by Dawn Steele
Noah was at home. She went up to him and put her arms around his neck. He was at the computer, dictating into the voice convertor. She would read over what he wrote afterwards and correct anything, if needed. Voice convertors weren’t perfect tools any more than autocorrect on phone text messages were.
“Hello, handsome,” she said in a seductive voice.
He looked every bit as good as the first day she met him.
“Hello, sexy.” He leaned back in his chair.
“Whoops. Typo here. There. Everywhere.”
“No worries. I’ve got you to correct them.”
“Careful. My grammar isn’t superb.”
“You mean like your cooking?”
She punched him in the arm. “Careful I don’t feed you grass stalks and brown rice for dinner.”
He was a tiger, and therefore, a carnivore. He didn’t usually like vegetables of any sort.
“Ow,” he said. “That hurts.”
They both laughed. Then he grew serious as he caressed her swollen belly. He lifted her maternity dress and kissed the stretched skin.
“Can you feel the baby kicking?” she asked.
He laid his ear on her belly.
“He’s going to kick you in the side of the head if you’re not careful.”
“How do you know it’s a he? Kitty wants a little sister.”
“And I just want a healthy baby.” She caressed her husband’s head as well as her belly. “As do you.”
He smiled. “So what will you do the rest of the afternoon, my lady of leisure?”
“I don’t know. Go shopping in Kuta with Kitty.”
“Kuta Kitty. Sounds like the next heroine for my novel. Remember, don’t spoil her.”
“I should be telling you that. You’re the one who spoils her rotten.”
“But she’s so cute.”
“That’s no excuse.”
They kissed goodbye. Then she went to give Kitty a change of clothes.
It was another afternoon out for the girls.
*
Karen and Kitty went to the Discovery Shopping Mall in Kuta. It was a super-modern, air-conditioned shopping mall with plenty of interesting shops and restaurants, as well as spas, manicure centers, and a gym.
As usual, going out with Kitty entailed a whole typhoon of packing – a push-buggy just in case she got tired, her bottles, her toys, her special jacket just in case she got cold, her pillows, her special blanket. It was an entire family vacation’s worth of packing in itself. Karen contrasted this to the time she and Noah arrived in Bali. They literally came with nothing but the clothes on their backs.
Karen went to buy some groceries. She passed by the brown rice section and was tempted to buy some just to spite Noah.
Here’s brown rice and grass stalks for you, my beloved tiger, while Kitty and I will have sirloin steak and roasted potatoes.
She relented, however, and bought some steaks for everyone.
Then she went down to the basement parking lot to load her bags into her car, an old Volvo. They lived frugally but comfortably, as befitting a family in hiding.
Kitty was in her push-buggy. She crammed a lollipop into her mouth.
The squeal of tires next to her made Karen turn. A black van screeched to a halt next to the Volvo. The back doors of the van opened. Two men got out.
“Get in,” said one of them, grabbing her arm.
“What?”
The other man grabbed Kitty’s buggy.
“Don’t hurt her!” Karen yelled.
Kitty twisted her head and took her lollipop out of her mouth. She looked impossibly innocent.
“Then come quietly. If you scream, we will hurt your daughter.”
Karen clammed up. She looked frantically around, but there was no one in this section of the parking lot.
The next few moments passed in a whirl. Karen and Kitty were bundled into the back of the van. Kitty started to cry. The two men got in, and the van drove off.
Karen picked Kitty up and stroked her back of her head, the way Kitty liked to be comforted.
“Sssh, honey, sssh. It’ll be alright.” She didn’t want the crying to antagonize the men. Some people weren’t good with children that way.
She studied the men. They were local. She was aware that kidnapping happened fairly often, and that the locals sometimes demanded ransoms. But she didn’t think this was one of those cases.
She said, “Are you going to tell me where we’re going?”
The men kept silent.
“Who ordered this?” she asked again.
No answer.
Fine. Have it your way. She hugged Kitty to her pregnant belly and kept quiet the rest of the way.
REUNION
Karen knew who it was going to be even before she saw him.
The van did not stop until an hour later. She figured that they were going deep into some estate. There were a lot of places that you could lose yourself on this island – jungles, cliffs, caves, fields of paddy stalks that were as tall as a boy.
The van finally rolled to a stop. The engine was still purring when one of the men in the back got up to unlock the door. Bright sunlight streamed in. Karen held her hand up to shield her eyes. She squinted.
“Hello, Karen,” said a familiar voice.
Her heart skipped a beat. She had hoped never to see him again. But of course, he sometimes plagued her dreams.
Karen, suck my dick.
Karen, you’re such a doormat. You deserve to be punished.
There he was, standing outside the back of the van. Zach looked visibly older, to her surprise. But he was still magnificent. There were new creases around his eyes. His chin wore a new crescent shaped scar. Job hazard, she presumed. He towered over the local goons he had hired.
