Once I was sure I was alone, I took a detour to the first place my mind had gone to: Zachary’s den.
It wasn’t that I couldn’t go in there . . . it was just that I never did and he knew it.
Quietly, I let myself in and shut the door behind me, and then I started searching. I went through every plant, inside every book, and flipped every cushion as I made my way through his den. I even moved the paintings and degrees on the walls, checking for hidden safes.
There weren’t any.
By the time I made it to his desk near the far wall, I was shaking.
I wasn’t sure if it was more out of anticipation or the wave of sickness crashing over me, but I was sure my body was screaming at me.
Screaming to leave the den.
Screaming to tear through the drawers.
Because I knew I wasn’t going to like what I found.
I frantically scanned the contents of the drawers, but they turned up nothing. I jerked open the massive cabinet door behind his desk, and the contents had me falling to my knees.
My trembling hand . . . my thunderous heart . . . my racing thoughts . . . they all halted.
Lining the shelf were little white pill bottles, stacked three high and at least a dozen wide. There was a small container with pink powder on the bottom, and a chart taped to the shelf directly in front of it that tracked how and when to increase from a half pill a day to three pills. The switch to three a day had happened a month and a half ago.
I reached for one of the bottles and jolted when the sound of the few remaining pills clambering around sounded like glass breaking in the strained silence.
I’d never heard of the pill, but something about the amount, something about them stashed in his office, pulled at my stomach. As though I needed to see this. As though it had everything to do with me.
I pulled out my phone and took a picture of everything and then quickly searched the name.
My heart sank when I read the description. Increase sexual recall . . . aims to balance chemicals in brain . . . increase sensitivity to stimulation . . . fainting, dizziness, and nausea . . .”
A gasp tore from my lungs, and the bottle slipped from my fingers as the last year flashed through my mind.
Zachary suddenly making my coffee and bringing it to me in bed every morning.
Always asking how my coffee was.
If I finished it.
The way I wanted him . . . craved him in a primal, unnatural way whenever he touched me—or even when I knew his touch was coming. Even when he came home in that chilling, terrifying mood that I hated.
“Viagra . . .”
He’s been giving me the female Viagra.
I choked on a sob and scrambled to put everything back where I’d found it.
Anger and loathing and disgust ripped through me as I hurried from his den and up the stairs, shredding me until I felt bare and raw.
I staggered to a halt when I rounded the door into our bedroom and found Zachary holding a stack of clothes.
The man I was meant to love forever.
The man I was told to love.
The man I hated with every breath filling my lungs.
A dozen thoughts and accusations and demands crowded on my tongue, trying to be the first to break free.
An excited smile lit his face when he saw me standing there. “We have to hurry. Start packing for you and Lex. It’s time.”
I looked from him to where two of his suitcases were wide open on the bed, but I didn’t move.
Time for what?
Where did the prescription go?
Why do you have those pills in your den?
How could you do this to me?
I hate you, I hate you, I fucking hate you.
That smile slipped away entirely when he realized I wasn’t moving, but then it was back in place, pure charm and fabricated sympathies on his expression as he started toward me.
“I thought you wanted Vero back,” he said softly, false concern dripping from him.
My friend’s name speared me in place.
Everything else faded away as my chest wrenched with that familiar pain.
“Of course, I do.”
“Then why are you standing there when I told you to pack?”
Hope swelled for the first time in so long that it made my dizziness intensify. “Did you find her?”
He closed the distance between us, pinning me to the wall, and placed his hands on either side of my head. “Who are you?”
I tried to push him back, but Zachary gripped my fingers in his and pressed my hand to the wall, returning to his position.
“Who are you, Sutton?”
“I’m your wife.”
“That was what I thought, too, but I gave you an order, and wives don’t disregard orders.” Every word was said with ease. Every word oozed charisma he’d mastered so well.
He could bait anyone into believing anything with that face and that voice.
Hide the monster I knew lurked behind it all, waiting just for me.
He was terrifying and sinister and cruel, and he liked to play games that fueled my fears of when he would appear again.
“Everything we’ve prepared for was leading to this moment,” he murmured. “So, if you want to help us get Vero back, pack for you and Alexis, and don’t make me ask again.”
My head moved in a subtle nod, and I flinched against the wall when he shifted closer, capturing my mouth with his and forcing a slow, lazy kiss.
My body betrayed me. My breasts ached even as my stomach twisted with unease and my heart hardened and filled with more hate than I knew I could possess.
Instead of relief at finally knowing why he could evoke any bodily reaction at all, I only felt disgust.
“Tell me you love me,” he demanded, his lips still brushing against mine.
You’re my every nightmare.
I wish I could be rid of you.
I hate you.
I swallowed my truths and whispered, “I love you.”
Sutton
Two months.
Two months since we’d packed up and started the Motel Hop, as Lexi had come to call it.
