Chapter 13: Restitution
"I don't believe it." Shana was still looking dazed and shocked.
Marcus Bennett handed her the deed to the Georgia plantation. "This is from all of us," he indicated the cadre of six men behind him. "We're on the board of directors for Kennedy Financial. We'd already talked about restitution. When the FBI came to see us and told us what Damien was accused of, we were shocked. We didn't think there was truth in the allegations, and that was why we gave them carte blanche to go through our files. What they found was horrifying, shocking; we had no idea that this stuff was hidden on our servers, and when they actually let us look at what they found—" He grimaced, an expression of distaste. "At that point the decision was made to distance the company from him. His father, when he left the company to Kennedy in his will, made it clear that if it was mismanaged the board of directors would have the power to remove him and that's exactly what we've decided to do. We came here with the deeds to all the properties he owns and that we own jointly with him with the intention of surrendering it as liquidatable assets, but when we heard that you were from Georgia we knew this would be perfect for you. And the New York land—" he turned to Cam, sitting there quietly reading the deed to the nine acres. "This borders the Iroquois reservation on one side, and private land on the other. We heard that the person who owned that private land died in a fire years ago—"
Alex gasped as Cam's eyes widened, and she snatched the deed from her as she typed something rapidly into her computer. A moment later she had her answer; the vacation land Marcus Bennett had just given Cam the deed to bordered the reservation on one side and Leo Yu's land on the other. And both parcels put together was almost an eighth of the land currently belonging to the Six Nations of the Iroquois. "Isn't that an incredible coincidence."
Cam shook her head. "I'm happy with my little cottage in the village. I have friends there, and Charlie likes them, and they like him." She turned to Charlie. "Your parents wanted to move to Western New York, to be closer to us when we're on leave." She looked up at Abbie and Alex. "Can I give the land to Charlie's parents? The…foundation…to Yu's cabin is still intact, the water and electric hookups are all there, and having a nice little cabin up there all their own would help them feel like part of the tribe but still give them privacy."
"You can do whatever you like with it. It's yours now."
"Well…one more thing. Since I'm never going to be able to have children, according to tribal laws the land reverts to the tribe after Charlie and I are gone. Is there going to be a problem with that? Federally, I mean."
Abbie considered. "You'd probably have to talk to a property and contracts lawyer, Alex and I are criminal lawyers, but if you leave it in a will that the property goes to the tribe, I don't see why the federal government can't add it to the reservation lands. But you really need to talk to a property lawyer about that."
"I'll do that. But it looks like a good solution." Cam turned to Shana, still looking over the deed to the Georgia property. "So how does this look to you?"
Shana shook her head. "I still can't believe I own a whole plantation. Okay, it's not the whole plantation anymore, it's the main house in the middle of four acres of land."
"The company kept it as a sort of peaceful country retreat. The main house, as you call it, is now mostly rooms with a bath attached to each, and a large dining room. We brought executives and a few business partners there over the years to discuss business matters, or to seal a business partnership, and there is a small barn with a couple of horses, with riding trails throughout the four acres."
"Horses?" Shana stared at him. "What on earth would I do with horses?"
Snake Eyes' hands flashed. Something else to ride besides me? he suggested helpfully, eyes glinting with mischief. Although only Cam and Alex knew sign language in the room well enough to know what he'd said, their explosion of laughter and Shana's bright flush brought grins from everyone else.
The grins turned into chuckles when Alex translated what Snake eyes said. Laughter broke out all around the table; Shana turned even redder. Snake Eyes' grin just got wider.
Shana's father grinned, but wagged a finger. "Take it easy on him, Shana, okay? He's a good man and he can't take care of you if you don't take care of him. You don't want a marriage like Siobhan's." Shana nodded soberly; no, she didn't want a marriage like that. Siobhan had married for money; her husband, one of Atlanta's nouveau riche, had married her because it would get him access to the inner circle of Atlanta's old money. There was no real love and affection in that marriage, only affectation and appearances. The old saying that money couldn't buy happiness was true, particularly in their case.
Her father grinned. "Well, you're now an independently wealthy woman. Won't Siobhan be annoyed when she finds out you now own a whole plantation? You'll have to come home at some point—soon—and we'll go out and take a look at it. Do you have some leave time coming up?"
We do, Snake Eyes nodded emphatically. I'll be talking to General Abernathy about it.
"And Charlie and I have to get properly married." Cam said. "We got married at my reservation over Thanksgiving, but Shana got mad that she wasn't told, and since tribal marriages aren't acknowledged by the government, we have to be properly married. It'll be a quiet ceremony at base, just us, and then after that we'll have a few weeks' leave."
