Rebound: Passion Book 2 (10 page)

When
we reached the house I went straight to my room, it was only there behind
closed doors that I could let my mask drop. With my fists folded I prowled
around my room like a caged animal, my heart beating an odd staccato. When I
found no solace in pacing I reverted to my old fateful, lying on my bed tossing
a ball up in the air. Nothing worked; my mind would not give me any peace.
Something dark was crawling up my chest, itching at my throat; I was about to
snap.

“Is this
why we had to cut our day short, so you could come home and mope in your room?
What gives bro?” I should’ve known he wouldn’t leave it alone.

“I’m laying here trying to talk
myself out of becoming you.”

“Fuck you
bro, you wish.” He pulled the chair over from my desk next to the bed and
straddled it.

“Talk.”
He gave me one of his ‘I’m not leaving until you spill’ looks.

“Somebody fucked with her, I
don’t know how yet but it’s bad Joshua. I asked her about getting her
transcripts from school and she said ‘he’ll find me’.

“What the fuck, who’s he?”

“I don’t
know yet, she asked me for some time to tell me and I agreed but…”

“Fuck
that, can you imagine if Carrie was in that predicament that I would let that
shit slide? Or dad, do you think he would let some shit like that linger where
mom was concerned?”

“I’m not like you and dad…”

“I know
Matt, you’re worse.” That jolted me enough that I lifted my eyes to his. He
couldn’t know there’s no way. I’ve always kept myself in check, always walked the
walk.

“I’ve
always known Matt, you forget who you’re dealing with? But I think now is the
time to let yourself go. You’ve always kept that tight rein on yourself, afraid
of what will happen if you let you be you. You know I used to wonder what you
saw in that crazy ass viper; then I figured it out. You were playing it safe,
she didn’t bring out the Steele passion in you and you convinced yourself that
that was best. You let her do her thing because at the end of the day you
weren’t really invested. You were willing to marry her, spend the rest of your
life with her just so you could play it safe. Look where that got you bro. Now
this girl has you tied up in knots and that beast is rearing its head. If ever
there was a time to let that shit loose it’s now. If your woman is in danger
bro you’ve got to step the fuck up. Is she yours Matt?”

“You
better believe it.”

“Well alright then let’s get
this shit started. Did you get a name at least?”

“No nothing.”

“Fine we’ll trace back from
her.”

“What do
you mean trace backwards from her? I get the feeling that this guy whoever he
is has eyes on her if not here then back home. If we go looking he’s bound to
see and then if he doesn’t already know where she’s hiding out we’ll just be
leading him to her.”

“That’s
why you have me bro, all I have to do is tinker with the router he’ll never
know where the ping is coming from.”

“The what?” Brainy fucker.

“Watch
and learn bro.” He moved over to my computer desk and cracked his knuckles as
if he was about to go to battle. I stood over his shoulder as he fiddled with
keys and some shit came up on the screen that looked like gibberish to me but
he was reading it off like nothing, mumbling to himself as he hit even more
keys and got to work.

“Now where
should we send this fuck? Hmm, Russia looks good right now maybe he’ll hop on a
plane and head over there. We can only hope he gets caught in the middle of the
fuckery that’s going on in that part of the world right now.”

“I don’t understand, what’re you
doing?”

“I’m
reconfiguring the router so it would appear that we’re in Russia instead of Sea
Crest, this way if anyone’s tracking her digitally and they see inquiries
coming from Russia they’ll think that that’s where she is.”

“Slick.”
I watched him for the next hour or so as he did his thing; by the end of it he
had her transcripts downloaded. My girl was smart as fuck; maybe she could give
the brain a run for his money.

“Fine now
that’s done, now all I need to do is find out who this guy is and exactly what
he’s done to her before I go fuck his shit up.”

“That’s
next, you want to do this part? We have the state and town she’s from all you
have to do is work backwards from her name like I said. If there’s any record
of him we’ll hit on it.” I shooed him out of the chair and took his seat. My
heart decided to act up at this point. I was about to cross a line here and I
knew it. I’d given her my word to wait but was that really me?
was
I being honest? If we were going to have a life together
wouldn’t it make more sense to begin as I meant to go on?