“There you are, little flower. Only you’re not little anymore, are you?”
To think that she had once loved him.
She hung on to Kitty. “Please, Zach. Don’t hurt her.”
Don’t hurt both my babies.
Zach eyed Kitty with interest. “She’s his, I presume?”
Fear blossomed in the pit of her stomach. “Don’t you dare hurt her.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t hurt her.” Zach crept closer. She could smell his aftershave. He had changed the brand as well. It used to be Polo Ralph Lauren. It was what she had always bought him when she went to JC Penney’s in town. But now he made her skin crawl.
He lifted a hand to stroke Kitty’s cheek. “Beautiful. She could have been mine.”
Maybe. If you hadn’t put me on the pill so that I could be your slave.
Zach always did have a cruel streak in him. She remembered all the times he had struck her buttocks for the sheer pleasure of hearing her scream and watching her soft, white skin turn an angry red.
“Except,” he continued softly. “. . . She’s an abomination, isn’t she?”
So he remembered everything that had happened to him.
She found her voice. “He didn’t kill you, even though you tried to kill him.”
“He should have. He’s a coward.”
“No, he isn’t. A coward is someone who tries to take a blind man down. A coward is someone who threatens a pregnant woman and her toddler.”
“My, my, being with an abomination has given you claws, little flower. I liked you better when you were on your knees, getting fucked by my cock. You begged me not to stop, remember? You liked everything I did to you.”
He seized her jaw.
Kitty began to cry again.
“Bad things, Mama,” she wailed.
“Yes, I did,” Karen shot back defiantly. She marveled at her own courage. “Until I didn’t like it anymore. Then I left you. Your pride was wounded. Wasn’t it, Zach? No woman had ever left you.”
She saw Zach flinch slightly. She knew she had hit home.
It didn’t give her joy.
“Well, it’s over between us. It was over a long time ago. But I don’t think you’re th
e type of man who would hunt me over several continents for petty revenge. You’re too smart for that.”
“You know me too well, as always, little flower. You are right. This is mostly a business trip, albeit one with a special prize in addition to my usual fee. You see, I always get my man, Karen, even if it takes me years.” He motioned to his men. “Take her to the green room. Show her every courtesy, until I tell you not to.”
She was terrified. Not for herself, but for her children. And Noah. Now they were confronted with the same issues they had run away from – no matter who else they tried to be.
Zach seemed to sense what she was thinking.
“You can never hide from yourself and what you did, little flower.” He paused. “I’ve found that out the hard way.”
THE RANSOM
The message came when Noah was asleep.
The message alert on his computer went ‘Ping!’
He opened his eyes to complete darkness. How long had he been asleep? Something felt . . . off.
He roused himself off the bed.
“Adeline?” he called. He always maintained their adopted names just in case other people were around.
He listened for the usual sounds around the house. There were none. Karen should have been home by now.
He had always been afraid of this day. And now his sixth sense told him that it was finally here. His skin felt as cold as the ice sliding down his soul.
And this is all happening because I can’t kill my brother.
Could he kill now to protect everyone he loved?
He tried to calm his shattered nerves as he moved to his computer at his desk. He always exercised perfect discipline when he wrote – it was always at the desk on his ergonomically supported chair, never in bed. He felt for the switch and turned on his Braille translator.
The message was very clear:
“Hello, Jonas.
Miss me, your big brother?”
Noah involuntarily clenched his fists. He straightened his shaking fingers again to read the rest of the translated message.
“You’re probably wondering by now where your wife and kid have gone off to. Don’t worry. They’re safe, for now. Good thing for your daughter she’s a girl, or I might have someone else to worry about. If you want your family to be left alone, meet me tonight. A car will be at your place to pick you up.
Your beloved brother,
Kyle.”
Noah sat back. The blood was cold in his veins. So it had come to this. To keep his family safe, he had to sacrifice himself.
His mind churned.
Suddenly, there was nothing more he wanted than to be alive. He wanted to hear Karen’s voice again, feel Kitty’s little fist curl around his thumb, touch the firm shoal of his wife’s pregnant abdomen and feel the gentle kick of the baby inside.
He furiously typed:
“How do I know you really have my wife and daughter?”
He waited.
Minutes passed. Then a ‘ping’ came.
He read with his fingers:
“I’m sending you a sound byte.”
The bile rose to his throat.
There was a rustling noise. Then:
“Daryl, they have us. But don’t do anything rash. Please –”
The sound byte ended.
Noah stared at the darkness for a long, long time. There was only one thing he could do.
He couldn’t be Daryl anymore, or even Noah. He had to be Jonas.
He had to meet his brother.
Only one would be left standing.
Kyle was a battle-hardened warrior. He had been alpha for over eight years. He had probably fought and killed a lot of shifters to maintain his position.
All Jonas had was instinct . . . and the inability to take another human or shifter life.
