She had to give Liam credit. Even though his expression had turned to a dark frown, he continued to listen without interrupting.
“I came to Ash with my findings. He called Kate to see if she could give more insight. She said that Aubrey admitted to her that the reason her films focused on human trafficking was because several years ago, she was abducted. She said a ransom was paid to her captor before she was sold into human trafficking.”
He stared at her for several long seconds. Doubt, disbelief, and maybe a tinge of hope shimmered in his dark eyes.
“Liam, you know me. I don’t rely on conjecture or supposition. I check and recheck. I can’t say I am one hundred percent sure of this.”
“But you’re sure enough to tell me. That’s pretty damn sure.”
“Yes.”
He surged to his feet and headed to the door.
“Liam, wait. There’s more.”
He stopped but didn’t turn. “Say what you’ve got to say then.”
“Aubrey’s full name is Katarina Aubrey Starr.” She watched his shoulders slump and forced herself to add the last item on her list. One, that in her mind, was proof positive. “The name of her production company is Lion’s Legacy.”
She went silent, waiting for either his acceptance or denial. She didn’t expect his anger.
Whirling around, he glared at her accusingly. “Are you telling me that the woman I’ve been searching for going on thirteen years just happened to come into our lives without us knowing it?”
“Looks like.”
Liam shook his head. How was this even possible? Aubrey Starr was Cat? The girl he’d met in a filthy prison was the beautiful, talented woman he’d been snarling and growling at from the moment he’d met her?
“Something else,” Serena said. “When you started talking in the meeting, before the op, did you see her reaction? She was sitting quietly, attentively, but the moment you began to speak, it was like she’d been knocked for a loop. She got pale and still.”
Because she had recognized his voice. It wasn’t hard to believe that after all this time she would still know his voice. They had talked incessantly. Actually, he had talked much more than she had. Her voice had often been so hoarse, she’d had laryngitis much of the time. Which was why he hadn’t recognized her voice.
“When we were in Colombia,” Serena continued, “I mentioned Syria, and I thought she was going to pass out. She made light of it, said it was all the excitement, but the more I thought about it—along with all the other clues—I couldn’t stop thinking that we might have completely missed the obvious.”
His eyes closed in regret. “That’s why she asked me about Syria.”
“When was that?” Serena asked.
“On the plane, when we were headed home. She brought up Syria. I shut her down. Told her to forget about Syria. That it wasn’t a topic up for discussion.”
“You didn’t know.”
No, but he should have. How could he not know? Okay, yes, her voice had been hoarse when they’d been in prison. She’d had an awful upper respiratory illness that had sometimes taken her voice completely away. But still, why hadn’t he known? How could he not know? And what had she thought when he hadn’t recognized her? Or had she thought he did and didn’t want to acknowledge her?
She had known, that much was obvious. Or at least suspected. Why hadn’t she told him? Why couldn’t she have just blurted it out? I’m Cat.
Was that why she’d come to talk to him? Had she been about to tell him, and he’d told her to forget about Syria? Hell, had she thought he knew who she was and didn’t want to acknowledge her? The pain in her eyes when she’d gotten up from her seat told him in retrospect that was likely the case.
“Where is she now?”
“St. Augustine,” Ash said.
His heart thudded with dread. “Alone?”
“No. Gideon and Eve are with her. Which is a good thing. When they arrived, they found her house had been ransacked. Everything was destroyed.”
Liam closed his eyes. He should’ve been there with her. He could’ve if he’d taken his head out of his ass for a moment and realized what was going on.
All this time, he’d been looking for a victim. But Aubrey Starr was no victim. She was a warrior on a crusade to inform the world to help put a stop to human trafficking.
“She’s at a safe house now. Eve and Gideon will stay with her until we can get her full-time security.”
“I’ll take care of that. I’ll head there now.”
“I figured. Plane’s tied up, but I went ahead and chartered one for you.”
Not for the first time did he thank God for Asher Drake. And Serena…
Turning to her, he grabbed her into a hard hug. “Thank you. You are the absolute best.”
Her eyes sparkling with tears, she beamed up at him. “It was my pleasure. Now go get your Cat.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
St. Augustine, Florida
She stood in a kitchen that wasn’t hers, washing dishes in a sink that wasn’t hers, looking out a window at a backyard that wasn’t hers.
Ever since she’d returned to Florida, she felt as though she moved in slow motion. Thoughts whirled through her brain, but she felt slow, awkward. Shock, Eve had told her, could do that. While the world went on around her, she was in a cocoon of numbness.
Thankfully, even though she was moving at a snail’s pace, other people were not. Things were already in place to protect her loved ones, thanks to Eve and Gideon. She wouldn’t tell her family what had happened. They would only worry.
The people assigned to watch over them would be discreet. No one needed to know what was going on. The less they knew, the safer they’d be.
