Page 8 of Lost in Her
“Ethan, what are you doing?”Shawn asks me in a stern, low voice, staring at me.He knows me too well.too fucking well sometimes.He knows when I am up to something.I don’t have to tell him shit because he already knows.
I guess that’s what happens when you become family with someone—they know without any words needing to be said.
I throw my hands up and take a deep breath.“I don’t have a fucking clue, man.I just need to know more.”
“She is Jennifer Copeland, Ethan,” Shawn tells me softly.
The fuck.she is a Copeland.no fucking way.
“What?”I ask the question, but he knows I heard him.he knows that I am thinking what the fuck.It’s all over my face.
“She is Gael Copeland’s daughter,” Emory answers for Shawn.They do that a lot, answer for each other.
“The porn producer Copeland,” I say, more for me than for them.
“Yes,” both Emory and Shawn reply at the same time.
“She was his sex slave, along with his men’s, for the last fourteen years.She is what made him famous.What made him rich.”Shawn is speaking in a low, dark voice.The same voice he has when we get a client that comes from a very abused past.The same voice he used when everything was going on with Em’s ex.
We have seen a lot over the years and have helped many people escape their abusers, but sometimes we are all taken aback when we hear certain stories.Stories like Jennifer’s.Gael has been using his own fucking daughter to make films and has gotten rich from it.
These are the things that I know make both me and Shawn see red in the worst fucking way.
“He was using his daughter,” I affirm, but once again, it is more for me than for them.I am trying to process this, understand this, but honestly, no matter how much I am fucking process it, I don’t think I will ever fucking understand it.
My father was a fucking pimp.He pimped out my mom until she overdosed and died.I got out and away from my father, but she didn’t, and now he is serving life in prison for what he had done to all those girls, including my mother.Before Shawn reached out his hand to me and helped me get out of the life, my father spoke of the Copelands.I know my father did some stuff for Gael over the years before he went to prison for what happened to my mother.
She overdosed, but he was the one who put it in her arm.She became addicted at a young age, and quickly, because it was the only way she could do what my father was making her do.
You would think that would have stopped me from becoming a fucking criminal and drug dealer, but it didn’t.I went deeper into the life because of my father.He taught me everything I know when it comes to that life, the life I became addicted to for so many fucking years.Until Shawn.
I watch them both nod.It was a stupid question.I already knew the fucking answer.Of course, he was using her to make porn.
“Ethan, she will just need some time,” Emory says.I know that this line of work brings up a lot of what she has been through but at the same time, because of what she has survived, it has allowed her to be very good at her job.
“A lot of fucking time,” I whisper, feeling my heart racing and my blood boiling with all this information.I knew it would have this effect on me because of the effect Jennifer has already had on me, and honestly, I don’t fucking know why.
She barely said anything to me, but her presence, her eyes.fuck, man.
“Just please watch over her.We haven’t dealt with something like this before, and we don’t know what her father will do to try and get her back,” Emory worries.She is always worried about the clients, but I can tell Jennifer is different for her as well.
“I’ll watch over her.That is not even a question.”
I used to be a horrible fucking monster before Shawn found me and showed me a different way, but that monster inside me is still there.No matter how hard I have tried to escape it.And now I think I might have to let it come to the surface.I might have to give into the person I was before to fucking prepare for whatever Gael might have in mind.
“Ethan,” Shawn says, pulling me out of my thoughts.
“Yes,” I whisper, looking at him.
“There is more to her story,” he adds, making my fucking heart sink.Of course, there is more to her story, but right now, I can’t and don’t want to know more.I have all the information I need right now.
“I don’t need to know.I have what I need to know,” I growl, still hearing the rage in my tone.Situations like this get under my skin.I know I shouldn’t care.I know I have a job to do, but in this line of work, it is not just a fucking job.We don’t do this shit for money or for others to recognize what we’re doing.
Shawn, Emory, and I do this because we fucking care.We want to help others heal.We want to give them a safe place to be able to move on and process what they have gone through.It is that fucking simple.
“Just don’t do anything crazy, okay?”Shawn warns in a low, stern voice.
I feel my heart starting to race with the little bit of information I now have.I can fill in the rest.They don’t need to tell me.I saw the chain marks on her wrists and ankles, the fucking chain mark around her neck, the bruises and cuts.