I
couldn’t see me leaving her safety up in the air like that in the future and
just because this, whatever it was, had happened before we met, that didn’t
change things. I’ll deal with the fallout from her later, right now her safety
was more important than whether or not she would be mad at me for going behind
her back.

I
felt that lock inside me open up for the first time since I was a kid as I
entered her name in the search box. There was no real fear, just a wild feeling
of freedom. Sink or swim the beast was loose…

I
was surprised to even get a hit, I don’t know what I’d expected but to see her
name come up in little blurbs here and there was kind of humbling. There were
snippets here and there about a young girl being terrorized by a local man. At
first there was no mention of her name maybe because she was a minor, but
somehow my gut knew. As I kept scrolling the story unfolded and then I found
her.

There
was a story about a court case. I glanced over everything at first just getting
the gist of it, my anger growing with each line. I’d forgotten that Josh was
still in the room so engrossed was I in the shit that was unfolding right
before my eyes. My first inclination was to go get her and bring her here with me.
We had high walls and enough security to keep out
Blackwater
.

“Matt
calm down.” My ears were ringing and my head was stuffy, I had no idea what the
fuck Josh was talking about, and why the fuck was he holding me down?

“It’s
okay bro we’ll take care of it, just calm down.” I looked up at him not knowing
for a minute what was going on or even where the fuck I was. A quick look
around the room showed the chaos, what the fuck? Did we have a quake? I don’t
remember feeling anything. The computer was on the floor on its side, the desk
was thrown against the wall and there was shit everywhere.

Dad came
bounding into the room with a look of terror on his face. “What is it boys what
happened?” he looked from one to the other of us as Josh shook his head at him.

“You two
have some sort of disagreement?” his look of parental disappointment was almost
comical and I would’ve laughed if my senses didn’t choose that moment to
return. I pushed Josh off of me and stood, prowling the room like a cornered
animal.

“No dad
it’s Kadyn.” Josh patted my shoulder as he answered dad.

“Kadyn? Matt’s lady, what
happened to her is she hurt?”

Josh
righted the desk and the computer fiddling with it to make sure I hadn’t killed
it. I couldn’t talk there was something blocking my throat and my heart hurt
like a son of a bitch. I wanted to punch something, hold her and cry all at the
same time. I just kept seeing her little face so full of fear as she told me
he’d find her. I saw her the first day we’d met and the way I’d treated her and
bile rose in my stomach.
My poor Kadyn.

“Is this
a curse?” I had to ask, first Carrie was almost raped and killed and now this
shit. Was my family cursed or some shit that these things kept happening to our
women? Had mom ever faced anything like this?

“What’s he talking about Josh?”

“Give me
a minute dad I’m trying to get the comp up and running so I can show you.” I
heard the barely restrained anger in his voice as he tried to undo the damage
I’d done. The three of us read the shit again and I was able to restrain myself
this time but barely.

“Well
shit son.” That’s all dad could say as he turned to me with a look of sadness.
Seems I was destined to be embroiled in drama when it came to the women in my
life. “I’ll be back.” No one bothered to ask me where I was headed as I ran
from the room and headed for one of my rides in the garage.

All
the way back to her I kept trying to figure out the next move. I was no longer
worried about her reaction to my going behind her back, after the shit I’d just
uncovered it didn’t matter to me if she was mad or not. The only thing I cared
about now was her safety and wellbeing. The story I’d just read almost seemed
like it had been about someone else, it couldn’t be the girl I’d just left not
too long ago.

The
fucker was free to roam the streets after the fuckery he’d done and I’m sure
the reality was way worse than anything I’d just read. I can’t imagine the
horror she’d lived with. No wonder she’d ran here to her dad. But what was
being done now to see that she stayed safe from this lunatic? Was she supposed
to live the rest of her life in hiding? Fuck that.

Something
dark and lethal rose up inside me at that thought. When I’d promised her a few
short hours ago to stand between her and whatever was in her past I had no idea
it would be something like this, but knowing it only solidified my intent. I
pulled up outside the diner a few minutes later. I figured she’d be upstairs
but it was her father I needed to see first. I needed to get a feel for what
the fuck had gone on, the things that hadn’t been in the report. I wasn’t sure
if she’d be ready to talk to me about it but maybe he would.