Once her family was protected, she sent a mass text to her entire team and told them the project was on hold indefinitely. She had thanked them, assuring them she would send their pay for their hard work, but had encouraged them to take new jobs. She hated losing them, but not only did she want them free of danger, she knew word would spread throughout the industry that the project had been canned. Ferante and his people would assume they’d won.
They hadn’t.
If she stopped the project, evil won. A child rapist would get away with his crimes. If she had the means to put him away where he could never hurt a child again, how could she not?
She had done her first documentary on a shoestring budget with almost no help until it was time to distribute. She had rented her equipment and spent every waking hour for two years creating The Lost Ones. She would do that again. It would take her longer, but at least this way she wouldn’t put anyone’s safety on the line but hers.
Silly, really, but she found herself excited for the challenge. She needed the resulting insane schedule. If she didn’t keep busy, she would lose her mind.
Maybe if this insanity hadn’t been going on, she would have talked to Liam Stryker in a mature, calm manner. She would have told him about Syria and asked him if he was the man she knew as Lion. It should have been as simple as that. But because of the shock, the bubbling emotions, she’d let nervousness and fear stand in the way. With just a few words she could have known, once and for all, if the man she’d dreamed about for years was alive and well.
Instead, she had lost her nerve. Part of her had wanted to know, another part had feared the truth. What if it was him? What if he remembered her, but the things they’d shared had meant nothing to him?
That would mean she had based her life on lies. Her career, who she was, and what she did were all influenced by those few days in a prison with Lion. If he wasn’t who she thought he was, what then? Was she going to start questioning her whole life?
A slight noise in the living room refocused her thoughts, reminding her she was not alone in the house. Gideon Wright and Eve Wells were two of the most confident and competent people she could imagine. An air of danger and sophistication surrounded them both. Having been with them for two days now, she had gotten to kno
w them a little. Gideon had a wry and disarming charm. Eve, on the other hand, was a take-no-prisoners, no-nonsense person. She asked direct questions and gave Aubrey the impression that getting beneath her serious façade would take some work.
Gideon had no problem with his partner’s serious side, though. More than once she’d heard Eve break into peals of laughter at something Gideon said. The sound was a burst of joyous noise as if delighted to have been set free.
Despite Eve’s standoffishness, Aubrey knew that she could talk to her about Liam. She would listen, and she would care. And she would offer counsel.
Why didn’t she do that? Instead of standing here, staring at nothing, worrying about the should-haves and might-have-beens, why not go to a woman who knew him well and voice her suspicions? Eve might even know something about Liam’s time in Syria. Even though that subject seemed to be taboo, she could at least try.
Feeling immensely better, Aubrey finished the dishes in the sink. She would take some coffee into the sitting room and ask Eve to join her.
She opened the cabinet, about to reach for the coffee tin, when an achingly familiar voice behind her said, “Cat.”
Her heart stopped. She carefully shut the cabinet door. Turning slowly, Aubrey faced him. Lion, the man she had dreamed of for years, the man who’d saved her life, was Liam Stryker.
“It is you,” she whispered.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t know what to say, how to say it. I wasn’t completely sure. Your voice sounded so much like Lion but I couldn’t be sure. And it was so long ago. I thought you might have recognized me and just didn’t want to say anything. I was so afraid it hadn’t meant as much to you as it did to me.”
He shook his head. “I’ve been looking for you for twelve years.”
“I never really believed I’d ever see you. I thought you were dead.”
They stared at each other with new eyes. He was so strong, so handsome. Everything she’d always dreamed he would be. And he was standing only a few feet away from her. Aubrey’s heart beat so hard that she knew he had to hear it. What now? What would they say to each other? How did they go forward? Or did they?
Liam apparently had no such doubts. Striding forward, he was in front of her within seconds. About a half foot away, he stopped and held his arms open. Overflowing with emotions, a sob of joy breaking free, she ran into them. Breathing in his masculine scent, embraced in his warmth, Aubrey knew she had found her home, her heart.
His voice gruff and filled with emotion, he said, “I never thought I’d get to hold you.”
“I dreamed of you so much. Of those days together. Of your voice. If you hadn’t been there with me, I would have died. I know I would have.”
A noise at the kitchen door caught their attention. They both turned to see Eve and Gideon standing there. Gideon had a huge grin on his face, and Eve’s eyes were suspiciously bright.
“We’re going to take off now,” Gideon said.
Giving them a grateful smile, Aubrey said, “Thank you both.”
“Our pleasure.” Gideon’s gaze went to Liam. “Call us.”
“Will do and thanks.”
She didn’t hear them leave. As she burrowed her face against Liam’s chest, emotions overwhelmed her. He was here. He was actually here.
He breathed into her ear, “You okay?”
“Yes, but could you just hold me for a little longer?”
I’ll hold you forever if you want.
He didn’t say the words aloud. She might not want that. There were a million things they didn’t know about each other. But in the most basic way possible he knew everything he needed to know.