THE PROMISE
Zach didn’t hurt either of them, as promised. But Karen was still on edge.
She had given up all pretense of calling herself Adeline now. With Zach around, she had regressed to being Karen – a frightened shell of a woman who now had to worry about her husband and child.
But no, she fiercely told herself. She was better than that. She was still frightened, but fear was good. This was the type of fear that led her to do courageous things.
She and Kitty were put in a comfortable bedroom. The window was fortified with iron bars, but otherwise, it was a normal bedroom – double bed, dresser and mirror, bathroom. There were no sharp objects anywhere. Even the toothbrush was short and blunted so that she could not use it as a weapon.
Kitty was asleep. Karen stared out of the window into the trees and sea. From what she could make out, they were in a large house by the sea, isolated from everywhere else by a large expanse of jungle. No one would hear her scream.
The door opened. Zach came in.
Karen immediately tensed.
Zach smiled. “I miss that reaction in you.”
Kitty stirred fitfully.
“Ssssh, I’ve just put her to bed,” Karen said with the automatic caution of a mother.
“Then come with me. We’ll talk.”
Karen hesitated, but just for a moment. She wanted to explore the house, just in case she could find the chance to escape. She nodded. She was not afraid of Zach anymore, she kept telling herself.
She followed Zach to another room down the corridor. She took note of the corridor with its many closed doors and the stairs at the end. Zach noted this.
“Very good,” he remarked. “You’ve come a long way from being that scared rabbit.”
She turned to him. “I’ll do anything to protect my husband and children, and don’t you forget it.”
“I’m sure you will.” He lifted a hand to caress her jawline. “I’ll hold you to that promise.”
Karen chilled. Zach’s gaze upon her was just as covetous and possessive as she remembered. She remembered that look well. He always had that look when he came home each day, right before he took her on whatever surface was available.
Zach pushed open a door.
“Go in,” he ordered.
Once they were in the other bedroom, which was similar to the one she had been incarcerated in, Zach looked the door behind them. She was aware of the implications – a bed, just the two of them. Like old times.
He studied her up and down.
“I’ve missed you, Karen.”
“I’m sure you have,” she replied evenly.
“No. I’ve missed you. I’ve really missed you.” His eyes glittered with a strange expression. “I did love you . . . in my own way.”
A choke welled to her throat.
“But it’s over,” she declared. “We’ve both moved on.”
“Oh no, we haven’t. There has been no closure for either of us,” he insisted.
“What exactly would be closure for you? The fact that you’d kill my husband and child?” she demanded.
“That’s not for me to decide. My client has specific instructions to let him deal with his own brother. But he did promise me an added reward for Noah’s successful capture.”
A wave of nausea hit Karen’s gut.
Zach favored her with an amused stare. “After my client has killed your husband, he will take your daughter away from you so that she will never be a revenge tool against her uncle when she grows up. That’s how the shifters do it, apparently. Very old school. Vladimir would approve.”
“Does your client know you call him an abomination?”
“I’m sure he’s been called a lot worse.”
“Then I’m sure I would be an abomination to you, too.”
“On the contrary, only the child inside you is an abomination.” Zach came closer and put his hand on her pregnant belly. “I’ve never fucked a pregnant woman before.”
She could see the hardening of his crotch. He had always been so turned on by someone else’s pain.
“I won’t bend to you, ever,” she hissed. “Never again.”
“So being wi
th a soft man has made you hard. I’ll relish the opportunity to make you soft again, little flower.” He smiled at her. “It’ll be quite the challenge to break you and mold you into what I desire again, just as I’ve once broken you before.”
THE CONVERSATION
The car came for Noah at ten o’ clock, as promised. So many names, so much confusion.
Well, tonight he was going to be Jonas. He had always ever only been Jonas. He realized that now. He couldn’t run away from his name anymore than he could run away from being who and what he was.
The car that came for him was a black Mercedes. When the door opened, Noah was surprised to hear a familiar voice from the back passenger seat.
“Nice to see you again,” Zach said. He waved a hand at the empty seat beside him. “Please, come in. Oh, I forgot. You can’t see gestures, can you?”
The driver got out and led Jonas into the car. Noah gritted his teeth.
“If you’ve hurt them in any way,” he began.
“Save the clichés. You’ll need your strength.”
“I’m surprised you’re still on my brother’s hiring list after your last botched attempt.”
The car drove off.
“He never told us about your condition. You put two of my men in hospital for two weeks. So it was a fair deal that your brother compensated us for it. I asked to continue the search, even if it took me years. You cover your tracks well, but I suppose you’ve had plenty of experience. Nevertheless, someone with the persistence discovers even the best eventually.”
“Did you come here because you wanted to boast to me about your own cleverness?” Noah said in a low, dangerous voice.
Zach laughed. “No. I came here for another purpose. Has Karen ever mentioned her time with me?”