Zoe fidgeted excitedly in her seat. “I have just the girl for you, Ellie. Perfect form and excellent manners. I’ve been working with the newly weaned to make sure they exhibit good behavior before placing them. As big as they are, being ill-mannered is just an accident waiting to happen.” Lifting her glass, she added, “I’m going to bring her by to meet you. I think it will be a match made in heaven.”
I gave her a smile before turning to my parents. “Would you hate me if I turned in? I’m so exhausted. I napped but I’m wiped.”
“Of course, baby. I’ll have Cook save tarts for you for breakfast.” Mom stood up with my father. “Excuse us for just a few minutes while we walk with Ellie to her wing. Please, enjoy another glass of wine. Dessert will be served shortly.”
With that, she waited for me and my security team to join them in the doorway. Bianca and Fiaaz stepped back to allow my folks to stand on either side of me. “I’m sorry, Ellie. I forgot how long our dinners manage to stretch once we all start talking.”
“Normally, I’d be one of the last to cry uncle but I’m ready to drop.”
Padme said quietly, “We’re a little late on your medication, Ellie but I think we should be alright.” At my sharp glance she smiled, “No worries, I had all the original prescriptions changed to…safer selections. But Ellie, they’re not as effective. Are you sure you’ll be able to handle the pain?”
I kept it simple, “Yes. I’m sure.”
I had a floating feeling for a moment when we arrived to my rooms and didn’t see Hyde. Had I dreamed his voice? Then I caught him from the corner of my eye entering his own space without a backward glance and my heart slammed painfully against my ribcage.
Mom insisted on helping me get ready for bed so we could chat about the dinner party. When I was wearing a tank top and sleep shorts, she tucked me into bed and sat on the side to smooth my hair. I felt ten-years-old again in a way that wasn’t unwelcome.
Dad came in and both of them loved on me for a few minutes before saying they’d see me in the morning. I settled in to sleep as I heard the sounds of my household quieting for the night. The new guards were stationed on the roof and the grounds.
Si and Fiaaz had rooms down the hall. Bianca’s rooms were next door. Padme and Hyde slept in my suite. I heard the locks engage through my partially open bedroom door and the tones of my alarm system being activated.
It took me a long time to fully relax and I should have known life wouldn’t be quite so easy. For the first time since my attack, I wasn’t sliding headlong into a drug-induced sleep. My bedroom wasn’t as brightly lit and constantly noise-ridden like the hospital.
It was quiet.
It was dark.
Terror had just been waiting to reach out and toy with me.
Chapter Four
Being home brought down a brick in the wall my subconscious had erected.
I had my first nightmare since the attack and it was a whopper. The contents were hazy but terrifying and I woke up on the floor of my room with Padme and Hyde leaning over me. Padme had bleeding scratches on her upper chest and Hyde was sporting a busted lip.
All of us were sweating. I was soaking wet and could feel streams of sweat dripping from my body. I was also in severe pain. My hair was plastered to my damp face and upper body. Padme reached out with a shaking hand and pushed the strands away.
“Ellie…please tell me you’re awake now.” I nodded. “Thank God.”
She sat back and lifted my head from the floor into her lap. I realized my throat was raw when I tried to ask what happened.
Then Padme did something I’d never seen before in the nine years I’d known her. She burst into tears. Rocking me in her arms, I felt a ripple of fear skate down my spine.
I looked at Hyde’s face. Every muscle in his body was taut with tension. He was pale and so angry there was an instant when my fear was directed at him.
One piece of my dream flashed before my conscious mind and my body reacted immediately, sending knifing pain through my healing limbs. “Going to…to be sick. Please.” Hyde was up with me in his arms in seconds, striding for the bathroom.
He literally held me suspended from the floor around my waist as I lost anything still in my stomach. The pressure on my ribs was agony but the position was necessary since I couldn’t bend one leg. His other hand gathered my hair and held it out of my way. Padme got a damp cloth and wiped my face and mouth.