Since I’d come to the crippling realization that the plan Zachary and Jason had been working on to get Vero back involved so much more than I ever realized.
So much I never would’ve agreed to.
Two months since genuine fear for our lives had entered my heart.
I’d barely slept. Afraid that, at any moment, someone would find us in one of the seedy motels we’d been hiding in.
All things I’d been instructed by Zachary to tell our contact at ARCK. For once, at least, the emails to her had contained some truth.
Stretched versions interwoven in rehearsed lies, but truth nonetheless.
Except, the responses on her end had stopped days ago, which was the most terrifying of all.
At some point along the way, my life, the prepared lies, and what I knew about the so-called ARCK investigators had blurred.
I’d begun to believe Lexi and I were in danger. Our contact’s concern had sounded so real that I’d guardedly and reluctantly started believing her words and promises . . .
Believing her.
I’d even begun fantasizing that they were our opportunity to get away from Zachary . . . to get away from the world I’d been meticulously sculpted for and trapped inside of for my entire life.
I’d somehow forgotten they were only posing as private investigators . . . as people who wanted to help save us. Their silence made the truth of who they truly were come screaming to the forefront of every thought.
Every breath felt strained.
Every minute felt haunted.
I’d been staring at the thick, black-out curtains for hours—maybe the entire night—afraid that, if I looked away for a second, someone would somehow appear there. I was on edge in a way I’d never been before.
“Are you gonna email your friends today?” Lexi asked from her
own ratty motel bed, her voice soft and raspy from sleep.
My head was already shaking before the question finished leaving her lips. “Not today, sweet girl.”
I’m afraid to.
I’m worried they’ll be able to trace us if I do.
They’ll find us.
“Maybe tomorrow?” There was the slightest bit of hope in her dubious voice.
She didn’t know who the people of ARCK were or what they had done. I’d told her they were friends who were having their own Motel Hop adventure, updating me as they went, and had been so thankful when Lexi blindly accepted the lie. She even viewed the emails as a small sliver of excitement in our otherwise mundane days.
“Maybe tomorrow.” I caught sight of the clock when I turned to face her and sighed. “You need to go back to sleep.”
“I can’t.”
I tried to make my voice soothing and teasing when I said, “You have to. Princesses need beauty sleep, and I think it might be against Princess Rules to wake up before the sun.”
There wasn’t a giggle.
There wasn’t a smile in the darkened room.
And it crushed my already splintered heart.
I knew she could feel my anxiety, no matter how much I tried to conceal it. I knew my sleepless nights were beginning to affect her. But there was nothing I could do.
“I don’t want to sleep,” Lexi said softly. “I don’t feel right. I feel funny.”
I was off my bed and by her side in an instant. My hand went to her forehead as I spoke. “What doesn’t feel right?”
“My dreams.”
My breath caught, and I slowly moved my hand to cradle her cheek before letting it fall altogether as I sat back on my heels.
“Do you want to tell me about them?”
“Just Daddy. But then he was gone, and it was dark, and I was scared.”
“Oh, Lex.” Her name was wrapped in a whisper. “You don’t have to be scared because he’s gone. He’s—”
“I’m not.”
The immediate, almost angry response stunned me into silence for a moment. “What do you mean?”
“I like when Daddy’s gone.”
God, I do too.
More than you will ever know.
Even thinking those words had a white-hot poker slicing through my gut.
I could practically feel Zachary’s fingers closing around my neck. Feel his breath against my cheek as he grit out, “Know your place, Sutton.”
“Why . . . why would you say that?”
For a beat, she just looked at her intertwined fingers, but when she spoke again, it was almost as if she were afraid of anyone other than me hearing. “He has a bad-man’s smile.”
I jerked back and searched her silhouette in the dark room. “Alexis, why—that is an awful thing to say about someone.”
“It’s hidden,” she said. “It’s behind his other smile. But I see it.”
I was utterly speechless.
I wanted to demand she tell me what she meant, but all I could see was a door opening and Zachary standing in front of me with that cold, cruel smile because, once again, he had found me.
My stomach soured and sank.
I hated him.
I hated, hated, hated him for whatever he had done to instill this fear in our daughter.
The thought of Zachary ever doing to Lexi even a fraction of what he had done to me had me pushing to my feet to crawl onto her bed.
“Has Daddy ever hurt you?” My voice was strained as I tried to speak around the knot in my throat.
“No.” Her answer was pure innocence and confusion as to why I would even ask. “Does he hurt you?”
Relief filled me so quickly I nearly choked on it.
Before I could answer, Lexi gripped my arm with both of hers as if it were a lifeline. “I’m scared. Like in my dreams. Do you feel it?” Her gaze locked on the curtains, and her eyes widened. “Someone’s coming.”
I stared at her in stunned horror as I processed her fear. Her words.
It was just a six-year-old’s dreams and fears, except it was exactly what I’d been afraid of all this time.
I hadn’t moved or uttered even a breath when someone turned the handle of our door before trying to push it open.
