He lunged forward, never even expecting Natalie to fight back. She wasn’t Natalie to him, though. She was Clara, the girl who had suffered his abuse for eighteen years without a word of dissent. She hadn’t been that girl for a long time, and when she grabbed for the knife and tried to twist it out of his grip, he didn’t react quickly enough to stop her.
Natalie had expected him to lose his grip and drop the knife, allowing her to run for the stairs and escape the basement. She hadn’t realized how fast he was moving and how little time she’d have to complete the move. When her hands came away covered in blood, a cold numbness spread over her body. She fell back against the wall and stared at the scarlet stain on her bare stomach.
The crash of the basement door barely registered with her. Shouting and running sounded dull in the stone room. Something told her to look toward the noise, but instead, her eyes drifted to her father. Lying at her feet, she stared at the knife in his chest, then back at her hands. Coated in blood, they pressed against her middle, expecting some kind of wound but finding only smooth skin.
“I killed him,” she whispered in disbelief.
A warm body all but crashed into her, scooping her up from the ground and cradling her against a strong chest. “Natalie,” a voice begged. “Look at me, please. Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
The sound of his voice penetrated her shock and she looked up to find Vance’s wild eyes staring down at her. “I killed him,” she said again.
“I know. It’s okay. You’re safe now.” His hands were all over her, brushing hair from her face, inspecting her body for wounds. Paramedics rushed up, skipping over her father to crowd around her. They too began poking and prodding. She didn’t even pull away or care. They kept commenting and asking questions she couldn’t answer. For some reason, Michael Moniteau was standing nearby as well, but she thought she must have been imagining that.
“She’s in shock,” one of them said. “We need to get her to the hospital.”
“I’m going with her,” Vance said, finding no argument from anyone.
Vance stood with her still in his arms and began carrying her away from her father’s body. It wasn’t until he made it all the way up to the main floor, crossed through the house, and stepped off the front porch that it truly hit her. Not that her father was dead and she had killed him, but that it was all over. It was finally all over.
Tears began cascading down her face as her body went into convulsions from the depth of her sobbing. Vance panicked and called for the paramedics, but she just kept crying. It was all over. She would never have to set foot in that house again. Never look over her shoulder in fear that her father might find her. Never worry that a decision she made would expose her. Never have to be Clara Townsend again. She had faced her worst fear, faced a homicidal lunatic, and she had survived. She had been strong enough, brave enough, loved enough. She had survived the most horrible thing she could have imagined, and she was finally free.
Chapter 31
The Nightmare
Vance woke to the feeling of fingers running lazily through his hair. It was a good feeling and it made him not want to open his eyes. He was still tired, though he couldn’t immediately remember why. He just knew he wanted to stay in the moment for as long as possible.
“I know you’re awake,” a quiet voice whispered.
Natalie’s voice sent a jolt through him. He bolted up from where his head had been resting on her hospital bed and nearly slipped off his chair. “Natalie!”
The previous night’s events came flooding back into his mind and every fear and concern sank into his heart all over again. They’d had to sedate her in the ambulance to calm her back down, and then her body’s natural defense mechanisms had kicked in and dropped her into a deep sleep. The doctor said it was a normal reaction to what she’d been through to shut down for a while, but Vance had been so desperate to talk to her they’d almost had to sedate him as well. A threat to kick him out of her room if he didn’t stop agitating everyone did the trick well enough.
“How are you feeling?” he demanded as his hands pressed against either side of her face. Instinctively, he knew he was probably pushing her limits after such a terrible ordeal, but she reached up and covered his hands with hers.
“Exhausted and sore and the back of my head hurts like crazy,” she said, “but I’m fine.”
Vance gaped at her. “Fine? You’re not fine, Natalie. Your father kidnapped you, locked you in a basement, and tried to kill you. You are definitely not fine.”
Pulling his hands down from her face, she gripped them tightly. “I’m safe, finally. He’ll never hurt me again.” She released one of his hands, grabbed the front of the dress shirt he was still wearing despite it being covered in blood, and pulled him closer to her. “I’m okay, really.”
Shaking his head, he couldn’t understand how she could speak about what had happened so rationally. “It still hasn’t hit. You’re in shock.”
“Probably,” Natalie agreed.
“That doesn’t worry you?”
She shrugged. “Not if you’re with me. I know you’ll take care of me if it does all hit at once and I have some kind of breakdown again, but honestly, that already happened once.”
“Outside the house?” Vance asked. When she nodded, he pressed further. “What caused the breakdown last night?”
She looked down at their hands still linked together, nestled against her chest. Finally, Vance felt he saw something of the reaction he was expecting when her expression clouded. “It might not be what you think,” she said quietly.
“That’s okay. Just tell me what happened.” His voice was as calm as he could make it. Striving for that practiced tone he had used so many times before but not quite hitting the mark. This wasn’t a patient he was treating, this was Natalie. Everything was so much more close and real.
