by HELEN HARDT
Then my father’s words from moments before rammed into my mind.
None of this was ever planned. We were forced into a lot of it.
I didn’t believe for a second that my father had been forced into any of this. But what about Brad Steel? Maybe he was the good man his children remembered. The circumstances surrounding Ryan’s birth contradicted that, but shouldn’t every man be allowed one mistake?
That was one big mistake, though.
Still, I couldn’t begrudge Brad Steel that error in judgment. If he hadn’t strayed, Ryan Steel wouldn’t exist.
The man I loved wouldn’t exist.
“Look,” I said. “Let me help you. If you want to get out, I’ll help you get out.” I was lying through my teeth, but I had to try.
“You were a cop. An officer of the law. You won’t help me. I’m in too deep to get out anyway.”
“No, you’re not. There are ways. Are we being monitored?” I looked around the room cautiously.
“No. I’m the boss here. No one monitors me.”
“Good. You can turn state’s evidence. I can get you out. I’ll do what I can.”
“It’s too late. And I don’t believe you anyway.”
I couldn’t fault his observation.
Time to change tactics. “Where’s Brad Steel?”
“He’s here.”
I widened my eyes. No song and dance? I’d expected a little side step. “Where?”
“He’s here. Close, anyway. On an adjacent island.”
“Is he being kept in captivity?”
“What would ever give you that idea?”
“Wendy Madigan.”
My father chuckled. Actually chuckled! “And you believed her?”
“Who am I supposed to believe, Theo? All of you have lied to me. Wendy, Larry Wade. Everyone. Now where’s Brad Steel?”
“I wasn’t lying. He’s here. And he’s not in captivity.”
“Why would Wendy say he was?”
“I don’t have the vaguest clue,” my father said. “But if she did, she had a reason. That woman has a reason for everything she does. She goes crazy when it’s convenient.”
“I’ve already figured that out. That doesn’t explain why she abducted Jonah Steel, though.”
“She’s obsessed with Brad. Jonah’s a dead ringer for him.”
“If she’s so obsessed with him, why take his son? Why not just come here and be with him?”
“Because,” my father said, “Brad doesn’t want her here. He’s gone to great effort to keep certain things from her.”
I jolted in my chair. “But Wendy said—”
“Ruby, it doesn’t matter what Wendy said. She’s been running Brad Steel’s life since we were kids. She’s been running all our lives, actually, but Brad’s most of all.”
“What does she have on you?” I asked.
“What doesn’t she have on me?”
Good point. “Hey, I know you’re no paragon of society—no one knows that better than I do—but you’ve eluded capture this far. You’ve never even been arrested. Surely Wendy can’t hurt you.”
He sighed and pushed his chair back from the desk and leaned backward, his head hitting the wall. “Wendy Madigan can hurt everyone. And I’m going to make sure she doesn’t hurt you.”
Chapter Eleven
Ryan
“Either of you guys done any scuba diving before?” Raj had joined us on the deck once the sun rose.
“No,” I said.
“Well, it’s time to learn a thing or two.”
“What?” Talon said. “That was never part of this deal.”
“You’re both in good shape. You’ll be fine. You can swim, can’t you?”
“Of course,” Talon and I said together.
“Good. Lesson number one—”
“Hold on right there,” I said. “Why do we need to learn scuba? We’re not stopping the boat for anything.”
“Well, when we get to those coordinates you gave me, you don’t really think it’s a good idea to just sail up and dock this floating luxury home, do you?”
I hadn’t thought of that. From the look on Talon’s face, neither had he. We had no idea who or what we would encounter once we got there. We couldn’t just waltz right in and announce our presence.
“I’ll take your silence as your agreement. We’ll anchor far enough away that anyone who sees the yacht won’t see a threat. The rich and famous cruise the Caribbean frequently.”
“Got it,” I said.
