“I don’t understand. Who could want us?” The only person who wanted me was Charles Beacon and hello, he already had me. I held my hand up to the light and saw no blood. Tearing the bottom of my t-shirt, I wrapped it around my hand to protect it from germs or at least try.
“That we’ll need to find out,” Ellen Sue said, pulling on the door gently, but it didn’t move. “We need to be quiet until we figure out where we are and who’s here with us.”
Well, she didn’t have to worry about me raising a fuss. I was too busy losing my shit mentally to make noise.
A loud crash came from outside, shaking the container. I reached out to the walls to steady myself as Ellen Sue did the same. Once it stopped, Ellen Sue said, “Quiet and listen.”
Ellen Sue put her ear to the metal wall and I did the same, hearing the sounds of metal hitting the ground. Maybe they were moving the containers. They … they! “There are people here!”
Ellen Sue slapped my arm. It wasn’t hard, but a definite warning. “Shh… Yes, good call. We just need to figure out if they are good people or bad.”
“Please let them be good,” I whispered.
Through the crack in the door, I peered through seeing bright lights above shining down on rows of different colored containers. Right to left the big metal boxes lined in front of us.
“Tell me,” Ellen Sue requested.
“We’re in an area with lots of containers. In front of us some are stacked two high.”
Ellen Sue came next to me and pulled gently on the doors. Chains rattled from the outside.
“Shh!” It was my turn to hush her and somehow, someway, Ellen Sue smiled, and it felt like pride.
“Going out that way isn’t going to happen. We need to find a hole in the metal. Since no light is coming in finding a weak spot isn’t going to be easy, but we need to do it now. Don’t bang on the metal; just press it with your hand. If you feel it giving, don’t push through; just tell me.”
Adrenaline pumped through me, and we got to work.
Pushing didn’t do much. There was only one small weak area, and Ellen Sue pushed on it a bit harder and got nowhere.
“Now what?” I asked, just as a clanking came to the door, our eyes swiveling to it. Ellen Sue pushed me behind her.
Blood pumped through my body, and my hands began to sweat as the door slowly opened, and fear sliced through me like a knife. The men who came into Garrett’s home stood there. Two with their arms crossed over their chest and one standing in the center with a gun in his left hand.
“Good, you’re awake.” The one with the gun took a few steps in, and Ellen Sue pushed me back against the wall. I tried getting around her, but she was stronger than she looked.
“What do you want?” Ellen Sue asked.
“Not you, old lady.”
I felt my body lock. “That was rude,” came from my lips before I could stop it, and Ellen Sue reached behind and squeezed my forearm. I took it as a warning to be quiet.
“Well, sweet thing. You’re the one boss wants,” he said, stepping in closer.
“Stop,” Ellen Sue demanded, but he didn’t.
“I’m not going anywhere without Ellen Sue.” I clutched on to her arm. We needed to stay together. If they took her somewhere else, I’d have no idea what they were doing to her. At least I knew that much. If I was the one they needed for their boss, whoever in the hell that was, then I had to have some power here, right? I just had to remain calm and stick to my guns.
“Say good night.” His hand reached out, and Ellen Sue went down, then I followed with only one last thought: Blackness sucked.
20
Garrett
Time was a funny thing.
When we were younger, we begged that shit to pass quickly. We wanted to be grown and the fuck off the farm. We wanted to begin our lives fresh and build something we could be proud of.
Now every second passing was a new agony. Every moment counted when someone you loved was on the line.
As we exited the plane, Dane had two cars waiting for us. Paxton and Onyx got in one, heading to check on Case and the rest of our usual security crew.
Dane and I were headed in the opposite direction from them. We climbed in the Escalade where Dane tapped some shit on his phone and sent it to our driver. I couldn’t speak right now if I had to. My mind was racing with all the bad things that may have happened.
