Defending Morgan (Mountain Mercenaries #3)(26)

“Were you held at the same house the whole time?” Ro asked.

“No. I was . . . passed around . . . for lack of a better word. I was kept in one house for a while, drugged, put back into the cage, loaded into a truck, and moved to another house. I have no idea what was said between the people who had me because I don’t know Spanish. I wish I’d at least taken it in high school—I might’ve been able to pick up something. Some of the men who had me were nicer than others. Some fed me more often than others and they didn’t . . . you know. But like clockwork, I’d be moved every couple weeks, until I started recognizing the men who had me.”

“What do you mean?” Gray asked.

“They were on some sort of rotating schedule,” Morgan told them. “I counted ten of them. I even recognized the rooms they were keeping me in after a while.”

“Hmmm. Okay, so there was a core group of ten men who were responsible for keeping you, then transporting you to the next person on the list. Smart,” Gray commented. “So these ten men are probably the ones who were sharing the money they were being paid to keep you down here.”

“We need to get you to a hospital,” Rex said. “Get you checked out, especially considering what you went through at the hands of the men who kept you captive.”

“No!” Morgan said forcefully. “I just want to get out of Santo Domingo.”

“Morgan—” Rex started, sympathy easy to hear, even in the mechanically altered voice.

“Look. I’m not an idiot,” Morgan said firmly. “I know I need to be checked for any diseases they might’ve given me, but anything that’s wrong with me today isn’t going to go away even if I see a doctor tonight. I have no objection to seeing one, but not tonight. And not here.”

There was silence in the room for a beat. Arrow felt anger tightening his chest. Morgan hadn’t told them anything he hadn’t already assumed had happened, but all of a sudden it seemed way more personal. He regretted not running into more of her captors during the rescue. He wanted them all dead. Every last one.

“I understand your reluctance, but we could have Rex vet any doctor you see, to make sure he or she is on the up and up. And you’re right, seeing a doctor tonight won’t make any issues suddenly disappear, but it could stop anything from getting worse,” Arrow said as gently as he could.

“Please,” she whispered. “I can’t. Not here.”

Sighing, Arrow nodded. He wasn’t happy about her decision, but he couldn’t force her to see a doctor.

“Tell us about your parents,” Rex conceded, changing the subject.

Arrow was relieved. Morgan was not doing well talking about her time in captivity. No one asked for details about what she’d been through at the hands of those ten men. They knew. He made a mental note to urge her to see a therapist as soon as possible after returning to the States . . . but not before seeing a doctor.

“My parents?” Morgan asked, blinking in confusion. It was quite a jump in topic, but Arrow knew Rex had done it to jar her out of the bad memories that had to be swirling in her mind.

“Yeah. They’re divorced, right?”

“Yeah. Very divorced. My mom hates my dad, and my dad isn’t that fond of my mom either. They got married somewhat young, and I guess things were good for a while, but then after I was born and things got tough, they drifted apart. My dad cheated on my mom, and she cheated on him right back. The divorce took forever to be finalized because they fought over every little thing. In the end, my dad had to pay my mom alimony, which pissed him off, and my mom was mad that he was able to request to see me as much as he wanted since he was paying child support.

“I wasn’t that close to my dad because I’d grown up listening to the awful stories Mom told me about him. I’d go and stay with him on weekends, but when I was really young, I’d cry for my mom the whole time. It wasn’t until I was in college that I realized how much my mom’s bitter attitude toward him had affected me. I made an effort to try to get to know him better after that.”

“And did it work?” Arrow asked gently.

Morgan shrugged. “Somewhat. I mean, we still weren’t that close. But we were both making an effort. He was busy with his job as the CFO of a Fortune 500 company, and I was busy with college and friends and then getting my bee business up and running.”

“Where did your relationship stand when you were kidnapped?” Meat asked.

“It was cordial. I didn’t exactly call him up to chitchat all the time, but when we did have lunch or something, it didn’t seem like there were any hard feelings,” Morgan said.

“What about your mom?” Meat asked.

“What about her?”

“What did she think about you trying to have a better relationship with your dad?” Meat clarified.

“She was fine with it. I mean, I’m an adult. She didn’t want to know when I saw him or what we talked about, but she eventually admitted since he was my father and always would be, it was a good thing if I had some sort of relationship with him.”

“What does your mom do for a living?” Ball asked.

“She’s a dental assistant.”

“You and her don’t have the same last name, do you?” Meat asked.

“No. She went back to her maiden name, Jernigan, after the divorce was final. She wanted to officially change my name, but my dad put his foot down and refused to let her,” Morgan said.