Bound Together (Sea Haven/Sisters of the Heart 6)

"Of course he is," Jackson said. "I looked at that impeccable ID twice and knew it was fake, but couldn't figure out why. Your eyes."

"Ilya's eyes," Elle said.

"I'm his oldest brother, so technically he has my eyes," Viktor corrected with a faint smile. "It's nice to meet you, Elle. Your husband and I have met a couple of times."

Viktor had objected to Elle coming. He knew what happened to her, that Evan's brother had kidnapped her and Evan had taught the man how to "train" her. Jackson and Elle's sisters had rescued her. Evan's brother, Stavros, kept coming after her and eventually he died off the coast of Sea Haven in a mystery scientists were still trying to explain.

Viktor had wanted to talk to Jackson and then let Jackson break the bad news to his wife. Hysterical women weren't his forte, although he could handle them if he needed to. In his school there was no one teaching them the finer arts the way his brothers had learned. His school was more along the line of kill or be killed.

Jackson led his wife to the love seat, which didn't make Viktor happy. He liked the position. It was the best in the house--the most defensible. "I'll get the drinks, baby, you go visit with your cousin." He needed her to settle the two, get them relaxed.

Blythe obliged readily and took a chair opposite them. "How are your sisters, Elle? They're all back from their honeymoons, aren't they?"

Elle nodded. "Actually, they returned before Jackson and me."

She fell silent, and through the open archway, Viktor could see her draw up her legs and curl into Jackson. Few things shocked Viktor, but that did. Jackson immediately put his arm around her and pulled her tighter against him. Elle smiled up at her husband but her hand trembled in her lap as Viktor carried in the tray of drinks. He served her first. She was a woman of power and that need for her husband's reassurance touched him.

"I know this is late, Blythe. Viktor." Elle took a deep breath. "I'm so sorry about your child--your daughter. I've thought about what happened to you and how awful it must have been for you. Both of you."

Blythe looked stricken. Absolutely stricken. She hadn't expected it and she wasn't prepared. Viktor crossed the room, putting his body between her and their visitors. He'd never turned his back on a potential enemy, not without knowing Reaper or Savage had them in their sights. They were somewhere close, but he doubted if they had the deputy in their crosshairs. Then again, knowing Reaper, he probably did.

He bent unnecessarily to put his drink beside Blythe's but the movement allowed him to brush the top of her head with a kiss before turning back to the couple. "Thank you," he said for both of them.

"And also to apologize. Mom and the aunts were so crazy, so afraid for their sister. They wouldn't listen to anyone. I wanted to take back everything that they did and said. I know that was what kept you isolated from all of us," Elle added. "I hated what they did. We all tried, every one of us, to stop them, but they were so certain if Aunt Sharon went to rehab she would be better. They didn't think she could be so vicious she would do what she did on purpose."

Blythe had gone ashen. Her fingers dug into the side of the chair. She just sat there frozen, holding her breath in her lungs. In that moment Viktor knew exactly what it had been like for her. Alone. Completely alone. No family to back her up. His heart nearly shattered for her, but she wasn't alone now. He hadn't been there when she needed him. That would never happen again.

He sat on the wide arm of her chair and took her hand, holding it to his chest. Inside he went still. He could read what was happening so easily. Blythe was estranged from her family and had been since the death of their child. He could shut this down immediately and she'd turn only to him, or he could keep the talk going and hope Elle managed to say something that would make Blythe accept her cousin back into her life. The bottom line was, she loved family. She'd made another one for herself, and she was willing to take on his brothers and sisters and Darby and her sisters. But she needed the Drakes. Her cousins.

"What the fuck are you saying?" He was deliberately crude. Rude. Leaning toward Elle aggressively. "Your entire family backed the bitch who murdered our child?" If he could tear out Sharon's heart with his bare hands, he would have.

"It's okay," Blythe murmured. "It's okay. Let's just leave it. It wasn't Elle's fault. The aunts believed my mother. Sharon was their sister and they needed to believe she would never have done such a terrible thing."

