“It might be the caretaker,” she breathed, her voice shaking. “Should I answer it?”
The person on the other side of the door hammered harder, shaking the door in its hinges.
They tried the handle. The door creaked open. Mrs Charles sobbed, Leo’s breath stilled, he rested his hand on mine, trapping my gun in its holder.
“No-one else gets hurt,” he whispered.
The barrel of a Glock 19 pointed around the door.
“I’m armed,” I yelled, struggling to hide the fear edging into my voice.
“You gonna shoot me, kid?”
“Schilling?”
He kicked the door back, training his gun on Leo.
“Let go of her, take a step back and place your hands behind your head, Roman.”
Leo’s fingers peeled away from me. My body chilled as he stepped back, keeping his eyes on Schilling. Mrs Charles fell to the brown chesterfield sofa, sobbing incoherently, muttering about prison and her dearly missed daughter. Schilling didn’t glance at her as he stepped toward Leo, his gun aimed at Leo’s head.
Leo locked his fingers behind his head, between his thick, golden curls, his chest rising and falling rapidly.
“Put your gun on the floor, Milano and kick it towards me.”
“What?” I snapped, “You’re arresting me?”
“I’m making sure you don’t do anything you’ll regret, kid.”
“Schilling please,” I begged, bending down, my fingers wrapped around the barrel of my gun. It can’t end like this. I refuse it lose him again. My eyes darted around the room. Schilling pulled back the safety hammer on his Glock. I kicked mine towards his feet, pleading with him not to hurt Leo.
His gun never strayed from Leo, his eyes remained glued to him as he knelt to collect my gun. Tears blurred my vision. Leo fell to his knees as Schilling closed in on him.
“Stay still, you stupid fuck,” Schilling hissed. He grabbed one of Leo’s hands forcing it down behind his back. I flinched at the harsh click of the metal cuff closing around his wrist. Leo dropped his other hand himself, allowing Schilling to cuff him.
Schilling tucked his gun back into the holder crossing his chest, clicking the safety back on. He lifted Leo’s red checked shirt, running his fingers around his waistband.
“You carrying anything?”
“No, Sir. I’m not armed.”
Leo was forced to his feet, Schilling slammed him into the table, pressing his head to the surface. Papers, pictures of Stacey and Maia scattered over the polished wood, falling to the floor. Documents on his case, handwritten notes on the men he believed to have taken me covered every inch of the table. A face from my nightmares gazed up from that table, right by the side of Leo’s head. My eyes refused to move from his cold, steely grey gaze.
That man had tortured me, raped, me and sold me and yet Leo, the man I loved was the criminal.
Leo’s feet were kicked open, Schilling ran his hands the length of his legs, before yanking him upright.
“I’m sorry, kid,” he said, turning his eyes to me.
“You don’t have to do this.”
Mrs Charles spotted her chance, racing to the door. She stumbled at her car. The keys still rested on the table by the door.
“Fuck’s sake,” Schilling hissed, running to grab the keys before she reached them. He took her arm, leading her back into the house, whispering into her ear. The frail, terrified woman calmed, allowing Schilling to sit her by the fire.
I grabbed Leo’s arm, urging him to run when Schilling bent to light the fire.
“Try it, kid, I’ll shoot you both.”
He reached into his pocket, turning to me. I gawped at him as the handcuff keys skittered over the table, landing by my tormentor's mouth.
“You’re both idiots if you don’t think anyone will look for him here,” he sighed, “and you’re both still looking in the wrong direction if you’re trying to prove his innocence. And Barbie? What kind of code word is fucking Barbie? You know I’ve been waiting here a goddamn hour. What took you so long? You gonna uncuff lover boy or what, kid?”
“I don’t understand?”
“Unlock your lover, sit your skinny ass over here, I’ll sort dinner and we’ll talk and you can apologise for the shit you gave me over date night,” he demanded.
“He’s obsessed with my diet,” I joked with Leo, my heart still racing as I unlocked his cuffs.
