Page 36 of Claimed (The Captain’s Captive #2)

This time, they made the trip back to Rio accompanied by Cora and Trace. Cora’s compound was close to Rio, and she needed someone to help manage the security so she and Trace could concentrate more fully on the colony ship and the fuel compounds.

Although Trish had known both the move and the new job were coming, she was still a little pouty over it not being a complete retirement for Jordan.

She didn’t show her pout, though. As usual, Jordan had her on his lap during the trip while he talked with Cora and Trace about what they needed at their lab.

They were slightly concerned with attempts by the Moon’s government or its few allies left on Earth to get in and see what the Wolf’s people were doing, or attempting to sabotage their plans. Leadership on the Moon was definitely aware something was going on.

When Trish had tried to send messages to Alex and Bella, they hadn’t been returned. Bryant, a civilian but also a computer genius, had hacked into the system and discovered the Moon’s government had flagged the message and pulled it from the system. It had never made it to Alex and Bella.

Trish hadn’t put anything damning or important in the message; she’d just wanted to make sure Bella and Alex had arrived safely and were okay, and to let them know she was okay.

That the Moon wouldn’t even allow that much communication didn’t bode well.

So, Trish reminded herself not to pout. It wasn’t that Jordan didn’t want to pay attention to her. She was on his lap, his hands touching her as always, after all—it was that he was also focused on larger-picture things. Besides, she shouldn’t pout, anyway.

It was weird how quickly Trish had gotten used to having all his attention and had decided she’d liked it.

She’d never been the center of anyone’s attention.

Jordan had given her more attention than anyone ever had, and, by the time they were in Rio and she’d had his complete attention, she’d found she craved it.

Trish still occasionally wondered if she was the victim of Stockholm Syndrome, but it seemed to matter less and less whether she was. She was happy. She was cared for. She was pampered and cossetted and given everything she could possibly want.

Jordan had even asked what she wanted when it came to staying on Earth or going to space.

He’d also been relieved when Trish had told him she wanted to stay on Earth.

He hadn’t brought up kids again, and neither had Trish.

She didn’t want them right now, that might never change.

Right now? She didn’t think so … but Trish had never thought she’d feel okay about being taken by Jordan, used, and now kept constantly by his side and occasionally dressed up and treated like his little girl.

It sounded so wrong when she thought about it that way, so, mostly, she didn’t think about it.

Back in their home in Rio, Jordan made dinner while Trish sat at the counter, idly watching the news vids.

Another report about Ken and Lisa being missing came on, and Trish tilted her head to the side.

The reporters seemed angry rather than starstruck as they talked about people being taken by the Wolf. That was new.

Their focus was a lot more on Ken than Lisa.

Maybe that was why the reporters were mad, too—the son of such a powerful man?

He’d probably thought his own family was safe, and he was seriously angry in the clips they showed.

He talked about the egregious conduct of the Wolf, how no one was safe while the Wolf was still in operation, and how the man needed to be stopped.

Gee, if only he’d cared before it had affected him personally. Trish snorted.

Self-centered jackass.

Next to the Wolf, Ken Senior was not much of a threat. She’d never gotten an up-close look at how the Moon’s government ran things, but, from her seat at the Wolf’s compound and their opinion of the level of threat the Moon posed, Trish would have put her money on Earth.

Even now, with Jordan coming to help with security, the leaders on Earth put stock in being over-prepared and anticipating every scenario—even the unlikely ones.

They didn’t believe the Moon’s leaders or their allies knew what they were up to, and they didn’t think any attempts on Cora’s compound would succeed, but, with Cora and Trace needing to focus their attention, the Earth’s leaders weren’t taking any chances, either.

It was just another example of how differently things were done on Earth, where they’d had to fight and scrabble to survive and rise to the top, with the losers often dying. Power struggles on the Moon had stakes, but none of them were life and death like they had been on Earth.

