Red on the Run (The Syndicate-Born Trilogy Book 1)

by K. M. Hodge

  The events of the last few weeks now blurred together, and the tethers of sanity were loosening, leaving him dangling over the cliff of an impending breakdown.

  Scott had been texting and calling him for over a half hour, but he had yet to respond. Sara’s death had made the news, and the asshole would want assurances that there had been no mistakes, and that nothing could be tied back to the great and powerful Virginia Senator.

  Fucking degenerate scumbag.

  He downed his glass of scotch and ordered another. Without warning, the contents of his stomach come back up, constricting his throat. To avoid spewing all over the bar, he swallowed it all back down with a grimace. He was a businessman first and foremost, and getting sick all over his own bar would be bad for business.

  Business! That’s what had started this whole thing in the first place. He needed out of this mess—he no longer had the stomach for it—but there were only two ways out, and neither of them was appealing. He had to do it just right, so that he didn’t get branded as the scapegoat for the group’s transgressions.

  In his drunken state, he sent out an intercession, a futile wish to go back in time and stop himself from joining up in the first place, back when The Syndicate had first approached him. He’d been young, stupid, and ambitious. His inherited wealth and deceitful business dealings had caught their attention, and they made him an offer he couldn’t turn down. At first, it seemed like a good investment, but then their demands grew more and more unscrupulous—even more so than his own—and they had ways of making a man do as he was told.

  He shivered as the memories of his failings washed back over him.

  Over the course of the last ten years he had done things he wasn’t proud of. No matter what it was, though, he had always been able to rationalize it away—but not this business with Katherine... no matter how hard he tried. Yes, he had mistreated her—he was man enough to admit that now. He really had tried his best to keep his anger in check, but sometimes the rage inside of him would erupt. He never stopped loving her, though. She was his life.

  He needed to step forward and turn himself in, turn everyone in, especially the great and powerful Senator from Virginia. It was the least he could do to make up for all the pain he had caused her.

  Yet the how part eluded him.

  I’m going to need help... someone I can trust.

