by M. G. Morgan
“I know you.”
I shook my head and tried to back off, lifting my hands in mock surprise.
“I don’t think so buddy, you have me confused with someone else.”
Over his shoulder I just had enough time to catch sight of a tall thin man in a dark suit entering the bar. He leaned in over one of the arguing men’s shoulders, whispered something in his ear and then he was gone. The other man simply shrugged and followed him outside.
I wanted to go after them, find out what exactly the connection was. It seemed too good to be true. How could a clue about Christopher have landed so easily in my lap? Was I being set up? It certainly wasn’t outside the realm of possibility, especially with the way leather jacket was eyeing me up.
I tried to move past him for the door, when he caught my arm.
“I do know you. You’re the cop that tried to bust a friend of mine, well his boss to be more exact but it’s all the same to Angelo.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but if you don’t take your hand off my arm, Angelo, I’m going to rip it from its’ socket.”
He started to laugh and the sound drew the attention of the other guys gathered in the doorway.
“You think I’m Angelo?”
He laughed harder and I could feel the anger beginning to boil in my veins. He was destroying my opportunity, wasting precious seconds of my time. Time I needed to gather as much information as I could.
“Angelo?” He called out to someone standing just outside my line of sight. “This the cop your boss told you to look out for? Something Crantree wasn’t it?”
The first prickling of fear crawled down my spine. It was a set up, and I had walked straight into it. Such a rookie mistake. Angelo moved out from his spot behind a pillar. And when I saw him I felt myself doing a double take. The guy was huge, he wasn’t someone I would forget in a hurry, yet I didn’t recognise him at all. He had to be someone new to Christopher’s guard.
One side of Angelo’s face was completely destroyed, with scars. The eye was still there but I had a feeling from looking at the way it seemed to be slightly out of focus, that he didn’t see all that well through it.
He came towards me, more like a moving mountain than a man. Fear knotted in my gut, one blow from his fist was liable to take my head clean off.
“This is the cop ain’t it?” Leather jacket tried to shake my arm in Angelo’s direction. I jerked myself free of his grip but he just smiled at me. He was behaving as though the entire situation was one big joke. And maybe to them it was. Christopher enjoyed violence, pain and torture, it made sense that he surrounded himself with men who felt the same way.
“Didn’t you learn your lesson? St James made it clear, he doesn’t like those who meddle in his affairs. What else do you have to lose before you learn better?”
Angelo reached out towards me as he spoke. I couldn’t let him get his hands on me. His size would make him slower but if he got his a hold of me, then I would be finished. He would easily beat me to a bloody mess and I didn’t need more broken bones slowing me down.
I dodged out of his grip and as soon as I did leather jacket moved in to help him. I landed the first blow on him easily enough. But there was more of them and I couldn’t fight every one of them. The group of men closed in around me, I lashed out, doing my best to keep moving. If I could keep moving then I stood a chance of escape.
The sharp blow to the back of my head momentarily stunned me. The room exploded in a mess of red and white lights and I felt the tell tale trickle of warm blood down the back of my neck. I was officially screwed.
Strong arms held me, and it instantly reminded me of being back at the station. Except the other cops had been holding me back from Arnolds. These guys were holding me down so Angelo could go to town on me.
The first punch landed on my ribs, they’d been broken after Christopher’s last lesson and I felt some of them give under the force of the blow. They weren’t fully healed, and even if they had been, with the power Angelo had coming behind him, they wouldn’t have held.
The air left my body in one choking gasp. Pain radiated through my body and it was a struggle not to throw up on Angelo’s shoes. But that was likely to just piss him off more and it was the last thing I needed.
His next blow landed on the side of my head. My brain felt like the ball in a pin-ball machine, ricocheting back and forth inside my skull. I’d heard but never fully understood the expression about having your bell rung, and now I understood it completely. He drew back to land the next blow, it was like watching it in slow motion. If I passed out who knew what they’d do to me? But I wouldn’t stay conscious for many more of Angelo’s direct blows.
Shouts followed by the sounds of broken glass drew Angelo’s attention. I was released, as men jostled and started to fight with one another. Whatever had happened had probably just saved my life and I wasn’t planning on hanging around to figure out what it was. I crawled across the floor, my gaze trained on the door.
It wasn’t until I made it to the entry way that I paused and dragged myself upright. The bar was in complete chaos and I could hear the distant wail of police sirens. Limping from the bar I headed in the direction of home, home and painkillers.
I was in the apartment five minutes when the sound of knocking had me freezing to the spot. Would Angelo and the others have been brave enough to follow me home? It certainly wasn’t impossible.
Pulling the ice pack from the freezer I hobbled back to the door and put my eye to the peep hole. It wasn’t Angelo, it wasn’t leather jacket or any of the others who had jumped me in the bar.
The man in the business suit I had spotted in the doorway of the bar stood on the other side of the door. Two men stood at his back. I knew the moment I lay eyes on them that they were private security and it wasn’t just because of the dark suits they wore. There was something about the way they held themselves, and of course the fact that their jackets didn’t sit snug over whatever arsenal they were carrying helped to make up my mind.
