She could see the indecision on his face as his gaze drifted to the landscape they were passing. “It’s… complicated. I realize that sounds cliché, but this really is. I’m not sure exactly where to start.”
“We’ve got plenty of time. We have a few days of driving to Colombia.”
Triumph snorted. “No shit. My ass is never going to be the same after all these days in the truck.” He rolled his head against the back wall of the truck to look at her, his blue eyes full of heat. “Worth every torturous moment, though, if we get you home safely.”
And there was that goofy teenager inside her shaking her pom-poms with excitement over his interest.
He caved. “All right. Since we have time, I guess I’ll start with The Library. Before I go anywhere, though, it’s not a girlfriend or anything like that. A friend. Someone who was important to me.”
His eyes took on a sort of faraway look, like he was reliving something inside his head, and he turned to stare out the back window.
“Several years ago, my friend Tripoli became a member of this high-end BDSM club, initially because our friend Cosmos, who was already a member and contracting for them, got Tripoli into it as a way to help him find his way back from a dark place. He’d been in the military, and his unit lost several men in an ambush. Add being a medic, and losing those guys who were like another family to him, pulled hard at the caretaker instincts he already harbored. They were especially tight, and survivor’s guilt hit the group hard. As soon as each of them could, they all left the service and scattered around the country.
“Anyway, after about six months, he became a part owner of the place when the owner was looking to make some improvements, and that’s when he asked me about joining him and Cosmos working there. I figured, why not? I didn’t have a formal job, I was bored, and L.A. seemed to be a happening place. So I went.
“Everything was going great. We liked what we were doing, and the club was successful. Then we discovered the hard way that things aren’t always what they seem. The majority owner got involved in some things she shouldn’t have. Girls were disappearing. One of Steel and Demon’s teammates was directly involved because he’d taken an interest in one of the targeted women. It almost destroyed the club. Tripoli, Cosmos, and I decided to see if we could save it.
“Cosmos was also involved with one of the women who’d been kidnapped. Her name was Tilly. Luckily, she was rescued before anything could happen to her. Their relationship didn’t continue, but they remained friends.”
There was a wistfulness to his tone that was unmistakable. He’d cared for this woman.
“When it was clear the club was going to rebound, we decided to try our hand at rescuing some other clubs around the country. Rebranded them and turned them into safe places for members of the kink and LGBTQ+ communities. Then we opened a club in San Antonio, our hometown, called Elysium, the place where I spend the bulk of my working hours. It’s sort of an adult circus. You’d have to see it. I can’t even begin to explain it, and I work there.”
His fingers had moved from tracing along her skin to wrapping a tendril of her hair around them. “Anyway, when we opened the Texas club, we took Tilly with us. She was struggling with what had happened to her. There was a therapist in the area who Tripoli thought she might benefit from, and we all looked after her. Through a series of circumstances, she moved into my apartment. Tilly and I weren’t a couple, but we were heavily involved in each other’s lives as friends. Then… she died.”
Clearly, talking about Tilly was difficult for him. His pain over losing the young woman filled the enclosed cabin in the truck. He said they weren’t involved, but his regret and grief radiated from him. Had he wished they were a couple? Had they been intimate at the club? Loss this strong wasn’t foreign to her, but Joey’s death and her parents’ dismissal of her came from family. Could you feel that strongly about someone not related to you? She had no frame of reference for it.
It was also painfully obvious that her death had not been expected. Something about it was out of the norm.
“I’m so sorry, Triumph.” She reached for his forearm resting lightly over her shoulder and squeezed it. “It’s always hard to lose people, especially when they’re so young, and it’s unexpected. Was it…” She hesitated. It was invasive to ask, but she had a feeling he didn’t talk about it with anyone, and maybe he needed to. “Did she take her own life?”
He shook his head. “She was struggling, and there were times when it was touch and go. No, she was just incredibly unlucky. It’s too long to go into, but she and several other women in connection with the Texas club were murdered. A serial killer with a vendetta. I don’t think any of us have gotten over it.”
Her heart sank. While Joey hadn’t died at the hands of a serial killer, the man, or men, who’d put their bullets into him had definitely killed before. And their bosses, the Colonel Cartel, were the same. If anything, they were worse.
CONFESSIONS OF THE SOUL PART 2
Glennon
“Does anyone really get over trauma?”she mused. “Or do we just get better at burying it?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe it depends on who you are. What you’ve known in your past. What you’ve been exposed to. Possibly even how grounded you are as a person.
“One of the women taken after Tilly, she came from a horrific life. Parents were addicts. When they died, she ended up in the hands of not only their dealer, but an addict and a pedophile on top of it. Used her through her teens as a way to stave off debts he couldn’t pay. Used her for his own pleasure. She ran away from it all at sixteen and reinvented herself. When she was rescued, she seemed to recover just fine. I’m sure there were plenty of nightmares and unresolved issues, but now she’s a mom, has a successful career, and a partner who’d burn down the world for her. But Tilly?”
His voice trailed off, cluing her in to the fact that her story read much differently. Another wave of guilt and grief rolled out of him. How she knew that, she couldn’t identify. Maybethe tension in his body? Maybe the tightness of his expression? Maybe it was the dullness of his normally brilliant blue eyes. They looked dead.
She needed to remove that from him. Needed to get him talking. To purge the poison he was holding onto. She rested her head on his shoulder, her hand reaching up to thread her fingers with the ones around her shoulder. “Tell me about her.”
The ghost of a smile rested on his face, obviously remembering what he loved about her. “Came from Silicon Valley royalty. All the advantages. Young. Rich. Beautiful. Spoiled,” he countered, “but kind. You couldn’t help but want to indulge her. Despite coming from wealth, she wasn’t afraid to work hard, and she became a social-media influencer by the time she left high school. Made her own fortune with the gig. She specialized in fashion—designer clothes, makeup, that kind of thing.
“She joined The Library the day she turned twenty-one, and if you looked up the words ‘submissive brat’ in the dictionary, her picture would be next to the definition. She was a bit of a wild child, so my friend Cosmos entered into a Dom/sub contract with her for six months. She was way too young for him, but she needed a very strong Dom to keep her in line, and one who also wouldn’t crush her spirit.
“I’ve always wondered how people bounce back from trauma. Is it a product of upbringing? Someone who comes from the worst succeeds better than someone who comes from the best? I think that’s far too neat an explanation.”
He paused then. He was working through something, his brow furrowing, a frown taking over for the nostalgic smile. What he thought the answer was, maybe?
As the vehicle slowly ate up the miles toward Peru and the next border crossing, she remained silent, surreptitiously watching him process his thoughts and emotions. She imaginedthis was what he looked like when he worked his computers for the NSA. Consumed by the data, compartmentalizing it once, twice, however many times it took until he was satisfied there were no other groupings. Then he’d loop back to the beginning and try to see it from other angles, weaseling out information hidden among the details and sifting out the necessary from the unnecessary.