“Alright, Ellie. Okay. Let’s get her to the sink, Hyde.”
He gently moved me across the room and held me steady as I brushed my teeth and washed my face with one hand. Leaning heavily on the cool marble, I looked up into Hyde’s face behind mine.
To me, he was like the perfect blend of everything I’d ever admired in a man. He was six-four, heavily muscled but lean. His hair was kept shaggy. It was light brown in the winter, golden blond in the summer. His eyes were hazel green but sometimes looked blue.
He had to shave twice a day to keep his jaw smooth but I liked it when he only shaved once. Right now, he had a dusting of stubble over his jaw and around his mouth. He had multiple scars and he was serious all the time.
Everything about him screamed danger but I would have run toward him before anyone else if I felt threatened. I rarely saw him smile but I knew that when he did there were dimples in his cheeks. I’d seen him run, fight, and shoot for the past several years and there was nothing I didn’t like about him. He never, ever lied to me and he always made me feel safe.
He was watching me carefully in the mirror.
“I’m so sorry, Hyde.” My heart rate was too high. I felt dizzy and strange.
He opened his mouth to respond but I was already gone.
I woke the next morning between clean sheets and in a clean t-shirt. I hurt everywhere. My wrist was throbbing like an open wound and it felt like my shoulder was out of place. There was pain shooting down my leg and my toes were numb. I tried to sit up and moaned in agony. Bianca was at the door two seconds later.
“Jesus, Ellie. You need the pain meds. Let me get them.”
“No.” I wasn’t going to argue. “I can do this. Can you help me to the chair? Fuck!” My eyes shot to Bianca’s and I said, “I’m sorry…it isn’t you. I’m sorry.”
Bianca came to the side of the bed and helped me sit up. “Ellie, I realize that being the resident Pollyanna has saturated your entire life but I think you’re allowed some pain-induced fury. It is perfectly understandable.”
Thirty minutes later I was showered and dressed in cotton shorts and a super soft tank top. The shower had been an exercise in pain control. I wasn’t sure whether the droplets on my skin were water or sweat. Every movement hurt.
Padme braided my hair in a thick plait down my back.
I nodded and the two women took me into the main room. Fiaaz and Si were watching Hyde’s room nervously.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
Bianca pushed me over to the seating area and Fiaaz lifted me to the sofa. I couldn’t control the whimper that escaped me. “We need to give you pain medication, Ellie. You aren’t meant to sustain this.”
“I can’t take anything. I won’t. I can handle it.”
Everyone was on edge and it was freaking me out. This group did not get edgy. When people with their training got edgy, really bad shit went down. “Did something happen? Is Hyde…did Hyde leave?” Padme lifted my hand and I realized I’d been digging my short nails into the top of my thigh.
Seeming shocked at the very suggestion that Hyde would quit, Fiaaz said carefully, “Ellie, we will need you to remain very calm.” He crouched beside me. “There is a secret only those in this room and your parents are aware of. There is no way to keep it from you anymore because neither of them will stand down from guarding you around the clock.”
I rubbed my temples, trying to ease the pain. “I…Fiaaz, I get…I get headaches. Please, what is it? I don’t understand. Is he angry with me? Neither of who?” I was breathing hard and
hurting and just wanted to understand what was going on.
Bianca came to smooth my hair away from my face. I realized I was slick with sweat. “Ellie, please let us get you something for the pain. Please.” I shook my head once sharply. “Ssh, Ellie, slow your breathing, love. Slow. Yes, that’s it. Just like that. Slow and steady.”
She turned and took a cup and saucer from Si. I stared at it in suspicion. “No, Ellie. Just herbal tea. It won’t hurt you or the baby. You know we wouldn’t let anything happen to you or your baby, Ellie. This is a brew Si made just in case you wouldn’t take the pain meds. Small sips to help with the pain, sweetheart.”
