“Here you go, miss.”
“Thank you, Terry.”
“If you need a ride home, just call and ask for me.”
“Thank you again.”
Angelica walked into her house to see her mother head her way with her brows pinched together in concern.
“Baby, what are you doing here?”
Angelica wrapped her arms around her and started crying. “Oh, Mama.”
Aria’s arms came around her and hugged her tightly. “Let’s go up to my room, where it’s private, so we can talk.”
Angelica sniffed, took her mother’s hand, and let her lead her up the stairs. The door shut behind them, and her mother pulled her over to the bed. “Sit, baby. Now tell me, what’s going on?”
“I’m getting a divorce.”
Her mother’s mouth dropped open. “What? Why?”
“He’s sleeping with one of the maids, and he’s not even coming to bed anymore.” She started sobbing against her mother’s shoulder.
“Oh, baby. Are you sure? Have you talked to him at all?”
“I’ve tried to, but he says he’s always busy. I stayed up waiting for him last night, but he never even came to bed. What am I going to do, Mama?”
“Things are going on that the Macleans are helping us with. Maybe that’s why he’s not around.”
“He hasn’t … touched me in over a week. Before, he couldn’t get enough of me.”
Her mother sighed. “You look so tired, baby. How about you lie down and take a nap? We’ll talk more about this when you feel more rested.”
“Yes, I think I’d like that.” She could feel that she was at the end of her energy for the moment and couldn’t think straight.
Aria slipped an arm around her and led her to her room. She helped her to bed, covered her up, and kissed her forehead. “I’ll be here if you need me, baby.”
“Thank you, Mama. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
Chapter Seventeen
Duncan walked into his room later that afternoon and started pulling off his clothing as he headed to the shower. He groaned when the hot water pounded down on his shoulders. Fuck, he was tired. They’d been involved in stopping a shipment of women the last few days and hardly gotten any sleep.
The human trafficking business Angelica’s father was involved in was much larger than any of them realized, and it was taking them longer than they first thought.
After he and a few of his brothers had rescued the girls that had been abducted, they were sent to an organization that specialized in getting the women the help they needed and then home when they were ready. The men involved with the trafficking were just put in the ground after being questioned because he and his brothers knew it would be next to impossible to prosecute the men and get a conviction. The men didn’t deserve to draw breath because all the harm they’d done to women and men like that would never change.
They’d just go back to it when they got out of prison, and then more women would suffer.
He didn’t enjoy killing for the sake of killing, but he also had no conscience when putting a monster in the ground.
He dried off and dressed before leaving his room to find Angel. He looked everywhere and finally found the other women in the back garden planting flowers.
“Where’s Angelica?” he asked.
They all froze and looked at him with different degrees of hostility.