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Chapter Fourteen
Anarchy had watched him for a good five minutes before she intervened. It broke her heart to hear him falter, to watch the strong man she loved fall apart while trying so desperately to keep himself together. It was wrong to eavesdrop, but she'd gleaned a bit more information into the troubled sadist, and was beginning to understand the roots of who he was.
"She'd be the lure to draw me in. Once he had us both, he'd use the same methods he employed when I...when I..."
There was no doubt in her mind, she was the she. Something bad was going on around her, and she was blind to it all. No more. If she was being used to hurt Jasper, she wouldn't tolerate it. Someone was going to give her answers whether they liked it or not, and she was betting it wouldn't be Jasper who sang like a strangled canary.
With her fingers tenderly massaging his scalp, she reached over and picked up the phone. "Hello?"
"Anarchy? Good morning," Atticus replied smoothly, as though he was expecting her to be on the line. "How are you?"
Masters and their pleasantries, she thought with a roll of her eyes. She wasn't in a pleasant kind of conversation mood, not in the slightest. She was in Mama Bear mode. "Not good, considering I'm apparently a lure to reel Jasper into something. What are you two not telling me, Master Atticus?"
"How much did you overhear?" Ah, that got his attention.
"I believe I came in at, ‘She can't fall into his hands.’What's going on?" she demanded.
Atticus wasn't caving in. "I need you to put Jasper back on the phone, little bit."
She glanced down, assessing her Dom with a critical eye. His head was tipped back against the counter, but he was visibly shaking and almost as pale as his hair. There was a look in his eyes that said he wasn't quite with her yet, dazed and haunted. Nightmares and flashbacks, he'd told her. At a guess, he was struggling with the latter. "Master Jasper is unavailable. What did you say to him?"
"Fuck. Is he conscious?"
Anarchy sighed, tired of the evasions. "I can't help him if I don't know what's happening. He's awake but not aware." She shivered, wishing she'd taken a moment to at least put her shirt on, but the thought of seducing him in just her underwear had been too great to resist. That sure had backfired, hadn't it? "I know about his childhood, if that means anything. He told me yesterday."
Suspicion leaked into the big Dom's voice, vibrating through the connection. "What, exactly, about his childhood?"
Things she probably shouldn't say on the phone. There was a touch of paranoia she couldn't explain, the feeling they might be being listened into, and she wasn't prepared to risk his freedom on saying something she shouldn't. Of course, there was no reason for anyone to tap into Braun's phone, but she couldn't shake the sense of foreboding. "How he was raised. His...intended purpose."
"Well, I'll be damned."
Beneath her hand, she felt Jasper jerk. When she looked down again, his eyes were open, the dazedness clearing quickly. He took a deep breath and gripped her wrist, then pushed himself upright. She loved his nakedness, the muscles and powerful lines of his body. He'd stopped shaking, and was a lot steadier than a few moments before.
"I'll take the phone, kitten." He tried to pluck it from her fingers, but she dodged him. "Anarchy."
"One of you is going to tell me what's going on. Don't lie to me, either of you," she snapped, addressing both men with the same tone. "There is enough shit falling on our heads with Bodie; if there's more, tell me so I can be ready for it. That's all I'm asking for."
Jasper lifted his hands in surrender, then sat down wearily. "Fine. Put it on speakerphone."
She obeyed, then set the device on the edge of the counter, out of his reach.
"Atticus, we're going to clue Archie in. There's no point trying to keep her clear of this; if she starts digging on her own accord, she's going to land in Dominic's lap."
His father, she thought furiously. This all came back to his father? Had the asshole not caused enough pain thus far?
"It's your choice, brother. It might be easier if she's in the loop."
Jasper rubbed his hand over his mouth. "My father impregnated over a dozen women, took their babies, and raised them like lab rats. Trained them, tortured them, tested them. Fifteen children that we know about. I ran away when I was sixteen, after a lifetime of hurting people. Of doing horrible, unforgiveable things."
"Jasper," Atticus said warningly.
"Yeah, yeah. Stay on track." Jasper's eyes were direct on hers, and she saw a trace of fear in them. "When I was fourteen, I was drugged and forced to rape the housekeeper's daughter for the sake of breeding another child for the program. It failed, and my father killed the girl. It was the beginning of the end of my time there. I couldn't stand the guilt, was old enough to understand what I'd done, willing or not."
Anarchy felt the floor drop out from under her feet, but she made herself stand strong. The array of emotions inside her were violent, fighting to dominate each other and rise victorious over the rest—disbelief, fury, outrage, grief. She struggled to swallow. "How old was she?"
His reaction spoke volumes. She watched him try to compose himself, struggling to reconcile his actions, and fail. In her heart, she knew whatever he'd done, he really hadn't done of his own volition. She thought back to their conversation from yesterday, about non-consensual scenes, and his statement about how he'd rather shoot himself than turn someone into a real victim.
Still, she wasn't prepared for the words he choked out, the ones that ripped heart, lungs, and soul from her body.
