Exploited (The Dark Redemption Series) (16 page)

A moment later we both climb into bed naked. And although I’m surprised that he’s staying the night, I’m happy to be in his arms when he pulls me to his chest.

“Goodnight,” he says.

“Night,” I repeat, words coming easier with him. Maybe I’ll even be normal soon, capable of having verbal conversations with him like a regular person.

…

Aden

I made it back to my hotel room in a complete daze, unable to remember if I walked or drove. It’s all a blur. The only thing I can remember is seeing Blair tied up and crying on the bed. After I fucked her. So familiar, and yet I feel a hundred times worse this time.

I’m a sick bastard, obviously beyond saving. They should throw me in prison to keep me from touching another girl.

Not knowing what else to do, I decide to call my psychiatrist, despite the late hour. I think this qualifies as an emergency. Pulling out my phone, I dial him up while I pace around the rundown hotel room that looks like it hasn’t been cleaned in weeks.

“Hello?” Dr. Allen answers right away, thank fuck. 

“Hey, doc. Sorry to call so late, but I’ve…I’ve done something bad, and I should probably surrender my badge and turn myself in.”

“Aden? Where are you?” he asks. Fuck. He wants to know where I am so he can call the local police to come arrest me.

Sinking down on the end of the bed I tell him, “I’m in Lexington, North Carolina, at the Regency Inn.”

“Okay, so what do you think you’ve done that’s so bad?” he asks.

I take a deep breath before I confess, knowing full well he has an obligation to report me. “I-I think I raped a girl.”

“You
think
you raped her?”

“Yeah,” I answer. “But I’m not sure. I’m so fucking confused, I mean one minute everything was fine, we were in bed, making out – ”

“You let her touch you?” he asks.

“Ah, no, of course not,” I reply, running my fingers through my hair.

“So…”

“I, uh, I restrained her so she couldn’t.”

“You restrained her?” he repeats.

“Uh-huh.”

“Without her permission?”

“I think I had her permission,” I reply, trying to think back. “She never resisted this time.”

“This time?” he exclaims.

“Ah, yeah, the first time she resisted, but the, um,” I count the different night. “Other three nights she let me. I even asked her before I touched her, before I removed her clothes, before I…before I went down on her. She said yes.”

“Okay,” Dr. Allen says in what sounds like relief. “If she said yes, then why do you think you did something wrong?”

“Well, I don’t remember asking her tonight. It was like I checked out. She felt so good, just like all the other times,” I explain. “She was a virgin.”

“Okay, Aden, where is she now? Have you talked to her about what happened? Can I talk to her? Is she underage?”

“No, she’s not underage, she’s eighteen, and I, ah, I left her.”

“So you’re not with her now?”

“No. I freaked out and then I left. I don’t even know how I got back to the hotel room.”

“Aden, I think you need to go back to her. Check on her, see if she wants to talk to you. If not, or if she’s in distress, call nine-one-one, and then call me back, okay?”

“Do you want her address so you can call the cops to come arrest me?” I ask, standing up to make sure I have everything I need. My keys are in my pocket. Shit, where’s my phone? Oh, right, I’m on it.

“No, Aden. You’re not a bad guy or a monster or any other derogatory term you think about yourself. The fact that you’ve called me and that you said you had a prior relationship with her…if you go back to the scene, and she wants to call the police, or if they’re already there, I’m sure you’ll do the right thing.”

“Yeah, of course. I’m not gonna run. They should lock me away. After what I did to her…I don’t want to be like them. I don’t wanna hurt anyone.”

“Aden, I’ve told you before, you are
not
like your abusers. You have a conscience. You feel guilt for what they made you do when you were only a teenager. That’s perfectly normal, even though you were also a victim yourself.”

“Are you sure? I might be getting worse,” I point out.

“Go talk to the girl, make sure she’s okay. Hopefully, you’re overreacting. If she’s upset, wait outside and call the police.”

“Okay,” I agree.

“Good luck,” he says before I disconnect the line.

Brede

My eyelids are so heavy that they burn, so I close them for just a few minutes. Blair’s warm and smells so good curled up against my chest. She’s been asleep for a few minutes. In fact, I think she’s drooling on me. I could get used to this, and I think she’s finally coming around to the idea of leaving.

At first, I assume the sound of fabric shuffling is only Blair moving, but then I realize it’s quieter, further away, making me shoot straight up in bed.

Fuck
.

My teeth grind when the mattress creaks as I get up to go get the gun I stole from Blair and loaded, still in my boot where I left them in the bathroom.

I don’t turn on any lights, just feeling my way around the pile of clothes until the cold steel is in my palm. I cock it and hold it down by my thigh as I creep back into the bedroom.

Oh, fuck.

I watch as a dark figure climbs through the window. When he starts to walk toward the bed where Blair’s still sleeping, I flip on the light. “Stop right there, motherfucker!” I warn him, the barrel of my gun level with his face.

The man in a black mask and…oddly enough, a pressed, dark suit, raises his palms in front of him at the same time I see Blair pop up in bed.

