“Hey, what’s going on?” he asked, pretending to be rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

  “None of your fucking business,” the guy yelled at him. “Get back down to where you belong.”

  Tomas stared at the man, feeling the same old anger rise, and he could not let that go unanswered. No one was talking to him like that. “Not if you’re manhandling this woman,” he stated. “A woman doesn’t cry out like that for nothing.”

  “Yeah, sure they do,” he snapped, with a sneer. “They always cry out. Sometimes it’s good. Sometimes it’s not so good. This one just needs to be reminded about a few facts in life.” He shot Peaches a hard glance. Then he lifted his hand to her, pointing. “I’ll be back tomorrow night. Make sure you give me the right answer then.” With that, he disappeared.

  Tomas had barely taken two steps toward Peaches, when Amber burst from the basement suite and raced to her friend. “Are you okay?” She wrapped her arms around the other woman.

  Peaches wept in her arms. “Russ wants me to marry him,” she murmured. “But I don’t want to. I don’t want anything to do with him. He scares me. I can’t live like that anymore,” she cried out, shivering in Amber’s arms.

  “Shhhh, it’s okay. It’s okay,” Amber said. After a look around, she added, “Better keep your voice down.”

  But it seemed like Peaches was too far gone. Amber quickly ushered her inside, stopping in the living room, and Tomas followed. “She shouldn’t marry him if she doesn’t want to,” Amber stated, glaring at him.

  He nodded. “Sure, I get it, but you know that things here run differently.”

  “It’s not fair,” Peaches whispered. “It’s not fair, and I don’t want to.”

  “Then what will you do about it?” he asked because he hadn’t had a chance to get this woman’s measure. He didn’t know whether she was serious or not.

  She looked around fearfully.

  “It’s okay,” Amber said. “You can trust him.”

  She shook her head. “No, you can’t trust anybody here.” She gave him a shattered look. “I need to rest.”

  “And then what?” he asked, looking at her. “Will you give in tomorrow night?”

  “No,” she said, as she looked to Amber, and then her shoulders sagged. “I have to get out.”

  “I need to ask you a couple questions,” Tomas stated forcefully. “What happened to your husband?”

  She hesitantly looked over at him. “I don’t know. They just told me that he died, when they were out on a training mission. They wouldn’t let me see his body or the belongings he had on him.”

  “So, you don’t know for sure that he’s dead?”

  She stared at him in surprise. “Oh, I’m sure he’s dead. I never got the impression that he wasn’t, and believe me. If he wasn’t, he would be right here, raising hell.”

  He nodded. “Was he a troublemaker?”

  She frowned and then shrugged. “Yes, I would say so. It was his way or the highway. He was one of the early adopters of this lifestyle but didn’t want to give it 100 percent until a few years ago. Then suddenly he was all in. I don’t know what the inducement was, but, once they got his attention, he jumped in with both feet, whether I liked it or not.”

  “Were you happy with that?”

  She stared at him in surprise again and then slowly shook her head. “No, I wasn’t happy about it at all. I’d have done a lot to get away from him, but I didn’t kill him.”

  “I didn’t suggest that you did,” he stated calmly. “All I’m trying to figure out is what they might have done.”

  “I don’t know,” she said, and her voice dropped to a faint whisper. “But his death left me in a really ugly spot.”

  “But you were in an ugly spot beforehand, weren’t you?”

  Her eyes darted over in a quick glance at Amber. “Did you tell him?”

  “I did,” Amber stated calmly. “Your husband was a miserable bastard who beat you, and I don’t want to see you hooking up with somebody else, who’ll just do the same thing.”

  The older woman ran her hand lightly up and down her arm. “No, I don’t think I could take it anymore.”

  “And you shouldn’t have to,” she said immediately. “But getting out is a different story.”

  “I know. I don’t have any idea how to leave,” she replied, looking around frantically. She stopped and sagged into the only chair in the place. “Sometimes I think the only way out is to die.”

