Her mouth snapped shut as she began to tremble all over. Slowly, Jonas lowered his weapon, his smile satisfied. “Better.”
Who the hell was this man? He was nothing like the Jonas she knew. He didn’t stutter, he wasn’t hunched in shame and he certainly wasn’t afraid. This man was a predator. And she had invited him into her home.
For a moment, she merely watched as he crossed the room to the dresser, pulling out the first drawer. Making a disgusted sound, he yanked a handful of Owen’s underwear out to toss onto the floor before extracting the SEAL’s butterfly knife. His lips quirked in pleasure as he unsheathed it, placing the blade flat on the dresser. Soon after that, a glock and collapsible baton followed. Straightening the wicked looking weapon, Jonas’ chuckled softly. “You two made this painfully easy for me. You already have anything I could ever need.”
Genny felt her throat dry as the magnitude of her situation hit her. Jonas wasn’t just going to kill her. He wanted to take his time, and he wanted to make her suffer. “Why?” She whispered in disbelief. “Why?”
“For a psychiatrist, Genevieve, you are one of the most naïve people I have ever me.” If Genny had been blind, she might have thought that she was speaking to Daniel Kant. Jonas’ articulateness matched his fathers, and he had the same bored, superior tone to his voice. “You imprisoned my father. Do you honestly think I would just overlook that?”
Genevieve’s eyes widened in shock. It took her a moment to regain the power of speech, but when she did, her words were incredulous. “Jonas, you’re father abused you. He starved, molested, and tried to destroy you.”
“What do you know about any of that?” Jonas shot back, his eyes narrowing. “You call it abuse. I call it love. My father loves me. I’m the only thing that matters to him.”
Genny thought she might be sick. All this time, she had believed that Jonas had been seeking escape from the ghost of his father. How could she have been so wrong? “I belong to him body, mind, and soul, and even putting him behind a thousand steel doors won’t change that.”
He was deluded. Brainwashed into adoring a man who had only hurt him. There had to be some way for her to help him realize that. “Jonas, he doesn’t love you. He’s only ever used you.”
The look the man gave her would have withered even the most robust of desert cacti. “Genevieve, stop. I’ve talked circles around you for the past six months. There is nothing you could do or say that could mean anything to me. How could I ever possibly see you as my equal? I’ve watched you panic, cut and run every time there was so much as a hint of danger. In the squad car that day…you should have seen your face.”
Genny felt as if she’d been punched in the gut.
The squad car. When she’d received the last threatening message. How could he possibly know about that?
“Stella.” She exhaled, shaking her head slowly. “Stella sent those messages. Stella took those pictures.”
Jonas’ smile was thin and frigid. “If there’s one thing my father taught me, it’s that weak-minded people are easy to manipulate.” The words fell fluidly from his lips. “She adored you, you know. Worshipped you. Do you know how easy it was to take that trust and mold it into hate? To break her down, bit by bit, until there was nothing left?”
A tortured sob escaped Genevieve as she realized how expertly she’d been played. Stella…poor Stella… “By the end, she would have done anything for me. I just had to tell her where to go and what to say.”
The young woman shuddered. Doctor White, everyone in the office, Stella, and she herself…they’d all been fooled so effortlessly. All those years of training and all that dedication for naught. “You’re disgusting.” She whispered, hanging her head. “Revolting.”
“No, you’re disgusting, Doctor.” Jonas fired back cruelly. “Who are you to think you can pass judgement on people. My father was just living his life the way he saw fit. What business was it of yours to interfere?”
“He was hurting people.” Genevieve returned through clenched teeth. “They trusted him and he poisoned them.”
“Interesting.” Crossing the room, Jonas knelt next to the bed so they were eye to eye, his gray gaze gleaming. “Isn’t that what you tried to do to me?”
Just then, there came the faint sound of a car door slamming outside. Genevieve’s blood turned to ice in her veins. If Owen had been right – if it had indeed been Jonas at her mother’s house and not Stella – then that meant that Owen was now about to face a man with formidable combat training and nothing to lose.