He realized she must have said that often, if only to herself. It wasn't okay, and she was alienated from her family because of something they did or said. "Tell me what happened," he demanded, looking at Elle.

She glanced at her husband, who tightened his arm around her and pulled her beneath his shoulder as if he could shelter her from the grief filling the room. Grief and rage. Viktor couldn't hold either back.

"It was my mother and her sisters who petitioned the court to be lenient and put Aunt Sharon in a rehab," Elle confessed in a low voice. "She had no previous record and there were no documented incidents involving injuries to Blythe. They believed her when she said she blacked out and didn't remember what happened."

Blythe shook her head. "I don't want to talk about this."

"We lost you, and we want you back," Elle said. "You just disappeared out of our lives. You walk past us, smile and wave, but you aren't there. We tried to stop them, to get them to see, we really did. I knew what she was capable of and I told Mom, but she wouldn't listen to me." Her voice rang with sincerity and grief as well. "Blythe, please come back to us."

Viktor understood that the betrayal by her aunts was much worse because he wasn't there to support her. No one was there. He said as much. "Because I couldn't get back, you were completely alone, trying to cope on your own. I'm so sorry, Blythe." More than she would ever know. He hurt for her. Ached for her. He willed her to hear her cousin. To feel his sincerity. To stay with him in spite of not being there for her when she needed him the most.

Blythe held herself very still, as if movement might shatter her. If she broke, Viktor was there to pick up the pieces, but he willed her to be strong--at least until their company left and he could hold her in his arms and comfort her.

Was she at fault?

Blythe looked up at him, and he caught the sheen of tears she hastily blinked away. She shook her head. I couldn't forgive any of them. It was so terrible and I just held on to my anger.

You have every right to be upset and angry with me for not being here when you needed me, but it sounds like she tried to see you. To be there.

She nodded her assent.

You have to tell her, baby, he encouraged gently. She's hurting too.

Blythe's fingers curled into his tightly and then she lifted her gaze to her cousin's, and he could breathe again. She wasn't shutting him out; she was once again showing him why he had such faith in her.

"I know you tried, Elle. It was so difficult, and I almost didn't make it through. I think about my daughter every single day and wonder what she'd be like. I know it was your mother's decision and she regrets it. She told me." By her tone, Viktor knew she hadn't forgiven the woman and maybe she never would, but Elle was guilty only by association. Not by deed. "I'll do better. I promise."

Elle nodded, tears standing in her eyes.

"Why?" Jackson asked, drawing attention away from his wife. "Why have you been gone all this time, Viktor?"

He was there to tell the cop the truth. Deveau needed to know the events leading up to this moment. This crucial meeting and what it was all about.

"Absinthe, one of my brothers, was shot multiple times on an assignment in South America. He'd gone after one of the key players in a drug cartel there. I had to get to him to save his life. I was closest, and he didn't have much time. That was right after Sharon's husband was killed. When you're shot and left for dead in our business, Sorbacov would send his cleaners after you. Absinthe had to be watched over in order to keep him alive, and then I had to help him disappear."

"No message for her?" Jac

kson asked. "You couldn't get word to her?"

At the hint of disdain in his voice, Viktor almost told him to go to hell, but something compelled him to tell the truth. "My brothers and I set up a message center for emergencies. I left a letter for Blythe giving her the codes. She could reach me through that route. No one was supposed to have the codes but the seven of us, but I wanted her to know how to reach me if she needed me. I left her hundreds of messages and even more for my brothers to watch over her. Not one person got back to me."

He smoothed caresses gently up and down Blythe's arm and then, when he could still feel her tension, he curled his arm partway around her so he could massage her neck.

"That's crazy," Jackson said, frowning. "What happened?"

"We don't know," Viktor admitted. "My brothers and Blythe never received any messages, and the ones my brothers said they left for me never got to me. Each time I checked the center for messages there were none."

