Chapter Fourteen
THE PING of her cell phone woke Jane. Day twenty two of her captivity and she was pooped. Declan wore her out. She turned over on her side and grabbed for the antique clock on the night table. Shit she’d been asleep for almost two hours. Her head itched and she reached up to scratch and realized she was still wearing her wig. She must have been so tired she didn’t even take it off. She reached for her phone on the night table and found five messages from her mom. Fuck Ling was missing. She jumped up from the bed and hunted for her boots.
Ling had been acting strange lately because her parents were adopting Marisol. She suspected Ling felt they were replacing her with a cute baby. Jane understood, she’d gone through the same feelings when Pete and Addy adopted Simon.
All of Pete and Addy’s kids came to them at the worse part of their lives. Ling ended up being sold to a rich couple as a slave. The couple who purchased her figuring they needed a little girl who would clean for them. After they’d fired the gardener he’d called the police and Pete and stormed the plantation and found her cowering under a bed. He took one look at her and the next thing they knew he brought the malnourished girl home. Between her and Pete they called in every favor they had to keep her from being sent back to China. Jane had kept most of her contacts from her Pentagon days and they were able to adopt her.
She ran down the stairs to let Mick know she was leaving, when she heard violin and piano music coming from the ballroom. The door was open and Jane caught sight of Ling playing her violin. Malcolm and Declan were sitting at the piano having an impromptu jam session doing an acoustic version of Led Zepplin’s ‘Kashmir’.
Jane walked over to Mick. “Ling said not to wake you up.”
“Did you call Addy?”
“Ling said Addy said it was cool if she came over.”
Jane texted her mother with the address and told her Ling was safe. Jane’s parent’s house wasn’t that far away. Ling caught her eye and Jane crooked her finger and Ling stopped playing and her head drooped as she walked over to her.
“What are you doing here?”
Ling glared at her stone faced. “I don’t like you with blonde hair.”
Jane rolled her eyes. Ling may have a sweet little China doll face, but she had the will of the Great Wall. Jane glanced over Ling’s shoulder to Malcolm and Declan pretending not to listen. She took Ling by the upper arm and pulled her to the stairs, pointing for her to sit down. She was going to have to pull out the thumbscrews.
DECLAN LOOKED out of the ballroom at Jane and her younger sister Ling arguing. “Ling lied to us.”
“We should have woken Jane up. Why didn’t we?”
Declan hoped he didn’t look guilty, but he’d been keeping her up all night because he just couldn’t get enough of her. “Because I liked singing with you and Ling. When was the last time you got to play with a violinist that good?”
Malcolm nodded his head. “She is good.”
“As good as you on the piano.”
“She’s better.” Malcolm smiled. “Jane ever mention she had an adopted sister?”
Jane never talked about her family. She talked about the Army, about being a body guard, but never about the life she had outside of her job. He found that curious. He wondered what other mysteries there were about her. He would have to find out. “Is it important?” he asked hoping that he didn’t sound as interested as he was. Because he had no idea why he wanted to know everything about her.
“I think there is a whole lot of story behind her.”
“Why don’t you ask then?”
Malcolm scoffed. “Because she's good at avoiding questions. She makes you want to talk about yourself.”
Why he needed them to be cool with each other was a mystery to him. “You getting along better with her?”
“I still feel like I know her from somewhere, but I’m going to let it go. I have other things to think about.”
“Okay,” Frankly other than that they were sleeping together, Malcolm knew about as much as he did about her. He saw Jane take Ling into a fierce hug. The girl hugged her back. They broke apart and Jane leaned over and kissed Ling’s forehead and he felt as if he was invading a private moment between them, but he found it sweet and loving. Gavin and Malcolm had that kind of relationship, but he didn’t with Brody. He was always afraid to show his younger brother affection, because he knew that his father would use it against them. When they were older, it just felt awkward.
