Erased

by Elle Christensen

  Erased

  Copyright © 2014 K. Webster and Elle Christensen

  Cover Design: K. Webster

  Photo: Dollar Photo Club

  Editor: Mickey Reed

  Formatting: Champagne Formats

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information and retrieval system without express written permission from the Author/Publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  DEDICATIONS

  A NOTE FROM THE AUTHORS

  QUOTE

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  EPILOGUE

  BOOKS BY K. WEBSTER

  BOOKS BY ELLE CHRISTENSEN

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS FROM K WEBSTER

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS FROM ELLE CHRISTENSEN

  ABOUT K WEBSTER

  ABOUT ELLE CHRISTENSEN

  To my husband—thank you for teaching me all of my sexy moves. You give me something new to write about each time.

  To my writing buddy—you’re a rock star and I’m so proud of you.

  ~Author K Webster~

  To my real-life book boyfriend, no other man, real or fictional, will ever live up to you.

  To my partner in crime, thank you for believing in me. For taking a chance on me. And, for helping me to make a dream come true. I can’t wait to get into even more trouble with you in the future!

  ~Author Elle Christensen~

  A Note from the Authors

  Being an author oftentimes means a very lonely job. However, sometimes you’re presented with an opportunity to work with a friend and you jump on it. K Webster and Elle Christensen, buddies that had recently only met in the flesh while in Las Vegas, took this opportunity. Together, they worked hard to bring you Joss and Slade’s story, Erased.

  Now, co-writing a book is a bit of a challenge. Who writes what? Where do you even start? K and Elle discovered they were not immune to the confusion that was involved with writing a book by two different authors. To make things a little easier, they divided the character “roles.” K took Joss and Elle took Slade. This way, they were able to immerse themselves in their characters and give the book a real sense of separate personalities and points of view. Along the way, they constantly hashed out the story line and potential plot holes so that together they could work them out.

  As the story progressed, they found a groove that worked for the both of them. And, with beta suggestions and a lot of hard work from their editor to make two author voices flow as one, they finally came up with something they were wholly proud of.

  K and Elle thought you would enjoy hearing the process of how they created Erased. Now, they hope that you adore the book baby they made together!

  Love, K Webster and Elle Christensen

  I’ve always loved the experience of working together with other people toward an artistic goal. ~ Trey Anastasio ~

  WHAT THE HELL?

  I open my eyes and reach for the vibrating phone on my nightstand. As I sit up, I glance at the clock on the screen, growl, and finally answer the call.

  “It’s four thirty in the damn morning, Bruce. What the fuck do you need at this ungodly hour?”

  There is a beat of silence before a low, cultured voice responds, “No need to be crude, Gideon.”

  I roll my eyes.

  “I have a job for you.”

  My fist tightens around the phone. “Four thirty in the morning, Bruce,” I grumble into the phone. “Call me at a decent hour.”

  Before I can hang up, he speaks again. “It’s time sensitive. I need you to put together a team for an acquisition. This will need to happen tonight.”

  I sigh in resignation and flop back down onto my pillows, staring at the stark, white walls of my bedroom. “Fine. What are we going after?”

  “A girl.”

  “You’ll have to go into a little more detail if you want me to ‘acquire’ a person, Bruce,” I mutter sarcastically.

  “All you need to know is that she’s the key to a locked door.” Irritation is evident in his tone. “I’ll tell you when and where. Just have your team ready by six tonight.”

  “Is this about the virus you had me steal?” It’s too soon for him to have another job for me—this has to be related to the last one.

  He’s silent for a moment, clearly contemplating how much to tell me. Finally, he gives in. “Yes. It’s encrypted. My buyers are anxious for the data. This girl is leverage. Incentive for the man with the encryption key to . . . share his information.” There is tension and urgency in his voice.

  “I wasn’t going to take another job. I’m out, Bruce. I told you that.” Exhaustion weighs down on me. I am so done with this shit.

  “I’m sure you were serious.”

  I can hear the skepticism in his words. I don’t give a damn whether they believe it or not. I am out of here in a matter of days. No more living in the shadows, no more empty apartments, no more fast-food diets, and definitely no more of being under someone else’s control.

  “Forget it. I’m done.” I pull the phone from my ear, once again intent on hanging up and getting back to sleep—my only escape from this shitty life.

  “I’ll pay you double.”

  I pause and slowly bring the phone back to my ear. “You’ll what?”

  Bruce sniffs in annoyance. The pompous ass. “I said I’ll pay you double. Think about it as an extension of your last job for me. After this, I won’t bother you again.” He swallows hard before he bites out his next words. “I need you. I know you can get it done. I cannot fail. Do you understand? I cannot fail.”

  I sit up again, shocked. Bruce does not beg. Ever.

  Sighing once again, I scrub my free hand down my face. “Fine. Double. But that’s it. When this is over, if you contact me again, you’ll be breathing out of a tube after I break your face. You got it?”