“Sutton.” It was low and full and boasted control.
I reached for Lexi, but she was already scrambling out from under the sheet and into my lap.
Gripping her face in my hands, I pressed my forehead to hers. “Get in the bathroom and lock the door. Don’t make a sound and don’t come out, no matter what you hear. Understood?”
I didn’t give her time to respond, I just set her on the floor and pushed her in the direction of the bathroom.
Once she was locked inside it, I frantically searched for a weapon as the man at the door continued to speak.
Words I heard but couldn’t comprehend as I tore through my suitcase.
Lamps in these places were bolted down. I had bad aim, so throwing the Bible they provided was out of the question.
That left my stilettos.
“I’m opening the door.”
I scrambled to my feet and gripped my shoes, fear and rage pumping through my blood as I stared at the door, which was slowly opening.
I would do anything to protect the girl hiding in the bathroom.
I would kill for her.
I would die for her.
And I had a feeling I would do one of the two right then.
“Sutton, it’s—”
I charged with stilettos aimed directly at the man. A cry ripped from my throat as I launched myself at him and began swinging.
“Jesus, what? Fuck—shit, it’s Con—would you fucking stop?” he roared and shoved me away as though I weighed nothing.
When I took another step toward him and swung for his face, he stopped the attack with a firm grip around one of my wrists and then grabbed the other.
His chest moved in sharp jerks as he stared down at me.
In the pre-dawn morning, with only the overhead exterior lamp casting any light and giving him an eerie halo, he looked more intimidating than any man had the right to.
Like a furious, avenging angel.
The man was taller and broader than any I’d ever met. Tattoos littered his arms and hands and creeped up under his collar. Muscles rippled as he held me away and prevented another attack against him. As he prepared to take me.
Steal me away from my daughter.
I would fight until my last breath before I let that happen.
“After what I went through to find you, you’re gonna attack me?” he asked, his voice gruff.
I struggled to get out of his hold the moment the words find you left his lips.
When I couldn’t budge, I flung the shoes at his face and then lifted my leg to knee him in the balls . . .
And, suddenly, found myself stumbling backward.
I had barely caught myself with a hand on the wall when he stepped into the room and shut the door behind him, already talking as he did. “Let’s try this again without you flying at me with goddamn shoes.”
Another step into the room, and I jumped at him, fingers curled into claws to tear at his face.
My scream ripped through the room and cut off when he stopped the attack by curling his large hands around my shoulders and setting me down in front of the bed as though I was nothing more than an annoying dog jumping at him.
“Did I get the wrong room?” The man glanced at the door. “Are you Sutton Larson, or not?”
I was so focused on my next attack that I didn’t respond, which prompted a breath of a laugh from him.
“Yeah, helpful as ever. I’ll take that as a yes,” he rumbled as he released me and moved to turn the lights on.
I blinked rapidly against their harsh glow before finally narrowing my stare on the man.
He didn’t make a move toward me.
He didn’t look around for Lexi—and he knew about Lexi.
He j
ust stood there, looking as exhausted as I felt. Raking his hand over his face and through his scruffy beard before gesturing to the door.
“Did you not hear a word I said?”
My head moved in subtle shakes as my mind raced, wondering why he wasn’t trying to kidnap me. Wondering where the FBI agents—who had been watching Lexi and me—were. Wondering if I was dreaming, because this was already going so different from how I’d imagined it would.
“About being in the right room?” I finally asked.
“Jesus,” he said on a breath. “Before I came in.”
I hadn’t.
I’d been looking for a weapon. A way to survive.
My silence was answer enough, judging by the way irritation leaked from him when he said, “Guess that explains the attack, which was terrible, by the way. If I were anyone else, you’d be fucked. But we’ll get to that.”
And with those last sentences, I was sure I’d gotten this all wrong.
Sure that I’d forgotten what all of the agents looked like during these past two months, and my fears had led me to attack one of them.
My mouth opened, but he continued before I could speak. “I’m Conor Kennedy. I’m one of the owners of ARCK.”
Not wrong.
Oh God.
“Why are you here?” The question slipped out, full of accusation and loathing, before I could begin to filter myself. Before I could remember the plan or the part I was meant to play in it.
Surprise and confusion flitted across his face. “You’ve been asking us to come save you, if you remember.”
“Yes, for a month, and no one ever came. So, I’m not sure why you’d bother now.”
I was shouting, praying one of the agents outside, or in another motel room, or wherever they were supposed to be, would hear and come help Lexi and me.
Conor’s mouth opened to respond, only to shut for a few moments. “Months.” When I only stared at him, he clarified, “You’ve been asking for months.”
Shit.
Zachary’s emails.
Goddamn it.
“And you know why we couldn’t come,” he continued. “You weren’t forthcoming. We had to make sure we could trust you and that we weren’t walking into a trap.”
Limit (Rebel Book 3) Page 2