The front door opened and Mick came in followed by a tall black man who looked like he was ready to kill. He lifted Ling and hugged her. Strange, he thought. A few seconds later, a medium height red haired man in an NOPD uniform came through the door. He put his hand on Jane’s back and they put their heads close together. When the black man put Ling down the red hair man pinched her cheek and smiled at her. Then she gave him a hug. The little group was talking together, when a tall light skinned black man limped through the door. Ling threw her arms around him and they hugged.
“This is very interesting.” Malcolm said.
“I know right.”
Then a very petite older black woman with long braids and a baby came into the house. She glared at Ling who bowed her head. Jane poked the older woman in the arm and she handed Jane the baby to hug Ling, crushing Ling’s arms to her side.
Declan looked at Mick. “Are we being invaded?”
“No that’s what happens when a Peterson goes MIA.”
Declan couldn’t take his eyes away. “Is this the entire family?”
Mick laughed. “No Andre’s at MIT, but I’m sure by now he’s at the airport trying to get a flight out. Kendra is at a debate in Baton Rouge, Pete probably sent a squad car to pick her up.”
Declan continued to stare. “I don’t see a family resemblance.”
Mick shrugged. “Some women buy shoes, Addy adopts kids.”
“I see.”
Mick eyed him like he knew all his secrets. “You didn’t know?”
“Was I supposed to?”
Mick gave him this smirk and moved on.
After a few more minutes of family time, Jane brought them all over and introduced them. They seemed like nice people and all of them seem to fawn over Malcolm which Declan thought was strange, because as everyone knew he was Declan Shaw. Jane seemed to be uncomfortable and hustled them out the door saying that they had a cocktail party to attend.
Later that night, Declan was laying on the bed watching Jane undress. “You have an interesting family.”
“I do.”
Why did he always feel as if she wasn’t lying to him, but she wasn’t telling him the entire story. “When did you get adopted?”
She took off her dress and hung it on a hanger. “When I was six.”
He was always fascinated by her efficient movement. She didn’t move like a woman who wanted to seduce, but everything she did was sexy. “What happened to your parents?”
“I don’t know my dad and my mother was murdered.”
He sat up. “What?”
“She was murdered. It happens.”
What did you say to that? “I’m sorry.”
“It was a long time ago.”
She just seemed to shrug it off as if she wouldn’t give it the power to hurt her. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Do you?” She put her wig on a head foam and shook out her dark hair.
“I don’t know how to answer that.”
“It’s okay. We all came to Pete and Addy on pretty much the worse day of our lives.”
Declan got up and walked over to her. “Tell me about all of you.”
“David’s the oldest. His parents were killed in a car accident and he lost his leg. Simon’s mother was a crack addict who tried to sell Simon to Pete who was working a drug murder. He was pretty beat up and starving. Pete brought him home and Addy kept him. Andre’s grandmother was killed in a drive-by and both his parents are in prison. Kendra was a Katrina orphan and Ling was smuggled into this country by human traffickers. Marisol was abandoned.”
He thought his life was a shit. “That’s sounds so…”
“I know, but Pete and Addy took us all in and loved us and got our lives back together.”
“Did they ever catch the guy responsible for your mother’s murder?”
She shook her head. “There was never an arrest.”
Again he got the feeling she wasn’t telling him everything. “Any witnesses?”
“Me.”
His gut tightened with physical pain. “You saw your mother being killed?”
“I hid in a closet. Pete found me there.”
He couldn’t speak for a second. He wanted to console her, but he wasn’t sure how. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything. Bad shit happens to kids. You know that. I was lucky Pete and Addy found me.”
“I’m glad.”
She turned around and pressed her naked body to his. “Do you wanna talk or do you wanna fuck?”
He could feel her hard nipples against his bare chest, smell the heat coming off of her and he forgot his own name. “That’s usually my line.”
“Don’t get sensitive on me. I’ll laugh at you.” She grabbed his cock and gave him a squeeze.
He believed she would.
She rubbed against him.
He knew what she was doing. He used sex to avoid emotions. He promised himself they’d revisit the subject of her childhood. Right after he got done fucking her.
She squeezed his cock again. “What’s it going to be?”
Shit he was weak. “Fucking it is.”