With that non-answer, he dismissed her. His gentle efforts focused on pouring creamer into his steaming cup of tea. He poured as if nothing were wrong. As if, on any given day, he held a man captive against his will. As if he hadn’t held her against her will.
The butler slipped into the background. He regained his two-finger wrist twitch—dammit—aiming it at the servant who exited the kitchen with a covered tray.
Had Hunter only told her that her father was a horrible man, she would never have believed him. He’d tried to protect her as he had from Aron. Hunter had begged her to escape before he knew Tor Royan was her flesh and blood. Goose bumps marched across her shoulders and up her neck.
“I need answers.” Kat bent her elbows and lowered her gaze to meet her father’s. She injected all the pleading she could muster into the request.
The server placed a dish of egg whites, asparagus, and cheese in front of her father. Rent-a-servant whirled back toward the kitchen, taking his swollen gaze with him.
“You know how I dislike talk while at the table.” Her father glared.
“Then you should stand.” Kat reflected his expression. “I’ve done as you’ve asked for almost two months.” And her entire life. “Who is that man?” She pointed toward her prison. “Why did you tell me he was dangerous? What has he done? What did you do?” Her hands flailed about, searching for the words to get him to understand. “Why does he think you’re…?”
Black clouds gathered in her father’s dark eyes.
It froze the words in her mouth. Was that admission she saw? For certain, it was a side of himself he’d never allowed her access to.
“Leave us.” He stood. His massive chair cried as the weight scraped across the shiny floor.
Everyone vacated the room, and she wished they’d take her with them.
Tor Royan, the new, scarier version, squared to her. A sickly sinister tic pulled at his mouth. “Your uncle is dead.”
Kat staggered.
“He was murdered,” her father hissed.
Her calves hit the front of the chair, and she sank into it. The world tattered yet again. She gripped the edge of the padded fabric for dear life.
Markus Royan, her uncle, bested her father in size by several inches and many more pounds. He’d been a rough and tumble kind of man but loving and playful too. As father figures went, Markus had been hers. He’d visited her at boarding school more often than her own father had. He would stay the entire visitor’s day, not just the hour her father usually gifted her with. He’d taken her out on day trips to the city, and he’d been the first to let her try beer and cigarettes. The awful tastes and smells lingered on her memories so closely; he couldn’t be dead.
“That man, the one you’re so concerned about, and his people killed my brother.” Her father roared the last, turned, and headed toward the hallway that held his office.
“Where are you going?” He wasn’t much company, but the thought of being left alone with that information opened dark, haunted closets in her psyche.
“I’ve lost my appetite.”
Kat stood on rubbery knees and started after him.
“I’m not in the mood for company.” He continued through the large room but stopped at the threshold. His gaze didn’t meet hers, but he offered a quarter turn. “I think it’s time for you to bathe, change, and get your mind together. You’ll meet me in the dining room for a proper lunch.”
The suggestions didn’t leave room for rejoinder. For once, she didn’t have any, surprised or otherwise. “Yes, sir.”
She walked back to the room she’d been locked inside. An echo chamber assaulted her with memories of her Uncle Markus; his laugh, his deep growling voice, his happy salutes, the clinking of glasses. Her father’s haunting voice whispered between the lines. The comments all held more than a hint of judgment and dissatisfaction. Then came Hunter’s gentle command and the careful concern for his friends and even her.
Kat stood in front of the shower, ready to carry out her father’s bidding. Inside the small tiled room, the competing voices grew louder and louder to a maddening crescendo. A scream ripped from her throat. She slapped her hands over her face and sobbed. Her knees bent, and she slowly melted to the floor. Tears ran hot through her fingers. Gasps shook her shoulders.
Her uncle had always told her he was a bad man. Actually, he had said he was a bad fucker of mothers, but not to tell her father what he’d told her. Kat had lived a life sheltered from the world. Education and the ability to explore the things that interested her most kept her satisfied enough to ignore the lack of affection and familial love between her and her father. Kat never focused on the negative. She’d always made the best of things.
