Maya Banks: Colters' Gift

She closed her eyes for a long moment and swallowed visibly. Her hand shook in Liam’s, and this time he was the one to squeeze her fingers, offering her reassurance.

“Her nose was bleeding. Her lip was split. And Joel was pissed because he’d lost his temper. Her face was a valuable asset. She wouldn’t be on her back doing her job if a man had to put a paper bag over her head. His words, not mine,” she added hastily.

Noah nodded. “Go on. You’re doing fine.”

“When he calmed down and realized what he’d done, he had Ron, the person I thought was his business partner, break three of her fingers. On her left hand, so she could still give a man a hand job. Oh God,” she sobbed. “He broke fingers on her left hand so it wouldn’t interfere with her pleasuring a man.”

Liam raised her hand and folded his other one over the back so it was completely encased between his palms. He rubbed gently, silently urging her on.

“I was so sickened by what I saw, but what hit me the hardest was that I realized that I was that woman. That I’d just been watching a cold-blooded man ruthlessly hurt another woman, and that I’d allowed that and more behind closed doors. No, I didn’t ‘work’ for him, but I was as solidly under his control as those women were. If I was so outraged on her behalf, then why the hell wasn’t I upset over what I’d allowed him to do to me? I was heartsick. Scared. Angry. So many things. It was like flipping a light switch.”

“What happened next?” Liam asked quietly.

“I confronted him.” She broke off laughing a dry, hoarse laugh that made Liam’s chest tight. “Like an idiot, I confronted him. What I should have done was gotten out of there as fast as I could and never look back. But I was so pissed and so ashamed, that I was compelled to confront him. It was as if I had to let him know that I wasn’t that stupid, cowardly woman he’d been pushing around for so long. It was so dumb of me, but I wasn’t thinking logically. I wasn’t smart.”

“Is that how you got the bruises you had when Max hired us?” Noah asked with a growl.

She lowered her eyes in shame. “No, that didn’t come until later. I was so stupid,” she said with a sob. “He told me that I was nothing but a dumb bitch and that I’d better keep my mouth shut and forget what I saw. I was so afraid of what he might do if I pushed him that I kept silent. And I stayed with him. Even after that. How foolish was that? I lived in constant fear of him, but I didn’t know what to do. So I stayed. At least for a little while. It wasn’t until a short time after that episode that I finally wised up and got out.”

“Jesus,” Noah muttered. “And you wouldn’t tell us about him, why?”

Liam didn’t like the darkness in Lauren’s eyes or the knowledge that whatever pushed her to that final decision must have been bad. He wanted to ask her what the hell the bastard had done to make her finally snap, but now wasn’t the time. She was tortured enough relating what she was. But Liam wouldn’t forget. He’d find out exactly what had happened to push her over the edge. And he knew he damn well wasn’t going to like her answer.

She sucked in a deep breath, almost as if she were trying to hold on to the last thread of her control. Liam sent Noah a dark look, silently telling him to back off, but Noah’s lips were set into a fine line. He was well and truly pissed off now. Not at Lauren, but at Joel Knight.

“I heard the things he said to the woman he hurt and to Ron, his enforcer. What I never realized is that Ron is sent in to fix situations so that Joel doesn’t have to get his hands dirty. Except Joel wanted to set an example of this woman. He wanted to scare her, and so he handled it himself. He has cops on his payroll. He didn’t say who. But he taunted the woman with the fact that if she went to the cops, nothing would happen because she was just a whore nobody cared about and he had enough people on his payroll to make any problem go away.”

Her voice had lowered to a whisper, and a tear slid down her soft cheek. Liam reached up to wipe it away and she flinched away from him. Not in fear, but in shame. It bothered her that she’d cry in front of them.

Rage made his hand shake and he pulled it away so it wouldn’t upset her more.

“He talked about ‘others’ he’d had taken care of. So I knew when I finally got the courage to call Max for help that I couldn’t tell him the truth. And then he called in you two, and it got so complicated. Max wanted to swear out a warrant. He wanted to punish whoever hurt me.”

“Understandably so,” Noah said tightly.

“And let Joel murder my brother?” she asked in horror. “Or you and Liam? How is that supposed to make anything better? How would I be able to live with myself knowing that I got one of you killed? I’ve made stupid decisions, but wanting to keep my brother and you two alive isn’t one of them.”

Liam sighed. There was no way for him and Noah to win this argument or sway her from the belief that she’d done the right thing. He wanted to shake her, but that didn’t solve anything.

He wanted to ask her why the hell she ever got involved with Knight anyway. What on earth could she possibly have seen in the smarmy asshole?

Before leaving New York City, they’d pulled Knight’s record. Squeaky-clean. Not even a parking ticket. Which would certainly lend credence to Lauren’s assertion that he had influential people on his payroll.

He made frequent donations to charity. Hosted political fundraisers, though he never officially allied himself with either the Democratic or Republican Parties. He was more into causes. Causes that elevated his own profile and made him look like the all-American good guy. Hell, looking at his merits, he had all the traits of someone looking to get into politics himself.

And wouldn’t Lauren be one hell of a skeleton in the man’s closet come election time?

That scared the hell out of Liam. If politics were in this guy’s future, it would give him even more motivation to silence Lauren so she was never a thorn in his side.

“Lauren—”

Before he could get out what he was going to say, there was a loud knock on the door. Followed by a guy’s bellow.

“Lauren! Open up. It’s Seth. Are you okay? If you don’t answer in thirty seconds, I’m coming in.”

Lauren scrambled to her feet. Noah and Liam were instantly on guard. Noah was already reaching for his gun while Lauren made a mad dash for the door.

She threw it open and before she could say a word, she was yanked out the door and shoved behind a man wearing a policeman’s uniform.

Gun up in one hand, the other pushing Lauren farther behind him, the cop advanced into the room.

“Put your weapons down and your hands up where I can see them,” the cop snarled. “Don’t give me any reason to shoot.”

“Seth, listen to me,” Lauren pleaded. “They aren’t here to hurt me.”

Seth held up a hand to silence Lauren.

“Who the hell are you and what are you doing in Lauren’s apartment? And you better damn well have a permit to carry those guns, otherwise you’ll be spending the night in my jail. If you so much as laid one finger on Lauren, I’ll make sure I lose the damn key.”

“Whoa, dude, you need to chill out and listen to what Lauren’s trying to tell you,” Noah said, even as he carefully set the gun down on the coffee table.

“Hands up,” Seth barked.

Noah complied and Liam tossed his weapon onto the floor, then carefully raised his hands up and laced his fingers behind his head.

Seth slowly advanced, his gun never lowering and his gaze never moving from Liam and Noah. When he was close enough to get to the weapons Liam and Noah had discarded, he bent carefully and retrieved them. Then he motioned for Liam to move to the couch where Noah stood.