"I didn't get the letter," Blythe said. "I suspect my mother destroyed it. She was taken to my room after Ray died. I didn't even know there was a letter until Viktor told me there had been one."

She was careful not to mention Viktor was the one who pulled the trigger. Jackson wasn't stupid; he had to know that Viktor, being a Prakenskii, had been a hit man for Sorbacov, but she wasn't going to go there and neither, it seemed, was Jackson.

"How did the code work?" Jackson asked.

"We all had the key and knew how to read a message. Once it was read, it was erased so there was no way Sorbacov could track us. We gave one another locations and destinations. Said if we were wounded, that sort of thing. In my case, I needed to know Blythe was all right. I was too far away and they watched me like a hawk in the beginning. After I got Absinthe out of trouble, Sorbacov told me to go after another high-profile target."

"When you had the chance, why didn't you disappear? You have the ability," Jackson asked.

Viktor shook his head. "Ilya was out in the open. Sorbacov would have had him killed. I couldn't take that chance. I went undercover with the Swords motorcycle club, the chapter in Louisiana." He didn't look at Elle or Jackson when he gave them that, but he heard Jackson's swift intake of breath as Jackson recognized the name of his father's club. Instead, he leaned closer to Blythe, trying to give her strength.

"Is it possible Aunt Sharon didn't destroy the letter? That she gave it to someone and they had the ability to destroy your messages?" Elle asked. "She would do that, wouldn't she, Blythe? Just to be spiteful. She hated that you were happy. Even over little things she would be hateful to you."

There was a long silence. Viktor kept his gaze on Blythe's face. She was thinking it over, but eventually she shook her head.

"The key to the code was in that letter along with specific instructions on erasing messages from me." He kept his voice very gentle. His fingers kept working the nape of her neck, trying to ease the tension pouring off of her. She was too still. Worried.

"She didn't have friends. Only her sisters. She drank too much and was too ugly when she drank to keep friends. Especially after Ray. They met in a bar, and once she was with him, she drank even more. They drank together."

"He didn't drink," Viktor corrected. "It was an illusion."

Blythe's teeth tugged at her lower lip and he couldn't help smoothing his thumb over the alluring curve.

"What is it?"

"She just didn't have friends. He only wanted his friends around . . ." She trailed off, her eyes going wide.

"His friends were all pedophiles," he reminded her as gently as possible when his gut tightened into knots and alarms went off in his head. He wanted to swear. Loudly. Crudely. Viktor had put everyone in jeopardy by giving her the code. By sending so many messages. What had he said? About the others? His brothers? Had he mentioned any of the members of his club in any of the messages?

His thinking was always clear. It had to be. He kept panic at bay as a child by reminding himself lives were always at stake, and his brain was his greatest weapon. He had to outthink everyone. He hadn't been thinking when he was sending all those messages to Blythe. He'd been panicked, afraid of losing her. Afraid of what was happening to her when he wasn't there. He'd begged his brothers to look after her. More than once, he'd tried to find legitimate reasons for Habit to allow him to take off for a few days so he could get to her, but the Swords were as paranoid as their president.

The roaring in his ears settled as he breathed away the rage at himself and his many, many mistakes. He'd made them before, and children were killed. He had more sins on his soul than any person alive and that was due to panic, fear and anger. He pushed all emotion down and focused on the woman he loved.

Any conversation about her mother distressed Blythe. Sharon had kept her isolated from family and friends. They'd moved across the country deliberately so Sharon's jealousy and hatred of those she perceived as having more couldn't be seen. Blythe had dealt with her alone. She had dealt with far too much alone. At least he'd eventually had his brothers and sisters.

Baby, we've got this together. Take a breath.

My mother nearly destroyed us, and I allowed it. I was so hurt after you disappeared I couldn't think straight. She had to have given that letter to one of Ray's friends.

He studied her face. She had a good idea just which friend that was, and she didn't like the thought. He wasn't going to push her. She'd had enough. They had brought Elle and Jackson there for a reason.

We'll deal with that when we're alone, honey, he assured her. Let's see if Deveau is going to cooperate or if he's going to blow my cover.