“Finally.” Jonas grinned chillingly. “I was getting tired of your incessant yapping.” A hitching sob escaped the young woman and Jonas’ smile turned to a frown in an instant. With the gun in his hand, he covered her mouth, and Genny tasted the cold metal of the barrel against her lips. Her tormenter’s eyes held a delighted, maniac sheen as he issued a one syllable warning. “Shhhh.”
Chapter Ten: The Final Mission
Owen was more than a little irked as he pulled up in front of the house. After all that fuss over the cups, the store didn’t even have plastic champagne flutes. They were going to have to make due with regular cups.
He could hear Genevieve reprimanding him already.
As he got out of the truck, frowning, he stopped in his tracks.
The house was dark.
Owen’s heart immediately dropped into his stomach. Something was wrong. Something was wrong and he’d left Genny with a man who cowered at the first sign of danger.
Dropping his grocery bag, Owen sprinted for the door. When he neared the front steps, he slowed, taking in his surroundings. There were no footprints, no forced signs of entry at the front windows.
He tried the door.
Still locked.
If there was someone in the house, they hadn’t gotten in this way.
Quietly, he stepped into the yard, loosening the tie Genny had knotted for him just hours earlier. As he moved around the perimeter of the house, he shed his dress shirt and removed his nice shoes, leaving them on the lawn. They were only going to restrict his movement, and he needed to be fast.
Like a cat, Owen climbed onto the back porch, clad only in his white t-shirt and slacks. The back door was locked as well, and he couldn’t see anything beyond the pitch blackness of the interior. Reaching above the door, the SEAL wiggled a lose nail from the frame before sliding it into the hole that contained the locking mechanism.
After a few expert movements, the lock released. Owen slid the door back as carefully as he could, wincing at the sound the runner made in its track.
Inside, the house was deathly still. Not a single peep.
Owen wasn’t armed. At Genny’s request, he put all of his toys away so that Jonas wouldn’t see any of them and freak out.
In his bare feet, the dark-haired man crept into the front entryway. The stillness was almost suffocating, ratcheting his sense of unease through the roof. When he found no one in the den, he moved to the kitchen.
What had been a faint odor of something burnt suddenly hit him full in the face. Genevieve’s fettucine was a congealed, blackened mass on the stovetop and the kitchen was empty.
Empty save for a few splatters of dark liquid on the floor.
Owen bent, his eyes adjusting to the dim light, and touched the droplets. Icy fingers slid through his gut when he realized what it was.
The scenario was so much like the one he’d encountered on Maple Wood Way that it stole his breath. But the person who had hurt Martha – who had stalked Genny for the past six months – was in jail.
Wasn’t she?
Owen straightened, beginning purposefully for the hallway. When he reached the turn-off, however, he froze.
All at once, he realized why the silence had so unnerved him. Eddie hadn’t uttered a peep when he entered. Even if Owen was stealthy enough to evade notice by any person present, Eddie would have known the moment he’d left his car.
But he hadn’t; and as Owen stepped into the blood-s
plattered hallway, he knew why.
The immense body of his beloved Rottweiler lay cold on the floor. For a moment, Owen felt as if he couldn’t breathe. His heart stumbled in his chest and his fists clenched as his pulse pounded in his ears.
He’d been shot, point blank, in the head.
Out like a light.
The dog – the friend – he had nurtured from puppyhood had been murdered in cold blood. The canine had once been the only thing he had lived for – before Genny had saved him and brought meaning into his life.
The anguish was so powerful it nearly drove him to his knees.
Despite the fact that he knew time was of the essence, for a long moment, Owen could only stare at the body.
Eddie. His Eddie, gone.
The anger came quickly. Anger that he thought he had forgotten, that therapy had slowly bled from him and that Sean had once warned him was his one fatal flaw. His mouth pulled into a tight line of fury, he jerked open the door to the extra bedroom and found it empty.
The silence bearing down on him, Owen strode straight down the hall to his bedroom, lifting his bare foot to kick the door down in a swift, brutal motion.
The sight that met his eyes made his rage wither and die in his stomach.
Genevieve lie on her side on the mattress, her hands bound with duct tape behind her. Blood from a shallow cut on her forehead oozed down the side of her face as she stared up at him with wide, frightened eyes. Sitting next to her, silhouetted by moonlight that spilled in through the window, was Jonas Kant.