“Once I give you the basics, we’ll stop the boat for—”
“Wait,” Talon interjected. “Why can’t we use one of those underwater dive propulsion things, like in the movies?”
“Uh…because you’re not James Bond, mon. And this isn’t a movie.”
I couldn’t help a chuckle.
“The yacht has top-notch equipment, but they don’t stock dive scooters,” Raj said. He added a sarcastic, “Sorry.”
“Fine,” Talon said. “Sorry I asked.”
“As I was saying…we’ll stop and I’ll give you the quick open-water dive lesson. Then, when we reach the coordinates, we’ll anchor somewhere out of sight and swim underwater to the island. It’s daylight now, and we’ll reach the coordinates after dark. That gives us the day to learn the basics, and we’ll have Faucett stop for an hour for open-water practice. Follow me.”
He led us to the stern of the ship and opened a cabinet. He pulled out masks, tanks, fins, and a bunch of other stuff I didn’t recognize.
“First rule,” Raj said. “Breathing out of a tank feels different. You need to stay calm, or you’ll use up your oxygen. But you don’t need to worry too much about that. We won’t be underwater for very long.”
“Wait a minute,” I said, interrupting. “What is all this shit?”
He pulled out each item and named it—a regulator, an extra alternate regulator that Raj called an octopus, a snorkel, a buoyancy control device, a dive computer. I felt like I was back in school.
“Don’t we need wet suits?” I asked.
“The water is warm here. That’s just something else to hold you back. We’ll be wearing dive shorts.”
“What are dive shorts?” Talon asked.
Raj pulled out a garment made of black Lycra. A Speedo with legs.
No fucking way. “Uh-uh.” I shook my head.
“You guys are in good shape. I’m the one who should be embarrassed,” Raj said.
Actually, Raj looked like he was in fine shape.
“How about we just wear our regular trunks?” Talon said.
“Because regular trunks bunch up and impede your movement.”
“We can move just fine,” I said.
“Give me much more of this shit, and I’ll be making you shave your legs and head for ultimate movement. This is what you’ll be wearing, mon. Best get used to it.”
Talon and I both sighed. No way was I shaving my legs. Or my head. Ruby loved my hair.
Ruby.
Fuck. Where the hell was she?
If I had to wear tight Lycra shorts and haul my ass through water to find her, I’d do it.
I’d do anything.
* * *
“Land ho,” Raj said sarcastically. “You two knew there’d be an island here all along, didn’t you?”
“We had our suspicions,” I said. “Didn’t Faucett tell you there was land there? I assume he charted the course.”
“I haven’t talked to him. Where’d you get those coordinates, anyway?”
“We told you,” Talon said. “They were a clue. They were kind of dropped in our lap.”
“Whatever, mon. I don’t ask questions unless I’m paid to.” He looked up. “The sun’s almost down. Once it’s dark, we head out. Let’s get something to eat in the meantime.”
I didn’t think I could eat. I’d done okay during our practice runs during the day, but I’d had to talk Talon down. He’d freaked at first about breathing underwater. Said it reminded hi
m of being in that dark basement.
That had been hard for him to admit, but I’d talked to him gently and he’d been okay. The second trial run had gone smoothly.
Still, as I looked at my brother, I could see something dark in his eyes. This bothered him.
“It’ll be okay, Tal,” I said. “Come on. Let’s eat something.”
“Not hungry.”
“Neither am I, but you know as well as I do we can’t do this without sustenance.” I nudged his arm. “Come on.”
“I need to call Jade.”
“Okay. There’s time for that. Give her a call.”
I wanted desperately to call Ruby, but I couldn’t. I didn’t need to remind Talon of that though. Right now, just as the yacht was anchored, Talon was looking for his anchor. His anchor was Jade.
I didn’t have my anchor, but that wouldn’t stop me.
I would go forward and find her.
If it was the last thing I did.
Chapter Twelve
Ruby
“Since when do you care who hurts me?” I asked. “You tried to rape me. Or have you conveniently forgotten that?”
