Falling into You: A Falling Stars Stand-Alone Romance

by A. L. Jackson

  Far too thin.

  Bruises littering her body.

  The once brilliant life that had shined in her eyes sucked dry.

  Each image of her was with vile, disgusting men. Draped across them for show.

  Naked.

  Paraded.

  Used.

  I wanted to retch when I realized some of the faces were familiar.

  Famous.

  Abhorrent.

  Depraved.

  Like they could just reach out and take whatever they wanted.

  I shuffled through them while sickness roiled in my body.

  This boiling, seething fury that made me want to go on a rampage for the first time in my life.

  Want to slam the folder shut and deny the evidence but unable to stop looking at her.

  Made me want to reach into them and lift her up and protect her for all my days.

  My big sister who’d always done it for me.

  “Lily,” I whimpered, running my fingertips over the evidence of her face.

  How?

  Why?

  I frantically flipped through like it might bring me to the end of where she was.

  Then I stumbled.

  Blown back.

  Stuck on one of the images buried in the middle.

  Lily was kneeling. A collar around her neck and wearing nothing else. On her knees in front of a man.

  A man.

  Richard.

  Richard.

  Richard.

  There was another.

  My sister on his lap.

  Another of two other women with them.

  Revulsion sped through my veins.

  That bile erupted, and I barely made it to the railing before I vomited over the side.

  “No. No, no, no.” Tears blurred my eyes, and I clutched my stomach as my body bent in half, unable to see through the streams of anguish that flooded free.

  I stumbled.

  Reeling.

  The pieces of my barely mending broken heart shattered permanently.

  Pieces scattered from here to eternity.

  A hand touched my arm. “I’m very sorry. I wish we had found her under better circumstances, but we are incredibly close, Ms. Marin. A family member of one of the women in some of the other pictures received a call. We have reason to believe there are other women with her.”

  “Where?” I demanded.

  “We still aren’t sure.”

  “Where?” I screeched.

  He blinked before he dug into his pocket and pulled out a small slip of paper. “This is the name and number of the man who had his daughter contact him some weeks ago. He was wary to provide me more information. You might be able to get through to him.”

  I snatched it and shoved it into my pocket, not sure how my feet were holding me up when I was no longer solid.

  Nothing but fragments and decay.

  “Thank you.”

  “I’ll be in touch with more news. Just…please lay low. Stay safe. I heard what happened to you.”

  The implication hung in the air.

  He didn’t even need to give it.

  I knew. I knew.

  My mouth trembled with the grief I could no longer contain. “Just find her and bring her home to us.”

  “I will. I promise you that. If you get through to Mr. Baronson, please, let me know. I’m inclined to believe that is our one missing link.”

  Nodding, I hugged my arms over my chest to keep my bleeding heart from tumbling out.

  He jogged back for his car. I watched him until he disappeared, my eyes on the billowing dust of his tires as he bounced down the long drive, until he took a left at the main road.

  While I tried to ignore the overpowering presence that swallowed me from behind.

  For the first time, I realized all that darkness was sinister.

  A true, malicious threat.

  The man nothing but ugly secrets and dark lies.

  Just like my daddy had warned.

  His aura rushed and howled, and I slowly turned around to face him.

  The man stood in the doorway.

  And I didn’t want to believe it. Wanted to refuse the evidence. Wanted to plead with him that it wasn’t true.

  But this was the man who’d left me.

  Just…left me.

  At the very same time as Lily had.

  Oh god.

  A rush of fear tumbled through me, head to toe. Saturating my spirit. Soiling my stomach.

  Belief smashed.

  He took a step toward me, and I took a fumbling one back. “Violet.”

  “Don’t.” It was a jagged, gutted cry.

  His attention darted to the pictures scattered on the table.

  Guilt streaked across his face.

  Bile rushed again.

  Richard started coming toward me, hands out in front of him like he was approaching a rabid animal. “I need you to listen to me, Violet.”

  I stepped away, my entire body trembling with rejection. “You did this to her. You did this, didn’t you? Oh my god.”

  He tried to grab me. “Please, just fuckin’ listen to me. Told you we needed to talk last night, Violet. That I needed you to listen. To hear me.”

  A scream tore out of me, made up of so much disbelief and confusion and hurt and terror for my sister that I started to weep. “Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me. I can’t believe you’d do this. That you did this. You knew. You knew where she was this whole time, didn’t you?”

  It all flew out. Sobs of accusation.

  I couldn’t believe he’d come back here. Touched me. Told me he loved me. And he knew what’d happened to my sister all along.

  Had been a part of it.

  “Violet,” he pleaded.

  He kept trying to grab me. Hands reaching.

  Panic surged, and my mind spun, and I was sure my heart was gonna completely bleed out.

  “Where is she? Tell me where she is!” I screamed.

  “I can’t do that, Violet. I can’t fucking tell you. It’s not safe.”

  “You liar! All you do is lie. Everything out of your mouth is a lie, isn’t it?”

  He grabbed me by the wrists. “Violet…listen to me. God. Please listen to me.”