  ***

  Brian Williams’ Estate

  Hinsdale, Illinois

  June 7, 2008

  10:30 PM

  ~~~

  Katherine struggled to stay awake as Alex told her about his colleague that had been murdered, pushed in front of a moving train. Her heart ached for him, despite her best efforts to put up walls between them. A part of her wondered if the dead woman had been something more than just a work buddy.

  Alex sighed when his phone rang again. “Hey, Doc, yes I heard. No, I’m not alone. No, it’s not like that. I’m with Katherine. Yes, I promise. I will call you tomorrow. Okay, bye.”

  His eyes slid closed as he placed his phone back on the sofa’s armrest and rubbed his face with the heels of his palms. He looked exhausted.

  She felt ashamed, but her curiosity got the best of her. “Who was on the phone?”

  He paused mid-rubbing and met her scrutinizing gaze. “The ever formidable Doc.” A small smile crept across his tired features, the first real smile she had seen on him all night. “She’s an old friend of mine that I met when I was in Iraq. She heard about my colleague—my boss called her to let her know—and she was worried about me.”

  “Oh.” She quickly dropped her gaze to her clasped hands. Another “friend.”

  His charming smile deepened. “Let me clarify. Doc and I really are just friends. I’m friends with her husband, too. They’re the only ones I have actually.” He cupped his mouth to catch a yawn.

  She couldn’t help but think about what he’d said about being a recovering sex addict. His past aggressive sexual overtures towards her made more sense, but it was far too late to be analyzing everything they had discussed that night. She needed sleep.

  Alex stretched and stood up from the sofa in the awkward way tall people do. “Come on, let’s get some sleep. It’s been a long day and it’s getting late.”

  Katherine’s eyebrow shot up and her skin prickled with fear.

  What does he expect of me? That we’ll start back where we left off?

  A sad smile hung on his drawn features. He held up three fingers like a pledge. “I know my past behavior might make this seem disingenuous but, scout’s honor, just sleeping. Scout’s honor. I just... I don’t know, after everything that happened today, I don’t want to sleep alone tonight.”

  Her heart hammered in her chest at his request. “I don’t know.”

  “Katherine, I just want to be near you and know you are safe. I promise.”

  She nodded, still anxious. The thought of being in a strange room all alone seemed a much more frightening prospect, though. “Okay.”

  He reached out and helped pull her up from the sofa, picked up her bag, and led her into the spare bedroom off the kitchen, where Brian had set him up for the night.

  She followed with a reluctant willingness.

  ***

  The digital readout on the alarm said 1 AM. The exhaustion, which hours earlier had threatened to pull her under like a riptide, had been replaced by an anxious wakefulness. Though desperate for sleep, she couldn’t bring herself to take the sleeping pills the doctors at the hospital had prescribed.

  For now, being sedated—hell, even going to sleep—was a frightening thing. She remembered what the social worker at the hospital had said to her about having patience with her healing body and mind. While she hated to admit it, she did at least feel a little safer having Alex nearby.

  The depth of her feelings for him frightened her. She didn’t exactly have the best track record with men. Charles had also claimed to love her, and not only did he mistreat her for years, he also kidnapped and drugged her and then left her with that madman.

  She shivered at the thought, awakening Alex.

  A groggy grunt escaped his lips as he rolled over to face her. “Can’t sleep?”

  She shook her head as a rush of shyness washed over her. “No.”

  He nuzzled his tired face into his pillow but kept his sleepy green eyes trained on her. “Wanna talk?”

  She stared blankly back at him, not sure what she wanted anymore.

  He wet his lips and slid his hand underneath his pillow. “Since we are both awake, can I ask you something?”

  What could he possibly need to ask? Doesn’t he know everything about me already? “Yeah, sure.”

  “First of all, can I hold your hand?”

  The tenderness with which he asked touched her, and she nodded. Alex reached across the wide expanse of the bed for her hand, and after a long pause, she clasped his hand to hers.

  “You don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to, but there’s something I’ve been trying to figure out,” he said.

  “What’s that?”

  He wet his lips again—an endearing nervous habit—before continuing. “Why did you marry Charles? And why did you keep it a secret?”

  The question surprised her. She thought back to all those years ago, and her heart became even heavier with grief. The need to unburden herself of the past was great, and for some unknown reason she trusted Alex.

  “Well, I guess since you’ve profiled me, you already know how I was before and after my dad died. I was wild, drunk and high most of my teen years. Charles and I started dating about two years before my dad died. We partied a lot, especially after my dad was gone. He wasn’t always violent, at least not at first.” Making excuses for Charles and his behavior had become a reflex.

  “My brother Scott didn’t think we were all that serious. I guess he figured once I grew up and stopped partying all the time that I would come to my senses and leave Charles.”

  Scott... my brother who ha
d been so concerned for my wellbeing. How could he be a part of all this? Both he and Charles had been deceiving her all along.

  Alex squeezed her hand, bringing her back to the present. Maybe this was like ripping off a Band-Aid: she just needed to say it quickly and be done with it.

  “Anyways... in our first two years of dating, he hit me a few times, but he always blamed it on having too much to drink and... I don’t know... I guess I believed him. Half the time I was too drunk or high even to notice or care, but my dad noticed.” She bit her lip, her eyes pooling at the memory.

  “I didn’t know it at the time, but my dad had made an amendment to his will right before he died, stating that if I married Charles I would be cut off from my inheritance. I guess he hoped I would choose money over Charles.”

  For years she’d been carrying around a deep-seated guilt that her dad died disappointed in her, but she wasn’t ready to admit that out loud yet.

  She took a long, deep breath before continuing. “A little over ten years ago, before I married Charles, Scott and Jason staged an intervention. They were worried that I hadn’t dealt with my dad’s death, and about all the drinking and drugs. They got me to see some of the ugliness that had come out of my addiction.”

  Alex’s lips lightly touched her knuckles.

  The simple act took her breath away and she had to take a short pause to collect herself. “So, I got sober and started to see a counselor. Charles got on board, quit drinking around me, and was, for the most part, supportive. That was when things got bad. He couldn’t blame anything on the alcohol or drugs anymore, and I didn’t have anything to numb myself against his rage.” She brought the blanket up to stave off the chill that rippled through her.

  “The smallest thing could set him off. I felt like I was walking on eggshells whenever I was around him. He was pretty controlling of my time and didn’t like me hanging out with any of my friends, or even Scott. He was always very concerned about what I did and who I talked to when he wasn’t around. It was the norm for him to grill me for hours on end. Once he woke me up at 3 AM to rant and rave at me for going to a friend’s birthday party without telling him.”

  A small tear slid down her cheek and stained the pillow beneath her.

