“Wire just gave me some info,” Keltan said once Rosie had quietened enough for him to speak, she was glaring at her husband and he was glaring at her.
“You remember the shooting that you were involved in with Polly last year?” he asked Rosie.
Luke stiffened.
As did Heath at the memory. But not for the same reason as Luke. Or maybe for precisely the same reason, because someone tried to tear through their whole world with bullets.
“I vaguely recall it,” Rosie said dryly.
“We assumed it was to do with your shit because, well, you’re you,” Keltan said.
“Aww you’re so sweet,” Rosie said, forcing a grin.
“Let me guess, it was aimed at Polly?” Heath said, the words acid coming out. He needed to remind himself that none of those bullets hit her then. But that was hard as fuck to do when he had no idea what was hitting her now.
Keltan nodded.
The room turned wired.
“Okay, it’s fine to shoot at me, but at Polly?” Rosie said.
“It’s never okay to shoot at you,” Luke hissed.
“Not the time,” she muttered back.
“It was some kind of threat to Craig, as much as we know,” Keltan explained. “Apparently he was getting in deeper when he’d only been low level at the start. He was causing enough shit that they sent him a message. Obviously they didn’t know they were separated by that point. Which I’m still confused about.” He looked to Rosie. “Is the reason she divorced him because of that?”
Heath knew that wasn’t true. Because Polly wouldn’t have protected him if she knew he was at all connected in human trafficking. No matter her views on peace or feelings toward him.
He knew what it wasn’t, but still, he had no fucking clue what it was. He had been planning on gently probing it out of her in the periods he wasn’t fucking her today.
He’d thought they had time.
He was a fucking hopeful idiot.
Rosie’s expression changed. She pursed her lips.
“Now is not the time to protect Polly’s secrets,” Heath clipped. “Not if it could be the reason we fucking find her.”
“It won’t,” Rosie said.
“You can’t know that,” Heath replied.
She didn’t back down. “I can.”
“Rosie, they need to know this shit,” Luke said, his voice soft as if he were trying to protect her. Heath didn’t give a fuck about protecting Rosie’s feelings right now.
“No, this will only distract them from what they need to figure out. Which is where Polly is,” she said.
“Just fucking tell us!” Heath roared.
Rosie jumped. And not because she was jumpy at all by nature. She was harder to shock than Duke. But Heath didn’t yell. Not at anyone. Especially not at women.
“He hit her,” she said, voice small, a contrast to Heath’s roar. The three words silenced the room.
Keltan’s face drained of all color.
Heath’s body drained of oxygen.
He hit her.
He hit her.
He couldn’t stop the words from screaming in his mind.
“That’s why she left him,” Rosie continued. “She swore us to secrecy because she knew how much it would hurt Lucy.” Her eyes found Heath. “How much it would hurt you.”
“Of course, she’s the one whose husband hits her, and she worries about how that’ll hurt everyone around her,” Heath spat.
Rosie flinched.
Luke glared at him.
He didn’t give a fuck.
Because Polly had carried that around for two years.
This fucker didn’t hesitate to hit her when she was with him when he had her as his wife. Now he didn’t…
“Rosie’s right,” Keltan clipped cutting off Heath’s toxic thought. “As much as that makes me wish we’d castrated him when Lucy first suggested it, it doesn’t change anything now. And there’s more. These fuckers have had their eyes on her since the divorce. Probably since the marriage. They trailed her around Europe.”
Heath stopped breathing.
“Only reason they didn’t snatch her because she moved so often, so erratically, they couldn’t pin her down.”
“You’re telling me that Polly unwittingly evaded some of the most ruthless fuckers on in the world just because…she’s Polly?” Rosie asked in disbelief.
Keltan nodded proudly, trying to grin. It didn’t work. “Yeah, that’s about the size of it.” He moved to eye Heath. “Seems I owe you an apology since if we hadn’t started her security detail, they likely would’ve snatched her if we weren’t a constant and visible presence.”
An apology didn’t mean shit, especially since they snatched her anyway.
An apology wouldn’t save her.
Sure as shit wouldn’t save him.
Chapter Fifteen
Polly
Eight Hours Missing
It was shocking to be kidnapped.
I was a lot more shocked than I should’ve been, considering my family’s history with such things. Rosie had been kidnapped. International drug dealers had tried to kidnap Lucy but failed. Then they stabbed her in the middle of the day on the street and almost killed her.
My stomach roiled with that thought, that memory.
She’s safe, I chanted to myself.
She’s safe and she got out of that which means you will get out of this too.