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“Exactly that,” Viper tells me. “The Ledger family has created the biggest and most profitable human trafficking ring on this side of the fucking globe, and Mason stands at the head of it.”
My face falls. “No. No, that can’t be right. I would have known if Crew was involved in something like that.”
“Why do you think he never told you who his brother was, huh? He wanted to protect you from that part of his life, keep you hidden from it. He knew exactly what his brother would have done to such a beautiful young thing like you. For a long time, he resisted working with his brother, but over the past year, he started to take on more of an executive kind of role.”
“No, you’re lying.”
“I wouldn’t lie to you, Kyah, especially not about something like this.”
My heart races, and my whole world flips upside down. He has to be lying. I would have known if Crew was involved in something like that. In those last few days, he was an asshole, but I knew his heart beneath that, and he wouldn’t hurt a fly. I would fucking know.
I shake my head, my chest heaving. “I . . . I . . .” My words fall away, not knowing what to say, but the proof is right there in the way Mason cornered me last night. “I don’t understand how he could do something like that.”
“People are never who we think they are,” Viper tells me. “Hell, I can guarantee that there are things I’ve done that you would never be able to forgive. You wouldn’t even be able to look me in the eye again, but I don’t fucking pretend to be something I’m not.”
I swallow hard, trying to process everything he’s told me. “This is why you’ve always warned me away from him,” I say. “I just figured it was some kind of pissing contest between you and Crew. I never thought there was real weight to what you were saying.”
“At first, perhaps,” he tells me with a slight shrug of his big shoulders.
I nod, trying to work through all of the information. “You said he started working with his brother over the past year.”
Viper presses his lips into a hard line, and the way his eyes darken suggests that this is the part he’s been trying to protect me from all this time. “I don’t know all the details, and I doubt I ever will, but from the intel I’ve been able to find, Crew got himself into some financial trouble last year. He had a hard-on for the underground.”
“What’s that? Like fighting or something?”
“Mm-hmm. He was a gambling man, and he made some bad choices with money that didn’t belong to him. When those debts caught up to him, he had no choice but to either ask Mason for help or lose his fucking life.”
I never knew that he liked to gamble.
“What does asking for his brother’s help actually mean?”
“From what I can tell, Mason paid his debts, and in return, Crew would work for him, sourcing women for Mason’s henchmen to snatch off the fucking street, and if he couldn’t bring in enough women to cover those debts . . . Well, that’s where you came in.”
My eyes widen. “What? What do you mean,that’s where I came in?”
“You’d been in Crew’s life for quite a while, and Mason isn’t the type of man to allow himself to be blindsided. He makes it his business to know everything about everyone, and when this beautiful seventeen-year-old with no family connection and nobody to miss her came storming into Crew’s life, Mason saw dollar signs. He’s been wanting you for a long time, and Crew has always protected you from that, but twelve months ago, that changed.”
I shake my head, not wanting to hear this and already fearing the worst, but Viper isn’t the type to stop on account of my feelings. “Part of their deal was if Crew failed to pay back his debt, Mason gets you, and usually in this world, spilling blood is just as good as any currency, however Mason wasn’t the one to spill that blood, so according to him, Crew bailed on his debt. Now Mason has free rein to take what he’s owed.”
I drop my face into my hands, my head spinning. This is so much worse than I was expecting. I thought maybe he was just some asshole who perhaps gets a little rough, but this? Fuck. How am I supposed to handle this on top of a stalker? It’s too much. Hell, not to mention the betrayal pounding through my veins that Crew could have ever agreed to a deal like that in the first place.
“So, umm . . .” I start, unable to get my wild thoughts in line. “What happens now?”
“Nothing,” he says. “Everything.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s up to you, Kyah,” Viper starts. “You can either continue as you are, stay in your apartment with my men on watch, or you can move into my place until this shit has been dealt with.”
“What do you mean bydealt with?”
Viper looks me dead in the eyes. “I’m gonna kill him,” he says nonchalantly, as though this kind of shit just happens every day.
Horror blasts through my veins, quickly drowning me with fear. “What the fuck, Viper?” I screech, nervously looking around. “You can’t just say shit like that. Why can’t you just call the cops? Have him arrested.”
“And get a reputation as a rat?” he grunts in disgust. “Do you know what the fuck would happen to me then? Fuck, babe. I know you’re smarter than that.”
Shit. He’s right. I can’t pretend to know anything about what it’s like to be a part of a club, but I’ve watched enough episodes of Sons of Anarchy to know that being labeled as a rat is far worse than any death sentence.