He won't, she said staunchly.

"I asked Blythe to call you," he announced, turning back to Jackson. "I took an undercover assignment in order to go after the biggest human trafficking ring in the world. It was a long-term assignment and I had to go deep, to disappear. It was dangerous and that meant losing all ties to family." His hand tightened around Blythe's.

Telling this again meant risking losing her. He'd been out of her life when she'd needed him the most, when she had no family or friends to support her. She'd met the five women she bought the now thriving farm with after the death of their daughter.

Deveau was a patient man and he simply waited. Viktor tightened his hold on Blythe as if that could keep her from pulling away from him.

"Evan Shackler-Gratsos is the most paranoid man I've ever come across, and he doesn't trust anyone."

Elle gasped and looked up at Jackson. Her husband's expression didn't change, but he curved his arm around her and pulled her right into him, almost on his lap. He kept his gaze steady on Viktor's face, watching his eyes. Viktor didn't look away. He wanted Deveau to know just how serious the threat was.

"He rode with the Swords, specifically a chapter in Louisiana."

Immediately comprehension was in the deputy's eyes. He was from Louisiana. His father had been an enforcer with the Swords. When Jackson's mother had gotten so ill with cancer, he'd picked up another woman to ride with him and she had a son named Evan. Yeah. He was getting it and fast. They were all connected.

"I joined the chapter in the hopes that Evan would visit and I could take him out, but he'd grown so paranoid that more than once he killed his own bodyguards and replaced them, certain they were selling him out. Then you got married, Deveau. You got married to the woman his brother wanted and wouldn't let him have. He already hated you, but then you committed the ultimate sin. He has no intention of allowing you to be happy. Either one of you." He included Elle, but he kept his gaze on Deveau. Yeah, the man was smart. He was getting it.

"This is our one shot at getting this bastard. He's got an operation that won't quit and he's running it in nearly every country. The Swords choose a few young boys and girls, lure them or kidnap them, beat and rape them until they submit and then sell them until they get too old or worn out to be of any use. Then they kill them. A select few are put on ships to be sold for top dollar to men and women with particular procli

vities. They like to hurt and then kill their victims. Those children are taken to his ships, and the bodies are buried at sea."

Elle drew her knees all the way up and pressed her face against them, making herself very small.

"Keep talking," Jackson demanded when Viktor hesitated.

Viktor hated what he was doing to Blythe's cousin. Her face was very pale. She didn't look away, but she did look fragile. He wished Blythe had listened to him and just asked the deputy to come.

"It's all right," Elle said, her voice surprisingly strong. "Thanks for caring, but I have to hear this. He's coming after us, isn't he?"

Viktor nodded slowly. There was no point in trying to make it easy. Evan Shackler-Gratsos wasn't going to make it easy for any of them. "Yes, I'm afraid he is. The good news is, we'll get a shot at taking him out because he wants to kill Jackson himself. He made that very clear. I was sent down here to scout for a place that the Swords could slip into without anyone noticing a large number of them. They won't be wearing colors, and they aren't supposed to draw attention to themselves."

"Then what the hell was that fiasco in Inez's store?" Jackson demanded.

Inez definitely meant something to him. He hadn't liked that anyone had threatened her. "They were there to watch me. I suspected Evan might send in more than one team. He's that paranoid. They were from another chapter, so it was plausible that I didn't know who they were."

"Your cover still intact?" Jackson asked.

Viktor nodded. "I called my chapter president and reported the incident and then acted outraged that they were Swords and they'd almost blown everything. For all I know he sent watchers to watch them. My men are looking, but we haven't found any others and we're good at what we do."

"I can imagine," Jackson said dryly.

Viktor didn't bother to take the bait. "I've looked at the campgrounds. There are a lot of them that would do, but too many families camp in them. There's no way to guarantee safety. I need a place we can plan an ambush for you and then turn the tables on them without civilians getting hurt."

"You're planning on using me as bait."