  “One day Scott took me aside and told me about the will and how it was my dad’s dying wish that I break things off with Charles. It was a well-timed conversation, because by then I was tired of living under Charles’s thumb and wanted out. He had threatened me so many times about what would happen if I left, that I believed he would kill me or himself. I agreed with Scott that I would break it off in a public place, and then spend some time out of town until things cooled off.”

  “I can’t even imagine how frightened you must have been,” Alex said.

  Katherine nodded. “I was terrified. He took me out to dinner that night, so I told him then, figuring he wouldn’t attack me in a restaurant full of people. I was wrong. He dragged me out by my hair and slammed me up against the brick wall of the building. He almost knocked me out. Thankfully, the restaurant owner and some people on the street called the police and they arrested him. I was pretty banged up, but otherwise I was very lucky. Looking back, I can’t believe I didn’t press charges, but at the time I just wanted it to be over with. So I packed up my stuff and went up to our cabin—”

  The recent memory of what happened in that same cabin washed over her, leaving her paralyzed.

  “I’m here. You’re safe,” Alex said, squeezing her hand.

  She closed her eyes and nodded as the anxiety washed over her. The aftershocks of it all were almost worse than the attack itself.

  He squeezed her hand again and brought it up against his beating chest. His soft, emerald green eyes regarded her with such love and respect that she almost choked on the concern that emanated from them. “Just breathe.”

  She took his advice to heart and took a deep breath. In order to work through it all, she needed to finish the story that had been hanging around her neck. “I’m okay.” She let out a trembling breath and continued.

  “Jason and I were up there fixing the place up,” she said, pushing past the panic attack like it hadn’t just happened.

  “We were alone. I always knew he had a crush on me, so I guess I should have seen it coming, but I was young and naïve. That weekend he decided to try and kiss me. Of course, at that exact moment Charles burst into the cabin. He and Jason got into it and he ended up kicking J out. I was terrified. Charles pleaded with me to reconcile. He said he would die without me, that he loved me, and that no one would ever love me like he did.”

  Alex squeezed her hand, giving her the reassurance she needed to keep going.

  “It sounds crazy when I say it now, but at the time I was so depressed and lonely that I believed every word. I didn’t think I deserved anyone better. He suggested that we marry in secret so I wouldn’t be written out of my inheritance. I was stupid and agreed.”

  She sighed before she told the last of the story. “I moved in with him after the civil ceremony. Scott stopped speaking to me. He was mad at me for not choosing Jason over Charles. I know Jason loves me. I do know that. I have tried to love him back that way, but I can’t,” she said in a sad rush of words.

  Alex rubbed the stubble on his chin and scratched his bed-head hair. He seemed to want to say something, but he remained quiet.

  “I know it’s completely fucked-up,” she said. “I would see those public service announcements about domestic violence and I would think that my situation was different, but I was just fooling myself. He had me so convinced I was never going to be loved by anyone else, and that if I even thought of leaving him, he would kill himself or me.”

  Alex squeezed her hand like he never wanted to let it go, then brought it up to his lips and kissed her knuckles, never taking his eyes off her.

  The love that emanated from him made her feel safe for the first time in a long time.

  After a long pause, when the silence had once again settled in, Alex finally spoke up. “Thank you for sharing that with me. I know it couldn’t have been easy. I want you to know that I think you’re very brave.”

  “Can I ask you a question now?” she asked.

  A wry smile danced across his face. “Anything.”

  She pointed an index finger at a puckered scar on his chest. “What’s this from?”

  Alex looked away. His clenched jaw twitched.

  “You don’t have to tell me. I—”

  “No, I can tell you. I will warn you, though, that you might not like the answer. I know I don’t,” he said under his breath.

  She nestled into her pillow, more relaxed than she’d felt all night, and thought that maybe telling his story would help unburden him as well.

  “Let me be the judge of that.”

  ***

  He turned onto his back and looked up at the ceiling. He couldn’t look at her when he told her the truth. He was far too ashamed.

  “The scar is a constant reminder to me of my hitting rock bottom,” he said, loathing the story he was about to tell.

  Her eyebrows raised in wonder. “Oh?”

  “You sure you want to know?”

  She nodded. “It’s only fair since you seem to know everything about me.”

  She had a point.

  He smiled. “Touché. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, though.”

  He settled into the bed before continuing. “Okay, so I told you I’m a recovering sex addict, right? Well, when I was in my early twenties, I was serving overseas as a paramilitary officer with the CIA, in Iraq. I was working out of the US embassy’s auxiliary office in Mosul. During my off-time, I would get restless and would go for walks through the market. There was a beautiful Kurdish woman named Chuwan.”

  He smiled at the memory of her. “Her name actually means ‘beautiful’ in Sorani. She sold fruits, vegetables and nuts at the market, and I was a sucker for the watermelons her family sold at their stall. We would flirt a little with ea
ch other, on the side, when her mother and sisters weren’t looking. Well, one day she slipped me a note along with the change from selling me the melons. The note had a meeting place and time. We... well... anyways, long story, short—we got careless in our meetings and she got pregnant. She was coming to tell me the news the day her brother followed her and caught us... well, you know. He... um....”

  He clutched the bed sheets in his free hand and cleared his throat. “He shot me and dragged Chuwan off. He just left me there for dead. If the call for afternoon prayer hadn’t happened soon after, I would have bled out in the alley. I found out later that they beat Chuwan until she miscarried. She died a week later from an untreated infection from the miscarriage.”

  A stream of tears slid down his hot cheeks, and he left them alone. “My friend Doc and her husband Chris were stationed there at the same time. She worked in a women’s clinic that helped women like Chuwan. She was the one who told me about what happened. It killed me.” His voice quivered as he tried in vain to keep from full on sobbing in front of her.

  “Chuwan had asked the nurses and doctors to find me and make sure I was okay, and to say she was sorry.”

  He took a deep, shuddering breath and continued. “At the time, when we were having our affair, I didn’t care about what the consequences might be for her. All I could think about was the sex. After she died, I hated myself for what had happened. I... I... tried to kill myself, but Doc saved me.” He purposefully left out the details of the night Doc had come upon him trying to hang himself in the empty mess hall.

  He couldn’t tell Katherine that part.

  Katherine bit her trembling bottom lip. “I think I understand,” she said. “When I was a Senior in high school, I got behind the wheel while drunk and hit my brother with the car, breaking both of his femur bones. He had to be in traction for the whole summer. I could have easily killed him... or someone else that night. Addiction is horrible thing that makes us do stupid things.”