“Believe it or not, Ruby, I haven’t raped anyone in the last decade.”
I didn’t believe it. “Maybe you have and maybe you haven’t. That still doesn’t excuse the damage you inflicted before then. On Gina. On Talon Steel. Even on me. And on myriad others.”
He sighed. “I understand that. All I can say is that I have my regrets.”
“What about murder? Are you going to try to tell me you had nothing to do with the murder of Jordan Hayes? The receptionist at your old high school?”
“I did not. Tom did that.”
“And the business card that was planted in her apartment? Joe’s business card?”
“Again, Tom. After Joe was beginning to prove that Tom wasn’t the upstanding mayor everyone thought he was, Tom went insane.”
“Because he wasn’t insane before that?” I said sarcastically.
“He wanted to pin Jordan’s murder on Joe.”
“What about the business card left at Talon’s house by the housekeeper? The same MO. Are you telling me that was Tom as well? Because Felicia told the Steels that the masked man who threatened her into doing it had strange icy-blue eyes. And Melanie said the same thing about the man who abducted her from her loft and pushed her into that garage and left her to die.”
“My eyes are brown, Ruby.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “You’re wearing the freaky lenses right now, Theo.”
“And that makes me the only suspect?” He lifted his brow. “Have you forgotten what color of eyes Simpson had?”
My veins froze. I had never met Tom Simpson, but Joe said that Bryce looked a lot like his father. Bryce’s eyes were blue, but they were a warm blue. A gentle blue. Yet that same color in the eyes of an ice man…
Had we been wrong all this time?
“Tom was determined to bring the Steels down. He found out Jade had been digging, and he sent the rose as a warning, trying to frame Larry at the same time. He went so far as to have Larry’s fingerprints changed in the database to match the set on her ex’s business card. And then Joe… Tom thought Joe was a hothead, and when he and Melanie got more involved, Tom was determined to take them both out.”
“Joe is his son’s best friend.”
“Do you think he cared about that?”
I let out a huff. “No, I don’t. I don’t think any of you have ever cared about anything other than money and saving your own sorry asses.”
“That was Tom to the very end.”
“And Larry?”
“Larry was trying to get everything out in the open without having Wendy come down on him. Why do you think he asked Jade to research the Steels? He was leading her to clues. That’s how his mind worked. Rather than squeal, he set people up to figure things out for themselves. He was brilliant in his own way. The problem with Larry was that he had no common sense, so Tom and I didn’t always trust him.”
“Yeah. You had him beaten to within an inch of his life for letting Talon Steel go, didn’t you?”
“Actually, we didn’t. That was all Wendy.”
Wendy. That name again. Ryan’s biological mother. We’d already figured out that she had been the true mastermind behind Talon’s abduction, and she claimed to be the true mastermind behind everything. I’d spoken to Melanie about it on more than one occasion. Melanie was convinced that Wendy was the ultimate id with narcissistic personality disorder and delusions of grandeur.
Melanie was no doubt right. But one thing she hadn’t factored in was Wendy’s creative brilliance.
I didn’t bother asking my father whether he was telling the truth. I already knew he was. The very marrow of my bones knew. Wendy had arranged Talon’s abduction to punish his father for getting his mother pregnant with Marjorie. It only made sense that she was the one who punished Larry for letting him go.
“Larry seemed convinced that you and Tom were the ones who had him beaten.”
“Larry wasn’t aware of the ultimate power Wendy had over the rest of us.”
“You mean over Brad Steel.”
“No, Ruby. I mean over the rest of us.”
“Then by all means, Father, enlighten me.”
He sighed and pushed up the sleeves of his black shirt. The phoenix on his left forearm was still as bright as I remembered. “I don’t expect you to understand any of this.”