“Are you worried at all about this?” she asked Jordan, gesturing at the vid screen where Ken Senior was ranting about the continued dangers of the Wolf’s presence on Earth and making what sounded like a call for the Moon to go to war with the ‘dangerous crime lord.’

Jordan didn’t look up. “No.”

“He’s calling for troops to invade Earth.” She was a little aggravated at Jordan’s complete lack of attention. Wasn’t he supposed to be in charge of security for the ships?

Jordan snorted. “He has no real power. If it starts to look like things might actually heat up—despite what the Wolf has on him, the Prime, the Secondary Prime, and the Prime Commander—we’ll start to release what we have on him.

I’d be surprised if the Prime lets him live for a full day once he recognizes the warning for what it is. ”

Utterly ruthless.

That was the first thought that popped into Trish’s head.

Jordan didn’t sound pleased by what he was saying.

He didn’t sound worried. He was completely matter of fact.

If it came down to it, the Wolf would not care if Ken Senior was killed, even as the Wolf fucked and sexually tortured the Minister’s son, and neither would Jordan.

Trish frowned. While she understood why Jordan had become so ruthless, that didn’t mean she liked it.

The reminder of his ruthlessness brought up a whole host of other feelings and thoughts that had been lurking in the back of her mind.

Killing people was wrong.

No matter that she’d felt a bit of schadenfreude at Ken and Lisa finding themselves in the same position Alex and Bella had been in, setting a man up for death still didn’t sit right with Trish.

The frown on her face rapidly turned into a scowl.

As if sensing the change in her mood, Jordan looked up from the tomato he was slicing. “What, little girl?”

Crossing her arms over her chest and feeling rather huffy, Trish’s scowl deepened. “You don’t care at all about giving him a death sentence?”

“About as much as he does about giving the Wolf and everyone at the compound a death sentence,” Jordan said with an indifferent shrug.

While he had a point—Ken Senior was one man, while all Jordan’s friends and acquaintances, all the men and women he’d been leading and fighting alongside, lived at the compound—Trish’s ire didn’t lessen.

It didn’t grow, either, since Jordan was justified in his view, but she didn’t like it.

In some ways, Trish wasn’t making an argument about Ken Senior but she wasn’t ready to talk about her real issue yet.

“How does that make you better than him, then?”

“It doesn’t.” Jordan went back to slicing the tomato, unbothered.

Trish felt like jumping over the counter and grabbing up the innocent piece of fruit and smushing it in his indifferently bland face.

“Why don’t you care? Why don’t you want to be better than him?”

“I don’t care if he dies. He’s calling to harm people over a situation he didn’t care about until it involved his son. I already think I’m better than him.”

“You don’t just not care if he dies, you also don’t care about Lisa or Ken or Alex or Bella,” Trish argued hotly.

“Why should I?”

“Because!”

“Did they care about me? Or anyone else on Earth?” To her frustration, Jordan seemed more amused by their current argument than anything else.

He was also more communicative than usual, but every word out of his mouth served to further infuriate her.

“Or were they just here to enjoy themselves, not caring about the state of the planet they were visiting or anyone on it?”

“And what about me?”

The expression of amusement on his face dropped away, and a slight furrow appeared on his brow. “Of course I care about you. You know that.”

“You care about me now, but what about before? You kidnapped me! I wasn’t doing anything to anyone! I was just here for school and to put myself in a position to make a life for myself. Was that too selfish?”

Jordan now looked more concerned than anything else, which, incongruously, made her more upset with him.

“You can finish school. I told you I want you to finish school.”

“That’s not the point!” Trish smacked her hand down on the counter between them.

Where was her anger was coming from? Had it been pent-up, hidden down where she didn’t want to think about it?

Or was she trying to start a fight? Did she want his attention?

A spanking? Or to make him feel bad? Or was the answer somewhere in between all the possibilities and maybe a little bit of everything?

“You took me from my life! I know, I know—you are all okay with it. I know it’s better than what used to happen when your dad was in charge.

I know all of you even expect it might happen, and we get a choice on whether or not to stay, but the choice doesn’t happen until after!

