Moonstone: Gems of Wolfe Island One

I never knew why he was incarcerated in the first place. Didn’t care. It ultimately didn’t matter for my business.

Damn.

I hate thinking about my previous life.

It makes me face what a horrible human being I used to be.

One shot in the shoulder can change everything. Well—a gunshot and having no other choice.

“Katelyn…” I prod.

“I just need to see him. I need to know why.”

“Why he drugged you and locked you in a room? Because he’s a prick, Katelyn. A criminal and a prick.”

A criminal and a prick.

Yeah. I know someone else who fits that description, and he’s sitting at this table.

Can someone truly change?

I’ve stayed off the booze. I’ve been different with Katelyn than I ever was with any other woman I was involved with. I’ve stayed right in line with the law. Except for grabbing that asshole by the throat outside the restaurant, but he had it coming. I wish I’d smashed him into the brick. Fuck.

Katelyn shakes her head. “He’s my cousin. I spent my summers with him for years. He taught me how to play stickball. He shared his baseball cards with me when he wouldn’t let his brother or his friends anywhere near them. When we were seven and eight, we vowed to marry each other.”

“You’re cousins.”

She laughs. “Second cousins. And we unmade the vow the next summer when we both had childhood crushes on schoolmates. But that’s just how close we were. It made perfect sense at the time. We were kids, Luke.”

I nod. I get it. They were close. Really close.

How could Anthony DeCarlo sell out his own cousin? His own cousin who was his close friend at one time?

People change.

Or people have no choice.

Having no choice can be the biggest game changer of all. I should know. In my case, it turned out to be a good thing. A lifesaver, even.

In DeCarlo’s case, it seems to have led him down a path he can never retreat from.

It wasn’t until he was in prison that he became an informant for my circles in LA.

Damn. He’s done a lot worse than selling drugs and turning to narcing.

He harmed Katelyn.

“I’m going with you to see him,” I say curtly.

“You can’t,” she says. “Reid only got my name on the visitor list.”

Fuck. A year ago I could have walked into any prison and seen whoever I wanted.

Not anymore. That man no longer exists.

I inhale and hold it a few seconds. What now? I can’t let Katelyn face the music alone.

“We’ll tell them I’m your bodyguard,” I say, thinking as I speak.

“What?”

“You heard me. This is a man who violated you. Injected you with a substance and then locked you in a room, Katelyn. There’s every reason you might want a bodyguard with you.”

“In a prison? Where there are guards everywhere?”

She’s right. The bodyguard angle won’t work. “Tell me, then. Tell me what happened.”

She looks down, apparently very interested in her full plate of blueberry mush. For that’s what it is now. I can’t finish my own. My stomach feels like a bat is flying around inside it.

“Katelyn, please.” If I don’t find out, I think I might die. It’s the weirdest feeling.

“That’s it.”

“That can’t be it. How did you get out? What happened to you there?”

“I…”

“It’s okay. You can trust me,” I say again.

“The Wolfes…”

No.

Oh my God. No.

The pancakes in front of me no longer smell like melted butter and sweet syrup. They’re disgusting. A glop of disgusting mess.

Life is a glop of disgusting mess.

This. This is how she knows the Wolfes.

“I owe the Wolfes everything,” she says, “even though it was their father who kept me captive all those years.”

I gulp, but I’m unable to move the giant lump that has formed in my throat. The aroma of breakfast is making me sick.

Except it’s this knowledge that’s making me sick. Derek Wolfe and his island. It’s not common knowledge—somehow the media never got involved—but I know. I used to run in those circles.

Katelyn.

God, no. Not my Katelyn.

“Katelyn…baby…”

“I’m okay now. That’s the main thing.”

Okay? How can she be okay? What did they do to her? That derelict with the yellow eyes. My God, he was one of them. Why isn’t he rotting in prison somewhere?

“It wasn’t so bad. A lot of the women had it much worse than I did.”

“Stop,” I say, willing my voice to remain calm though I’m angry as hell and want to pull my hair out strand by strand. “Stop. Please.”

I can’t hear any more. I want to grab her. Haul her back to the table, kiss her senseless and tell her I’ll never leave her side.

But my days of protecting women in that way are over.

She drops her mouth open. Then she stands abruptly and walks out of the restaurant.

I throw some bills on the table and follow her. She’s pacing up and down the sidewalk. I resist the urge to grab her arm.