  “Don’t touch me, you sick, disgusting monster.”

  He dropped his hands like I’d burned him. But it was the guilt wracking those sage eyes that confirmed it all.

  He’d done this.

  “You’re a monster. Get out of our lives. Go. Don’t ever come back.”

  The words were haggard.

  Frayed and splintering apart.

  “Violet, I wouldn’t.”

  “You already did!” I screamed, my focus turning to the evidence strewn out on the table.

  Richard’s jaw clenched, his hands in fists, and he started to come for me again when the door creaked.

  Our attention whipped that way.

  Daisy stood in the middle of the doorway, fear and confusion on her face. “Mommy?”

  My shattered heart jumped. The one thing I had left. That and getting her mother back.

  My sister.

  My sister.

  Mouth trembling with devastation, I looked at him. “Go. The police are gonna be comin’ for you, and I don’t want my daughter to witness it when they do. The private investigator already sent the images. It’s done.”

  Richard’s attention swung from me to Daisy and back again.

  “Viol—”

  “Don’t talk to me. Not ever again. You disgust me.”

  Wrecked.

  Ruined me.

  Was a part of ruinin’ my sister.

  Oh god.

  My head spun again, and my throat throbbed with the bile that just kept comin’ and comin’.

  Reluctantly, Richard started to back away, the man wearing no shirt or shoes as he edged down the porch steps.

  When he got to the bottom, he looked back at me, grief on his face. “I would never hurt her. Never.”

&nbs
p; God, that stupid, vulnerable part of me wanted to believe. To give him the benefit of the doubt, but I couldn’t be so foolish not to believe the blatant proof that had been presented to me.

  Should have known with his silence that what he was hiding he’d never wanted revealed.

  God.

  Did Emily know?

  Hurt blazed a path through me.

  No.

  She couldn’t. She wouldn’t have kept this from me.

  The second Richard got to his truck, I rushed for my daughter and swept her into my arms, held her close, pressed my face into her cheek.

  I wouldn’t allow her to be collateral damage in this mess.

  In this disaster.

  In this tragedy.

  There was only one flicker of light remaining in this total eclipse.

  My sister was alive.

  And I was gonna find her.

  I slammed the door shut and locked it up tight, breaths shallow and hard as I moved over to the window to peer out the slit in the drape.

  “Mommy, what’s wrong?” Her fear was palpable. Poison on my tongue. “Are you mad at Mr. Richard?”

  I ran my hand over the top of her head and bounced her like a baby that needed to be comforted.

  “It’s okay. It’s okay,” I told her, unable to actually answer that question.

  Her little face twisted. The child so knowing and astute. She wrapped her arms around me, her cast scraping my skin.

  She held on tight. “I’ve got you, Mommy,” she said.

  “Oh, my sunshine.”

  I fought the tears that wouldn’t stop falling.

  The fear.

  The horror.

  My guts brawling.

  A riot of evidence and intuition.

  How could he?

  I peered at the outline of his face where he sat in the driver’s seat of his truck.

  Unmoving.

  Gripping the steering wheel.

  Torment ripping through the air.

  And I didn’t want to believe what was staring back at me. Didn’t want to believe he could be involved in something so cruel.

  In something so depraved and wicked.

  I felt the movement from upstairs, and I slowly turned to find my father staring down at us from the landing.

  All the dread and worry he’d been holding for years etched in the deep lines of his face and swimming through his eyes.

  “Violeta.”

  It was pain.

  “Daisy, go with your papa.” I set her onto her feet, and she scampered upstairs.

  My daddy looked at me, anxiety whipping around his being. “What’s happening?”

  “Just…please watch over Daisy right now. I need some time.”

  I couldn’t get his hopes up. Not until I processed. Not until I knew for certain.

  His frown deepened, but he relented when Daisy took his hand. He dipped his head in acquiescence. Letting me know he was trusting me and was terrified for me at the same time.

  I was terrified for him, too.

  For Lily.

  For what this meant.

  “Come, mi amor. Let’s see if Nana is awake.”

  “Okay,” she agreed, and he sent me one more concerned look before he led Daisy down the hall into their room.

  I whipped back around.

  Richard was still there.

  A statue in his truck.

  Finally, he started it, the sound of the engine jolting me back, and he whipped around in the dirt and took off down the path.

  I could almost feel the disturbance that followed him.

  The energy that pulled and pulled.

  A taunt.

  How could somethin’ that had once felt so beautiful, so real, suddenly feel like a threat?

  The second he was gone, I ran back out and gathered up the pictures, shoving them into the folder and holding it against my chest. I raced upstairs and locked my bedroom door.

  I sat on the floor with the images spread around. Trying to process and make sense of it all. There were more of them than just of my sister.

  There were pictures of the house where she’d been kept.

  It was this massive, ostentatious thing surrounded by what had to be a twenty-five-foot brick and wrought-iron wall. The foliage was so thick there wasn’t much that could be made out from the street views other than the big double gates that swung open to a sweeping drive that led into the estate.