Not only did I worry for Ellen Sue, but thoughts of Enissa were plaguing me. Would I see her again? Could I kiss her one more time? Closing my eyes, I held on to the visions of making her come alive with my touch. This wouldn’t be the end.
“Got some associates on the way,” Dane explained as he reached to the back of the seat in front of him and opened a custom compartment.
Dane was in mission mode. His mind was clear, his body tight, and his soul ready to fight.
He pulled the guns, checked each weapon, and handed me one before securing his own.
“Ellen Sue is at this house,” Dane stated, leaning over to show me the location on his phone. The pulse monitor gave us a reading, so Ellen Sue was alive. Relief hit me.
Thank fuck we had Ellen Sue wear a custom necklace with a tracking chip embedded. She also had a watch with a tracking device along with sensors to track her heart rate. She even had a custom pair of glasses with another tracking chip. Every precaution was made so we could always find her. While we all hoped we would never be in a situation to need the extra measures, Ellen Sue was everything to the four of us.
If anything happened to her … we wouldn’t be the same.
“I sent the shit to the car so Collin will get us there. I also forwarded it to the crew so we won’t be going in blind.”
I nodded as my anxiety rose. Dane tapped away on his phone. “Since we were airborne, I sent the shit to Jacoby Brothers. They got back to me. The house is a rental. Current tenancy is through a holding company. Link says the holding company is owned by Charles Beacon.”
I smirked in disgust. Fucking bastard found her. I had to give him credit for his tenacity.
“Your situation, how do you want it to play? Jacoby set us up. We got a drone on standby.”
This was the benefit of having a fuck of a lot of money. “Send it up.”
He gave a nod and went to tapping away on his screen again. Within minutes we were parked not far from the house where Ellen Sue was pinging. Dane watched his phone, angling it so I could see as well. The drone flew around the property. Only three security men were on the outside. Luckily for us, the windows were open and the drone entered the space. Inside the house we counted an additional two security guards. Then we located Ellen Sue and Enissa on a bed looking to be asleep. In the room next to them was a pacing Charles Beacon.
He was spooked.
Good.
He should be.
Hell hath no fury like what I was about to show him.
Dane being in the line of work he was organized the crew as he shut the drone down. Even though I had never been part of anything like this, I was ready. In fact, I was still wearing my fucking suit from work.; everyone fell in line with me at the rear while they wore tactical gear.
With silencers on their weapons, each of the guards were taken down as Dane led me right to the man I wanted to see, Charles Theodore Beacon.
His eyes were wide as he stood in front of the daybed with his hands in the air in surrender.
“Knew you’d come. Thought I’d get them gone before you got here. You have far more clout than I anticipated, Monroe.”
I smirked. Dane had the updates where he tried to charter a plane. Yes, we blocked him. “You underestimate everyone around you, Beacon. This isn’t the fuckin’ eighties when you sat on top of the world. You’re shit now.”
“What is your deal, Monroe?” he asked, and I didn’t answer.
“This is the end of you, Beacon,” I told him.
Dane stood beside me. He watched. Dane was always observant. A man entered the room from Dan
e’s crew. “Female targets are fine. They’ve been tased, but will be coming too soon.”
Fury ran through me.
“Clean up the mess, but leave the women alone. We’ll go to them when we finish here,” Dane ordered and gave me a nod.
Ellen Sue and Enissa were safe. While getting tased hurt like a bitch, they would survive with no long-standing issues.
The other men left the room, and I watched the old man in front of me. His eyes were steel and his face sunken in. There was no sign of vibrancy of a man living his glory days.
In fact, he looked desperate.
“This is rather surprising, Monroe. Given the nature of business lines you continually cross, but yet, I approach you about a deal that Enissa Mitchell agreed to without force, and suddenly you have some hero complex. What is the appeal?”
I crossed my arms over my chest after securing my weapon. Beacon couldn’t touch me.
“Stephanie Conway,” I stated a name I hadn’t spoken in over a decade.
