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.