by Rachel Burns
“What do you mean? Is he really going to cut you off?” Robert stepped very close to her, making the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.
“It’s a possibility,” she confessed.
Out of nowhere, his fist came flying at her face. This seemed so familiar that she didn’t fight and remained still, exactly as her father taught her.
He ripped her clothes away from her body as she continued to let him have his way with her, hurting her and taking when no permission was given as he punched, slapped, and fucked her.
When he was finished, he took hold of her head and forced her to look at him. “You are such an annoying bitch. I’m so glad that I don’t have to suck up to you anymore.”
He pulled out of her and went into their bedroom. He came back out with her doll, which she still kept on the bed. “I’m also glad that I never have to look at this freaking ass thing ever again.” He hurled it across the room. The old hard plastic cracked and broke on impact, destroying her most prized possession.
On his way out of the door, he kicked Morgan in the side, making her scream out in pain.
It hurt so much that the next thing she remembered was the paramedics from campus, lifting her up and putting her into an ambulance.
Her landlady was telling her that everything would be alright now.
Chapter 11
Martin arrived at the hospital and found the doctor who was caring for his daughter. Morgan’s doctor had just explained what had happened and told him that the police had already been notified.
“The police? Was that necessary?” Martin asked the doctor.
The doctor gave him a shocked look, and then nodded. “I believe it was.”
Great, that was the last thing he needed. He’d mostly been able to hide the fact that he had a daughter, and now she was going to be in the press, ruining their family name. That would have an immediate impact on the company’s stock, influencing it negatively.
Martin walked into the room where his daughter was sleeping. He stood beside her bed, looking down at her. Morgan was beaten black and blue. Tubes were going into her nose, and she looked so pale. “How could this happen?” he demanded to know, waking her up.
Morgan jumped, scared of what was happening. She saw her father and instinctively knew that he was going to blame her for this.
“I paid so much money for self-defense classes, for Kung Fu, and for fencing. I know you can run fast. You have a room full of trophies. So how could this have happened?” he demanded to know.
Morgan swallowed hard and fought against tears. “He’s stronger than I am.”
“That shouldn’t have matter,” he snapped at her.
“It does if you’re locked in a small room together without a sword.” She looked away from him, preferring to look out of the window instead. She had done what he told her to do, and now he was mad at her. It was so unfair.
“Look at me when I’m talking to you.” When Morgan looked his way, he continued. “Do you know what people are going to say about us now?”
Morgan couldn’t care less what people would say. She was worried about where she was going to live now. It was clear that Robert would kick her out even though she had been the one paying for the apartment. He hated her now because she had deceived him, making him think that she was a good catch when she knew that she wasn’t. He had only been interested in her because he thought he could marry her and become the heir to the Swift Company.
The rage in Robert’s eyes had been exactly like the kind she saw in her father’s eyes when he looked at her too. He was so disappointed in her. She felt as if she were worthless. “I’m sorry.” She was sorry that she had fallen for a guy who was only using her because of who her father was.
Seen that way this was his fault too. Her life would have been so much better if her father wasn’t in it. She couldn’t believe that she had been the one who reached out to him, calling him and setting up an appointment to introduce her boyfriend.
“You should be sorry.” He confirmed her feelings.
Morgan gulped and looked away from him again. Why did he hate her so much? Hadn’t he loved her mother?
Morgan couldn’t remember her mother, but she was certain that she had liked her. She couldn’t remember being afraid of her mother. In fact, her mother had friends who had taken care of Morgan while her mother was in the hospital. But they were people who never reached out to Morgan again. Why hadn’t anyone showed any interest in her?
“Do you want me to have the charges against him dropped?” she asked her father.
“We don’t have a choice. It’s the only way to keep this out of the press. I don’t want to see your face on anything.” Morgan felt that it was hanging in the air that he never wanted to see her face again, ever.
“But what if he won’t leave me alone?” Morgan shook with fear when she thought about Robert coming back to punish her again and again. Men always punished women. To her, it was a fact of life.
“It would serve you right if he did. They called me to come here and get you. You know that I’m not that type of father. I’m the type that pays the bills, and in return, you leave me the fuck alone.”
Morgan nodded at him. She hadn’t known that was the agreement, but it had worked out that way, and it had worked out well.
“What’s wrong with you? Why can’t you ever do anything right?” he questioned her, shaking his head.
“I don’t know, sir.” Morgan couldn’t hold the tears back.
“This is it, the final straw. I’m done with you. I’m not paying for your apartment, your college, and your allowance is gone too. I’m taking your car too. Oh and have fun trying to pay for your stay here because your insurance is gone too. I never want to hear from you again especially not in the tabloids.” Martin walked out of the door, slamming it. That made everyone look up at him.
“You’re a real asshole. Do you know that?” the doctor asked him.
“That just cost you your job,” Martin told him before he turned away. He walked to the elevator with his head held high.
