“She was my goddamn wife. Why didn’t you tell me? I could have protected her,” Max answered angrily, ready to pound Travis all over again.
“You were unavailable. In fact, Danny had Mia in his grasp when your plane took off, your head in the sight of a rifle and ready to blow your head off. Your wife saved your life,” Travis answered casually. “Danny Harvey was a career criminal, completely insane, and ready to do whatever it took to get Mia back. He was also a sharpshooter who could pick off a target at long distances. He won a lot of competitions when he was young. He rarely missed a target.”
“Why was Mia even with him? She couldn’t have loved someone like that,” Max asked harshly.
Kade answered. “She was twenty-one years old, had an old man who was a raging alcoholic and completely insane. He beat his wife and children often and repeatedly. Mia suffered under my father’s hand. We all did. Do you really think she even knew what love was? Do you think she knew what normal was?” Kade leaned forward in the chair, his fists clenched. “I was gone, you were gone, and Travis was the only thing standing between her and him. I was pissed off, too, Max, when I found out he’d been responsible for hiding her. But I might have done the same damn thing if it meant keeping Mia safe.”
“You should have told me. I thought she was dead.” Max still wasn’t convinced. She was his wife, dammit. “All those years, I f**king grieved for her.”
“It wasn’t a picnic for her either. Do you think she wanted to go? She was terrified he’d kill you. She ran to keep you safe. She didn’t give a shit about what happened to her. I can testify to that because I saw the way he messed her up.” Travis’ voice was heated. “Back in college and before she disappeared.”
“You knew when she was in college?” Max questioned resentfully.
“Not immediately. She went to Virginia to go to college. My father wanted her to go to business school in Florida and get involved in the business, but that wasn’t what Mia wanted. Gran made jewelry when she was alive, and that’s what Mia wanted to do. Mia had this house and her trust as an inheritance, but she didn’t have control of anything yet. She had to bury herself in student loans that she could pay back later to attend the college in Virginia that had the BFA and MFA that she wanted to become a jewelry designer.” Travis released an audible breath, pausing for a moment before continuing, “Kade and I were both in school too, but once I finished my business degree and was working, I decided to go to Virginia to surprise Mia. I ended up more surprised than she was when I saw what was happening to her.” Travis’ voice cracked, a slight dent in his emotional shield.
“What happened?” Max asked stoically, not at all sure he wanted to know. But he needed to hear it. “Did he hurt her?”
“Yeah,” Travis confessed. “Pretty badly right about the time I went to visit. But even through all that bullshit, she was working part-time and pulling excellent grades. She was about ready to enter her master’s program. And he was trying to convince her not to—with his fists. He didn’t want her accumulating more loans. The bastard wanted plenty of that trust fund left when she was able to get to it.”
“Fuck!” Max exploded, so enraged he wanted to kill the guy. How could any man hurt Mia? “How did she separate herself from him?”
“She didn’t have to. He went to jail. I think she’d been trying to get away from the relationship for a while, but he really did a number on her,” Travis answered, setting his coffee mug on the table, and leaning back in his chair, crossing his arms in front of him.
“What were the charges?” Max asked, his eyes narrowing as he looked at Travis, reading something unsaid.
“Assault with a deadly weapon. Nasty ordeal,” Travis replied, deadpan.
“You set him up,” Max guessed, fairly certain Travis was the man who had put the ass**le in jail.
“I went to have a discussion with him. Let’s just say I made sure there were witnesses.”
“Did Mia know?” Max was enraged, his mind flashing with scenarios of Mia hurting, Mia crying, Mia bleeding.
“No,” Travis answered calmly. “She had her studies and her job to worry about. All she ever knew was that he was going to jail, and she was safe. It was all she needed to know.”
Max barely noticed when Kade got up and took the empty mug from his hand. He let go, his hand shaking with pent-up rage as he released the handle. “And last time?” Max rasped, spearing Travis with a resentful stare.
“He took her by surprise when she was leaving her car in a parking lot. She had dismissed your security, telling them she was going to be with Kade and me, and had our security. She told them to take some time off because she didn’t want them following her around town on errands. Danny had her in his vehicle before she even realized what happened. It was the morning you left, and he took her to an area near your jet, forced her to watch while he showed her how easily he could kill you,” Travis explained, picking his coffee mug up from the table and taking a sip of his coffee, scowling as he realized it was now cold.
“She’s a smart woman. She told him she would go with him, gave him everything he wanted to hear, but she said she needed a day to take care of some things first. She finally convinced him to let her go by herself by telling him she needed to arrange things to get to her trust fund. Somehow, she convinced him to meet her the next morning, making him think she wanted to go with him. I don’t think she wanted to even tell me, but she asked for my help and I wasn’t going to refuse her. We set up the stuff at the beach, hoping she would be assumed dead, and I got her away from Tampa as fast as I could. I wanted to tell you, Max. And I wanted Kade to know she was alive. I just wasn’t entirely sure how either of you would react. I couldn’t risk leaving any trail to Mia. This man was psychotic, probably more deranged than my father and a hundred times more dangerous. I wanted her safe and needed time to track his ass down. I never realized that it would take over two years to find the bastard,” Travis grumbled.
“What about the police?” Max asked, already fairly certain he knew the answer. He’d dealt with the police himself on Mia’s case, and he was doubtful he would have wanted to give Danny that kind of time to take Mia away.
Kade walked back into the living room, handing Max a full mug of coffee as he answered, “Our father was a nut case. Do you have any idea how many times the police were at our house for a domestic dispute, usually reported by neighbors? The Harrison family was notorious, and not in a good way. Do you really think they would have taken her seriously? They would have done their job, but it would have alerted Danny, and it probably wouldn’t have stopped him. There isn’t a lot they can do with stalkers.”