I contemplated pretending that I wasn’t in, but I was curious. I wanted to know what they wanted with me? And why the hell they had followed me back to my apartment. I had enough on my plate without being forced to deal with more crap.
I ripped open the door, allowing the heavy wood to slam into the plaster of the wall with a satisfying crack. I stood there in front of them, ice pack in hand. If one of them rushed me, I could use it as a weapon. Maybe the guy in the suit was a friend of Christopher’s and they were here to help me see the error of my ways.
“Detective Crantree?”
The tall man wore dark glasses, and I couldn’t read his expression as he spoke.
“It’s just Mr Crantree now.” I said, lifting the icepack to the swelling that was beginning to occur on the side of my face.
“Oh? I thought you worked with the police? If I have the wrong Aidan Crantree then I’m sorry for disturbing you.”
“I did. I was suspended, so no you have the right Crantree. What do you want?”
“Suspended? Well that makes life infinitely easier.”
He pulled his glasses off and strode past me into the apartment. His eyes were cold, icy cold and they reminded me of Christopher’s. In fact there was a lot about him that reminded me of Christopher.
“I’m afraid we haven’t had the privilege?” I extended my free hand out to him, a question in my eyes. He saw it immediately and smiled.
“I can assure you, he and I are nothing alike. We share the same father but aside from that we share nothing else.”
His words didn’t matter, it didn’t matter that they apparently only shared a brother. It didn’t matter that they were only half brothers. All I heard in my head was a faint buzzing as I struggled to controlled the anger that filled me. His brother had taken Bella. His brother had taken the woman I loved and here he was standing in front of me, as though there was nothing amiss.
I grabbed him by the shirt, my fists bunc
hing into the lapels of his jacket as I dragged him in towards my chest. My body screamed in protest, my ribs felt as though they were on fire, and yet I really didn’t care. It was his brother, he had to know where Bella was.
“Tell me where she is, tell me or I’ll rip you limb from limb.” I ground the words out.
I could hear the faint click as the safety was removed from a gun but I didn’t look back at the guards. I didn’t need to, I could practically feel the heat of their gazes trained on my back.
“I have an idea about where he might have taken her. But it’s bigger than that. I need your help, it’s why I’m here.”
“Help?”
The laughter escaped me, in small bursts of desperate hysteria. I shook him a little and yet he continued to watch me with his cold eyes. He didn’t seem in the least bit bothered by the fact that I was holding him by the collar.
“Yes, your help, there is no love lost between my brother and I. He always had the strangest of tastes and until recently I didn’t think they were that serious.”
“What made you change your mind?”
His eyes changed, the first flash of real warmth appeared and his face seemed to soften.
“My sister… Our sister disappeared. At first I thought it might be just her getting away for a holiday. She has a child, a boy, he’s three and she has taken holidays before and not taken him. But no one has heard from her now in months and that’s not like her. She wouldn’t just desert him, she loves the bones of that boy.”
I released him and stumbled back from where he stood. What kind of a family were they?
“And you didn’t think to notify the police?”
“We did. They told us she was an adult, there was no signs of any foul play in her disappearance. Apparently she emptied her bank account and took off. But I refuse to believe it. Rebecca wouldn’t do that.”
“What makes you say that? What makes you so sure she didn’t just leave?”
He sighed and made his way to one of the stools near the kitchen counter.
“May I?”
I nodded and he took his seat, settling his tall willowy frame onto the perch.
“I say that as her brother, her full brother. I knew her better than anyone and she loved Max, her son,” he added when I shot him a confused look.
“Right, but I don’t see what any of this has to do with me? Unless you think Christopher is somehow involved?”
I watched him carefully and his reaction told me everything I needed to know. That was exactly what he thought.
“Before she disappeared, she told me she had some news about our dear brother. I run a company, a very successful company and until recently I didn’t realise that Christopher was one of the major shareholders, he has been using an assumed name but with a little bit of digging I was able to figure it out. I think Rebecca figured it out.”
“What and he killed her because she worked out that he had a share in your company?”
“No, I think she worked out that he was siphoning off funds from the company. That she was planning on coming to me with all of this. Without the money he gets from my company he would have none of the things he wants… He couldn’t legitimately fund any of the things he is involved in.”
It did seem like a good enough reason to make her disappear. But there was no way to know for certain?
“And what do you expect me to do, Mr?”
He smiled again.
“Thank you for not assuming I was also a St James. My father never married Christopher’s mother, he was never entitled to the family name. My name is Thomas Weston.”
“So what do you expect me to do, Mr Weston?”
“I want you to find out what happened to my sister? Did he…” he paused as though struggling to come up with the right wording. His expression was pained and I knew he had loved his sister, they had obviously been very close.
“Make her disappear. I want to know if he is really trying to bankrupt my company and how I can stop him. I know you have a personal stake in all of this, and you needn’t worry, you will have my men and all of my resources at your disposal.”
