Page 55 of A Twist of Poison

There was a preconceived notion when you thought of sex trafficking and victims being purchased. Automatically, I thought of boat loads of dirty and hungry deprived human beings kept as slaves in the most outrageous environments with lack of basic human rights. That’s not to say that all of those before us hadn’t suffered or gone through some shit that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.

It was a mindfuck. There’d be a ton more to unload, I sensed it.

One of Chris’ trusted police contacts arrived as we made it outside to the front of the mansion with the collection of men and women. With a small selection of his team, all of them out of uniform doing this outside of their working hours, they sorted the victims. Placing them in the care of this off the books police team, they’d find them homes in safe houses with all the amenities and help with what they needed… until it was safe enough for them to return to society without being hunted down. They would be a hot commodity once word had gotten out of their escape. Or should I say, rescue.

Heavy corruption was rife within the police department and some were most likely involved in this. We could hardly trust anybody to not be involved, but we couldn’t do this alone.

* * *

Once we’d arrived home, we showered and made ourselves relatively decent again. The three of us sat on the leather couches downstairs, all looking tired. We were burning candles at all ends.

“What do you think about that favour for The Forsaken?” Texas asked around a yawn.

This piqued Preston’s interest as he leaned forward, suddenly more life in those exhausted eyes of his. “What deal?” He looked back and forth between me and Texas. “You idiots haven’t told me about this. What gives?”

“Sorry,” I answered him honestly. “I forgot, it wasn’t intentional.”

He nodded but narrowed his eyes, telling me to keep talking and fill him in quickly. I groaned, wanting to plant face first on my bed instead, but decided to explain. To be fair, it was my fault he wasn’t told already. I was usually on the ball with everything and juggling multiple plates at once. To say I’d been a bit off centre lately would be putting it mildly.

“It’s weird as fuck,” Texas admitted. I shrugged because it wasn’t the weirdest thing we’d seen, heard or experienced. But for a one percenter MC to ask for this amount of help meant something substantial was going down their end and they were covering all their bases.

“So…” I swung around, laying my legs on the couch that I’d claimed for myself. “The President of the Westmount Mother Chapter is apparently going into deep hiding for reasons we haven’t been told, need to know basis and all that—”

“But get this,” Texas interrupted me, and I just let him get on with telling the rest. “Their enforcer is now the new President, it skipped the Vice President, which is not done. It should automatically go to him. So, the newly appointed Prez is a guy called Micah Mayfair. He’s only twenty-five years old! In charge of a motherfucking Mother Chapter. He’s now the President of all Presidents!”

I turned my head with a smirk seeing him throw his hands up in the air like he couldn’t believe it, I was with him on that. Preston smiled too.

Whispers reached us about Micah Mayfair and how brutally efficient he was. I was betting any issues of hierarchy within their club would be sorted instantly.

“Okay,” Preston drawled. “Why?”

“No idea,” I shared. “But it’s to do with a girl who needed to be hidden as a matter of urgency, which is where Thomas comes in.” Our genius hacker on the team, worth his weight in gold.

“Huh,” Texas huffed. He wasn’t in the room for that bit of information. “It always involves a girl.”

Preston snorted a laugh with one word that confirmed what we were all thinking about right now, orwho. “Yep.”

Chapter24

Hollis

When you were in a position like me, you learned to sit back and observe. Not everything needed a reaction.

Over the past few weeks, I’d noticed an oppressive aura that Milla seemed to give off, a negative energy fully coating her. Her own darkened rain cloud hovered directly above her. Even though she looked exactly the same, acted exactly the same, fucking mouthed off exactly the same, I could just tell something was wrong.

Frustratingly, I’d slipped a good few times around her. She’d managed to crack me open again, just that tiny bit. But it was enough. Enough to let the emotions flood in, a tsunami of them battering against my mind. Making me feel fucking undone, I feared the opening that she slipped through years back had never fully closed even though I was positive that it had.

I watched her all the time, I listened to information about her all the goddamn time. I was fucking obsessed, my brothers had called it. I knew it. I just didn’t want to admit it, even to myself. Admitting it to myself was like giving myself permission to engage in her. Wrap her up and whisk her away to wherever I wanted her, and it took a lot to hold myself back from doing that, especially seeing the heated looks she got from many of the men on campus.

I wasn’t jealous, but I was territorial. Jealousy was wanting something that was not yours, territorial was protecting what already was. She was mine… ours.Fuck.

As human beings we had the capability to love more than one person at any one time. Our hearts didn’t have barriers that society made us believe. It could encompass mass feelings. I think that around the world we all had multiple soulmates, but over the course of our lives, many of us would never find them. I knew that I found mine when I was too young to understand what it meant, and what she meant to me.

I had to believe that her being back here, after everything, was some sort of sign. I just hoped with all that I was, that she wouldn’t fuck us over like she did when she left. That was kinda messed up to think of it that way, when we made sure to push her out of the circle that we’d created with her at the centre.

Did it bother me that my closest brothers had a similar situation going on with her? No, honestly. Would it stop whatever happened between us four? No way.

Us four made sense to each other. Most likely not to others, but I didn’t care for judgement or take it on board. Listening to the opinions of others that didn’t matter was like placing your hand in a pot of boiling hot oil and expecting it not to burn.

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