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“It is, but as I said, I don’t remember much. I remember being rescued by the team here. I remember Angel holding me and making me less afraid. I remember calling Tailor the big friendly giant,” she laughed, shaking her head. “They were just strangers who were willing to rescue a frightened little girl. Now, they’re my family. All of them, and I would do anything for any one of them.”
“That’s what I mean. I didn’t have that. It must feel wonderful to know that you have all these women to rely on.”
“You have all of us to rely on,” smirked Ajei. “We rely on one another, honey. All of us.”
“She’s right,” said Kate. “Ajei and I grew up together, so we’ve always been close. But for most of the wives here, we didn’t know one another until our husbands rescued us.”
“Excuse me, I rescued my husband,” smiled Hazel.
“That’s true,” laughed Ajei. “Shocked the hell out of him, too. Hazel is badass, and that’s why we love her. Piper, Addie, and Lucia, too.”
“We’ve got a lot of badass women here,” smiled Camille. “My mother included.”
“Mama Irene?” said Harlow, surprised.
“Honey, you don’t give birth to fifteen children, four sets of twins, without being badass. That woman raised all of us with good values, faith, and love. I think about it more and more the older I get. She has Gaspar, Pierre, Antoine, Luc, Gabriel, Baptiste, Raphael, and Jean, all serving at the highest levels of the Army. All Army Rangers. Some for a few years, others for careers.”
“Not Alec?” asked Harlow.
“Oh, no,” laughed Camille. “Alec was supposed to be the brainiac that went to medical school. Mama and Pops thought he was there the whole time. Instead, baby brother got a huge growth spurt in his early twenties, and the CIA came recruiting. Little dumbass left school, didn’t tell anyone, and was captured by the KGB.”
“Oh, my God!”
“Yep. Not the brightest bulb despite his SAT scores. He escaped and found a way home, which is how he met Lissa. As I was saying, she suffered through all those years of the boys serving, gone for years at a time, then Rachelle gets attacked. Mama couldn’t pry Adele from her side. They put school on hold for a while, went off to Europe for a bit to get Rachelle right. Then it’s me and my divorce. I was losing weight so drastically she worried constantly for me. Then it was Marie and her bastard ex-husband.”
“Wow, I had no idea,” said Harlow.
“When Claudette divorced and came home, I think Mama and Pops wanted to make sure they set a wrong, right. Jake and Claudette were always in love but let others influence their choices.”
“Did your parents not approve of them?”
“Oh, gosh no. Mama and Pops loved Jake. We all did. It was other people that worried them. Jake didn’t want any harm to come to Claudette, and Claudette didn’t want anyone to harm Jake. A lot of years wasted because of their love for one another.”
“But they’re together now,” smiled Harlow. “I think that’s wonderful. I didn’t date much. I knew I couldn’t, considering what my parents were putting me through. How was I supposed to tell a man what was going on?”
“Harlow, you really should speak with Bree, Ashley, or someone in the counseling center. Rape is a difficult thing to get over,” said Kat.
“Oh, I wasn’t raped. I mean, they force me to touch myself and other things, but I wasn’t raped.”
“Honey, what they did to you was rape. Rape isn’t just about a man penetrating, Harlow,” said Kat. “As a lawyer, I can tell you that the law defines rapes as ‘unlawful sexual activity and usually sexual intercourse carried out forcibly or under threat of injury against a person's will or with a person who is beneath a certain age or incapable of valid consent because of mental illness, mental deficiency, intoxication, unconsciousness, or deception.’ I know that’s a lot, but you were forced to carry out sexual activity under threat.”
Harlow stared at her mother-in-law. For the first time, the weight of what she’d been through came down around her. She remembered the humiliation after the first time.
“Harlow?”
“S-sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “I was barely legal the first time they made me go to one of the parties. I remember thinking, if someone touches me, I’ll scream. But my father said if I screamed or cried, some of the more violent men would enjoy that.”
“What did they tell you when they said you had to go to the party?” asked Kat.
“They explained that they owed someone money. My father said it was part of an investment group they were involved in and that my mother had to endure similar parties. He said it was a small price to pay for me being able to have the things I wanted.”
“Jesus, honey, I’m so sorry,” said Ajei.
“I was lucky. I know that sounds crazy, but that first party it was an old man who asked for me. He must have been eighty, maybe eighty-five. He was too old to get an erection, even with drugs. He said he didn’t want to hurt me. He just wanted to watch. I was so humiliated. I’d never done anything like that before.
“When I look back now, he knew it. He could see the fear and humiliation on my face. He asked me to do some things, touch myself, but after a while, he just wanted to talk. I didn’t tell my father that because I was afraid he’d make me go with someone else. I think that old man actually helped me at the other parties. He made sure his older friends took me.
“I heard some of the younger girls crying and screaming. I’m not sure they ever recovered. The worst was when two or three men would take a girl. I thought I would die if they ever did that to me. The night that Nate found me, I knew that Admiral Garvin was going to take me, and it wasn’t going to be enjoyable. He was violent and enjoyed giving pain.
