Our older brother answers on the fourth ring. “Keanu.”
“Kev. I’m with Kent, and the stuff I need to tell him you need to hear too.”
“Is this connected to what you need to speak to me about tonight? It’s about Selena?” he asks as I put him on speaker.
“Yes.”
“Okay. I’m all ears.”
My foot taps idly off the floor, and bile floods my mouth as I prepare to explain. Kent eyes me intensely, but he doesn’t rush me, and neither does Kev. “You can’t share what I’m about to tell you with anyone. And I meananyone. That includes the FBI and Cheryl, Kev.”
While I’m hoping we might be able to get the FBI on the case to help nail that bastard Lawrence, I don’t want my brother talking to anyone until after we’ve spoken later. Any potential discussions with the FBI will only happen when it’s been agreed in advance and where Selena wants it.
This is her life. Her justice to claim. And none of us has a right to force her into anything she doesn’t want to do.
“I don’t like keeping secrets from my fiancée,” Kev says through the line, “but there are certain things I can’t tell her about my work, and she gets it. I have a feeling she would understand why I can’t talk to her about this, so go ahead. I won’t speak of this to anyone.”
I know Kev won’t. He’s kept so many secrets for our family, and he’s used to keeping things close to his chest.
Kent is a different story.
He’s a bit of a loose cannon at times, and I need to know he can keep this to himself. I eyeball my triplet. “You cannot breathe a word of this to anyone. Not even Keats or anyone else in the family. Not unless Selena wants them to know.”
“I promise I will keep this confidential.” Sincerity bleeds from his tone and his face, and I nod.
“There’s no easy way to say any of this, so I’m just putting it out there,” I say, leaning my arms on my thighs. “When Selena was ten, her and her friend Juanita were abducted by pedophiles. They were split up, and Selena was taken offshore, to some island, where she was imprisoned for three years and kept as a sex slave.”
Kent’s face whitens, and his Adam’s apple bobs in his throat. Keven is quiet on the end of the line. I guess, in his line of work, nothing has the power to shock him anymore.
I scrub a hand along my jaw, swallowing back bile. “She was regularly drugged, beaten, tortured, and raped.”
“Shit.” Kent sits upright, resting his elbows on his knees and burying his head in his hands.
“When she was thirteen, she was sold to a rich American prick. He took her back to the US, and she managed to escape from a motel in Texas, and the authorities were called. She discovered her parents and her younger sister had been murdered a few months after she was kidnapped. The same fate happened to her friend’s family, leading the authorities to believe the men responsible for sex trafficking the girls were behind the murders. They have never been found. Never been brought to justice.”
Pressure settles on my chest, compressing the oxygen in my lungs. I’ll never forget the weeks after Selena told me what happened to her. The blanket rage that swept through me imagining the things she’d endured. She was only ten when she was taken. Her childhood ended that night. Her innocence was stolen. Her future irreparably altered.
I remember begging my mom to help. We had money, and I wanted to find those bastards who had hurt the girl I was in love with. Turns out, my parents had been working with Selena’s mom, trying to track down the culprits. They had spent considerable resources between them, hiring PIs here and overseas and talking to various government bodies, trying to find the truth. But every lead was a dead end.
After that, they funneled their resources into charity work. Sandrine set up a charity that supports parents of kids who have been sex trafficked. It provides support and education. Gives them the tools they need to help their children heal and reintegrate into society after living through such trauma. Enables them to process their feelings and lean on others with similar experiences. Mom and Dad are their biggest donors, and they have worked behind the scenes to secure other donations. They haven’t done it publicly for fear it would shine a spotlight on Selena.
I have so much love and respect for my parents for all they have done for her. They are good people. Not perfect, by any means, but their hearts are in the right places.
“I’m so sorry Selena went through that, Keanu,” Keven says, his voice grave.
“Me too,” Kent adds, looking over at me with tormented eyes. “I said some horrible things about her.”
“You didn’t know,” I say, wanting to reassure him. “And I couldn’t tell you because Selena could barely acknowledge it to herself, let alone discuss it with anyone. She suffers from PTSD. She has panic attacks, nightmares, social anxiety, and a host of other shit she’s trying to handle.” I grind my teeth to my molars as rage twists and turns in my gut. “Yesterday, she saw the man who bought her for the first time since she escaped from him.”
Kent’s eyes widen in alarm, and Keven cusses down the line. “This is why you need to talk.”
“Yes. We need your help.”
“I’m coming over now,” he says. “See you soon.”
He hangs up before I’ve had the chance to respond.
“That’s why you said not to touch her,” Kent says, dragging his hands through his hair.
