“How bad was she?” He’d read the medical reports, but they were clinical. Sure, he knew the date of her kidnapping, where she’d been held, when she’d been rescued. He knew she’d been tortured. But none of that really explained the ordeal that had shaped the woman he knew now.
“Unimaginable. Look, she should be the one to tell you, but I’m starting to worry that she’ll never confide in anyone. She looks healthy now. She’s a hundred and eighty degrees from the skinny, drug-addicted girl I carried out of that brothel. In fact, she looks great, until I see her eyes.”
“Drugs?” Nowhere in those f**king reports had anyone mentioned drugs. Alea would never have done that of her own free will. She was so proud and seemingly in control. So…fuck. Her captors had drugged her. Hell, just how much of her soul had they taken?
“Shit. I’d hoped Tal would have let you in on that since you’re her bodyguard.” Cole groaned a little. “I’m going to get my ass kicked, but Tal, Rafe, and Kade are treating her with kid gloves. She’s drifting. I know they think they’re sheltering her, but someone has to push that girl to open up. Look, I understand the impulse to stay out of things. I really do, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned about getting people to heal…sometimes you gotta give them a shove. You can’t just hope people will change all by themselves. If you care about Alea, you have to pry her open, man. She’s not made of glass. That woman fought like hell in that brothel. She fought to get off the drugs. Maybe she just needs a little help from someone to help her fight for her future.”
Wouldn’t he love to be that someone? “Man, she’d just fight me, too.”
Lan stared at her openly now, not even trying to disguise his longing. He didn’t give a shit what anyone else thought. He was in love with that woman. She would never love him back. They came from different worlds. She was a princess, and he had no idea who his father was.
But maybe sometimes love wasn’t about getting what he wanted. Maybe sacrifice was really at the heart of it. If he pushed her, fought for her, maybe she could tear down that tough-girl mask and find a way to be happy—even if it wasn’t with him, Dane, and Coop.
“I don’t think you’ll have to fight her too hard. Just push a little every day. Talk to her. Don’t let up and don’t let her force you to the side. I know how this goes. Jessa tried her hardest to shove us out of her life. She said some horrible things to me. It hurt, but then I realized she was both lashing out and testing us. Burke and I had hurt her when we’d left her alone. She had to push until she realized we weren’t going to disappear again, no matter what. Nothing she could say or do was going to throw us out of her life. Alea might have the same M.O.”
“We’ve never been with Alea.”
“We?”
Lan felt himself flush. Damn it. “We all have feelings for her, me, Dane, and Coop. We thought we could pursue her together, but she wasn’t interested in us, either together or apart.”
“Or she’s scared that none of you can accept what she’s been through.”
“She survived. That’s the only thing that matters. Why wouldn’t we accept that?”
“Survival is a funny thing, man, and you damn well know it. When you’re down in the trenches all that matters is living, but it’s not so simple once you return to the real world. People judge you. You measure what you did to live against conventional social mores…and suddenly what once seemed like a simple choice is murky and gray.”
He knew exactly what Cole was talking about.
“That’s when you have to deal with the reality that you lived and some didn’t,” Cole went on. “That’s when you have to accept who the f**k you really are.”
He hadn’t thought about it that way before. Alea was a survivor, but she had a heart. How guilty did she feel for getting out alive when others hadn’t? How ashamed was she by whatever she’d had to do in order to live? She’d been through a war of sorts, and he had no idea how much of herself she’d lost along the way.
The fact that Alea had survived and could function now proved how strong she was. She deserved better than to be treated like some fragile doll who couldn’t make a decision about her own life. Despite what all the other guys thought, she could handle the truth. Being in control of her future might even help her heal from the past.
Lan knew what he had to do. “Well, hell.”
“What?” Cole asked.
“I’m going to get my ass kicked. I hate getting my ass kicked.” He steeled himself. If he was going to start fighting for his princess, he might as well start now.
“No one ever tries to kick my ass anymore,” Cole grumbled.
Resolved, Lan stalked back to Alea, his heart chugging. Right here, right now, he was going to change everything. Yeah, he should probably wait. If he wanted to play on a team, he shouldn’t make decisions alone. But he wasn’t risking that Dane and Coop would hate the plan and try to shut him down. Alea deserved to know what was going on.
“Landon?” Alea’s eyes widened as he reached for her hand.
“Come with me, Princess. We’ve got a meeting to attend.”
She began to protest, her words saying one thing, while her fingers said another. Maybe he was going about this all wrong, but as he led her out of the ballroom, Lan could have sworn she squeezed his hand, holding on tight.
* * * *
Cooper held the door open for Sheikh Talib al Mussad and wondered if they were doing the right thing. Alea needed peace and to believe she was safe. He didn’t like the idea of worrying her just because they had a gut instinct that could be wrong. If his hunch was on the money, they’d handle it so she could be none the wiser. Right?
Tal strode into the room where Dane and the Anders brothers had already set up. There were seats with a folder in front of each.
The investigation into Alea’s abduction. God, he almost didn’t want to know what that file said. A part of him wanted to pretend that the past was behind them all, that she was healing even now, and merely playing coy and hard to get.