Colters' Gift (Colters' Legacy #5)(45)

“Shit,” Michael muttered. “That doesn’t sound good at all.”

“I’ll get the laptop,” Dillon said as he turned to walk away.

“How serious is this looking?” Seth asked in a low voice after Dillon had left the room.

“Very,” Liam said shortly. “Lauren is devastated. The woman Noah and I questioned, who led us to Joel Knight and then eventually here to confront Lauren with what we’d found out, was found dead in her apartment. She was beaten to death the day after we spoke to her. Lauren’s taking it very hard. She blames herself.”

“Son of a bitch,” Seth bit out.

“Yeah,” Noah said. “We didn’t know about the disk. Another surprise, and not a good one. She’s determined to go back to New York with the evidence she has so she can put Joel away, and she blames herself for not having the courage to do it before. She feels guilty for running away and hiding behind her brother and your family. She feels like she’s let you all down.”

“That’s bullshit,” Michael said, his face drawn in anger.

“I want to shake her,” Liam said. “I’m pissed that she kept something this heavy from us. Or even you. Someone needed to know. I’m pissed that she blames herself. I’m pissed that she’s taking responsibility for everything that bastard has done.”

Dillon had returned for the tail end of the conversation and he scowled openly at Liam. “You didn’t hurt her, did you?”

Liam’s brows drew together in an angry cloud. “What the f**k? You think I’d hurt her? You think I’d do anything to make her afraid of me?”

Seth held up his hands. “Enough. I don’t want Lily or Lauren to overhear us. Dillon, you didn’t hear the whole story and we don’t have time to repeat it. Noah and Liam are protecting Lauren’s best interests.”

“She is our best interest,” Noah said flatly. Let them make what they wanted of that statement. He was staking a claim now so that when the shit hit the fan, there was no way the Colters or her brother were stepping in and taking over. Over his dead body would he and Liam simply step aside.

Michael’s eyebrow went up as he stared between the two men. “I suppose coming from me, surprise would be hypocritical.”

Liam snorted. “Yeah, you could say that.”

Dillon wasn’t quite ready to back down, though.

“Either of you do anything to take advantage of her or hurt her, and I’ll make you both very sorry.”

“I’m not fighting with you over Lauren unless you do something to interfere in our relationship or her safety,” Noah said calmly. “We both want the same thing. What’s best for Lauren. And we want her out of danger.”

Dillon relaxed. “Sounds like we’re on the same page then. We care about her a lot. She’s like a little sister to us. When she came here from New York, she . . . Well, she was a different woman.”

“We know,” Liam said quietly. “We were there just a few days after that bastard worked her over. We had to bully her to get her to eat, and she couldn’t stand the sight of us for a long time.”

“Let’s go into the office,” Seth said when Dillon held up the laptop. “I don’t know how long the girls will be, but I’d rather not hash this out in front of them. Besides the upset it’s obviously causing Lauren, Lily will worry, and we’re trying to make sure she has absolutely no stress during this pregnancy.”

“I understand,” Noah said. “I’m sorry we had to bother you. If it wasn’t so important, we would have waited, but this is potentially explosive and I don’t want to be caught unprepared when it comes to Lauren’s safety.”

“I’d be pissed if you hadn’t come to me,” Seth said.

He motioned them into an office just off the living room. The room smelled strongly of cedar. Fresh cedar. The room had a newness to it that the rest of the house lacked.

“Is this an addition?” Noah asked.

Dillon nodded. “We’ve added on quite a bit since Lily came to us.” His expression softened as he spoke of his wife. Noah doubted he even realized it. “Extra bedrooms. We gave Lily space for her painting and we added this office that we all use. Michael runs a veterinary clinic, I run several businesses, and Seth needs space at home to work as well.”

Seth motioned for Noah to take the seat behind the desk. He put the laptop down and opened it up as Noah maneuvered his way behind the desk.

When he put the disk in, Liam pushed his way in to look over Noah’s shoulder.

Once he opened the drive for the disk, he clicked on the file that was only labeled by a date. The date Lauren had left Joel and called her brother for help.

Once inside, there were several different files, and he clicked on the first, which was a spreadsheet. He quickly scanned over it, noting the categories. It was remarkably detailed with the name of the client, his sexual preferences, everything down to specific kinks. Deal breakers were listed for each client. Prices were different depending on which client it was, and the charges ranged from hourly to entire weekends.

There was a list of his “girls,” but they didn’t look like real names. Each client had a detailed list of past girls with notes rating each woman on her performance.

Disgust boiled in Noah’s gut. The bastard had basically done a follow-up every time one of the women serviced a client. There were marks of the times one of the girls was “disciplined” for not satisfying the client properly, and Noah could only imagine what that punishment entailed.