Protector's Claim

by Airicka Phoenix

  The information started basic enough, each year of David’s life neatly clipped together and labeled. It began with David as a pudgy child with downy wisps combed deliberately to one side, his enormous body stuffed into a protesting sailor suit.

  He’d been an ugly child. Maybe that was just my own personal feelings leaking into the equation, but someone had seemingly smashed his face in, rendering his blue eyes into thin, squinty slits overcome by baseball-sized cheeks. With his massive head and even larger body, he could have passed for a baby snowman.

  Nevertheless, I bypassed the pictures and moved to the forms.

  The first handful were routine doctor visits, his required injections, and a list of all his nannies, of which there seemed to be many as the years progressed. None stayed longer than a few years, each leaving without notice. That went on until he was five and was enrolled in his first daycare.

  The notes and reports increased from there, each one painting a picture of a spoiled, over indulged brat on the cusp of becoming an unstoppable bully. By his teens, he was already showing signs of sadism, bordering on psychopathic tendencies. There were reports of assault — both sexual and physical — as long as my arms by the time he was nineteen. None ever reached a courtroom, or where mentioned again beyond the initial report. The victims had seemingly changed their minds, or vanished entirely.

  While I didn’t believe he’d killed them to make them disappear, David wasn’t above paying people off, or maybe he did have them killed. I certainly wouldn’t have put it past him.

  Setting aside the years between birth and twenty, I delved into David in his twenties and thirties, foolishly expecting the picture to change, hoping that by becoming an adult, David had matured and realized the error of his ways.

  Instead, the David on paper had only grown to refine his brutality. He’d gone from petty brutality to the twisted art pure torture. Somewhere between graduating from Yale and taking a chair at his father’s company, he’d found himself, had found the monster within in the dark bowels of the underground scene.

  That, I assumed, was where he must have met my father. Perhaps not during that time, exactly, but later on. The underworld was as vast and mysterious as the catacombs beneath London. Their paths could have crossed at any time.

  There was a brief period where he seemed to have gone straight. There was no mention of anything illicit for almost two years after he married Marcella. One could have assumed he’d found the love of his life and given it all up for her, yet, despite having a beautiful wife waiting for him at home, David had gone back to his nightly activities. He’d left his wife and children sleeping in their beds and released himself in the mutilation and pain of helpless women. It was all there in the pictures.

  I couldn’t fathom how Del had gotten such an extensive and thorough timeline of every dungeon, every torture house, whorehouse, auction house, and club house David had frequented that many years ago, never mind physical pictures of every gruesome act, but it was all there in perfect order, dated and time stamped. It was the most thorough and meticulous layout I had ever witnessed. I would have been impressed if it wasn’t equally frightening; was it really that simple getting pictures of someone preforming such horrific and sickening acts? What amazed me most was how David was completely oblivious to their existence. But how had he not known? The angles alone suggested the person taking them was a mere few feet away, close enough that I could make out the beads of sweat on his brow and count the welts on the girl’s body.

  Unless he’d trusted the person taking them. Unless he’d believed himself amongst those in the same circle, partners in crime, people who would never speak out, people he’d considered his friends.

  Walter.

  Of course it had to be my father. Walter Kincaid could talk a fish into thinking it was a bird. No doubt he’d convinced David to let the pictures happen. They we’re friends, after all. They were in it together. David, stupid, greedy, selfish David had agreed, because it was Walter Kincaid asking and David was all about pleasing the hand that fed him.

  That explained the photos, but it still didn’t explain how Del got them, or how either had come by all the information.

  Yet I held the proof of David’s end in my hands. I had his entire world between my fingertips, and not just his. Marcella’s and Cordelia’s. Eric’s as well, but something told me he wouldn’t care nearly as much. But the first two ... how did they not know? I couldn’t believe ... no, I didn’t believe it. Marcella was one thing, but Cordelia? That woman was so far up her father’s ass, she could have counted his fillings, yet I was to believe she was innocent in Gabby’s abduction? Unlikely. Wherever Gabby was, I would have bet my life that Cordelia was somehow involved.