I tried to take it but my hand was shaking too badly and I was so angry at myself, so tired of being weak and confused. “Where is Hyde, Bianca? Tell me and I’ll drink the fucking tea! Where is he? I didn’t mean for him to be hurt. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
I was crying and I did not want to cry anymore.
Bianca was crying and I’d never seen her cry. “No, Ellie, no.”
I heard Hyde’s door open but couldn’t move my own body around to look. He came around the end of the couch and I gasped, wincing at his busted lip, putting my fingers over my own lips as fresh tears fell down my cheeks.
The apology was on the tip of my tongue when another Hyde appeared at the first’s shoulder with a bandage that looked to be covering a gunshot wound on his shoulder. I could see bandages wrapped around his torso covering other wounds.
The confusion that swamped me made me incoherent. I rubbed my temple hard and whispered, “G…gunshot wound? I…I don’t remember a gunshot wound. I’m sure I don’t.”
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes for a long moment while I gathered my thoughts. Opening them, I lifted my head.
There were still two Hydes standing in front of me. One version had a busted lip – I had put it there in the middle of the night. The other Hyde’s lips were perfect but he had a gunshot wound.
I whispered brokenly, “Am I losing my mind right now?”
Padme, the queen of anti-melodrama, said quietly, “Twins, Ellie.”
Almost a minute passed while everyone stared at me and I said nothing. Then I started to laugh and couldn’t stop myself until I was sobbing.
My mother was called and the room was cleared.
Chapter Five
Sitting on the couch, she pulled my head carefully over her lap so she could play with my hair. Unbraiding the entire length, she began to plait tiny braids absently. She let me calm completely before expecting me to speak. It took a while.
“Mom, why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t they tell me?”
She took a long moment to answer. “When we searched for your security team, we went through underground channels that would curl your hair, Ellie. We wanted the best of the best for our daughter.” Her fingers worked gently, methodically, and it reminded me of my childhood.
“People who had enough experience and ruthlessness to protect you while maintaining enough humanity to understand they’d be watching over a very young woman with a sweet and gentle soul.”
I laughed softly. “You certainly found them. Every one of them is lethal yet so kind to me.”
A small smile flitted over Mom’s face. “Yes. The meeting to secure your staff was done at the Salt Flats at midnight. Daddy and I interviewed each person ourselves. Hyde was known throughout the world as the best bodyguard money could buy. His entire career, no one knew he was a twin except those in the highest chain of command. His safety and the safety of his missions relied heavily on that secrecy, Ellie.”
“For four years, Mom?” I asked incredulously
“Five, Ellie. Your team has shadowed you since before you turned eighteen, even before you left for college.” Her confession rocked me. I’d never even suspected. “It was the white slavery threats we received before your high school graduation, you see? A wealthy heiress, eighteen, a confirmed virgin…there had already been two kidnapping attempts before you ever left home.”
She shook her head fiercely and I saw the lioness that lived inside my mother. “We had to keep you safe.”
I wrapped my mind around this information and gave a self-mocking laugh. “Two out of three of those descriptions are no longer even accurate, Mom.”
“Ellie, that’s so cold.”
“My life is cold, Mom.” I saw her flinch as I slowly sat up and rubbed my face. My hair fell around me as I rested my good arm on my good leg and tried to still the raging pain in every cell. “So basically, they’ve been covering me and changing places for five years. I never even suspected.”
I had to know. I had to face it. “What happened that day?”
Mom’s eyes went wide. “You haven’t asked Hyde?” I was the one who flinched this time. “You’re…embarrassed to ask. Oh, Ellie. Why?”
“He…they wouldn’t have been hurt if it wasn’t for me.” Mom started to dispute it and I interrupted. “Tell me. Just tell me what happened, Mom.”
“Jordan was shot three times on the other side of the park with a silenced 9mm. He got an emergency signal out before he lost consciousness. It took Fiaaz and Bianca almost an hour to locate where his body had fallen in the brush. Jonas was hit with a tranquilizer dart, taken with you, beaten near to death.”