“It’s a shame he’s married, he’d get on well with your Maria,” Leo laughed, rubbing his wrists.
We all piled around the fire, tucking into one of Emma’s casseroles, picking at Maria’s fresh fruit salad while Schilling talked.
Schilling first questioned Leo’s innocence when we’d questioned him in Polunsky. The way he reeled off his statement, word for word for when I’d asked him to tell me what he’d done sparked Schilling’s suspicion.
“It was when you looked up and right when she asked you what Maia smelled of the first time, that nailed it, son. People accessing memory look to the left, people accessing the creative side of their brain, storytellers, they look right. You lied your ass off the second she started quizzing you. I did a course in micro expressions last year. I’d had the heebie-jeebies about your case from the start, but when you said you didn’t remember the night in question and all the evidence pointed to you...”
“So how’d you know my father wasn’t involved, did he have a good truth telling face?” I mocked.
“He did actually, especially when he told you he loved you, but no, I knew Mexico was a wild goose chase. I’d spent date night chasing my own leads. Leo’s semen was found on the bodies, now assuming he’s not your father’s gay lover, how’d it get there, your dad couldn’t have planted it?”
“I give up?” I sighed.
“Lucy,” Leo whispered, “Lucy’s the only person I’ve been with since Dani.”
“Exactly, so I looked there and Christ was that chick jumpy when I started asking about you.”
“But why would…”
“Lucy’s the boss's kid, right? The big boss of the billion-dollar apartment complex you were involved in designing?”
“Yeah.”
“And that complex, everything there hunky dory?”
“Hell, no. I was about to report them for at least a dozen code violations. I’m surprised that building’s still standing. It’s a death trap. You think Lucy was involved?”
“Not intentionally, but I think she knows who is.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.
“I had to leave you with some doubt, kid. If it went wrong, you had to have a way to believe he got what was coming to him. I couldn’t remove all doubt while there was a still chance he’d be put to death. I couldn’t do that to you, kid. I love you like you’re my own.”
“I never doubted him for a second,” I sighed, curling into Leo’s side, his arm draped over my shoulder, tugging me closer to him. His lips pressed to my head.
Schilling had been busy, chasing up leads while I’d been on his case for abandoning me. Boy’s night had been spent following Lucy from her father’s office to her swanky upmarket apartment, one that wasn’t built by Daddy’s company and about to fall down at any second.
She’d cracked the second he mentioned Leo’s name, breaking down, falling to the floor in a heap of snotty tears. The only thing she didn’t give Schilling was the name of the killer and his signed confession.
She admitted she’d been gifted a Ferrari in exchange for cosying up with Leo. Her sick in the head father even asked her to act vulnerable, play the damsel in distress, to appeal to Leo’s “hero complex”. He’d made it clear she had to bring him home. The next day he turned up at her place. She’d thought his behaviour was off but put it to the back of her mind until Leo was arrested a week later. The condom they’d used was missing from the bin she never emptied.
Thursday morning Schilling had been woken by threatening phone calls, warning him off. That’s when he knew for
certain he was barking up the right tree. He shipped Emma and the kids off to her moms and spent the night studying the evidence locker, going through all the files they’d pulled out of Leo’s place. Most of his work stuff had been given back his family. Theo reluctantly handed it back along with a lecture on Leo’s innocence. It was all still there, Leo’s reports, clearly outlining the safety failures both in the building’s structures and the work practices, copies of emails asking him to turn a blind eye, promising hefty bonuses for playing their game. The sick fucks had even tried convincing him they knew people in the sex trade, people who would help him track me down.
Leo replied, telling them where to stick their money. He gave them seven days to bring the building up to code. He was arrested five days later, Maia and Stacey dead.
“Why wouldn’t they just kill me?”
“Because then we’d be looking for a murderer,” I explained. “They could wipe the crime scene clean, get away with it for years but they'd always be looking over their shoulders, wondering when we were gonna catch up with them. This way the case is solved, everyone stops looking and let’s face it, who’s gonna pay attention to a convicted child sex offender shouting about code violations?”
