Page 14 of Their Virgins Secret

“We were hired by three gentlemen from a country called Bezakistan. It’s a small country just outside the Middle East. ”

“I’ve heard of it. ” She frowned. “Don’t they practice polyandry, multiple men with one woman? Do you guys have a network or something? A Craig’s List for sharing?”

He felt his eyes narrow. “I’m trying to explain. If you can’t give me a little courtesy, then maybe you should wait for Burke. ”

She bit into her bottom lip, a sure sign that she was nervous. God, he loved that lip. “I’m sorry. I’m on edge. Please continue. ”

“We met Rafe and Kade after a mission. I’d helped their brother, Talib, out of a tough spot. When their cousin went missing, they called. She was only eighteen. ”

“A missing girl? Did you find her?”

“Eventually. Her name was Alea. She went to New York for college. Six months of daily phone calls to her mother, and then nothing. When we started looking into it, we realized that there was a pattern. Alea wasn’t the only girl missing. She’d been working in a club. She kept her wealth and privilege a secret. Everyone thought she was just another student living in an NYU dorm. That was what did her in. Ricardo Delgado ran coke for one of the big Colombian syndicates, but that wasn’t enough for him. He decided to start trafficking women. ”

“Oh, my god. ” She put a hand over her mouth and sat back. “That’s terrible. ”

“He would find pretty homeless girls or foreign students and clean them up. He would display them in his club, and if they worked out, he would sell them to private owners or South American bordellos. We posed as wealthy men looking for a private pet. ”

“That sounds dangerous. God, Cole, you could have been killed. ”

“Almost was a couple of times. We videotaped our meetings with Delgado when we purchased a young Asian girl. She’s home with her family now. Delgado had friends in the FBI, but it didn’t matter at that point. They couldn’t risk their positions when we had everything on tape, ready for primetime news, so the fucker finally went down. ”

Jessa wiped at her eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me about your mission when we met?”

“And get you involved in all that danger? Hell, no! We never intended to drag you into any of this. We thought we were careful, but Delgado’s son found out about you. Do you remember the morning we had breakfast at the Waldorf? The morning after we first made love? Remember the man who walked up as we sat at the table?”

Her eyes widened. “Yes! Oh, my god, that was Marco? I heard Burke say his name when he was talking on the phone. He blew up my house?”

Cole nodded. Jessa was a sharp woman. “His father was the man we put in jail. He died shortly after, before he could go to trial. Burke and I were down in South America looking for Alea. According to the authorities, Delgado’s murder in prison was payback from another cartel. ”

“And you found her?”

Cole took a deep breath, his hand going to the baby’s back. So innocent. Fuck, he would do just about anything to protect this child from the shit the world could throw. “Finally. Shortly before his arrest, Delgado had shipped Alea off to South America. We went down there and spent three months just trying to find her. It took another month of greasing the right palms so we could eventually rescue her. We pulled her out of a Colombian brothel in one of the worst parts of Medellin. She was strung out on drugs and had almost wasted away. ”

He didn’t tell her how she’d begged them to kill her. She hadn’t wanted to go home, just get her next fix—or die. She hadn’t looked a thing like the vibrant college girl in the picture her cousins had given them. She’d been a shell.

“If you found her within a couple of months, why were you gone for a year?”

He hesitated. Fuck, he didn’t want to tell her how hurt he’d been after being told that she’d married. The kicker was, all that time apart—he and Burke had been almost entirely at fault. Eventually, they’d have to confess how stupid they’d been, just not minutes after seeing her house explode. “After we found Alea, we discovered there were another ten families who’d lost their daughters. We brought Alea back home, and her cousins opened their wallets to help us reunite these other women with their loved ones. The families didn’t have the money to pay us, but Tal, Rafe, and Kade did. In the end, we found seven broken women and three bodies. We gave a year of our lives to this fucking case, and we barely scratched the surface of the misery Delgado spread. I feel like we failed. It wasn’t enough. ”

Jessa sat back, solemn. “I had no idea. I thought you had just left. ”

“We’ve been buried in drug dealers, slavers, and pimps. I’ve felt so goddamn dirty for the last year, dealing with drug dealers, slavers, and pimps. And we didn’t want to drag you in deeper. ”

“I can understand that you had a job to do, but tell me something, Cole. Do they not have phones in South America? You couldn’t find one?”

If you had been married, a phone call from your lovers might have pissed off your husband.

But that hadn’t been the only reason. Instead, he said, “And risk those bastards tracing the call back to you? No way, baby. You don’t understand how corrupt these men are or how far their reach extends. ”

She nodded reluctantly. “Since they just blew up my house, I have to suppose you’re right. You could have given me your real names before you left. All I had was a phone number written on a tiny piece of paper. Do you know how easy it was to lose that number?”

She’d lost it? “Did you try to call us?”

“When I found out I was pregnant, yes. But I shoved the paper into my jeans that morning when you left. Housekeeping took my jeans and washed them. No more number. So I waited. I was sure you would come back. You said you loved me. ” She sniffled but kept her tough-girl armor around her. “I believed you. ”

Cole closed his eyes, feeling low and sad and twenty kinds of pissed off at fate. “Fuck. ”

“I used every dime I had saved up to try to track you down so I could tell you I was pregnant, but no one knew Burke and Cole Carlisle. ”

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