Shifting on the bed, she drew his hand up under her chin and held it there close to her face. “I was shocked that I’d actually killed him. When I saw the blood on me, I thought at first that he’d stabbed me and I just couldn’t feel it. It took me a few seconds to realize the opposite was true.” She looked up at him, locking gazes.
“When you came running down and grabbed me, I was still trying to figure out what had happened, but then when we got out of the house…all the way out, I realized it was finally over. He’d never hurt me again and I’d never have to be afraid of him finding me or punishing me. I’d never have to face his cruelty again. It was all truly over. That’s when I broke down.”
“It wasn’t about what happened to your father?” he asked, not sure how that couldn’t have affected her as deeply as being free had.
Seeming to sense his confusion, Natalie pushed herself up and gestured for him to sit on the bed with her. It was a tight fit, but she seemed to feel better having him so close. “That night we played poker at Eli’s,” she began, “it made me realize something.”
Vance tried not to cringe when he thought of that night and his own breakdown. “What did you realize?”
“There’s more to family than blood.” She said it so simply, with such surety and finality. Expounding on that frank statement, she said, “Everyone there that night, they’re all each other’s family. The way you all take care of each other and help and watch over one another, that’s what family is supposed to be. It’s not supposed to be lording over someone because they were born first and they feel some egotistical right to control and hurt others.”
Vance understood exactly what she was saying, because he considered his friends as close as any of his actual family. He would do anything for them, and they for him. In his head, he knew Natalie had never had that before meeting him, but he didn’t really understand what it must have been like to grow up without any sort of bond like that at all.
“My father may have been my blood, but he wasn’t family. Neither was my mother. I know I’ll have to deal with the fact that I killed my father in self-defense and that my mother took her
own life, but right now, I’m just so glad I’m safe and here with you,” Natalie said. “You’re my family, Vance. I know without a doubt that you’ll take care of me and protect me and…and maybe even love me, I think.”
He was still incredibly worried about her, but a weight lifted off his tired shoulders in that moment. “I do love you, and I was trying to tell you so when that idiot Moniteau interrupted.”
“I knew what you were trying to say,” Natalie said, smiling for a moment before her expression morphed into one of confusion. “Was he really there last night? In the basement?”
Vance nodded, scaling back his initial dislike of the man as he considered how much he owed him. He supposed Moniteau really wasn’t all that bad. “Yes, he was there. He’s actually the reason I got to you so quickly.” When Natalie’s confusion worsened, he said, “He has a helicopter, and the influence to get people moving. Peter Morrow helped a lot too, getting things coordinated with the state police to get to your old house.”
“Why, though? I barely know the man,” she argued. “Moniteau, I mean, not Peter.”
Sighing, Vance recalled the conversation he’d had with him only a few hours earlier. “Because he really was quite attracted to you when you first met during some meeting, and while he did invite you to the gala because he thinks you’re brilliant, he had also intended to sweep you off your feet, more or less until he realized we were together and pretty serious about each other. And I think it really pissed him off that something happened to you while you were ‘under his protection,’ so to speak.”
“I’m not sure I know what to think about that,” Natalie said honestly.
“Hopefully,” Vance said, “you think it was great that he helped, but not great enough to trade in your lowly doctor for a millionaire.”
Natalie covered her mouth to smother a giggle. Vance was pretty sure it was the first time he had ever actually seen her giggle. It was a good look on her. Leaning closer to him, she ignored all her usual boundaries and placed her lips right next to his ear. “I’m not in love with Michael Moniteau, so why would I even think about trading you for him?”
Turning to face her, he was surprised when she didn’t pull back but moved even closer. It made him stumble a moment before he asked, “Do you…really mean that?”
Her head bobbed slightly, but that wasn’t her only answer. “I always thought falling in love with someone was about the worst thing that could ever happen to me. I couldn’t love someone but never touch them, and the other person couldn’t really love me either. It terrified me and held me back almost as much as everything else I was afraid of, but I was wrong.”
“Wrong?” Vance asked. He was not only intrigued, but he needed very much to hear her answer.
“Falling in love didn’t make me miserable, it gave me the strength I needed to finally break free of my fears. You gave me strength when I was in that basement. Even if he’d killed me, I’d been truly loved for once in my life. Everything he’d done to me and put me through as a child, I knew I could get past it because I had found something so much better to hold onto than my terror of him.”
At a loss for what to say to that, Vance pulled her into his arms. He was surprised when she followed suit and pressed herself against him as tightly as she could. “I’m not afraid anymore,” she whispered.
Vance gently pushed her back just enough to look at her, to really and truly see her. He had been so scared when she first woke up and wasn’t acting like he expected that he’d missed it. The strength that had replaced her fear shone out at him. He knew, and she probably did too, that it would take time to really process and absorb everything that had happened, but there was a clear difference in her now and he fully embraced it.
“Now, now, I don’t think she’s been cleared for that sort of thing,” a suave and aggravating voice crooned as he intruded once again.
“Moniteau,” Vance acknowledged as he reluctantly pulled back. “Impeccable timing as usual.”