“She’s right,” Schilling said. “They paid off a city official to pass the building the next week. Half the city is in their pocket. Judges, planning department, fuck I think half of our guys have taken bribes from that bastard over the years. They weren’t lying about the connections to the sex trade. Why’d you think they offered you the job? They thought they could use Dani to control you.”
Leo gripped my shoulder, crushing me to his side, his fingers shaking, His cheeks paled.
“They knew where Dani was?”
“Would it have made a difference, son?” Schilling smiled, “would you have traded Danica’s life for the dozens of people who bought apartments in that complex?”
“I’d have gone to the Police immediately instead of giving them the opportunity to fix what was wrong before I made my report. Stacey and Maia, they’d still be here if I’d believed them. So many people told me they could help find Dani, they all lied. I thought they were just blowing hot air like all the others.”
“They were,” Schilling assured him. “Christ, they move those poor women so much, I doubt the traffickers themselves know where they are half the time. Dan was already free when they told you that.”
Leo heaved, exhaling, his body relaxing into mine.
“What now? Do we have enough evidence to bring these assholes down?”
“Nowhere near, kid. Now we leave you two in peace for the night. Enjoy him while you can. He ain’t outta the firing line yet. We’ll plan better on a full night’s sleep.”
Mrs Charles and Schilling said their goodbyes, Schilling promising to be back with supplies for breakfast first thing. I finally had Leo alone. Years I’d dreamed of this night and now it was here.
Chapter Twelve
Danica
Leo locked the door behind Schilling. He rested against it, grinning shyly at me, his hands jammed in his pockets, his shoulders hunched.
“I’ve imagined this moment so often. It worked out kinda different in my head.”
“What, you rescued me from the bad men and tore me out of my nightmare in a hail of bullets and glory?”
“No,” he laughed, letting some of the tension fall from his creased face, “we met in a coffee shop. You walked in, recognised me instantly and agreed to marry me on the spot. You’d been hiding and all the terrible things I’d imagined you going through had never happened.”
“Oh. My imagination is way darker than yours. I jumped straight to bullets and glory. Marriage came after we’d killed everyone who’d ever hurt me.”
“Can we skip the killing bit? Beating to a bloody pulp I can do but death row isn’t somewhere I plan on visiting again.”
“Deal.”
He made his way across the open plan cabin, shoving me back against the oak panelled kitchen counter. His arms either side of my body caged me in his embrace. The heat from his body soaked through my thin cotton work shirt. My core burned. God, I’d needed this for so long, my skin ached for his soft lips.
“There’s so much I want to say,” he breathed, his head dipped, his lips a whisper away from mine, “I don’t know where to start.”
“Start here,” I whispered, wrapping my hands behind his head, tangling my fingers into his thick golden curls, pulling him close.
There was no plexiglass forcing us apart, no monsters lurking in the dark. My legs shook like saplings in a hurricane. My heart spiked. His soft lips met mine, his kiss hard and needy. He parted my lips with his tongue, delving it into my mouth. Oh, God did he taste good, like hot coffee on a winter’s morning. And he was mine. Always.
“Have I rescued you yet?” He smiled.
“Not yet,” I sighed.
Since Leo, my sex life had been one of violence, agony and humiliation. I’d been dirtied beyond redemption. It took years of therapy to realise those things had been done to me, not by me. There’d been one guy. I’d been so desperate to reclaim my sexuality, erase my past, I’d have settled for anyone, even the weird guy from the doughnut shop. It was an unmitigated disaster from start to finish. At the slightest hint of intimacy I froze, every touch pained me, burning my flesh like acid. He tried to be patient, I tried to relax around him at the end of it all it was just wrong. He wasn’t Leo. I knew then, deep inside, only Leo could snatch away the horrors haunting me.
He cupped my ass, lifting me from the floor. My legs wrapped around his waist, my fingers gripped his hair. He growled into my mouth, our lips locked together, our kiss insatiable.