Those days were done. A stranger cared more for her emotional and physical well-being than her father. If she listened to her father, that stranger had also killed her uncle. When? For the past seven weeks, he’d been under her care. If he’d killed her uncle before, why hadn’t her father said anything?
If her father wouldn’t tell her anything, Hunter would…or so help her, she’d start using truth serum to get answers out of people. Med school hadn’t covered the topic, but she could concoct a mix of drugs that would do the job.
Using the hem of her oversized scrubs, Kat wiped away her tears. It took several swipes, but her face was dry by the time she reached Hunter’s door and jerked it open wide. The hospital bed lay on its side. Blood stained the white sheet hanging haphazardly over half of the cockeyed mattress. It was only a spattering, though, not enough to equate death.
She was accustomed to blood and even death. Violence, not so much. Unease settled in Kat’s belly and unpacked its suitcase.
“Hunter?” Her voice sounded hoarse and hesitant. It rattled around the empty room like a ghost. She walked on concrete-lined feet to the bathroom. The closer she got, the higher her heart beat in her throat. It reached her tongue at the same time she broached the doorway.
The pristine little room stared back, no Hunter, but also, no more signs of a struggle. She skipped the closet then ran through to her bedroom and out the door to the hallway. Her feet carried her through the maze of corridors. One by one, she dipped into unused guest rooms, seating areas, and linen closets. Each disappointment ratcheted her desperation to find Hunter.
Kat stayed away from the kitchen, afraid to run into the butler. The guards should’ve been her concern, but they seemed to have disappeared. None of them stood watch in their usual locations. By the time she had reached the wing of her father’s office, she sprinted toward the mansion’s back entrance. She’d been escorted in that way too many days ago and had seen a proper receptionist station complete with a vase of flowers, a notepad, a cup filled with pens, and a phone.
If she couldn’t get answers, then by God, the police authority could. After all, this involved murder, abduction, and imprisonment.
The inescapable sound of flesh meeting flesh split the air. A deep muffled grunt followed along with several men’s laughter. Unease farther built the framework for a house in her stomach as though it planned on staying a while. Every ligament and tendon inside her body shook. Her blood turned gelatinous, clogging her veins. A scream lit the hallways on fire. The man inside the room must worship the Lord of light. Their cheers and chants multiplied.
“No! Please, I’ll never touch her again! Please stop.” The last plea turned into wailing.
Aron hadn’t spoken much during her captivity, but she would remember his voice for the rest of her life. Would she remember his screams or his threats more?
Kat stepped toward the door, away from the phone. She didn’t like the man—he was pure evil—yet the healer inside her railed against the abuse. Besides, if they beat Aron, what would they do to Hunter? Desperation and the need to find him propelled her forward.
A hand clamped her shoulder and pulled her backward. She stumbled over her father’s wingtips. “What are you doing, Katrin?”
15
Leather straps
pinned Hunter’s wrists, waist, and ankle to a truly fucked-up St. Andrew’s Cross. He’d been on one or two in his day. Not the hardcore stuff. Kink only. Kink was fun. None of the crosses he’d been strapped to had hosted pointed spikes akin to a short bed of nails, only thicker and sharper. From looking at the thing when they’d wrestled him in here some ten minutes ago, the spikes were attached to long, movable metal rods in slots underneath. This meant the moment that sick bastard Royan didn’t like an answer Hunter gave, he’d ram one of them home…right into Hunter’s flesh.
He grit his teeth, ignored the blood that seeped slowly from his split tongue, and strained. His coma-weakened muscles bunched, pulling more futilely than the thirty times before. The skin covering his wrists gave a little more. Sweat added to the sting of the already seeping wounds below the straps.
The all too familiar whack of a squarely delivered punch bled in through the chamber’s thick metal door. It wasn’t him…yet. Men laughed, maybe three of them, while the human punching bag gagged for breath. The setup struck Hunter as odd. Royan, the man who got off on torturing his enemies and competitors alike, had pawned off the demolition of the guard who’d manhandled Kat. If the man truly cared about his daughter, he’d be the one doling out the ass whooping. But no. He was saving his skill and treasure for Hunter.