"Before Yu's trial starts." Alex nodded. "I realize this is all a lot of stress, and Cam's still recovering, so I wanted to make sure there was some down time in between. Leo Yu," she explained for the benefit of Marcus Bennett, who looked mystified, "is the trafficker who originally subjected Cam to trafficking and slavery. We had to use his knowledge to get Cam inserted into the slave market in Amsterdam to find Shana, and in exchange he wanted federal immunity. He thought he was just going to face state charges for child porn, but he's currently looking at charges for everything I could think of to throw at him, and his client files turned up twenty-three people who paid money to him to abuse Cam at that western New York property. All of them are going to trial in about a month."
"Twenty-three? My God…" Marcus Bennett looked stunned as he stared at Cam. "I can't imagine…I don't know what to say—"
"Then don't say anything. Please." Cam said quietly, and he gathered himself and nodded silently.
"All right, then if we're done here, I want to shanghai Cam and Shana and take them over to Bellevue," Alex said as she gathered up her papers and shut her laptop down. "I've been attending group therapy sessions over there for victims of human trafficking and torture, after what happened in the Congo, and I think Shana and Cam would benefit from attending. If you're up to it, that is," she said, looking at both women.
"We can go, but not for long. It's been a long day." Shana said after a glance at Cam.
"Good. We'll take my Mustang; everyone else can go home in the Hummer." And that settled that.
The base was in an uproar over the conclusion of the trial, the verdict, and Charlie was instantly hustled off to the mess, where the video Courtney had shot that day of the last of the trial was being played for the benefit of those who hadn't been able to attend. Snake Eyes, however, headed to their quarters, intending to change and head for the dojo. As he was doing that, however, he heard a soft knock at the door, and opened it to see Allie.
"This came for you today. I kinda had a guess as to what was inside, so I wanted to make sure it got to you…and only you." She handed him a small padded envelope, and he ripped it open, knowing already what was inside.
Two black velvet boxes fell out into his hand, and as he opened them, the mellow gleam of blued Damascus steel winked back at him. The rings were every bit as beautiful as they had been back at the shop, but now they had the claddagh design etched in relief, on the steel. And on the inside of the band, an inscription in Gaelic.
"'You have my heart'," Allie read. "Oh, Snake Eyes, they are beautiful, Shana's absolutely going to love them!"
He loved them too. Putting the envelope and boxes down, he reached for the man's ring and slipped it on. It fit perfectly, the metal seeming to warm instantly, immediately comfortable. He stared at it, and suddenly he couldn't imagine ever taking it off. It was perfect, just like the woman who would wear the matching ring, like the woman who he'd chosen to spend the rest of his life with. It was with great reluctance that he drew off the band and slipped it back into its velvet box; he couldn't wait to wear his, and he couldn't wait to see Shana's on her finger.
"You do have some leave time coming up. And so does Shana. I know she wants to be here for Cam's wedding, but after that's over you both can take a month off to go and get married."
He sighed as his hands flashed. There's only one problem with getting married. Shana's mother will want to plan it, and it's going to have to include Shana's sister. I don't know if I could stay in the same room with her for more than five minutes without strangling her, not after what she did this time, leaking information to the press even after Shana swore her to secrecy and then appearing in court to testify on the defense's behalf.
"You're not marrying her, you're marrying Shana. I'm sure for Shana's sake you could manage to restrain yourself from killing Siobhan."
Barely.
Allie laughed. "Well, if you really doubt that you could keep yourself from killing Siobhan, you could always do what Cam and Charlie are doing; get married here. We are, after all, family, if not by blood then by choice. Shana's family will just have to accept her choice; they can't go back and unmake it."
Get married? Here? Like Cam and Charlie? He had to admit the thought had merit. He'd heard the plans already; one of the chaplains from the Fort Wadsworth Chaplain's school just above them—the front for their classified base—would come and perform the ceremony in about a week. It would be a simple one, accompanied by a potluck 'reception'; the kitchens were going to be open to the Joes to cook whatever they wanted, or to buy dishes to bring, and it was generally going to be a 'day off' their work; this was the first marriage this base had ever had, the first two Joes who would ever get married to each other. And there was a certain appeal in having a double wedding; Shana and Cam were as close as sisters (closer, if you looked at Shana's relationship with Siobhan!) and being able to share their special day might have extra meaning.