  “Don’t do that,” Tomas said immediately. “Please don’t do anything rash. We’re working on it.”

  Peaches stared at him. “You’re not working fast enough,” she replied quietly. “If he comes back tomorrow night, there’ll be hell to pay if I don’t give him the answer he wants.”

  “Then come and stay with me,” Amber suggested.

  She stared at her in surprise. “You don’t understand. They want my house. They want everything.”

  “Of course they do,” Amber agreed.

  “I’m wondering if that isn’t why your husband was killed,” Tomas added.

  She stared at him in shock, then slowly nodded her head. “You know what? Maybe that’s why they keep asking me to sign some paperwork, but I won’t do it.”

  “So now they are trying to get a husband for you instead,” he noted, “who will then have rights and can make you do all kinds of stuff.”

  She shuddered. “Mostly I just give in because the pain isn’t worth it.”

  “Exactly,” he noted quietly. “So, did you and your husband have any money?”

  “We sold everything to come here. This house was ours right from the beginning, but I don’t know that there’s any title to it. It’s something that I’ve been thinking about, now that I’m wondering if there is any way to get free and clear,” she’s whispered. “I don’t know that I can start all over again.”

  “You might not have a choice,” Tomas noted. “But, at least, if you do get free and clear, you have a chance to start over, to be truly free. That has got to be better than staying here and slowly dying under a man’s fist every day.”

  She shuddered at his words. “I can’t do that again.” She looked around frantically. “I can’t. … I can’t.”

  Chapter 5

  Amber gave Tomas a quelling lock. She understood what he was trying to do, but, at this point, Peaches was too freaked out to handle much more.

  He nodded at Amber, then walked into the kitchen and put on the teapot. Peaches might calm down with just Amber at her side, not a man hovering over her.

  Amber and Peaches sat together quietly, talking in low whispers, when he walked back out again.

  “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” Peaches moaned. “I don’t know how to get out of this. I think they’ll just force me into another marriage, whether it’s legal or not. It won’t matter because I’ll never get away.”

  “If you want to get away,” Tomas said immediately, “I can pick you up and drive you out of here right now. They won’t stop me.”

  She looked at him in surprise. “I think you’re wrong there. I’m pretty sure that, in your day, you were probably big and menacing, but I’m afraid since your injury,” she added, with an apologetic look, “they’ve sized you up as weak and as somebody they can take out easily.”

  “They can size me up any way they want to,” he stated, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the doorjamb. “That gives me a hidden advantage.”

  She shook her head. “They’ll kill you.”

  “Is that what they did to your husband?”

  She looked at him. “I’m afraid so, but I don’t know why. Was any money involved? Or maybe he wanted to leave? I don’t really think so,” she said, “but he was acting off the last few weeks before his death.”

  “Off how?”

  She frowned. “Honestly, if we were anywhere else, I would have suspected an affair.”

  At that, Amber froze. “It’s still possible here, isn’t it?”

  “Only with a single woman. Anybody else would be asking to get herself killed,” she stated bitterly.

  Amber shifted uncomfortably. “Generally there aren’t single women here, although there was …” She stopped, her voice dropping to a low tone, before it petered out.

  Peaches look at her in surprise. “You’re thinking about your Annette?”

  Amber nodded. “God,” she said, “I don’t know.”

  “The stupid thing is, I would have welcomed him having an affair. I would have welcomed him leaving, if he wouldn’t end up leaving me here. I didn’t want to come here in the first place, and I sure as hell don’t want to stay. But him dying like he did has left me in a terrible position,” Then she shook her head. “I see no easy answer to getting out of here.”

  “There won’t be an easy answer,” he stated, “but we can certainly make it happen. Tell me about your financial situation and your husband’s. What might they know about that?”

  “It’s quite possible that they know a lot, and it’s also possible …” She stopped and looked at him. “I don’t really know what’s going on, but I know that a big chunk of money was put into our bank account about two months before he died.”