I didn’t have to think about it too much. I would have been crazy to pass up an opportunity like this. Where else was I going to get the backing and the resources to find Bella? I wouldn’t, this was my one and only opportunity and I planned to grasp it in both hands.
“You have yourself a deal… When do we begin?”
He grinned at me, the smile completely changing his features so that he no longer resembled Christopher. He stood and held his hand out to me and I took it happily.
“We get started as soon as you’re prepared to begin, Mr Crantree.”
“Call me, Aidan.”
He smiled again. “And you can call me Thomas.”
His expression turned suddenly serious as he shook my hand.
“I am truly sorry about your own loss. All I can hope, is that we both find what we’re looking for, before it’s too late. I dread to think what he had been doing all this time to my sister and your lady friend.”
If the conversation hadn’t been about something so serious I would have laughed at the use of his word lady friend. It would have been something that Bella would have enjoyed. No doubt it would have reminded her of a bygone era, one where gentlemen were in fact gentlemen.
“Thanks. Now lets start with you telling me everything you know about Christopher.”
CHAPTER SIX
Bella
The room beyond the double doors was beyond extravagant. Everything about the place screamed money and part of me wondered just how wealthy Christopher really was. Was it really a hotel? A hotel for other sickos like him? How could they just stand by and let him treat me like that? Surely they recognised a plea for help when they saw one.
But I had witnessed it with my own eyes, all of the women wore collars. Some of them even wore leashes. And none of them seemed particularly comfortable with what was going on. I had seen the fear in their eyes, the way their bodies tensed when Christopher looked at them.
Christopher led me into the room and the guards trailing us closed the doors. He brought me to one of the high backed chairs and sat me in it before making his way around to the other side of the desk.
“Bella, Bella, Bella. What shall we do with you? I admire your courage, really I do.” He grinned at me, and it was an expression I expected the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland to wear.
“That’s a lie. I don’t admire it. But I will enjoy breaking it.”
Defiantly I lifted my chin and met his gaze head on.
“Nothing that you do to me matters. You can’t break what isn’t yours to be broken.”
His expression changed, the smile wilted around the edges to be replaced with a look of surprise.
It was nice to know that I could surprise such a psychopath, it hadn’t seemed possible earlier. I folded my arms across my chest, my gaze trained firmly on his. I couldn’t become too cocky but I wasn’t going to be a walk over. I didn’t want him to get one second of satisfaction from me, he wasn’t worth it.
He stood and I watched him as he paced back and forth over the carpet. He seemed to be deep in thought and the last thing I wanted was to pull his attention back on to me. Unless of course he was thinking about me and then it didn’t really matter either way.
He finally paused, long enough to walk slowly around to the front of the desk. He sat on the ledge of its highly polished surface and lifted one of his legs. He pushed his foot between my knees, until he could prop it up on the edge of my seat. I tried not to squirm away from him, but my body reacted involuntarily. I didn’t want him anywhere near me and I was incapable of hiding it.
He pushed his foot up a little higher, pressing my legs further apart. He watched me with the intensity of a cat playing with a mouse. Any second I knew he would pounce. I swallowed hard, my mouth had gone dry. I could still taste the sand and dirt from earlier, it coated my tongue and grated against my teeth.
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“You remind me of someone I used to know… There is something in your face that I recognised in her. Of course you don’t look entirely like her, she was a little taller than you and her hair was black… But it’s there…”
He paused, his eyes fluttering shut as he relived whatever memories he had of this mysterious woman.
“She was beautiful, untouchable. I could never have her and she knew it…”
His voice had taken on a distant echo as he sat there. I was frozen to the spot, cold hard terror was creeping down my spine. Whatever had happened I knew that this woman hadn’t survived him. He wasn’t the type to let someone he’d become obsessed with go, it wasn’t in him to be merciful.
“And when I tried to persuade her how good we could be together… Well she ruined it.”
His eyes snapped open and he sat up a little straighter. He pushed his foot up a little higher until the sole of his shoe rested against my abdomen. His gaze was filled with anger as he stared down at me.
“And you’re just like her. Ruining everything. Running away isn’t an option, Bella. Thinking you can just throw yourself off the cliff and everything else will cease to matter isn’t an option. You’re mine and that is final. You will do everything I ask of you. If I tell you to scream the only words I want to hear from you is, ‘How loud, Master?’ Is that understood?”
I couldn’t help it. I knew I shouldn’t antagonise him, I knew I should have just nodded and done whatever it was that he wanted. But I couldn’t. It wasn’t in my character to just allow him to get away with whatever he wanted.
“No. I’m not yours. You’re a pathetic excuse for a man. No wonder that other woman wouldn’t let you have her. You’re not worthy of any woman. You have to kidnap women, force them to into bed with you because you can’t get any to go willingly.”
He lunged at me, my words finally driving him over the edge. He dragged me upright and punched me, the blow sending my head spinning. I dropped to my knees in front of him and tried to scramble away. But he was there first, his booted foot connecting with my ribs. Blood flooded my mouth, the taste coppery and warm.