But Shana's bonds with her family were equally strong, and he couldn't make that kind of decision for her. So he simply sighed and tucked the two little velvet boxes into the bottom drawer of his dresser and headed for the dojo.
The events of the day slowly caught up with him as he stretched and started his usual workout. Guilty. Kennedy had been found guilty of everything; the dead women in the water, the human trafficking and slavery, and most of all, guilty of what he'd done to Shana. And while that might have provided a certain sense of closure for Shana, it just left Snake Eyes angry. Kennedy was going to sit in a jail cell for the rest of his life, three square meals and all his healthcare needs taken care of, while Shana was going to have to go through some extensive counseling, dealing with nightmares and psychological trauma—like her panic attack at the sounds of bees—for a long time, perhaps even for the rest of her life. He would be there with her, for her, for the rest of her life, but he couldn't keep her mind from torturing her with nightmares, couldn't keep her from experiencing some of the same PTSD symptoms Cam had.
By the time Shana came back to base and found him in the dojo, he was dripping sweat and no closer to exorcising the demons in his mind. However, one look at her tear-streaked face told him she'd had a rough time in the therapy group, and when she threw her arms around him, he held her, ignoring sweat and everything else. She wasn't crying, not quite, but he sensed she was on the knife edge of tears.
They went back to their quarters, and he left her sitting on the bed, looking drained and exhausted as he stepped into the shower. When she joined him a short while later, he looked at her with surprise, but she just shook her head and leaned against him, and he knew that while shower usually meant foreplay for them, this time she simply wanted to be close to him, didn't want to be left alone. So they showered together, wet skin sliding against wet skin, nothing sexual, just two humans silently taking comfort in each others' company. It gave Snake Eyes an excuse to soap his hands and wash her, as gently and tenderly as he had the day he'd found her scrubbing her skin raw. She was basically all healed now, at least physically; scar tissue fully formed over her wounds. There were two patches of scar tissue over each shoulder blade, and the two deep indentations in her arms from the nails she'd been crucified with, but other than that her body looked the same way as it did when she'd left.
Internally, however, she was changed forever.
He finished with the soap and started to rinse the lather off her, running his hands over wet, smooth skin, and as he finished she rested her forehead against his chest and started to cry. He turned off the water then, and simply held her, skin-to-skin, letting the solidity of his body remind her that he was there for her, would always be there for her, and he wondered briefly whether he should let her have the ring, whether he should give it to her early; would it make her feel better, having a solid acknowledgment that he was here, and would be here, forever?
"I'm s-s-sorry," she choked, and at that stuttered apology he forgot everything except just being with her. He pulled the towel down, drying her off, then dried himself off quickly, and when they were both dressed in boxers and t-shirts (since she'd come back she'd seemed to favor wearing his boxers, which he didn't mind a bit) he lay down in bed with her and she cuddled up against him and cried for a long time.
Her crying finally subsided to gentle sniffles, but he stayed silent, an unspoken invitation for her to talk if she wanted to. And finally she did. "I could have killed him. That moment when he attacked Abbie in open court—I could have killed him, shot him dead and there isn't a jury in the world who would have convicted me. But…I just couldn't. Not even when he hurt me, hurt Cam, so badly, tortured us, tried to kill us…I just couldn't. And I don't understand why.
"We were sitting there in the group therapy class—Alex is a regular, she not only shares and participates, she hands out lawyers' contacts to those who might benefit from legal help because her network is extensive. And they'd heard about us and they accepted us immediately. Bu t they were talking about closure, and one of them said they didn't understand why I didn't shoot him, because if she'd been me she would have, and she wondered why I didn't. I'm trained to take down targets, I'm a soldier, and I couldn't take out one man..."
You're not made that way, Shana. You've never been able to kill someone in cold blood. It's not in you.
"If I couldn't this time…what happens on the next mission I go out on with the unit? Will I freeze up then? Am I going to be able to pull the trigger then?"
She was doubting herself, and even though he'd known this might happen eventually, it still hurt hearing her question herself. You'll be fine—he started to sign when there was a quiet but brisk tap at their door.
Doc stood there with a couple of pills. "Charlie called me, told me Cam came back from the therapy class exhausted and upset, and he wanted her to get some undisturbed sleep so I gave her a sedative. I thought maybe Shana would like one too."
Shana appeared next to Snake Eyes in the doorway, and in the stark, bright light of the hall Snake Eyes could see the lines on her face, the tightness of her muscles. She reached out silently, took the pills Doc handed her wordlessly, and swallowed them down dry, then retreated back into the darkness of their room. Doc just gave Snake Eyes a sympathetic smile and left.