  “When you say a big chunk, what does that mean?”

  “One hundred thousand dollars,” she stated.

  “What? And you don’t know where it came from?” Amber asked, staring at her in shock.

  “No, and see? That’s the problem,” she murmured. “Nobody understands what it’s like. I had no idea where it came from. I didn’t even know it hit the bank, until I heard him gloating about it one night. When I asked him about it, he just told me to shut the fuck up,” she murmured. “So I did because, if I didn’t, I would have gotten a fist in the jaw.”

  “Right,” he replied. “So, what’s your best guess for where the money came from?”

  She stared at him. “Honestly, I would think they’re doing something illegal here, like maybe buying or selling something, but I don’t know what.”

  “Like what? Do you think your husband may have dealt in drugs?”

  “I wouldn’t have thought so,” she said, “but honestly, I don’t think he was bothered by things. He had no morals, no code.”

  “Right,” he murmured, studying her. “What about guns?”

  “Oh, he would definitely buy and sell guns if he thought he could get away with it,” she replied, with an airy wave of her hand. “He had absolutely zero tolerance for any government interference. I don’t think he ever paid income tax, and, as far as he was concerned, politicians should just be shot right from the get-go.”

  “That’s a handy way to look at life, isn’t it?”

  “Handy for him,” she muttered. “Not so much for the rest of us.”

  He nodded. “So, given your best guess out of all those options, which one do you think he would have been involved in?”

  “Guns,” she stated instantly. “And I know there was talk about it, but I don’t know what they would sell to make that kind of money.”

  “Depends on what they are growing in the back.”

  She stared at him. “I mean, what do I know?” she said. “I didn’t even know what he was up to before he died. I just know that he’s dead. I didn’t want to be here in the first place, and now I don’t know how the hell to get out.”

  “We’ll help you with that,” Tomas repeated. “But we also must ensure that we do it in a safe way.”

  “You think?” she huffed. “Is that even possible?”

  “Is your name on his bank account?”

  “Yes. At least I think so. He handled all the money.”

  “And do you know how to check it online?”

  “Not really.” She frowned. “He wouldn’t let me close to the computer. He was always sitting off to the side, so I never saw anything. I know I’ve had several guys ask me if they could have his computer because, in their minds, I’m not computer-savvy enough to use it.”

  At that, Amber walked over and asked Peaches, “May I take a look at it and maybe log on?”

  Peaches looked at her friend in surprise and said, “Sure, if you know how to, and maybe you can make sure any of that stuff is safe?” She turned her back on Amber and told Tomas, “If I could get out of here, I could live my life on that money. That would be great too.”

  “I’m not sure how that works,” he said cautiously.

  She stared at him and then nodded. “Oh, right, illegal guns and all that.”

  “Depends on what he was up to,” Tomas murmured.

  “And if he was killed for it.” Peaches winced. “I mean, … I hate to make a big deal about him dying because a huge part of me is damn glad he’s dead and gone, but I know that is wrong of me.”

  “Yet you can’t help the way you feel when you were battered by him, so don’t be too hard on yourself,” Amber added.

  Peaches groaned. “He did have some family at one time. But I know he told them all to get a life and to leave him alone. I never met any of them.”

  “Did he leave a will?”

  “If he did, I never saw it,” she replied, with a shrug. “I am his legal wife, so I don’t know if that makes a difference.”

  “It might,” Tomas noted. “At least the bank accounts that he had his name on would automatically become yours, I would think.”

  “I don’t know if he had other bank accounts,” she replied. “He was supposed to go in and do a bunch of paperwork, but he was killed first.”

  “Interesting,” he murmured. At that, he turned and looked over at Amber. She was staring down at the laptop in surprise.

  “So how much money do you think you have?” Amber asked Peaches.

  “Can you see it?” Peaches asked, sitting up straight.