“Brede, no!” she pleads, looking at my gun with wide hazel eyes and stunning me with her adamant words. I don’t wanna have to kill him in front of her, not after everything she’s been through, but I’ll be damned if I let him hurt her again. This has to be the fucker who left her tied up.

“You wouldn’t shoot your own brother, would you?” the masked man says, his voice so familiar that it takes a second for his words to make sense. “And, jeez, Brede, put some clothes on for fuck’s sake.”

“Aden?” I ask. No. Fucking. Way. “Take the goddamn mask off,” I order.

He reaches up and peels back the fabric, revealing a face so similar to the one I see every day in the mirror, except his hair is a little longer. My heart thumps around in my chest like it’s trying to escape. I’m standing in front of my twin brother who I haven’t seen since we were twelve years old and social services separated us. Jim and Paula told me they wanted to foster him too, but the state agency refused, saying that based on their income, they couldn’t afford two kids. It was fucking bullshit, but there was nothing else to be done. I don’t even know where he ended up. Now why the fuck is he in Blair’s bedroom?

“What are you doing here?” I ask, lowering my gun to my side again.

Aden visibly relaxes, lowering his hands as he glances at Blair, his pinched faced expression full of regret and concern…

“You motherfucker!” I exclaim. “It was you? You fucked her and left her tied to the goddamn bed? What the hell is wrong with you?” I ask.

Cringing, he closes his eyes for a second before they return to mine. “I messed up. After we…Look, I freaked out, and I’m so sorry, Blair,” he tells her. “Are you okay?”

She nods, but I know that based on the way she’s gnawing on her bottom lip and her glassy eyes that she's still shaken up.

“She’s not okay,” I tell him through my teeth grinding so hard my jaw may break. “Why would you do that to her?”

Aden looks at me again with a smirk. Do I look as pompous as him when I smirk? “I said I was sorry, and whether or not she decides to forgive me is up to
her
,” he says. “But why don’t we talk about what
you’re
doing here, huh?” He raises an eyebrow pointedly.

Fuck. 

“That’s not what I’m doing now,” I reply to try and stop him from saying…

“Oh, so you’re
not
gonna kill her now? But hasn’t her father already paid you part of the money?” he asks, outing me and causing Blair to gasp from the bed.

“I wish I had been an only child,” I mutter, scrubbing a palm down my face. “And, no, I’m not gonna hurt her, unlike what you did. But I needed the money…”

“Right, of course,” he interrupts. “Because from what I’ve read, killing people is all you know how to do.”

“And what the fuck are you doing here?” I ask.

For a moment, I tense up and consider raising my gun again when his hand reaches into the inside of his coat pocket, but he only pulls out a badge. A law enforcement badge.

“I’m an FBI agent,” Aden says. “We’ve been searching for evidence to nail the DA and came up empty handed. But if you want to roll on him for solicitation of murder, we might be able to get you immunity, you know, since you served your country proudly and all.”

I try to hide my surprise that he knows all about the hit and my past. Guess with his connections it wouldn’t be too hard to track me down. Maybe he’s how dad always knew where I was to send the letters. But he’s out of his mind if he thinks I’ll just turn myself in.

“Have you seen dad lately?” I ask him.

“Yeah, every few weeks since I turned eighteen. Why?” he asks. “I know you haven’t written him back, or even been to see him.”

“I was just there yesterday,” I reply.

My brother’s eyebrows life in surprise. “Oh yeah? How was our old man?”

“Pitiful,” I answer honestly.

“I know,” Aden responds with a sigh. “But baby girl here is gonna help try to get him out, ain’t that right?” he turns to ask Blair.

She blinks at him in confusion and then looks back and forth between us. Blair obviously knew he was my brother when she saw him, and I’m sort of pissed at her for not telling me. Even if talking is not her strong suit, she could’ve written down, “
Hey,
I’m fucking around with a dude who looks
just
like you minus the tattoos.
” But I’m guessing she hadn’t figured out who our father is.

“Ben is…is…” she stutters.

“Now you decide to finally talk?” I tease her.

“She talks to me,” Aden says with a puff of his chest, making me want to punch him. Since I hate myself, it would be nice to hit him and pretend it’s my own face that’s getting the beating.

“You wanna hit me, don’t you?” he asks, apparently using the twin ESP. When we were little, the two of us didn’t have to explain anything to the other, either because we were thinking the same thing, or knew what the other was about to get into.

“Ben is our father, and he doesn’t blame you,” I assure Blair. Then to Aden, I tell him, “He said not to pressure her into trying to fix things since it may not work anyway. Besides, I have a better plan.”

“Is that right?” Aden asks, with his hands on his hips. “Let’s hear it, oh-wise-one.”

“We kill him,” I say simply.

“No can do,” Aden says with a shake of his head. “Don’t you think I would’ve done that if it was that simple?”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“I mean, we can’t kill him until we prove that
he
killed his own wife.”

I wince at his words and check to see how Blair’s holding up. She’s rubbing her eyes with the heel of her hands like they hurt or she sees something she doesn’t want to.

“So how the fuck do we do that?” I ask.

“With Blair and the dress that she had on the day of the murder.”

