all that and everything else hell had to offer.

And I was well acquainted with what hell had to offer.

“I don’t really know how to answer that,” Joe said.

“Just say you’re glad that didn’t happen to you.”

He shook his head. “I can’t.”

I heaved a sigh. My older brother wrestled with his own demons. I knew that. I wished I could help him, but I couldn’t do a damn thing for anyone until I helped myself.

“How did you escape?” Ryan asked.

“I don’t really remember. Every once in a while they would leave the door open and dare me to run away. Every time I tried, of course, they caught me and punished me for it, so I stopped trying. One day, the door was open, and they hadn’t come. I don’t know if they had just forgotten to lock me back in or what. But I ran up the stairs wearing only my tattered T-shirt. I had no pants.”

“But when you were found,” Ryan said, “you were wearing your clothes.”

“That’s one of the things I can’t figure out,” I said. “I remember walking up the stairs, opening the door that had been left open a crack, running outside, and then scampering across the vast wilderness. And the next thing I remember I had clothes on and I was walking around the outskirts of Snow Creek.”

“Maybe you blacked out,” Jonah said.

“Maybe,” I said, “but I was ten years old. Where would I have found clothes?”

Jonah rubbed his jawline. “Maybe you found a house and went to it and asked for clothes.”

I shook my head. “No, that doesn’t make any sense. Anyone who found me and gave me clothes would have alerted Dad. Or at least the police.”

“True,” Ryan said.

“Is there anything else you want to tell us about this?” Jonah asked.

“No. You can certainly infer the rest. It happened many times. I stopped counting. Why would I want to remember that number? Some things are a blur, but what isn’t a blur is what they did to me. I remember every horrific detail of the pain and of the humiliation. And unfortunately, it has made me who I am today.”

“You’re wrong, Tal,” Ryan said. “Those couple of months don’t define you. You’re a good person. You were a hero overseas, and you’re a hero to me.”

“Only because I saved you that day. And let me tell you, I’m fucking glad you got away.”

Of course, my younger brother didn’t respond. Neither of my brothers could ever admit that they were glad that this hadn’t happened to them. I didn’t understand, but maybe I wasn’t meant to. They had their own issues that they needed to work through. Jonah especially. He shouldered a lot of guilt because of what happened to me that day. I’d tried to relieve him of it, but I had not been successful.

“How much of this are we telling Marj?” Joe asked.

I sighed. “Only the bare minimum. And definitely not the part about them butchering Luke. I don’t want our baby sister burdened with any more than necessary. I’m sorry I had to burden you guys.”

Joe shook his head. “No, Tal, we needed to know.”

True. They did. In their own ways, they had gone through it with me. “Do you guys want to come to therapy sometime? Or go by yourself? I’m sure Dr. Carmichael would be happy to see you.”

“Whatever you want us to do,” Ryan said.

“Ryan,” I said, “you have to quit leaving this all to me. I have finally decided it’s time to work through this, and I’m going to do it—not just for you guys and not just for Jade but for myself. And you have to do the same. Maybe you didn’t go through what I went through, but you’re dealing with it in your own way. Whether you seek help has to be your decision, not mine.”

Jonah cracked a bit of a smile. “You’re a wise man, Tal.”

Wise? Was he kidding? I was about as far from a wise man as any man on the planet. I shook my head.

“No, hear me out. It may have taken you a while, but you finally came to the conclusion that you need help. There’s no shame in that, and now you know that. There’s no shame in what happened to you. The shame belongs to the people who did it to you.”

As I listened to Joe’s words, I thought about Dr. Carmichael’s words a few days before. She’d said that I understood objectively that none of this was my fault, and she was right. I did. The problem was not my conscious mind but my subconscious, and I would work through it.

“Hey, guys!” Marj called. She stepped onto the patio.