Holding her soft, fragrant body against his, Liam decided it just couldn’t get better than this. After twelve long years of searching, of agonizing over what had happened to her, of not knowing if she was dead or alive and suffering, to be holding her, knowing she was alive and healthy. It was almost more than he could fathom.
A shudder went through her and into him. She was just as overwhelmed as he was.
“Let’s go sit down.”
“Okay.”
His arm around her shoulders, he steered her into the living room. The moment they were seated on the sofa, she went back into his arms.
How long they sat there, he didn’t know. Didn’t matter. They both needed this.
She shuddered out another breath and said, “I thought you were dead. The prison was decimated, and I thought the blast had killed you.”
“No. That happened a day after our escape.”
“How did you get out?”
“My team rescued us.”
“But you were injured, weren’t you?”
“Yeah, we all were. How’d you know that?”
“When we were in Colombia, Jazz asked Serena about your injuries. She replied with what she said was the standard answer: It’s not Syria.”
He snorted a dry laugh. He hadn’t realized how predictable they’d become.
“Our helicopter was hit by mortar fire. We went down in the middle of the desert. Six of us survived.”
“Six?”
“Yeah. Ash, Xavier, Sean, Gideon, Hawke, and me. We were all pretty banged up.”
“I haven’t met Hawke.”
“No.” He blew out a breath. Getting caught up in those dark memories wasn’t something he wanted to do. This day was all about them.
“We lost him a few years back.”
“I’m sorry.”
He squeezed her shoulder in appreciation.
“Is that why you didn’t keep our date? Because of the crash?”
“Yeah. I was in a hospital in Jordan. But you were there? You went to the library?”
“Yes.” She said it on a breath of air and he felt the hurt to his soul.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t make it. First time I’ve ever stood up a date.”
And it had been the most important one of his life.
“My mom tried to convince me you were a figment of my imagination. She said I needed a hero and conjured you in my mind.”
“Can you talk about what happened? How you escaped?”
“I didn’t escape. My uncle paid my ransom.”
“I thought you said your family didn’t have the money.”
“My mom and dad couldn’t, but my uncle came through for them. He’s Syd Green.”
“The movie director?”
“Yes. I didn’t even consider that he might help. He and my parents had a bit of a riff years ago. His daughter Becca is my best friend, but the families hadn’t been close in a while. Uncle Syd didn’t hesitate when my dad called him. He stepped up in a big way.”
He wanted to ask her what happened to her that day, but not if it brought back bad memories. There was plenty of time to talk about that. But he would need to know soon. He had vowed to find the people who’d abducted her and make them pay. He had failed and was no closer to finding them than he had been the day he’d made that promise. She might have clues and insight to help.
Her cries and screams were still in his head—they always would be. But to have her in his arms, safe at last… Never had he witnessed a miracle, but not only had he done just that, he was the recipient of that miracle.
“Isn’t it weird? We actually met each other a few years ago.”
Yes, the infamous smoke bomb that had taken his voice. If he had been able to speak, what might have happened?
“If I had been able to speak then, and you recognized me, would you have told me?”
She laughed softly. “I hope so. I can’t believe I didn’t blurt it out the moment I heard you a few days ago. I was stupid.”
“You were in shock. There’s a big difference.”
She tilted her head and smiled up at him. “Still my defender.”
He wanted to kiss her…oh hell, he wanted to kiss her. Not yet. Way too soon.
“Okay, Aubrey Starr, tell me about yourself.”
When she started t
alking, he couldn’t believe he hadn’t recognized her from the beginning. Didn’t matter that her voice was unrecognizable. The way she told a story, her syntax and expressions, were exactly as he remembered.
Settling back, he listened as she described her life. She told him about her mother and how she’d lost her father only a year after her return. She told him about her decision to change from acting to filmmaking, how her experience had inspired her.
Her courage and grit amazed him. Her experience might have destroyed another person, but she was made of sterner stuff. She had taken a traumatic event and turned it into a mission.
When she yawned, he noted the time. Well after three in the morning. They’d been talking for hours. After the harrowing ordeal she’d had, she needed rest. Problem was, he didn’t want to let her go.
“It’s late.” He hugged her against him. “You need sleep.”
She snuggled into his arms. “I’m afraid if I let you go, I’ll find it was all a dream.”
“I promise I’ll be here when you wake up. I’m not going anywhere.”
As much as he wanted to stay like this, he had a responsibility to take care of her. She was at a safe house for a reason. Someone wanted to stop her from making her film.
“Why don’t you get ready for bed? I’ll lock up and come in and say good night.”
“Okay.”
Letting go of him was hard but it was made easier by knowing he was actually here. All she had to do was say his name, and he’d be there. Having dreamed of this for years, the reality was more surreal than she’d ever imagined.
She went to the bedroom she’d been using and then winced as she realized something. She had nothing remotely attractive to wear. A few days ago, when she’d packed for her trip, she had thrown in a couple pairs of her oldest, most comfortable pajamas. They were fine when she was alone, but now that they were the only nightwear she owned, she wished she’d packed newer, prettier ones.
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