  I set aside another stack, moving past David’s twenties and thirties. I reached the end of a new decade and marveled at how nothing had changed.

  Nothing.

  David continued to flaunt his wealth and power over the weak. Cordelia and Eric were no longer children, and Marcella seemed to fade into the scenery with every passing year. She remained David Thornton’s gorgeous wife, but that was it. As common as David’s car, or David’s shoes. Without him, she seemed to cease to exist. The only notable mention of her at all was her heroin addiction, a surprising fact that I had to read twice to properly understand it.

  It must have been small doses, just enough to take her out of her days and numb the nights, without overdosing or getting caught. Seven years and I never noticed a fucking thing.

  I put her pages aside and lifted the next one.

  Unlike her mother, Cordelia was a wealth of vibrancy. Her section radiate success, personal and professional triumphs. She’s was a stunning thoroughbred with all the perfect attributes, a winner. She was the opposite of her mother, but nothing that I didn’t already know.

  Eric was next, his file read with no difference to his Eric would live his life, with abundance and a disregard that came easily to those who never had to worry about anything but themselves.

  Then I got to Gabby’s, three pages summarizing twenty-two years of a single living person’s life. It read like a short, sad book with a beginning, middle, and conclusion. It started with Marcella’s Affair, the cruise, the man she went back to her cabin with, his name, his job title, the exact length of time he was in her room. It was all marked, a perfect timeline of her conception.

  The second page was her education. A whole list of four schools, primary, secondary, high school, and University. A list of her marks and teachers. No list of nannies, no friends, no hobbies. Not even a mention of a team or extra curricular activities. She read like an illegal immigrant trying to stay under the raider. She sounded like a prisoner.

  I flipped to the third page.

  The auction house and my name stared back at me. It was her only accomplishment, the only true living she’d ever done. How could a single person have done nothing, gone nowhere, been so utterly alone? How had no one noticed? How hadn’t I? I’d been part of that family for years, three of those were spent learning everything I could about the woman whose whole life history sat in my hands. Yet, I knew nothing. I had learned nothing. Somehow, I’d been blind to what was right in front of me for seven years. All the Sunday dinners, all the times she’d begged me not to touch her, not to get too close, all the underhanded remarks from David and Cordelia, I hadn’t suspected a thing.

  Christ, I was worse than her family. I was an ignorant douche, one who hadn’t done enough to protect her, who had underestimated the enemy, despite what she’d told me. I should have known how far David would go to have her.

  I closed the file with all the pages inside. There was enough there to ruin the Thornton name for good, enough to put them all in jail. I could submit everything to the police and let them sort it out, but an orange jumpsuit and three square meals a day wasn’t enough. For everything he put Gabby through, for taking her, there was only one punishment that would satisfy me, one form of justice. The law would disagree, but if
there was one thing my father taught me and taught me well, it was that we were above the law. I was a Kincaid and we left no enemy standing.

  Chapter Fifteen — Gabrielle

  Desolation enveloped my senses, propelling me into that place I struggled not to slip into. The terror of being left there, suspended and restrained while David could return at any moment to finish what he’d started ate at me with serrated little fangs. Every second jabbed into cold, naked flesh until all I wanted to do was weep.

  All around me, anguish ruled with an iron fist. The pure oppression consumed even a sliver of hope. I couldn’t draw in a breath without the fear of alerting someone to my existence, because no matter how brutal and painful the X was, catching the attention of the people who ran that place was infinitely worse.

  I didn’t know how long I could stay there, however. Blood had evacuated my fingers, reverting them into slender bits of ice. It matched the numbness in my toes and the prickling chill in my bare thighs.

  I needed my clothes, which I doubted they’d simply return. What’s more, I needed to get out of there. David could return at any moment and I didn’t even want to think what he might do once we were alone.