He shook his head.
“Wrong answer,” I replied.
“Courtney Holloway.”
He again shook his head.
Rage boiled under the surface inside me. I didn’t know what I really expected from him, but the more he tried to deny his past, the more I wanted to make him suffer.
“Enissa is not the first woman you’ve manipulated. But, Beacon, I promise you she’s the last.”
“And what concern is it of yours?”
I wanted to rush him and pin him to the wall. I wanted to beat the shit out of him and take the life from his body. Instead of reacting, I remained still. “Abigail Damon?”
Again he shook his head. I stalked over to him. Crowding him, I locked my eyes to his.
“What do you see when you look at me?”
The man paled in front of me, his eyes narrowed as he opened and closed his mouth, but no words escaped. Yes, it was finally beginning to sink in. I knew what he saw because I saw the shit too the minute he stepped into my office with his bullshit proposition. It wasn’t until I started digging that it all really made sense.
“Look hard, Beacon. Think fuckin’ harder.”
He shook his head, but still didn’t speak.
“Say her name, I want to hear it. Stephanie Conway.”
“No,” he finally replied. “This can’t be.”
“Oh but the fuck it can.”
Everything around me ceased to exist as the truth came crashing around Beacon. The man who thought he held all the cards, the man with all the power … was shriveling up in front of me. The sins of his past closing in.
“Stephanie Conway was sixteen when you approached her with a proposition,” I explained with bitterness and disgust laced in every word. “She was sixteen when she ran away to be with you.”
“She left on her own accord.”
I laughed. “She left a drug-addicted whore knocked up by you. She left because she had been replaced. She left because you had warped her stupid teenage brain into thinking she mattered. She left because she found out you weren’t taking care of her mom like you promised. She left because you had another cunt in your bed while she carried your child. She left because she realized she had no future with you.”
“I didn’t give her drugs.”
“No, your housekeeper did.”
He shook his head like he was shaking off a memory. To this I laughed in his face. “Yes, the housekeeper you fucked, she got my mom hooked on the meth.”
There was movement behind me, but I trusted Dane to take care of it because right now I had my enemy in my sights, and I wasn’t about to let him off the hook.
“Yes, Charles Beacon, software billionaire who couldn’t do right by a single woman in his life, knocked up his underage ward while fucking his help on the side. The man who every relationship he’s ever had is some bullshit contract to make a broad fuck you for money or security.”
“How do you know all of this?”
“You see, Beacon, when you came to my office with your request to pick Enissa up and hide her away, it got me curious. Looking in your eyes, the eyes that are so much like my own, I thought no fucking way life would be so cruel. Part of my training as an attorney is in research. Looking into your history, you left too much of a trail. A trail that tied you to Stephanie Conway. When that name hit my desk, this shit all changed.”
“I hired you to do a job, Monroe. Tuck her away from the world so she would see the power I held and would easily bend to my will.”
I nodded. “Yes, Enissa is a job. I didn’t tuck her away, though, to bend her to your will. I tucked her away so you could see you’ve been overpowered and overplayed in your own fuckin’ game. Charles Beacon, you’ve been bested. Because Enissa is my job, but Stephanie Conway was my mother.”
The sounds of gasps behind me get my attention.
My eyes locked to hers. Enissa stood in the doorway beside Ellen Sue with this gaze … one that told me, she was shattered.
21
Enissa
Pawn.
That was all I was to Garrett.
It hurt.
Reality bites, that was what some t-shirt said, and that statement was one-hundred percent truth.
Garrett played me.
A pawn. A tool for him to use to get back at Charles Beacon.
He didn’t work for Beacon like I thought. Every single moment we shared was part of a ruse and a game he was playing with Beacon.
I had so many questions, but I didn’t care to find out the answers. There wasn’t any answer to any question that would change a single thing. He was trying to exact revenge and used me to do it. Not that I should’ve expected anything else.