“I’m pretty sure I won’t. I still want to hear it. How did a little cheerleader like Wendy have power over any of you? She moved after her sophomore year. Plus, you claim Larry didn’t know how dangerous she was. Larry already told the Steels that you weren’t the most dangerous, which would indicate that Wendy was. Who else could he have been talking about?”
“I didn’t say Larry didn’t know how dangerous she was. I only said he didn’t understand the power she had.”
“Semantics, Theo. Let’s skip over the bullshit and get down to one thing. The goddamned truth.”
“You trust me to tell you the truth?”
I had to laugh. “No, not really, but at the moment, you’re all I’ve got. So spill it.”
He opened his mouth to speak when the door to his office burst open. “Boss, we’ve got a problem.”
“I’m in a meeting, as you can see,” my father said.
“Sorry, but you’re needed elsewhere.”
“Handle it, please.”
“Some new ones have gone rogue. We need your help.”
“You don’t need my help. Show them who’s boss.”
I looked at the masked man’s eyes. They were a familiar brown. This was one of the men who had raped Juliet.
And new ones? Were they bringing new women to the compound? I stood. “Take me to the ‘new ones.’”
My father shook his head. “No.”
“I demand it, damn it. In fact, I demand that you let them go. And not just them. All of them. Juliet. And where the hell is Gina?”
“Ruby.” My father gritted his teeth. “Not now.”
“Look,” the other guy said, “our contract is coming due, and—”
I jerked my head back to him. “Contract? What you people are doing here is illegal, not to mention immoral. The laws don’t exist. Who the hell cares about a contract?”
“Ruby,” my father said calmly, “you don’t understand. This business has its own laws, and we can’t default on a contract.”
“Why not?”
“Do I have to spell it out for you? They’ll kill us.”
“Hopefully not before they torture and rape you,” I couldn’t help saying.
Something in my father’s fake eyes changed, but I couldn’t pinpoint what it was.
“Who the fuck is this woman, boss?” the man asked.
“She’s not your concern.”
He eyed me, his tongue slithering along his lower lip. “Let me take a stab at her. Please. God, that body…”
&nbs
p; Disgust crept up my throat. “You’re not getting near me, you psycho.”
“She’s off-limits,” my father said. “That’s all you need to know.”
My father’s words didn’t make me feel any better. I already harbored so much guilt for what he had done to so many, and now I was being spared what Juliet had been forced to endure because I was his daughter? Not that I wanted to be beaten and raped, but my God. When had my father grown scruples? This was the same man who’d attempted to rape me seventeen years earlier. Who’d raped Gina. Who’d raped and tortured Talon.
Talon. Oh my God.
My mind whirled. I knew now how Ryan felt. He’d been spared Talon’s fate because he was Wendy’s son, just as I was now being spared Juliet’s fate because I was my father’s daughter.
A mixture of nauseous gratitude and disgust swirled through my mind and body. How could I be even the littlest bit thankful that I was the spawn of this monster?
I didn’t deserve to be handled with kid gloves. And I hadn’t been. He’d stuck me in that concrete cell with Juliet. Yet I had been spared the worst of it—what I’d been forced to witness happen to her.
Ryan and I had more in common than I’d ever imagined.
The thought of him warmed me. I hoped with everything in me that he hadn’t found the bread crumbs my father claimed he’d left. I couldn’t bear the thought of him wandering into a trap. I’ll find you, Ryan. I’ll do anything to get back to you.
My father eyed me, as if looking for me to say something.
“Am I supposed to thank you?” I said.
“You don’t owe me anything,” he said.
“You got that right.”
“She’s got a mouth on her, boss,” the other guy said. “And when I say mouth, I mean I’d love to shove my cock into it.”
My father stood and advanced on his goon, grabbing him at the neck. “You touch one hair on her head, and I’ll choke the life out of you.” He squeezed the man’s throat. “Do you understand me?”
“Sure,” the man rasped. “I get it, boss.”
“Now get the fuck out of here.” My father loosened his hold. “Take care of things yourself.”