He was tall. Tall and broad. In his hand, he held a black Stetson. His eyes were dark as strong coffee, and his hair was the same color, though silver streaked through it, especially at the temples.

In his sculpted jawline I saw Ryan. In his profile I saw Talon. And the rest was exactly what Jonah Steel would look like in twenty-plus years.

“Brad Steel,” I said.

“Hello, Ruby.”

“You know who I am?”

“You’re Theo’s daughter. My son’s girlfriend. I helped bring you here.”

I nearly lost my footing. I’d seen two blurry faces that day as I lost consciousness.

Two…

No. Ryan’s father wouldn’t participate in kidnapping me.

But I didn’t know Ryan’s father. After all, Ryan was nothing like his mother, thank God. His father could very well be just as monstrous.

“So Wendy was telling the truth. You are alive.”

“I am. I’m sure you have a lot of questions.”

Questions? They swirled through my mind at a hundred miles an hour. What to ask first? But all that came out was, “How could you do this?”

“I need to tell my children the truth first.”

I couldn’t fault his logic, but damn, I was standing right here. “Please. Just tell me.”

“I had reasons for everything I did. Reasons you—and my children—may not understand. But someone broke a promise to me, so all bets are now off. My children deserve to know the truth.”

“They deserved that a long time ago,” I said, seething.

“I was trying to protect them.”

“By not letting them deal with anything? I’m sorry, but you were wrong. Talon is only now getting the help he needs.”

“I know that. And I’m thankful.”

“And Ryan…” I couldn’t finish.

“Ryan was never supposed to know about his mother. His biological mother. Daphne was his real mother. She treated him as one of her own.” He shook his head, his eyes heavy-lidded and sad. “He was never supposed to know.”

“Well, he does now.”

“I know, and I’m sorry. Daphne loved him as much as the others. She raised him as her own. She did that for me.”

“But why—”

“That’s all I can say for now. My children deserve to hear the truth before anyone else does.”

“I understand.” I did. Didn’t make it any easier to have Brad Steel standing right in front of me and not get the answers I was yearning for. And then it dawned on me. “I do understand, really. But I’m Theodore Mathias’s child, and I deserve some truth as well.”

“I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I can’t tell you anything about Theo. He and I aren’t friends.”

“But you used to be. My uncle told me. Rodney Cates.”

“That changed long ago.”

“When he took your son.”

“I can’t talk about that yet.”

“Or did your friendship end before that? When they went into this disgusting business they conduct on these godforsaken islands?”

He didn’t answer.

“Why? Why did you build a replica of this house here? Who is the woman who lives here with you? Is that your baby?”

“Miss Ruby,” Marabel said. “Please. The master is tired.”

“It’s only midmorning.”

“The master gets up early to do his work.”

“His work? What work? There’s nothing here. Only this house. Outside these concrete walls, there are crimes being committed, Marabel. Vicious, heinous crimes!” I turned back to Brad. “What the hell do you do here all day? Whyever you did it, was it worth it to leave your family? Jonah is going to be a father soon, for God’s sake. You’re going to have a grandchild. So what did you do? Come here and start a new family with that woman and her baby?”

“Miss Ruby, please,” Marabel said again.

“It’s all right, Marabel,” Brad said. “She is understandably upset.”

Juliet’s face flashed in my mind. She’d freak if she noticed I was no longer on the deck with her. I looked out the French doors. She was fine, still in the yard playing with Bo, Beauty, and Ernie.

I turned back to Marabel. “Do you have any idea what goes on here? On these islands? What these people are doing?”

“Enough!” Brad Steel’s voice was loud without actually being a yell.

The fire in his eyes. I’d seen the same fire in Ryan’s eyes. He meant to be obeyed.

I didn’t care. I was in love with Ryan. I eagerly welcomed his commands.

I hated the man standing before me.

“Enough of what? You know what’s true as well as I do. The least you can do is tell me the truth about you and my father. I deserve that much.”