  When he sniffs again, I contemplate fixing that nasal problem with my own brand of reconstructive surgery.

  “Just do the job. After that, you have my word—we’re done.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Give me the details.”

  Bruce lays out the plan for the evening and I begin building a mental list of who to call and what supplies we’ll need. Most of the guys I work with are on new jobs. We parted ways when I informed them that I was leaving the game. Damn . . . I’d have to call in favors.

  I roll my shoulders, trying to loosen the ever-present tension in my muscles. I seriously need a beach to relax on and a woman to lose myself in.

  Finally, we come to an agreement on the details.

  Once again, there is a hint of desperation in his tone. “Remember, you pull this off and you’ll get what you want. A lot of money and to never hear from me again.”

  “Yeah. It’s that second one tha
t has me motivated.” I can’t resist the dig; this guy is such a prick.

  Another silence.

  I want to thump my head against the wall behind the bed. Is English his second language? No one should need to ruminate on their words that much.

  “Are we finished with this delightful conversation?” I ask.

  “Yes. Six o’clock. Be ready.”

  “Fine. Make sure the hardware is in the trunk of the SUV. Loaded.” I start to hang up but stop. There is something I need to know. “What does the virus do, Bruce?” I question.

  “Erase.”

  Cryptic much? “Erase what?”

  There is a long pause before Bruce answers me.

  “Everything.”

  “WAKE UP, BLONDIE.”

  The safety of the dark, beautiful oblivion I succumbed to is suddenly ripped from me. Now, it’s just dark. No beauty here. No freaking oblivion.

  I try desperately to pretend what I’m quickly becoming aware of is just a dream. The chill of the concrete against my bare feet. The burn of a thick, scratchy rope that binds my wrists behind me. The tight material around my eyes that masks whatever horrors lie before me.

  A moan of terror builds in my throat but dies immediately once I realize I’ve been gagged by a dry rag. My efforts will be futile.

  “I said wake up, blondie,” the male voice growls as he tangles his fingers in my long—and probably, at this point, wild—curly hair and tilts my head back.

  Tears burn my eyes as I squirm to escape his grasp. This is definitely not a fucking dream. Not even close.

  But why me?

  This thought has plagued my mind ever since the moment I was plucked unceremoniously from my bed in my apartment. Of course it would be when my live-in boyfriend, Kent, was out of town on business. How freaking convenient on my attacker’s part. I tried to fight the man off but he was easily twice my size. My screams were snuffed out the moment I felt the prick in my thigh and the blackness stole my clarity. Now, as the drug subsides and I try to take in my surroundings, I’m at a loss as to why they chose me.

  “Untie her wrists and secure them in front of her. He needs to see this.” The order comes from someone older. The recognition of the voice slices my heart in two.

  I know the man who’s giving out orders as if kidnapping a twenty-four-year-old woman in the middle of the night is okay.

  It is not okay.

  Heavy footsteps approach me, a different person than the one giving orders, and my senses are invaded once again by the man I’m sure was the one who stole me. His presence is almost palpable and he smells surprisingly clean for a kidnapper. I feel his large hands lightly brush against mine as he works the knots efficiently. When the rope loosens and my screaming wrists are given a reprieve, I barely push out a garbled sigh before he yanks them in front of me and makes quick work with the new knots.

  “N-t-t. T-t-ho. T-t” My words through the rag are unrecognizable, but I’m desperately making my plea to the man trussing me up.

  He pauses momentarily before reaching his hand to my face. The tips of his fingers skitter across my cheeks in a surprisingly gentle move as he takes hold of the cloth silencing me. Once he gives it a tug and my dry mouth is free, tears fill my eyes again.

  “Not so tight,” I hiss.

  In most situations, now would be the time to scream. Now would be the time to beg for them to release me. Anything. But I’m way smarter than that. I may be a woman who plays piano for a living, but I am not dense. Not the least bit. Screaming won’t do a damn thing.

  These men will hurt me. Kill me, even. People don’t kidnap other people and then let them go without acquiring what they want first.

  They want me.

  My attacker goes back to tying my hands, but this time, I feel give in the ropes and silently thank him for honoring my request. The blood is quickly rushing back to each digit, so I wriggle them to quicken the flow.

  “Get her phone, Gideon. It’s time.” The other voice, the familiar one, is once again bossing around the man beside me.

  I hear my kidnapper grunt in annoyance before stomping across the concrete to somewhere else in the space we’re in. Between the way their voices echo and the chilliness of the room, I imagine we’re in a garage or a warehouse of sorts.

  “Call ‘Dad,’” the one giving orders sniffs.

  He fucking sniffs.

  Please, for the love of God, no.

  “Bruce?” His name barely rolls off my tongue before my nose and eyes burn with tears of betrayal. Not Bruce of all people—he’s like an uncle to me.

  He’s my godfather.