And I didn’t grow up here. I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t know it was a possibility!”

She panted, slightly wrung out by everything she’d thrown at him, her breathing ragged. Jordan stared back at her, looking both confused and a little taken aback.

Had she challenged his worldview the way he’d challenged so many of hers? Part of her felt like laughing, but if she started, Trish was afraid she might become hysterical. Because it wasn’t funny.

So, she clamped her lips shut, clenching her jaw against any further words or hysterical laughter until Jordan responded to what she’d already said.

The silence stretched between them, with Trish glaring and Jordan staring at her with that little furrow wrinkled on his forehead.

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” he said, finally.

The urge to smush tomato in his face grew stronger. “I want you to say you’re sorry for taking me!”

“But I’m not sorry for taking you.” His explanation was matter of fact, maybe even a little smug.

“But you shouldn’t have kidnapped me, right?”

He raised an eyebrow. “What should I have done instead?”

“Asked me out for coffee?”

“Would you have said yes?”

She opened her mouth … and then hesitated.

Trish tried to imagine a situation where huge, intimidating Jordan could have approached her to ask her out for coffee and have received a positive response. She would have been terrified of him on sight. Even now, he intimidated her sometimes.

“That’s not the point,” she insisted. “You could have tried. You could have worked on getting to know me so I would feel comfortable around you and then asked me out for coffee or dinner.”

“Is that how things are done on the Moon?” He seemed genuinely curious.

Trish hesitated again. “Sometimes. With some people. Not everyone. Is everyone here kidnapped into a relationship?”

“No. But I knew what kind of relationship I wanted.” He picked up a new tomato, apparently feeling she was now calmer and he could focus on making their meal.

“I just needed to show you how it could be. I do not think you would have agreed to the kind of relationship we have now, do you? Not without knowing how it could be.”

“Fine,” Trish snapped. She was mad, because he had a point. She would never have agreed to trying. Trish was still sometimes surprised she had agreed to being in a relationship like this, even with how much it fulfilled her. But she still had a point, too. “That doesn’t make it any less wrong.”

“Fine,” Jordan said, slicing into the tomato. “Taking people is wrong.”

“Are you sorry for it?”

“No, because that would mean I’m sorry for having you. I will never be sorry for having you.”

Sweet. Frustrating. Infuriating. The answer was so very Jordan and yet so aggravating, as well.

She wouldn’t get any more of an admission of guilt or any kind of apology out of him, and Trish slid down from her seat at the counter, disgruntled.

Even in admitting what he’d done was wrong, Jordan wouldn’t be be sorry for it because, to him, the ends justified the means.

Could she argue with Jordan when she’d chosen to stay with him anyway?

It was hard to claim any kind of moral high ground when she’d been complicit in making him feel the outcome had been worth it.

“Where are you going?” He paused in his work and looked up at her.

“Outside.”

“No. I’ll go out with you after we eat if you want. Sit back down, little girl.”

Calling her ‘little girl’ had been a warning, which Trish ignored. She was restless and unsatisfied by their argument.

“Fuck off. I’m going out.” She started to turn to go, but Jordan moved, and she heard his low growl. Instead of the stately walk Trish had planned, with her head held high, she squeaked and bolted.

Not for the doors to the beach—they were closer to Jordan than they were to Trish—and not to the front door because it was farther away than the option she did take: the stairs.

Which was so not the right option.

There was nowhere to go but up.

Trish was shocked when she reached the top and Jordan hadn’t caught up to her.

It had to have been deliberate. Jordan was bigger, stronger, and faster than she was.

If he’d wanted to take her down in the middle of the staircase, it would have been easy for him.

But for some reason he’d let her run all the way up.

Probably because Trish was now trapped unless she wanted to jump out a window.

She paused at the top of the stairs and looked down behind her. Jordan stood on the bottom landing, blue eyes blazing, arms crossed over his chest, feet planted in a wide, threatening stance.

“Run, little girl,” he said softly.