He sighed. “I can see why Ryan loves you. That fiery spirit. I couldn’t resist it when I was younger either. It got me into a lot of trouble. A fiery woman was always my downfall.”

Wendy. He was talking about Wendy. Maybe Daphne as well. I didn’t know anything about her except that she’d been mentally unstable.

“I’ll tell you what I can.”

“Good. We’ll need to go out on the deck. I can’t leave Juliet alone. She’s very fragile right now. Because of what my father and you have put her through.”

“I’ll sit with Juliet,” Marabel said. “Why don’t the two of you go into your study, Mr. Steel?”

“She needs me, Marabel.”

“She’ll be fine with me, Miss Ruby. Look at her. She’s in love with those pups.”

“Marabel will look after her. She’s good with children. She’s done this before.”

I widened my eyes. Before? Did they rescue others and bring them here? Or was he talking about the boys the “lady” had mentioned?

“Follow me,” he said.

I felt no fear of Brad Steel, though maybe I should have. Just because he resembled the man I loved and his wonderful brothers didn’t mean he had the same ethics. I followed him into the corridor that housed the room Juliet and I were staying in. His office was on the other side of the hallway. Probably exactly the same room where Talon had his office at home.

He took a seat behind a large oak desk and nodded toward a few leather chairs on the other side of the desk.

I sat and looked down. I was wearing silk pajamas. I’d forgotten. Brad hadn’t seemed surprised. Did they provide pajamas for a lot of women? I was about to find out.

He stared at me for a moment. “You don’t look much like Theo. Just the hair color.”

“Your sons and daughter all look exactly like you.”

“They do. I must have dominant genes.”

“Except Ryan has his mother’s nose.” I wasn’t sure why I said that.

“He does.” Brad sighed. “So you want to know about your father and me.”

“Yes. The truth, please.”

“What makes you think you don’t already know the truth?”

“Were you there? Are you the one who drugged me with chloroform the night I was taken from my apartment?”

“Yes. And I’m sorry for my part in it, but I had no choice.”

“There’s always a choice.”

“Not always. Not when the choice is to do something you find distasteful or see everything you hold dear destroyed.”

“You’re Brad Steel. Owner of Steel Acres. Billionaire. How exactly does anyone hold any power over you?”

“Your father has a little. But there’s someone else who has a lot. I won’t discuss that. I will discuss your father.”

“All right. I’m listening.”

“We were friends once. We’re not anymore.”

“Then why did you go with him and drug me? Bring me here?”

“I had my reasons, and we’ll get to that.”

“Fine.”

“Four of us—your father, Tom Simpson, Larry Wade, and myself—formed a club in high school.” He sighed, threading his fingers through his thick salt-and-pepper hair. “God, how I’ve come to regret those innocent first days.”

He pushed his chair back. “Tom and Larry were the actual future lawyers. Your father and I had no interest in the law. I knew I’d be running the ranch, and your father was bound and determined to become rich. He got Tom and Larry into that mindset, so we decided to start a business.”

I knew where this was going. Wendy had told Ryan and me how it had started small. Just a reselling of products in demand at inflated prices. Innocent enough. Until they got into drugs…and people.

“I had money, so I offered to back the business for a quarter of the partnership. I’d be a silent partner. It started out innocently enough, and the four of us made some cash.” He let out a heavy sigh. “Then we had two people approach us, asking to join the club. First was Rodney Cates. He’d been trying to date your aunt, your father’s sister. He thought making friends with her brother would help his case. Turned out he had a mind for numbers.”

“Numbers? He’s a linguistics professor.”

“I didn’t say he was interested in numbers. But he was good at them. So we put him to work on the financials. Let him in for five percent.”

“Okay.”

“Things were going along pretty smoothly, until we had another person approach us for membership.”

I sighed. “Wendy.”

“Yes. Wendy Madigan. A junior varsity cheerleader. All-American girl. Sweet like the girl next door. Or so she seemed.”

“She’s crazy.”

“She is. She’s also got an IQ that’s nearly off the charts, though we didn’t know either of those things at the time.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“From whom?”