  A cold laugh, one I’ve never heard from him before, bounces eerily around the room. “This isn’t about you, darling. This is about your precious daddy. He has something that belongs to me. As long as he gives it back, you’ll go back to your pussy boyfriend and your princess life. It will only take one phone call and then it will be over. Everybody wins.”

  My heart seizes. This will be over soon. Even though someone I love just as much as my father has orchestrated my kidnapping and now blackmail for whatever he wants from Dad, I still trust his words. His words soothe me.

  “Okay,” I whimper.

  My kidnapper grunts. He doesn’t seem happy. The anger in his voice tells me that he doesn’t believe his boss. And that confuses me.

  “You’re a good Jossy girl,” Bruce coos.

  Jossy girl.

  Since birth, I’ve known this man. He’s been at every backyard barbeque, every Thanksgiving dinner, and every piano recital or concert I’ve ever played at. When I was younger, he’d ruffle up my hair and slip me a Tootsie Roll behind my dad’s back as he prepped dinner. He’d say, “You’re a good Jossy girl.”

  And I was. Always a good Jossy girl.

  I’m torn from my memories when I hear a phone ringing on speaker.

  “Joss? Is everything okay, princess?” my father asks sleepily but his voice is already filled with concern.

  All I get out is a choked sob. I don’t know what to do—what to say. Somehow, I’m waiting for Bruce to ask Dad for what he wants and for us to put this all behind us. It’s like some game, like when Bruce would entertain me so Dad could fix something important on his computer. “Go find me one hundred and thirty-three acorns, Jossy girl.” And like a good little girl, I’d scamper off and spend hours playing our game while Dad worked.

  Fix this, Dad.

  “Everything is not okay, William.” Bruce’s words are venom as he spits them out.

  “Bruce? Was Joss in an accident? Is she okay?” he demands. I can hear the jingle of his belt as he throws on clothes.

  Bruce sniffs and calmly states his piece. “I need the password.”

  The password?

  That’s it? A password? Dad will give it to him and this will all be over. Bruce will take me for breakfast at our favorite diner on the corner near my apartment. We’ll laugh about it over scrambled eggs and pancakes. Dad will fix this.

  A resigned sigh rushes from my father. I instantly hate the sigh. I’ve heard it before. It’s the one he would give me before he told me no—which was often. Since I was motherless growing up, Dad was the thumb and I lived under it. His rules were strict and unyielding. And even though he wanted me to be happy and to do fun, girly things, he’d sigh and then tell me no.

  Every time.

  For crying out loud, Dad. Not tonight. Of all nights, give him what he wants!

  “Bruce, you know I can’t do that.” My dad hates his words, but he says them anyway.

  Something heavy crashes in the room and I jump. With his angry sniffs giving him away, Bruce storms over to where I am and grabs a handful of my blond hair, causing me to cry out.

  “You see this, William? This is your daughter. I’ll stop at nothing to get that password. I have the flash drive—now, I need to get inside of it. This virus was supposed to be ours together! So tell me—why in the fuck am I unable to access it?” he snarls.

  Dad is sile
nt while Bruce heaves out furious breaths that reek of coffee, his hand still wrapped around my unruly locks but no longer pulling. Finally, Dad speaks.

  “You’re a loose cannon, Bruce. I encrypted the program as a safeguard specifically for this sort of thing. And then, not only did you steal it, but you plan on selling it as well. Do you have any idea the ramifications of what will happen if this gets into the wrong hands?” Dad asks in a tone that reminds me of my years growing up—the one filled with intent on making me feel guilty.

  Bruce untangles his hand from my hair and explodes. “Don’t you think I fucking know that? The wrong hands are precisely where it’s going! The North Korean government, to be exact. They had their lapdog company, DRP Corp., approach me with an obscene offer. I have seventeen million dollars riding on this. Do you understand that? Seventeen million! Hell, I’d split it with you fifty-fifty. You, me, and Joss could escape. We could disappear. The three of us could buy a fucking island for Christ’s sakes!”

  Dad sighs again. How he isn’t begging for Bruce to take me home or just giving him the password is beyond me. It’s almost as if he knew this would happen. I don’t think he counted on my being in the equation though.

  “No.”

  One word that slices its way right through my chest and fillets my heart.

  “Wrong answer, buddy.” Bruce is ridiculously calm, and my brain tells me that it’s the calm before the storm.

  I feel Bruce’s weathered hand grab my bound wrists and haul them up. My yelp of surprise does nothing to stop the way he manhandles me.

  “Password, William—or she loses her fingers one by one.”

  What?

  I gasp in horror. This is surely some joke. My own godfather wouldn’t cut my fingers off.

  “Bruce, don’t do it. Please.” Dad’s tone doesn’t reassure me because it tells me that he believes Bruce will act on his promise.

  My heart flares to life in my chest and patters around wildly out of control.

  “Please don’t hurt me, Bruce,” I beg tearfully.

  “Password. Now.” Bruce.