He
saw me coming and maybe the death glare in my eyes tipped him off that there
was trouble because he left the counter where he’d been chatting with one of
the regulars and headed towards me. “What is it?”

“Is
there somewhere we can go to talk?” he took my elbow and led me towards the
back where he kept his offices. As soon as the door was closed I started in. “I
know what was done to her, well some of it anyway.” He sat down heavily and
held his head in his hands. “I want to know what’s not in the report, I want to
know everything he did to her.”

“Leave
it alone son, trust me I wanted to go after this asshole more than you’ll ever
know but the cops said my hands are tied. He has more rights apparently, rights
that say if I go after him I might end up in jail. That’s a hard thing to
swallow as a father.”

“I
don’t understand that shit. It says he stalked her from the age of fourteen,
four fucking years and they did nothing? She was a fucking kid when he started
his sick fucking campaign…”

“I
know boy, you think I don’t know? You think I don’t lay awake at night thinking
up ways to remove him from the face of the earth? My child wakes up screaming
sometimes and it tears at my heart but there isn’t a damn thing I can do about
it. He has more damn rights right now than we do don’t you understand? One
wrong move and I’ll be behind bars for the rest of my life, then who’s gonna
protect her. This is the best we can do for now, all I can do.” He shook his
head like a broken man and that just added fuel to my fire.

Be
a Steele. That refrain kept playing through my head over and over as I fought
to overcome the feelings that threatened to overpower me. I was going in blind
all across the board here, our relationship was new, my knowledge of the
situation was literally a few hours old and I had no experience with this shit.
My life up until a few months ago was one of high school ball and whatever
hoorah mom came up with to make us kids happy. I knew nothing about the seedier
side of things, nothing outside of having to put my foot in somebody’s ass for
messing with me or my brother.

This
was a whole new ballgame, this, as they say, is the big time. It looked like I
wasn’t going to be allowed to tread the natural order in the dating game this
go around. I’m being pushed into the deep end of the pool straight off the bat.
I have to ask myself had I known all this was waiting for me would I have gone
after her anyway? The truth was very simple when it came. I hadn’t gone after
Kadyn Daniels; this thing between us was set in stone long before we ever laid
eyes on each other. Something neither of us had any control over.

“I want
to see everything you have on him.”

“What
makes you so sure I have anything?” I just gave him a look to remind him that
my birth certificate might say one thing but in my chest beat the heart of a
man. And right now that man was in combat mode because some fuck had messed
with his woman. Whether I’d had her for a year or a day, she was mine; time
made no difference to a Steele, we laugh at that shit. The minute the decision
was made it was a done fucking deal.

“You’re
her father, you love her,
you
have everything I need.
Your hands may be tied but mine aren’t.”

“No son
leave it alone, if you want to be with my daughter then the best thing you can
do for her right now is be there for her. She has problems still I know, that’s
why she goes to doc Graves, but going after this guy might only open up a can
of worms that’s best left uncovered. She’s doing a lot better since she came
here…”

“She’s
afraid of her fucking shadow, no disrespect, I’m not saying you’re not doing
all you can for her but there’s something you need to know about me, about the
Steeles
period. We don’t hide and we don’t back down. I
have a sister, a mother and a new sister in law. If anyone had done this shit
to one of them I’d lay his ass out, I can do no less for Kadyn.”

“But you
just met…”

“Doesn’t
matter, my heart
knows
her, my soul owns her that’s
enough for me. Now are you going to give me what I want or am I going this
alone?” He studied me for the longest time but I didn’t back down and I didn’t
look away. When he saw whatever it was that he needed he took a key from his
pocket and opened a drawer throwing a manila envelope across his desk to me. I
didn’t open it, not yet, not here. I had something else to do first.

“She
upstairs?” he nodded and I turned to leave.

“I’m
going up.” I didn’t wait for him to say yes or no just headed back the way I
came and walked out and around. I knew there had to be a way in from the inside
but I didn’t want to scare her. I pulled my phone from my hip and called her on
my way up the stairs. “Kadyn I’m at your door open up.”