Page 3 of Their Domme

“The file on the person we are looking for will be easier to see on the computer. Just sent it to you, Oliver.” The younger man hummed in acknowledgment before getting up to grab his laptop. I thought that Vas was going to take Nicholette’s absence the hardest, but Oliver was the worst. Bodhi had held steady that we would find her, never wavering in his conviction that she would come back. Vas’ anger and rage grew with each day, but it was bottling up inside of him, just waiting for him to explode. Oliver… Maybe it was the fact that he had just shared his history with all of us for the first time, but it felt like he was barely keeping it together. He joked around, but there was more bite than there used to be. Our group had quickly become a powder keg ready to explode… not to mention my cousins and uncle… It would be a volatile reunion whenever we get Nicholette back.

“We should tell the others since it involves Nic,” Oliver said as he came back with his laptop, collapsing on the navy couch. Bodhi looked at Vas and me before walking over to sit next to his boyfriend. Oliver didn’t say anything to him, but he turned to press a quick kiss to Bodhi’s cheek as his lover cuddled into his side.

The others.

I never thought we would have other people join our group dynamic, but while there were some rough patches at times, the three other men fit in fairly well. My and Vas’ cousins, Alexei Volkov and Maksim Angeloff, and our uncle Rhodes Angeloff, were all dangerous men in their own right, and things had been nothing but interesting with them joining us. Rhodes and Alexei were obviously hurt by Nic being gone; both of them were acting off. Maksim was harder to read, and while I knew he did miss her, in his own way, most of the time I couldn’t tell. It was mostly based on Alexei that I believed my more standoffish cousin was suffering in Nic’s absence. Given how close they were, I took his word for it.

Vas settled down on Oliver’s other side, looking over the screen as I opened the group chat.

Sacha:We got a new job from Maeve. Related to the trafficking ring Nic’s stalker is part of.

I didn’t have to wait even a minute for a response.

Rhodes:Come to the compound.

Alexei:Maksim and I are already here. We’ll wait for you all to get here.

Maksim:Bring food.

Alexei:He means it will be a long night.

Maksim:And I’m hungry.

I rolled my eyes as I locked my phone.

“That fun, huh?” Oliver joked, drawing my attention.

“Maksim said to bring food on our way to the compound.”

Bodhi chuckled, not the least bit put out by Maksim’s demand. “Ever practical.”

“This is interesting, though,” Oliver muttered, looking at the email again. “Her contact is a guy, and he’s been working on this ring ever since Warren was killed.”

“I noticed that too,” I commented, absently running a hand over my face. “I’m gonna need coffee from wherever we get food.”

“And there is no payment included in this since it’s tied to Nic. Says to use it as a lead. Maeve just reminded us she wants to be kept in the loop,” Oliver looked up at me, and I nodded sharply.

“No matter what we think of her, she obviously cared about Nic. And right now, I’ll take all the leads we can get,” Vas commented as he stood up and started for the door. “Put in an order for pizza or some shit, and we can bring it with us. Your place has that coffee shop nearby.”

“We’ll get some on the way,” I tacked on, following right after my brother, with Oliver and Bodhi not far behind me.

I hoped this lead was useful. We needed something,anything, to think about besides the siren haunting all of our thoughts. As much as I hated not seeing and being with Nicholette, I felt more than a small bit of respect for her ability to hide from us. Underestimating Nic was something I thought I had stopped doing after our first meeting, but she had more skills than any of us knew. That respect didn’t do anything to dull the frustration of being so far behind her, though.

* * *

Maksim

There wasa rough knock on the office door, then Alexei waltzed in without waiting for me to answer. I rolled my eyes at him, but I didn’t bitch about it when he settled on the chair on the other side of my desk. Nic ghosting, the photos from the stalker, and the positive pregnancy test… It had taken its toll on him, which bothered me more than I wanted it to. We had all spent the last four weeks in fucking limbo, and I was goddamn tired of it. It was fucking exhausting keeping up with everyone else’s feelings and what I should say and shouldn’t. I’d never had to be this emotionally cognizant, and I didn’t know how other people functioned like this. How did they live their lives when they had to spend so much time thinking about what other people were feeling or going through? This shit fucking sucked.

“Any new information?”

“No,” I replied without looking away from my computer. “I’ve hit every lead I could find through the Lords. Every lead that was alive, at least. The cousins are thorough.”

“I heard something interesting today,” Alexei replied quietly, and I looked up to find his green eyes staring intently at me. He was leaning back, looking completely at ease if not for the deadly tone of his voice. “The trafficking ring is having a leak problem. High-ranking members are going missing. Most were never found again, but the few who were… My contacts didn’t bother to explain the state the bodies were found in, but it was bad, considering the gray tinge to their faces.”

I clicked my tongue and leaned forward, focusing on Alexei as I processed what he’d just said. He was dressed in his usual clothes, black slacks and a dark green button-up that showed off the muscles of the man in front of me. His curly hair was now cut short, not buzzed like my own, but still shorter than I’d seen him have it in years. With Nic gone, he had focused on the job given to us by our cousins with an intensity that would have been concerning for most men. He barely slept, ate like shit, and there were even a few times I saw him smoke a couple of my cigarettes, something he had always said he hated. Rhodes had kept his calm most of the time, though that was a bit of the pot trying to care for the kettle. He had started drinking more the longer Nic had been gone.

I wasn’t really sure how I felt about her absence. She was smart, with a wicked sense of humor. Her body was made for sex, and if I thought hard enough, I could still remember the way she cried while riding me, begging for an orgasm. Her being gone sucked, but she had been gone before and came back. My days were more boring without her, and I kept thinking about the horror movies she watched, the way she’d laugh when I bemoaned the villain's inevitable defeat. Alexei told me that probably meant I missedher. I had explained my thoughts to him during one of our nights together. It was somehow easier to talk in the dark without looking at him. I trusted him to not use my ineptness at emotion against me.

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