  The satellite views showed off rambling grounds, a house that looked like some kind of immaculate fortress surrounded by lawn and backed by a huge rectangular pool. A few smaller buildings were laid out around the property that looked like they might be guest houses.

  My guts ached.

  The idea of my sister being held there.

  How could that even be possible?

  It seemed unbelievable.

  But the most brutal of atrocities were always that way, weren’t they? So grievous and inhumane our minds refused to conjure the intolerable.

  Rejecting the possibility that people could be so cruel.

  I tried to swallow around the razors of disbelief that cut my insides to shreds.

  The evidence of it right there in front of me.

  Pictures strewn.

  My sister’s beautiful face.

  My heart staked like a sin right there with them.

  How could he?

  A shiver of revulsion flashed across my flesh as my mind went to the man who’d attacked me in the workshop. The lashes of what he’d said.

  Had Richard known the reason behind that, too? Had he stood and said he would protect me while he knew firsthand my sister was in danger?

  Grief clamped down on my spirit.

  “You mean…like what happened to Emily? I saw, Richard, on the news. That somethin’ bad happened to her. It’s horrible. I can’t…”

  “Like that. Even worse.”

  I buried the gutting pain that made me want to curl into a ball on the floor and tried to focus. Because there were more important things than worrying about my broken heart right then.

  I’d have plenty of time for that later.

  Still on my knees, I dug for the scrap of paper crumbled inside my pocket, hands shaking as I smoothed it out, then I fumbled to dial the number.

  After two rings, a wary voice answered, clearly not sure whether they wanted to accept the call or not.

  “Mr. Baronson?” His name hitched on a sob.

  “Yes?”

  “My name is Violet Marin.” I couldn’t bear to use my married name. Not knowing what Richard had been involved in.

  Those pictures emblazoned in my mind. Scored and scarred and never going to heal.

  “I’m the one who’d hired the private investigator, David Jacobs, who has been looking for my sister. I understand you might have a daughter who is in the same position? Someone who’s been missin’ as long as my sister has?”

  Silence stretched thin, and he finally cleared his throat. “I have to admit, I wasn’t sure of his intentions. He showed up at my door, saying he’d gotten a tip.”

  I sniffled. “I understand that. I…I’m sorry I waited so long. My mama…she’s at the end of her life, and I came to the point that I knew I had to do everything I could to find her since the police hadn’t been able to do it. I gave him all the information that I could.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  I tried to keep another sob from busting free, but it got loose.

  “You heard from your daughter?”

  I couldn’t help but beg it.

  Sure if he verified it that would be validation enough that my sister was alive.

  He sighed. Hesitated. I could tell that he was warring.

  “Please, I need to find my sister.”

  He blew out a sigh. “Yes. I’ve heard from her. Several times.”

  “Oh god,” I whimpered with the relief.

  He cleared the thickness from his throat and began to explain, “She left home at eighteen with
stars in her eyes. Wanting to be famous. She got caught up in the lifestyle. We lost her to drugs, and then finally we just stopped hearing from her altogether.” He sniffled but tried to hide it. “I’d thought we’d lost her forever until she recently made contact to let us know she’s still alive. That she’s in a safehouse.”

  A frown pulled to my brow. “A safehouse?”

  I could feel his reluctance. “I shouldn’t be telling you any of this. Hell, my daughter wasn’t supposed to tell me.”

  “Please…what do you know? Do you know something about my sister?”

  He pushed out a slow sigh before he finally relented. “My daughter had been being held against her will. She owed the wrong people money. Before she knew it, she’d become their property.” He choked on that. Not wanting to lay it out but his meaning clear. “She was rescued from it a few months ago and taken to a safe place until she could testify.”

  My heart started beating faster.

  “From a house in Los Angeles?” I rattled the address.

  “Yes. That was it.”

  “Is my sister with her? Her name is Liliana Marin. Oh god, please tell me she’s safe.”

  He wavered and stalled, and I was crying out again, “Please.”

  God, my heart was gonna falter.

  “She is,” he finally said, so low like he was terrified someone nefarious was listening in.

  I reeled.

  “Oh my god.”

  Relief hit me so hard, my entire body quaked.

  “Where is she?” I begged.

  He hesitated again, and I knew immediately he had information he hadn’t given to Mr. Jacobs. That he was doing everything he could to protect his daughter, too.

  “Please, you don’t understand. I think my sister is in immediate danger. I’ve gotten threats.”

  He blew out a sigh. “I’m not supposed to—”

  “Please. The authorities have received new information, but we can’t help them unless we know where they are.”

  A sigh pushed through the line.

  “All I can give you is a P.O. box at a facility. You can send her something there. Ask her to contact you.”

  I gushed out a rush of relief. “Thank you.”

  He gave it to me for a place somewhere in Kentucky.

  “You don’t know how grateful I am.”

  “I just want them safe,” he said, his voice a dulled, roughened blade.

  “I know. I think we’re close to that.”

  The second we hung up, I jumped up to my desk, flipped the lid to my laptop, and entered the address for the box.

  “Oh my god.”