“Fucking great.” He worked his wrists again but didn’t try the ankle again. At this point, he only had one, and he needed it to function at top speed.
Hunter had heard tales of Royan’s chambers. The youngest brother liked to brag about the room before Tyler’s woman—Markus’ and Tors’ past—put a bullet in his head. Everywhere he looked, different tools of the torture trade hung. He tried to ignore the saws and pliers and jugs and knives, but damn, he wasn’t a robot. Plus, he knew each of those tools’ capabilities in the right hands.
The setting was torture tactic one. Listening to them beat the ever-living shit out of one of “their own” was the second.
Hell no. Scratch that.
Kat was torture tactic numero mother-f-ing uno. She was the mind fuck to end them all. Dick in one ear and out the other. Mind fucked.
Hunter had known his fate from the moment he’d realized this was no Base Branch boutique hospital. No one would go to the trouble of keeping him alive and waiting through a goddamned coma unless he had information they wanted. No way in hell would he give them anything. It’d be nice if they’d kill him fast. Knowing he can’t help her in his quarter-loss state hurt more than any physical thing they could do to him.
Over the years, he’d been in tough spots but never helpless. The relentless spirit inside him, the one that rocked out twenty-four seven with its middle fingers in the air and its foot on the accelerator of life, Royan had it by the short and curlies. He could only hope for one of two options, and both were as farfetched as his need to protect Kat from her father. One; Oliver—after not finding his ass for the better part of a month—gained intel that led him and their entire team of special forces marching up Tor Royan’s asshole within the hour. Some real pie-in-the-sky bullshit. Two; Tor—after getting what he wanted from Kat—released Kat back into the wild where she belonged. Some real pigs-flying dreams.
Oliver and the rest of the team hadn’t found Hunter at the site of rubble and ash. They probably thought he was growing grass by now. If by some miracle Oliver didn’t believe he was dead because of the whole no body, no death thing, he had no way of knowing the location of Royan’s HQ. The sicko had mazes, bunkers, and safe houses all over Europe. Tor Royan trusted no one, which made him unstable. Hell, he’d sent his own brother on a guaranteed suicide mission. There was no chance Royan would trust Kat to keep quiet about the things she’d seen once she returned to her life.
Hunter raged and shook against the bonds. Fear crept behind his defenses. If Royan knew he cared about Kat, would he use her to get the information he sought?
16
Kat stood as her prison door beeped. It opened only enough to allow her new guard and the tray he carried with her breakfast atop it into the room. It closed behind him and locked tight.
“I demand to speak with my father.”
“Your father is not accepting your requests at this time.” The guard delivered the same droned answer as he had the past four days.
“You tell him he’s not a fucking kiosk, and he can and will accept my request right this damn minute, or I’ll drown myself in the bathtub.” Her throat burned from the fevered delivery. She shook her fists and snarled.
He set the tray on the coffee table and left without another word. The moment the door closed, Kat sank onto the couch. Her cheek throbbed from stretching and working it in her frenzy. She pressed a red and cracked palm to the flesh her father had slapped after tossing her back into this holding cell after she’d called him demented. It’d been the first time he’d ever laid a hand on her in anger.
“I hope it wasn’t too over the top.” The last thing she needed was her dad to pay a visit. The purpose of the messages was to let him know she was yet to be cowed by his action.
She opened the tray and shoved eggs into her mouth. Kat chewed without tasting. The memories continued to flood back of the first time she’d seen her father lose his carefully constructed composure. As a young girl, she’d been lonely even through the short years she lived at home, which was a much smaller one in Italy. Her father didn’t live there. During one of his longer trips, Kat had found a litter of kittens behind the house. Miracle of all miracles, her nanny had allowed her to keep one as long as she kept it in the wine shed. It was never allowed into the house.