Making a deal with Mr. Beacon didn’t make me a stand-up person, but at least I never lied and it felt as if Garrett did. I wasn’t blind or dumb. I knew going into this I wouldn’t come out unscarred. The problem was I never prepared my heart to fall. I could easily compartmentalize my emotions to protect my mind, but my heart fell for Garrett Monroe.
Now I was left shattered.
Who was this man I shared so much time with? Was any part of this real? Everything blurred in my mind.
Garrett took care of me. He cooked for me. He walked with me on the beach. He even tasted me. He did things no one ever did for me. I believed in him. I saw the good in him while I was in the worst of situations.
While I didn’t expect him to fall for me. I did expect him to feel something. How could he do something so private and intimate and have no feelings whatsoever?
I rolled on my side and listened to the waves. Even the steady pattern didn’t calm the raging storm inside of me.
Since leaving Beacon’s I hadn’t said a word to anyone. What was left to say? The truth was out, and it was a bitter bitch, but my reality stared me in my face: I had been played.
Garrett brought me back to the beach house, and since there was no other option for me, I came. Ellen Sue, the sweet woman she was, assured me Garrett would make my arrangements to return to my parents swiftly. I didn’t know what to think, but the look in her eyes told me she was sincere. Honestly, I was in such a shock about everything I wasn’t sure I would ever truly process all the emotions inside of me.
I desired nothing more than to return to my home. Except, I wasn’t sure what home would be like now. I could only hope now that Garrett was done tormenting Beacon and using me to do so, he would let me leave.
There was no way I was going with Mr. Beacon if I didn’t have to. While Garrett’s emotional manipulation hurt, Beacon had me physically harmed with the taser, and I couldn’t help but worry about what spending any time with a man who apparently had a history of manipulating women would mean for me. At the moment, I felt safer leaving Beacon behind and far away from me.
Now, though, I felt like I was only torturing myself more by coming here with Garrett. Then again, I wasn’t given a choice. “Get in the waiting car, Enissa,” Garrett ordered, and everyone followed including
me.
Ellen Sue wanted me here. I’d do anything for that woman. Including coming back here. Whether I was justifying it for myself or not, it didn’t matter. Ellen Sue was just as shocked as I was to learn about Garrett and his tie to Charles Beacon, so I knew what she felt for me was real. I was holding onto that shred of real connection because if I didn’t, I would truly have to accept that I had been shattered.
My heart shouldn’t hurt. I shouldn’t feel anything, but that didn’t stop the pain from seeping in through my bones.
Giving my body to Mr. Beacon I saw as a chore that needed to be done to help my mother. I didn’t see it that way with Garrett. I did this to myself. Looks could be deceiving. I never should have trusted him. Hell, I never should have trusted myself.
Now here I was falling apart on some island, unable to escape the very cause of my pain.
According to the conversation I managed to overhear on the ride from Beacon’s place to here, Case had been shot along with two other men in his crew. I didn’t even know he had a crew. Having spent some time with Case, I worried and felt bad that my situation got him shot. However, the update was he would recover, and once he healed enough to travel we would all be heading back to Pennsylvania. Therefore, I just needed to sit tight until I could get home.
Upon our arrival here, Ellen Sue proudly introduced me to her boys, Paxton, Onyx, and Dane who had been in the car with us. I simply nodded. There was no reason for me to have a conversation with any of these men. Even in the haze of my hatred, I had to admit each of them had this sexy edge that could melt any woman. The pain from Garrett’s truth toward me hurt far too much for me to truly admire the male perfection in front of me.
So I did what any woman ready to escape would do, and I went to my room and laid down.
“What do you want?” I felt him before I saw him, his eyes boring into my back. My pretend nap was officially over. Something told me he wouldn’t leave me alone for long. Guess I was right.
Garrett sat on the edge of the bed, but didn’t reach out to me.
“Let me explain,” he began, but I threw my hand up to silence him.
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