“We do this right, this time,” he said, carrying me towards a bedroom.
“With you, it could never be anything but.”
We fell to the kingsized bed, still locked in a deep, hungry kiss, our limbs tangled together. My skin prickled as his hand ran down my cheek, over my collarbone, towards my shirt buttons.
“If you’re not ready…”
“I’m ready,” I growled. Oh, god was I ready. I’d been ready for years. My belly thrummed with excitement. Tiny bursts of ecstasy rushed through me at the merest touch of his fingers on my bare skin, such was my readiness. “I’ve never been more ready.”
His head lowered, he trailed kisses down my cleavage, unbuttoning my shirt as he travelled down my torso. I reached for his shirt, pulling desperately at it, yanking it over his head. I’d never needed anyone as much as I need Leo in that moment. My core was on fire.
He parted my legs with his, pushing my thighs open. His head rested above my belt, his kisses landed on my belly. I raked my nails over his bare, muscular back.
“Your partner is right, you don’t eat enough,” he hissed, snapping open my belt.
I lifted my hips, letting him ease my work pants over my thighs. My body ached as he pulled away to strip my pants from my legs. I wrapped my legs around him, yanking him close, my fingers steepled into his hair, forcing his lips to mine.
His hand dipped between our entangled bodies, fumbling with his buttons, his knuckles pushed against my swollen clit. Sparks of lust flew through me soaking my panties. He grinned down at me. The man had a smile that could melt ice. His emerald eyes sparkled.
I reached down, freeing him of his jeans. His cock pressed into my belly, all eight perfect inches hard and starving for me.
“No foreplay, I need you now,” I demanded, reaching into my discarded pants for a condom. “Always carry one, just in case.”
That was a lie. I’d bought them the day he escaped, never fully believing I’d have the chance to use them.
“Aw, foreplay’s the best bit,” he pouted, snatching the condom from me.
“You can have after play and before the next time play.”
He rolled the condom down his thick shaft with one hand, teasing my clit with the other. My body responded urgently, heat building unbearably in my centre, spreading th
rough me, ripping my breath away.
The sheathed tip of his cock nudged at my entrance. My body tensed, shivers running down my spine. I closed my eyes, my lower lip gripped between my teeth. It can’t hurt, not with him, not with Leo. I refuse to be that broken.
He stayed there, his fingers dancing over my clit. Soft, hot kisses landed on my eyelids.
“I need you, I need you to take away what they did to me,” I sobbed.
He kissed away my tears, his thumb running over my clit. Fear and pleasure battled for space in my battered body.
“You have me, Dani. You always did, from the first moment I saw you until the day I die, you have me. I’m going nowhere.”
He snaked one hand behind my head. Our lips came together, the kiss was different, the hunger still lurked, the deep, intense need rested on the tip of his tongue, but it was slower, softer. His deep green eyes open, he gazed at me, looking right into my eyes.
“I’m here,” he whispered into my mouth.
He kept his gaze locked on mine, his thumb ran circles over my clit, his lips brushed mine, touching only enough for the heat of his kiss to sweep over my mouth.
“They made me…”
“I love you.”
“Why? I’m used and…”
“Perfect, you are perfect,” he smiled, pulling away. “You are perfect here,” his lips landed on mine. “And here,” he moved to my nipples, pulling one into his hot mouth, whipping the tip of his tongue over the engorged, sensitive bud, gently teasing the other with his fingers. “And here,” his kissed trailed down my stomach.
“And here,” he said, resting on his haunches, his mouth inches away from my pussy, “perfection is too weak a word to describe here.”
I inhaled, my breath held, he moved closer, his lips whisping over my pussy. Pulses of desire poured from it.
“If you tell me to stop, it ends there, until you’re ready,” he whispered, his lips brushing my pussy, his thumb still circling my clit. I melted into the mattress, my fingers balling the sheets in my hands.
“Don’t stop.”
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