  Biting back the urge to scream and yank at the straps, I forced myself to focus on the figure still standing immobile by the door, a lithe silhouette of shiny black against the drab concrete. She hadn’t moved, not once since her instructions to stay. Her perfect stillness brought forth images of a mechanical creature, a robot. No living person had that sort of stamina.

  I pushed aside the possibility that she might have been and tried again to reach her.

  “Jeremy,” I rasped out, lips stiff, tongue dry. “My bodyguard, is he okay? Please, just tell me that much.”

  Eyes that had been glazed in thought blinked and focused on me. There was just a hint of movement with a subtle tilt of her head, a curious kitten.

  “He has a family,” I pressed on, now that I had her attention. “Please, don’t hurt him.”

  She neither denied, nor confirmed my concerns, nor did her features convey any thought towards my words. They remained a perfect, blank slate.

  “Is he dead?” I demanded. “Just tell me that much.”

  If she was about to, I never found out when the latch cracked and the door opened. The terror that followed immediately after nearly liquefied my bowels.

  But it wasn’t David.

  The realization propelled an unwarranted whimper to escape. The relief was paralyzing, but short lived.

  The woman was built like a house, a massive frame stuffed into a leather jumpsuit. It almost mirrored Lady’s uniform, but while Lady’s complimented her delicate shape, accenting her trim waist, full hips, and plump chest, the other woman only came off angry and frightening. The leather looked painted on and she had no breasts, just a solid wall of rippling muscles that Arnold schwarzenegger would have envied.

  She stomped forward with the stiff movements of a gorilla. She said something to Lady and earned a slow inclination of the smaller woman’s head.

  As one, they turned to me. If I hadn’t been retained to the spot, I would have taken a step back in trepidation. As it were, all I could do was hang on my X and beg heaven for it to end quickly.

  Piercing blue eyes bore into mine from a hard, square face bleached of all other color. Even her eyelashes and eyebrows were invisible, matching the short spikes jutting from the top of her scalp.

  “Please...” I started.

  My plea went ignored as the woman stooped at my feet. Her beefy hands reached for the bands around my ankles and I watched as they were undone.

  Hope prickled in my chest. Were they letting me go? I wasn’t optimistic enough to believe that was the case, but I couldn’t help it.

  My wrists were undone next and I found myself sliding down the X. The loss of circulation in my limbs rained needles down into my hands and feet. I nearly whined. The woman caught me when I sagged forward. There was no gentleness in the gesture. She could have been holding a sack of flour for the way I was dumped on the hard concrete without any mercy. Lady teetered forward and handed me a blanket.

  Just a blanket.

  A single length of cotton.

  Then she and the woman took their X and left me there without ever saying a word.

  I tried the door once I regained the feeling in my feet. I banged on it and kicked it, and jiggled the knob. It had been securely locked from the other side and the walls were too high to climb.

  Mine wasn’t the only container. There was a dozen from what I could make out through the wall of glass. They created two straight lines, six cubes side by side on either side of the vaulted chamber. The windows all faced inward so there was no missing each other’s torments.

  It reminded me of the animals at a zoo, except animals were given more freedom and basic comforts, like a place to do their business. All we were given was a hole in the center of our prisons and not even a shred of privacy to use it.

  We were in a warehouse of some sort. It was large enough to hold the containers comfortably with room to spare. Some of the girls had beds, rickety, metal cots with thin mattresses and even a pillow. Others had only a blanket like me. I wondered if that meant they’d given up. If they’d been broken to the establisher’s satisfaction. I knew David certainly wouldn’t allow me a bed, even if I begged.

  I pushed the thought aside. I could be put in a hole full of shit and I still wouldn’t beg him for anything. I would rather rot.

