Page 27 of Play With Fire


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“He was fighting?”

Hunter shakes his head. “Recruiting.”

I want to ask more questions, but he keeps talking before I can. “He was still building DMS into what it is now. He was there a few times just building contacts and looking for possible manpower. He never outright offered me a job, but it didn’t take much to figure out what he really did for a living. He hid it, claiming to be there looking for bodyguards and shit. But something about it didn’t sit right with me. He gave me his card in case I ever wanted an interview. I put the card in my wallet, and that was that.”

I glance around the park, noticing that the sun is starting to set and the way it glistens over the water is almost too beautiful for this story. I still haven’t quite figured out where it’s going yet, but the pit of dread forming in my stomach is telling me it’s not good at all.

“When I first moved away, Melanie tried to reach out to me. She called usually a couple of times a month, but I stopped answering after the first few times. I knew she wasn’t being fully honest with me about what was going on, and I just couldn’t handle it anymore. Eventually her calls and texts stopped. Almost two years after I graduated, I got a call from Mel’s mom. She asked if I’d heard from her daughter recently. It wasn’t normal for her not to keep in touch with her, and she said she hadn’t spoken to her in over a month.”

That pit of dread begins to grow. Even though I know that whatever happened obviously turned out okay, I can’t help but feel on edge as I wait for more information. “I started calling around to people we went to school with. People who I knew were still in the area. Apparently James got pretty deep into shit and startedmoving up the ranks.He wasn’t just running drugs or weapons anymore. He moved onto bigger things.”

“Bigger things?”

“People. Prostitution.” I know my eyes widen and probably anyone within a hundred foot radius can hear the gasp that comes out of my mouth.

“I had no fucking clue what to do. Her mom already contacted the police. But she was just another statistic to them. A young girl from the shitty part of town that fell in with the wrong people. No one actually cared what happened to her.”

“What’d you do?”

“I called Alec. I told him what was going on, and asked him to cut the bullshit about only employing bodyguards.” He lets out a low laugh, and my own lips twitch from the picture he just painted. My brother doesn’t take well to people standing up to him, which is probably why he respects Hunter so much. “He immediately brought me in and Tanner and Wyatt worked their asses off to track down James, who had gone underground. It took a while, but once we got him and his associates, we were able to find her and save her. The asshole had decided to sell his girlfriend to the highest bidder.” Bile rises in my throat at that knowledge. I can’t even imagine what she went through, how she must have felt being betrayed like that.

“How long did it take for you to save her?”

“From the time her mom called me until we tracked her down and got her out of there, it was about ten months.”

“Wow.” He nods a couple of times, his mood solemn.

“Yeah. Luckily she was in one piece, but I have no doubt it all did a number on her.” Something still seems off in his voice. There’s an underlying layer of anger and frustration that doesn’t seem directly connected to the actual situation that happened.

“Why do I feel like there's still more to the story?”

He shakes his head, but this time it’s almost defeatedly. “I couldn’t help but think that if I had stayed in touch, then maybe it wouldn’t have happened. Logically, I know that’s not the case. I know that James would have pulled that shit whether Mel and I talked on the phone every few weeks or not. It’s not like I was physically here to keep tabs on her and make sure she was safe.”

“Even if you were here, he still may have done it.”

“Yeah, probably. Eventually I let go of the guilt. At least for the most part.”

There’s still something that I’m curious about, but Hunter hasn’t answered yet. “And she’s married now?”

He lets out a self-deprecating laugh and runs his hand over his trimmed beard. “Yeah. Ain't that some shit? I literally saved her life from the piece of shit she chose over me, and yet she still didn’t choose me.”

“What do you mean?”

“After we found her, Alec offered to keep me on full-time. I had been helping out for a few months while we searched for her as my way of payment anyways, so he just offered for me to stay with them. I asked Mel to stay with me. To be with me. I told her that I would protect her and help her get better. Take care of her.”

“She said no?”

“Yep. She said that she didn’t see me that way. I fucking saved her life and she still couldn’t muster up even a bit of affection for me.”

It’s not often that I don’t have a response to something, but right now I really don’t. There’s a part of me that’s jealous of Melanie. Jealous of what Hunter offered her. Of what she so easily turned down multiple times. The other part of me feels sorry for the man that so clearly loved her and just wanted to be loved back.

“So what did you do?”

“We returned her to her mom. Alec had a few contacts on the police force who closed the case out, and that was that. Only a few people know what really happened. She met her husband a couple of years later and they got married about a year after that.”

“Is he a good guy?” Even though I’m angry at Melanie for the pain she caused Hunter, as a woman, I would never want to see her suffer again the way she did.

“As far as I can tell. When they first got together, Tanner ran a check on him. He’s just a smart guy who worked his ass off in school and ended up with a good job. He doesn’t come from a rich family or anything like that. Decent family, and they didn’t struggle the way ours had, but they were far from the level of James’ family. Tanner checks in every so often to make sure things seem to be going okay for her.”

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