~
First a week later when the police came to Martin’s office, did he find out that Morgan had disappeared.
The police wanted to know when the last time was that he saw her, if he had seen her since he visited her in the hospital, if he had any contact with his daughter. Perhaps, a phone call?
He had to answer ‘no’ to all their questions, confessing that he had last seen her at the hospital, where he had told her that he was cutting her off. They had asked about that too. They also asked why he wasn’t the one who reported her missing.
Fearing that he might get blamed for her disappearance, he called a private investigator to find her as soon as the police left.
When the police and his investigator still hadn’t found Morgan a week later, Martin decided to go with the private detective to Morgan’s apartment. The place was a mess. He couldn’t remember Morgan’s room as ever being messy. He wouldn’t have allowed it.
It looked as if a fight had taken place in here. Her clothes were spread around on the floor and furniture was tipped over. The bathroom floor was filled with her junk and make-up. Had she come back here and ransacked her things, or had it been Robert?
He spotted a bit of hair in the corner and walked over to the wall to see what it was. It was her doll. It was ruined. He remembered that she always had it with her when she was little. It even sat on the chair next to hers at meals when she was young. Whenever he went into her room, the doll was laying on the made bed.
Morgan must have been devastated when she lost this precious keepsake. Painstakingly, he gathered all the pieces together and put them in a plastic bag. He would give it to his secretary and see if she could find someone to repair it. He continued to look around.
The private detective told him that Morgan hadn’t returned to her apartment. This was Robert’s work. He’d done it when he packed up his stuff and left her. He was now living with his next victim.
The surveillance cameras at the hospital showed Morgan walking out. No one had seen her since. Where could she have gone?
They also didn’t know who had brought her the clothes that she was wearing when she left.
Martin had to think about Stephanie. If she could see what was going on down here on Earth, she’d kill him.
“I lost your kid,” Martin whispered to Stephanie.
He knew that Morgan was also his kid, but they had never had a rapport. They weren’t close, and she liked to avoid him too. It wasn’t all his fault. She had been partly to blame too. They were two people who didn’t get along.
He called his secretary and told her to find someone to clear out Morgan’s apartment so the landlady could find someone new to rent it to. He wanted her things brought to his house. He told her that apparently Morgan’s x-boyfriend had already cleaned out his things.
Martin would guess that he took more than only his things. A son of a crook would probably be a crook too. Their dealings had been based on a lie, supposedly a deal that Martin shouldn’t let pass by that had turned out to be a scam, getting Martin in trouble with the government. He had to do a lot of explaining and pay his lawyers large sums to get him out of the mess.
This probably never would have happened to Morgan if he had been smarter back then. That was around the time that she had dared to run away from him and hide in a wardrobe in a spare bedroom. He’d taken his frustration out on her time and time again. It was no wonder that she didn’t contact him. He had been clear that she shouldn’t.
Martin had always known that he wouldn’t make a good father. His own father had been an asshole. He still couldn’t stand the smell of smoke because it reminded him of his own father. When he died, Martin had been relieved. Would Morgan feel the same way about him? Chances were, she would.
He’d never done anything to make himself lovable in her eyes. He wondered where she was. Had something happened to her, or had she walked away from her life to start a new one?
There was a chance that young Robert had her locked up in a basement somewhere. Would they demand a ransom for her? If they did, he’d pay it. He’d get her back, and then he’d be able to say that he had at least done one nice thing for her.
It was clear that the kid would not admit that he kidnapped her to the police, but he might admit it if he thought that he could get money out of Martin for her.
Martin then sought out the kid who hurt his daughter. No one treated him, or anything that was his, this way and got away with it.
Martin had the private detective with him and his driver. They waited for Robert outside of his new apartment that he was sharing with some unsuspecting girl again.
“There he is,” Martin told the others. They got out of the limo to block him from getting into his car.
When Robert saw them, he tried to run, but the detective was able to stop him with ease between two houses.
“Listen, I told the police that I don’t have her. I don’t know where she is,” Robert pleaded with them.
Martin looked away, and then drove his fist into the pompous kid’s jaw almost knocking him out. “The doctor told me that you forced yourself on her,” Martin stated.
“That’s not true. We had sex. She wanted it too,” Robert protested.
“She wanted to be beaten black and blue? Really? What did you just say? You want that too. I had no idea that you liked that kind of shit.” Martin punched him several more times while his men held Robert up.
“Tell me how much you like this. Use the same words that she did.” Martin waited for the coward to talk, but he didn’t.
He gave him one last punch. “I’m going to ruin you. No one will ever do business with you or anyone in your family. You can apply for a job as a garbage man now. But they might not take you. I hear they have high standards nowadays. They got a lot of smart-mouthed, college boys working for them, so you’ll have tough competition.”
Martin straightened up and adjusted his tie. Then they walked away.
A policeman was standing around the corner, waiting to arrest them. But then he recognized who he was. “That the guy who raped your daughter, Mr. Swift?” the officer asked him.