  I returned to my blanket and pulled it around my shoulders. The stiff fabric chafed skin and smelled suspiciously of mold, blood, bleach, and urine. The combined assault lingered around me to toy with the repugnant stench already soaking the air. Its pungent odor rubbed into all the places it touched me and it was all I could do to keep from pitching it away from me.

  Don’t think about it, I willed myself, refusing to give into the tears burning to make their way to freedom. I slumped against one corner and slid to the ground. Cold stone bit into flesh. It infused in the threads of the blanket until I was simply clutching an icy sheet. I drew my knees up to my chest and swaddled them the best I could, but the blanket wasn’t nearly large enough.

  Frustration gnawed at the back of my throat, wedging itself in my airway until I couldn’t breathe without choking on a sob. I turned my face into the corner and begged myself not to fall apart.

  Kieran was on his way. I knew he was. There wasn’t a shred of doubt in me, not a sliver. I knew he wouldn’t stop until I was home again. Then I’d make sure David and everyone responsible paid. I would not let any of them get away with this. I wouldn’t turn the other cheek. I would not cower. Never again. I just needed to keep my head down and wait.

  I MUST HAVE DOZED OFF, because the bang nearly sent me sideways to the ground. My head jerked up just as two men stepped into my tiny confinement with Lady between them.

  She crooked a finger at me to get up. The crimson tip glinted in the dim light. I was momentarily distracted by the long, graceful length as I struggled upright.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, already knowing she wouldn’t respond, but unable to stop myself.

  A crop materialized seemingly out of nowhere in the hands of one of the men. It swung down before I could realize its purpose and smacked my thigh. The blanket padded most of the blow, but I still felt the faint sting and yelped.

  “You don’t speak unless spoken to,” he barked. “Move.”

  I started forward, but the second man closed his fist into the blanket and ripped it off me, taking with it the heat I’d gathered underneath, leaving me in the chill of the room.

  I bit back my protest when I glanced at the rod in the first man’s grip.

  They led me from the cube and marched me out.

  I wasn’t the only one. Others were being hauled from their prisons. All were in their underwear. All seemed unnaturally complacent with their situation. I didn’t see a speck of fear anywhere. Their acceptance to being stripped, assa
ulted, and kept locked up like animals made me wonder if they’d been there longer, if the brainwashing actually worked. The very thought that they might be that good sent a wave of nausea through me. It made my palms slick and my nerves prickle.

  No. I wouldn’t submit. I would be stronger.

  Clenching my fists tighter, I fixed my gaze stubbornly ahead, fighting not to study the occupants in their glass cages as we passed. I fought not to cringe at their discomfort and pain, as well as the torture they were being placed under.

  One girl was locked upright with her wrists and head caught in a wooden trap. Another girl was hogtied with ropes on the ground. There were other creative methods of restraint, of bondage, that I couldn’t bring myself to look at, like the girl bound to a wheel, her entire body bent backwards as the wheel was spun by a beefy, topless man in jeans.

  I looked away when he caught me staring and bared his teeth.

  I’d been correct in my assumption. The warehouse loomed menacingly far out on all sides, a vacuum of space as bare as it was cold. The gray concrete clashed with the dull green of the windows and the chilling wails of torment roller coasting along the rough surface. Straight ahead, I could just make out a series of steps leading up to a single, iron door stamped into the stone. Its rusted façade pulled the eye, demanding to be watched as it drew closer. It seemed larger than life looming high over the chamber.

  One of the men pushed me up the steps, gruff in his shove. The place between my shoulder blades ached from his fist. Lady never said anything, either because she didn’t speak, or because she didn’t care. I would have put my money on the latter. She seemed so far from everything, so removed, but not the way a trauma victim would be. It wasn’t fear in her eyes. She was just unconcerned. I suppose if she’d done this long enough, it would have been easy to turn a blind eye. Plus, the way she melted when her boss had touched her made me think Stockholm syndrome. Why else would a beautiful woman like her allow other women to be beaten and kept in cages? I wouldn’t.