“You have that?” I ask, raising my eyebrows in surprise.

“Yeah, we do,” he says. “And with that and her testimony and yours on the hit, we may be able to finally get the bastard.”

“Can I kill him then?” I ask.

“By all means,” he agrees. “Unless I kill him first.”

“So now what?” I ask.

“We leave,” he says simply.

“Can we talk, ah, across the hall first?” I ask, since I don’t want Blair to hear all the gory details.

“Fine,” Aden huffs before following me down the hall to the bathroom. “But seriously, dude, put on some clothes.”

Once we’re both inside, I shut the door and start pulling my pile of clothes on while I talk.

“They’re gonna send another hitman after her and me since he gave me a down payment that’s already been spent.” 

“What did you spend it on? Booze and cigarettes?” he asks, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning a shoulder against the wall.

“No, I sent it to my foster parents so they wouldn’t lose the house while Paula’s waiting for a kidney transplant.”

“Aww, how sweet,” he says mockingly. “So glad your foster family wasn't sexual predators.”

Oh, fuck. Does he mean…

“Yep, mine were,” he answers while I busy myself with fastening my jeans because I can’t meet his eyes. “I helped the feds finally bust them three years back, but the videos, the ones of every time they touched, sucked, or made me fuck my foster sisters or their friends from school with my teenage cock can still be found online. There’s a big collection too, a pedophile’s wet dream.”

I instantly feel sick to my stomach. While I got a replacement family who loved me, my brother, who I was closer to than anyone else in the world, got…hell on earth. His innocence taken from him in a horrible way while he so young.

“Wait, is that why you had Blair tied up?”

“I’m a sick fuck, and if Blair wants to report me, to have me arrested, I’ll understand. Probably safer that way,” he says, hanging his head in guilt. And just like that, I feel it too, because it should’ve been me. Aden was the nice twin, the good one. Paula and Jim should’ve picked him instead of me.

“You can’t do that shit to her,” I warn him. Sitting on the side of the tub, I lay the gun next to me while I pull on my socks and boots. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. She’s been in a mental hospital for years.”

“I know that,” he replies.

“Did you know she’s suicidal?”

“Suicidal?” he exclaims. “What do you mean?”

“This gun,” I say, picking it up and putting the safety on. “She bought it a few days ago from the pawn shop I followed her into. That’s what she wanted it for, to off herself, but I stole it from her purse.”

“Thank fuck,” he says on an exhale, slumping against the closed door. “If she’d killed herself, we would probably never be able to get Dad out.”

“Are you fucking serious?” I ask, getting to my feet and in my brother’s face. “I tell you that she’s suicidal, and you’re only worried about what that would mean for
Dad
? You’re an asshole!”

“Back the fuck up, Brede. You know I care about her, too,” he says with a shove to my chest. I refuse to budge.

“Do you? Or did you just want to fuck her before you use her to save him?” I ask.

“You’re one to talk,” he says, this time pushing me so hard that I do have to take a few steps back, catching myself on the sink. “All she was to you was a big ass payday, right?”

“Not anymore,” I tell him. “Not since the day I saw her.”

“Too pretty to splatter her brains?” he asks with a smirk.

“It was more than that,” I admit. “She was too innocent, too broken. Which you’ve only made worse!”

“You’re just jealous because I fucked her first.”

That’s true, and reminds me that he didn’t seem very surprised to see me, not like I was surprised to find him in her room.

“How long have you known I was here?” I ask him while picking up my t-shirt and pulling it over my head.

“Since the first night I came to the house and found her here. The next day I followed her, saw her on your bike. The one eerily similar to dad’s 1981 Wide Glide.”

“You followed
us
?” I clarify. “To Rog’s house? The lake? The tattoo shop?” I ask.

“Yeah. Everywhere,” he answers with a shrug.

“And you never thought to, I dunno, stop and say hello?”

“I was watching out for her, thinking you were gonna try and kill her,” he says. “But then when you took her into the bedroom, well, I started to think you might have changed your mind since that would’ve been the time for you to do it.”

“You watched us?” I ask.

“Yeah,” he chuckles. “How else was I supposed to know how to one-up you at night with her?”

“Jackass,” I mutter, but it’s impossible to hate him. Not after what he’s been through and how much I missed him after all these years. Being separated from him was like having a part of my soul ripped out of me.

“You’re a bigger jackass,” he replies with a grin, and it’s just like we’re twelve again, teasing each other. Until that motherfucker decided to kill his wife and blame it on our dad. “We’re gonna get him out,” Aden promises, knowing my thoughts before I barely think them.

“All these years, I thought he was a murderer, that he’d done something so selfish to give us up…”

“He’s a good man, and he’s missed you,” he tells me, making me feel even guiltier.

“I’ve missed you both, even if you’re a pompous asshole now,” I tell him. When Aden steps forward, I meet him halfway for a long overdue embrace.

“Missed you, too, Brede,” he says with a pat on my back before we separate.

“If you hurt her again, I’ll kill you,” I warn him seriously.

“Fuck,” he grumbles, hanging his head. “I wasn’t thinking clearly. It won’t happen again,” he promises.