  “Yeah, he’s got auto-log-ins here. I just went to his history and checked.”

  “I didn’t know you could do that,” she admitted, staring at Amber.

  “He really kept you away from technology, didn’t he?” Tomas confirmed.

  “Yeah, he wouldn’t even let me have a phone,” she added. “And it wasn’t worth getting beaten up for something that I didn’t know how to use anyway.” She paused. “Any computer I was ever near was years and years ago, and I’m sure they’ve all changed by now.”

  “They’ve changed a bit, but they aren’t that hard,” Amber shared, as she looked at Peaches with a big smile. “I could teach you. It is easy enough to navigate a lot of this.”

  “That would be good,” she replied, “at least it would be, if we ever got out of here.”

  Amber suddenly shook. She held her breath as she said, “Come over here and take a look at your bank balance.”

  Peaches walked over to look at the screen and stared at it for a solid minute, her jaw dropped in shock. “Oh my God,” she whispered, “is that half a million dollars?”

  “Yeah, it sure is. So now you know why they’re rather desperate to make sure you don’t leave. All the next guy has to do is get ahold of this laptop, and you’re in trouble.”

  “Can they take all this money?” Peaches asked.

  “Well, with a fist, I think they could quite easily do just that,” Tomas answered. “What do you think?”

  She shuddered. “Oh my God.” She sat down again. “They asked me about the laptop, but I just didn’t say anything. I had it in the closet. Russ and I had an argument about it earlier, and I just … I didn’t even know what to say to him, so I just said that I hadn’t seen it and that my husband had it with him when he died.”

  “Which is another reason why people are very interested in what’s going on here right now,” Tomas stated. “Have you had anybody search the place?”

  She stared at him. “I have no idea. How would I know that?”

  He nodded again. “I suppose in your case it would be hard. Anybody ever question you about being here still with this group?”

  “Everybody,” she stated adamantly. “They’re all bugging me to choose another partner. But I don’t want another partner. I just want to be left alone.”

  “I don’t know that being left alone is something any of us can do for you right now,” Tomas admitted. “We’d have to get you out of here first.”

  “And that’s not likely to happen,” she muttered, as she stared again at the laptop. “Oh my God! How did he get that kind of money?”

  “You had a house, and you sold it, right?” Tomas asked her.

  Peaches nodded. “Yes, but I don’t know what Tristan sold it for.”

  “What was the address?” he asked. Once she replied with that info, he quickly moved through various websites on his phone and then shared, “The house was sold for $262,000.”

  She stared at him in complete shock. “Wow.”

  Amber went through the history of the bank account, and she added, “It’s all here. So a lot of this is legally yours, the proceeds from the house that you sold. But a lot of other money is here, and these guys want it. Some of it must have come from whatever they’re doing, and, in their own minds, they probably think it’s justifiable that they keep it.”

  “Of course they would,” Peaches snapped. “Everything here is done without a woman’s permission.”

  “I don’t think so,” Amber retorted, fired up and choosing her words carefully. “I think a lot of women are complicit, and whatever is going on here, at least some of them are active participants.”

  “In your case,” Tomas suggested, “I think he brought you along because he didn’t know what else to do with you to keep that money, and maybe it gave him a way in the door because he was bringing in a woman.”

  “I just don’t know,” Peaches replied, with a weary shrug.

  “He may have even thought he could use their help to get rid of you.” Tomas shrugged.

  She winced at that. “God,” she said. “You know what? That is more likely than not. I did ask him to leave me alone, but I don’t know why he didn’t do it then.”

  “Because, once you went to the bank,” Tomas theorized, “you might have discovered the truth much earlier than now. You may have taken some money, and he didn’t want you to know about any of it. He kept you away from it as long as he could, and, by bringing you here, he made sure that you weren’t a problem. But the minute you knew something, or he couldn’t get to town and change something, then you would become the problem. It’s easy to make problems go away in a place like this.”