“Yes, it is,” Martin answered with a tight jaw. He had pressed charges in Morgan’s name once she was gone.
“Then I didn’t see a thing. No one did. I’ll go talk to the lady who called me. Explain it to her.” The policeman walked off as if nothing had happened.
Chapter 12
Sawyer looked up in surprise when he heard a trucker, cursing a woman out. He was claiming that she had led him on, and that he wasn’t going to take her any further.
The woman he was yelling at was something else. She was slender and long, exactly how Sawyer liked them. He could easily imagine her in high leather boots that would hug her slim calves.
His eyes followed her as she walked away and into the diner he owned. He knew that he’d have to keep an eye out for her. She was a young, good-looking woman, and they brought a whole mess of trouble with them.
He dropped the trash bags into the container and went back inside in case there would be some more drama.
When he got inside, he saw the trucker, sitting at the counter, still shaking his head. Sawyer grabbed a menu and strode over to him. “You just get in?” he asked him, laying the menu down in front of him.
“Yes,” the truck driver grunted.
“I was just out in the parking lot. You arrived with a woman,” he stated.
“I did, but I won’t be leaving with her.”
Sawyer grinned. “You having marital problems.” It was clear that the woman wasn’t this guy’s wife. She had been too hot for the likes of this guy.
“She tricked me into giving her a ride.”
“Tricked you? How?” Sawyer asked him.
“She made me think that she’d let me have a taste of her, but when I wanted to collect, she told me I misunderstood her.”
“What did she say to made you think she’d let you have a taste?” Sawyer was pretending that he thought that this was funny, but he didn’t. This guy made it sound as if the lady might be in trouble and need help. No woman owed any man a taste of her for giving her a ride.
“She told me that she would be real thankful, but she had a look in her eye that told me what she meant with thankful.”
“That’s tough. What can I get you?” Sawyer asked, glancing around and looking for the lady. He didn’t see her among his guests, so he returned his attention to his customers and stopped thinking about her.
In fact, he didn’t think about her for a long time because he was so busy. First half an hour later did he think to search the crowds for her. She was nowhere to be seen. He went outside and checked for her in the parking lot and around the restaurant. He didn’t find her, but he made a mental note to keep his eyes open for her.
~
Sawyer didn’t see the woman all day long, and he kept forgetting her. But as he was closing up, he reminded himself about her, and that he wanted to make sure that she wasn’t lurking around.
When he switched off the lights for the night, he stood still and listened for her, just in case.
Five minutes long, he stood still, listening for her and hearing nothing. He figured that she’d convinced some other trucker to help her continue her trip. With the way she looked, it wasn’t difficult to believe that someone would want to give her a ride and spend time with her.
He went up the back stairs to his apartment and got ready for bed. He turned on the TV, but he kept the volume down low, only wanting a bit of background noise. The truck stop was noisy all day, making the contrast to nighttime profound, so he always put on background noise.
He did his nightly routine, consisting of his workout routine and muscle training. He was already thirty-five years old, but he liked to keep his body in check. It was a habit that he didn’t want to break. He wanted to remain a presence in whatever room he walked into.
&nbs
p; Sawyer was the sort of man who couldn’t be dismissed. Nobody treated him that way. He was the type of man who ruled the room when he walked in. Other people felt it and moved to the side. They let him go ahead of them in lines, and they were nice to him. Everyone wanted him to like them because they knew who he was. He was the man who could protect them when shit went down.
He had his mama’s blue eyes and his daddy’s strong chin. Women often turned around to look at his ass when he passed by. Many of them were none too shy about it, even giving him a whistle.
After his workout, he settled down to do some of his work as mayor. Tomorrow night was a town meeting. Their small town didn’t need a full-time mayor, but he did need to keep on top of everything.
There was a company that wanted to build a golf and spa resort on the outskirts of town. He knew that his town couldn’t afford that. The people who wanted it built made it sound as if it would bring in jobs, but Sawyer knew better. They would bring in construction crews from somewhere else to build it.
Of course, they would. No one here in town knew how to build something like that. The staff would be trained to work with the rich and fulfill their needs. The people in this town would laugh at whatever those spoiled brats wanted. Besides, the town’s water reservoir couldn’t handle it. It would end up destroying them. They were already fighting for their very existence.
Sawyer couldn’t stand rich people. They never thought about anything other than their profits. Ironically, he was one of the richest men in town because the truck and gas station did well and his income as mayor.
You couldn’t tell by the way he lived, but he had a lot of money saved in the bank. He also invested in the stock market because Susan at the bank told him it was a good way to save for retirement. She was right. He was averaging over seven percent profit every year. When he got too old to manage the truck stop, he’d have a nice nest egg.
He worried that he would have to sit out on some porch by himself. Sawyer still hadn’t found a candidate to be Mrs. Right. Lots of women had been very clear that they were up for the job, but none had quite fit the bill. He was looking for someone very special.