Tears threatened to well, but she fought them back with another heap of food. That cat had been her best friend. As time went on, she broke the rules but never while her father had been home. One day, he’d come home early from a trip. She woke to find Mr. Sniffles gone from her bed. The poor cat’s screams mingled with Aron’s and morphed into her worst fear for Hunter.
“Come on, Kat. You’ve got this.” Her palms shrieked, but she ignored them.
Kat stood, grabbed the knife, and turned to the window behind her—the one she’d blocked the guard’s view of for the past four days. Even at this distance with the gouge she’d hollowed out around the latch, anyone who looked could see her attempt at escape. No, not attempt. She would break through this window today. Sure, she’d thought the same thing yesterday, but the screw that’d been placed in the window was longer than she’d expected.
Every scrape went against the surgeon’s instinct to protect her hands. Every scrape rubbed into the raw flesh for the previous day’s work. Every scrape also brought her closer to freedom.
The guard came promptly at the breakfast, lunch, and dinner hours.
While she worked on removing wood from around the screw, Kat also kept an eye on the sun. Her room didn’t have a clock, but she’d gotten damn good at judging the time by the changing shadows on the ground. She needed to get out with enough time that the guard wouldn’t notice her missing until she’d fled the property.
Finally, the last of the wood released the screw. Kat jerked the window from its frame. To her surprise. This must not have always been a prison. She looked back at the door. The thing was beautiful, but the sight of it made her knees shake. So much bad had come in and out of that door. What if the guard caught her escaping? Her legs might have been amputated along with Hunter’s because they refused to move. Fear crawled up her spine. Its nails dug into nerve endings and gouged bone. Kat followed the rules. She did as she was told. She was a good person, and good people shouldn’t have to deal with shit like this.
The gears of logic turned inside her brain. It fired off synapses and revved the production of adrenaline. The situation demanded action. There were too many variables if she stayed. Kat swallowed, sat on the windowsill, and threw herself out the window. Nausea bubbled, but the leap of faith released her fear and freed her limbs.
She didn’t worry about guards. They were all content for the time be
ing torturing men, one of whom used to be their comrade. No, not comrade. That term denoted some sense of loyalty. These men were loyal to no one. To her estimation, they worked for the almighty dollar.
Fresh air sweetened her lungs. A blossom of some sort scented the air, and brilliant sunlight warmed her skin. Were it any other day, she’d take her time and enjoy the surroundings. Today, she kept so low that her thighs burned with each hurried stride she took toward the back of the house. The farther she went, the faster her heart thumped.
For the past month, Kat had seen cars whip down the driveway, coming and going from the massive house. Surely, one of those vehicles was around here somewhere...preferably unlocked with the keys inside. She gulped back the nausea that tainted her tongue and slowed her strides at the corner of the house. The quiet hum of air conditioning units drowned out what little noise she made. Birds chirped in the trees. The wind blew the hair from her face. She heard no voices, no footsteps, no hint of the torture going on inside.
Kat straightened and peered around the house. Two rows of cars lined a large concrete drive in the back, making it look like an upscale used car lot. It would be so easy, if the keys were inside one, to hop in and drive away from this place as quickly as the machine could carry her. The desire of self-preservation reared its ugly head and made her see the ugly and very human side of herself. For better or worse, Hunter had tried to save her on more than one occasion, so she would not abandon him now.
A deep breath expanded Kat’s chest as she worked to steady her quaking nerves. She moved slowly and steadily toward the back entrance, the one she’d been escorted through so long ago. The white door with its silver handle stood just as it had back then. Her fingers shook as she reached for the handle, curled her fingers around it, and said a silent prayer that it opened.
The damn thing didn’t budge. Her hope and determination backpedaled. She looked at the cars. Instinct told her to run. Hunter had told her to run. She took one step toward the cars but stalled. Her gaze drew back to the keypad below the handle. There were an infinite number of possibilities for the combination.
Captor Mine (Base Branch Series Book 13) Page 8