He grinned wolfishly. “It’s a talent of mine.”
“I bet.”
Natalie struggled to hide a smile as she turned her attention toward Moniteau. “I hear I owe you a big thank you for getting Vance to me so quickly. I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you for what you did.”
Moniteau waved off her thanks. “Your man here was the one who got the information we needed to find you. Got a pretty mean right hook, if I do say so myself.”
Natalie’s gaze flicked over to Vance’s, shock making her eyes flare wide. “You got into a fight?”
“It was just one punch,” he said with a shake of his head. “And Howard more than deserved it.”
“Howard?”
Seeing that Natalie hadn’t been filled in on the details, Moniteau took it upon himself to explain. “This Howard fellow was apparently hired by your father to find you. He was feeding him information about where you were and when he could find you, though he claims he thought he was reuniting him with his long lost daughter who would be more than happy to see him.”
Natalie scowled at such a distasteful notion and closed her eyes against whatever memories were trying to resurface.
“He’s currently sitting in a jail cell pending multiple charges,” Moniteau offered.
That detail helped Natalie relax a little, but tension still bunched her shoulders, though it was nearly startled right out of her when Sabine burst into the room in a flurry of French praises and swearing. Praises that Vance and Natalie were both okay and swearing that they had scared her so badly. She didn’t even stop to say hello in English before throwing herself at Vance and then reaching over and dragging Natalie into a hug regardless of what she knew about her phobias.
When she finally let go, she slapped her hands on her hips and exploded. “How many times do I have to rush away from work for emergencies these past months?” Tears filled her eyes as she stared at Natalie. Vance knew they had become quite close through frequent phone calls over the weeks he’d spent holed up in his apartment. Sabine brushed away a tear and said, “It is too much for these things to keep happening and I will not allow it again. No more sicknesses or kidnappings or crazy rash decisions.” She blew out a breath and let her shoulders fall. A relieved smile crept onto her face. “Although, I will happily drop everything and fly back for new babies. That I am more than happy to handle, but no more of this.”
Vance couldn’t help shaking his head at her as he stood from the hospital bed and gave her a proper hug. She squeezed him tightly before pulling back and whacking him on the shoulder. “That is for ignoring me for so long! I was in despair worrying about you.”
She shoved him away, though Vance knew she wasn’t nearly as mad as she pretended since they had talked for a long time earlier in the week. He was rather amused when she stalked over to Natalie’s side of the bed looking distraught and begged, “May I hug you properly, my dear? I know you do not like such things, but I was so scared when Guy called to tell me what had happened. You have become such a dear friend to me and I was so frightened you would be harmed.”
Natalie nodded, though she looked a little frightened at the prospect and only managed a gentle pat on the shoulder when Sabine attacked her. Satisfied, Sabine pulled back and said, “You have been such a blessing to Vance, and I like you very much. I am so relieved you were rescued and not injured. You and Vance…you have caused me so much stress of late, but now it is all okay, yes?”
“Yes,” Natalie said with a smile.
Nodding in acceptance, Sabine’s hands landed back on her hips as she finally took a deep breath. About that time, she noticed Moniteau standing to the side grinning at her and put on a familiar glare. “And you are who?”
“Michael Moniteau,” he said, still grinning, “a friend.” Sabine crinkled her nose at him and looked less than pleased to shake his hand.
A few seconds later a female doctor came in and requested nonfamily to step out for a few minutes while she spoke with Natalie. Vance moved to leave, but
Natalie grabbed his hand and refused to let go. The doctor eyed him sideways, but addressed Natalie. “I need to ask you some personal questions about what happened during your abduction. I really suggest only immediate family be present.”
“He’s the only family I have left,” Natalie said plainly.
Nodding, the doctor had no further objections. Vance sat by Natalie’s side as she answered difficult questions about what had happened. As Natalie wasn’t awake while being transported from the hotel and she was only in the basement for less than a day, the questioning didn’t last as long as Vance feared. Soon enough, the doctor thanked Natalie for talking with her and stepped out.
“Thank you for staying,” Natalie said.
“I’ll always stay,” he promised.
She smiled and looked over at him shyly. “No second thoughts about moving in with me?”
“With you? No,” he said, “but what if we found a new place together, one that has no difficult memories and all the possibility for good ones?”
“I think that sounds perfect.” Despite everything she had been through in the last twenty-four hours, she smiled up at him before laying her head against his chest to rest.
She was out a few minutes later, but Vance was used to holding her as she slept. The nightmare she had spent her whole life running from was finally over.
Chapter 32
The Moment
As soon as Natalie pushed open the front door of their new apartment she was greeted by boxes. Stacks and stacks of them. Normally a very tidy person, the boxes should have made her anxious, but Vance standing in the middle of them looking a bit lost at where to start released all her pent-up tension. He tended to have that effect on her no matter what the situation entailed.
The Only Shark In The Sea (The Date Shark Series Book 3) Page 27