Mom couldn’t look at me, “The tranquilizer dart was supposed to be for you. They had to use it on Hyde. They thought they’d already killed him.”
My nails were gouging into my palm and I asked hoarsely, “Are they all dead?”
“All captured, tortured for exactly the amount of time you were held, and killed painfully…yes.”
“So why am I finding out about them now? They both nearly died…” I rubbed my hand over my heart, the pain there was excruciating and it had nothing to do with my physical injuries. “I’d quit and move on, not reveal my trade secret.”
A soft snort came from Mom, “Yeah, right, you’d quit. You’ve never quit anything. I’m surprised you know the word.” She reached out to smooth my hair. “They can’t hide their distinctive wounds, Ellie, and both of them refuse to stand down. They flat out refuse to leave you but you’re sharp and you know them very well.”
Not nearly as well as I’d thought.
“They didn’t want to tell you the truth while you were still in the worst of your recovery. They took Si and hunted those men down; paid them back for what they did to you. All of your people, including Padme, wanted to capture and hold them, drag the torture out for weeks, but it was decided they couldn’t leave you with a partial staff that long.” Her eyes were cold and I saw the lioness again, “I told them to make those hours count, Ellie.”
Mom stood up and went into the kitchen, coming back with a glass of orange juice. “You’re still anemic and your blood sugar is shit. Drink up, baby.” I took it gratefully and considered things.
So many things made sense now.
Others were far more confusing.
I’d been in love with Hyde since the first year I’d known him…them. Finding out there were two of them was devastating to my heart but there was nothing I could do about it.
I had to minimize my vulnerabilities. If I could feel a little stronger, that would go a long way toward reinforcing the walls around my heart even though I already knew it was too late for that foolishness.
I pulled out my phone and dialed Theresa’s personal number. “Ellie, how are you feeling?”
I gave her a quick update then told her why I’d called. “I want the soft casts. I have no mobility. I’ll wear them longer if you want, I’ll even wear them to bed. It’s not like I can go running or riding even with the soft casts. It would be nice to be able to get in and out of the shower without a production. Yes? You’re the best. Want me to come over? I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
My mother’s eyes were positively huge.
“Everything’s fine, Mom. I’m going to see Theresa. I have my PT appointment in two hours. I’m gla
d I know now.” I worked my way into my wheelchair and Mom pushed me to the door. “I need a different chair I can use by myself. Will you get that for me?”
Mom nodded, looking at me strangely. I opened the door into the hall. The men and women who’d been with me for years, protected me, been injured for me stood there.
“It’s all good. The more the merrier. Just a bit of a shock, of course. Nothing I can’t handle. Time to get these casts off.”
Padme jumped violently. “What do you mean you’re taking the casts off? Ellie, you have another two weeks.”
“Hell no. I’m tired of being an invalid. Mom is bringing me a wheelchair I can operate on my own.” I looked over my shoulder at my mom. “Please tell me there is food downstairs once I get this done.”
“Of course. Mrs. Safoya and Cook have been cooking all morning.”
“Excellent, let’s do this.” Avoiding looking at any of them for too long, I let Mom push me into Theresa’s suites and offices. An hour later, with X-rays to prove I was healing well enough to justify the cast removal, she and her assistant cut them off my body.
The vibration of the saw had me clenching my jaw so hard my teeth hurt. I gripped the edge of the table with a white-knuckled hand and I could feel the sweat pooling between my breasts and soaking my back.
Hyde, both of them, stood just inside the door and neither looked happy.
“Ellie, are you sure?” Theresa wasn’t, I could tell.
“Finish it. Please hurry and finish it.” I powered through it because I didn’t have a choice and I was so tired of not being in control of the simplest aspects of my life. I pretended the tears running from the corners of my eyes didn’t exist and when Theresa wiped them away, I said nothing.
Before she was done cleaning my leg and attaching the soft cast and boot, Bianca entered with an automated wheelchair. She and Padme stood on either side and watched me carefully.
Obsession (Endurance) Page 4