A twenty two revolver was pressed against the side of Genny’s head, and Kant was wearing a shit-eating grin. “About time you got back, Owen.” Any and all traces of fear were gone from the man’s voice. It had, Owen realized in that moment, all been an act. An extremely well executed plan that they had fallen for hook, line and sinker. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
Despite the calm he tried to impart on himself, terror and anger churned in his gut as he stared Kant down, armed with nothing but his own strength. “Please, sit.” Jonas gestured with his free hand to an armchair in the corner.
He didn’t hesitate. Owen crossed the room in an instant and sank into the chair, his eyes never leaving Jonas’. “What do you want?” The SEAL’s demand was low and tight.
“I want my father back.” Kant returned crisply. “But we both know that’s impossible. So I’ll settle for the next best thing.” He rose from the bed, shifting so that the gun was pointed at Owen as he sidestepped his way to the dresser. From the flat surface he retrieved a thick roll of duct tape before tossing it to Owen.
The SEAL caught it one handed. “Tape your ankles together.” Jonas demanded silkily. “And do it properly, or I’m going to make a new breathing hole for the good doctor.” From the bed, Genevieve whimpered.
Slowly, Owen unwound a length of tape. He crossed his ankles, one over the other, before beginning to wind the tape around them. “Tighter.” Kant snapped, his voice slicing sharply through the air. “Don’t fuck with me, Lieutenant. I shot your dog without flinching and, quite honestly, I had more respect for him than I do for your whore. At least he knows danger when faced with it.”
Owen’s chest tightened and he swallowed his anger. Following Kant’s instructions, he wound the tape more firmly around his ankles. As he did so, he slid the rusty nail he’d retained from the back porch between the tape and his skin, concealing it expertly. He had wrapped his ankles at least twenty times before Kant pronounced himself satisfied. “Now,” he nodded to one of the chair’s wooden arms, “Tape one of your hands to the side of the chair.”
Owen growled low in his throat at the little cunt’s daring and Kant merely grinned, levelling the gun towards Genevieve once more. “Now.”
The SEAL quickly complied, pressing one wrist flush against the chair arm to start winding the tape around it.
“That’s enough.” After seven or eight passes, Kant stopped him. “Now, put the tape on the floor.” When Owen moved to do so, Kant made a sound of satisfaction, stepping forward. “Better. You’re a hulk of a man, Lieutenant. I might be able to hold you off for a while, but I wouldn’t bet on it. It’s better this way.” He took another step towards him and Owen saw his chance.
Bent over like he was, he had perfect access to the nail he’d hidden. If Kant had the balls to get much closer, he would shove the rusty projectile into his vulnerable eye-socket. “You see…that’s the problem with SEALs,” Kant went on, oblivious to Owen’s machinations. “You think you’re indestructible.” He took another step forward, bringing him to within five feet of Owen. “You forget your own mortality.” Four feet. “We’re going to work on that.”
Setting the tape near his feet, Owen discreetly palmed the nail, preparing to lash out. However, Jonas chose that exact moment to point his pistol at the SEAL’s left kneecap and fire.
The pain was immediate and immense.
A half-muffled epithet escaped Owen as agony bloomed up his thigh. All his muscles betrayed him and he lost hold of his only weapon. The nail thudded harmlessly to the carpet and Owen sucked in a harsh breath, biting his tongue against the groan that threatened.
His knee was destroyed. He knew it immediately. The SEAL had been shot more times than he could count, but nothing had ever felt like this.
Genevieve cried out in alarm and Owen felt his own blood seeping through the material of his slacks.
God fucking damn it!
“Now that you know I’m serious,” Jonas still had the weapon levelled at Owen, enjoyment evident on his face, “let’s move on.” He moved over to the dresser once more, this time taking the butterfly knife into his free hand. Through a haze of pain, Owen watched Kant cross the room to sit on the edge of the bed. He placed the gun on the floor next to his feet before curling one hand into Genny’s shoulder and pressing her into the mattress. He looked up, his gaze meeting the SEAL’s, and Owen saw stark madness there. “I’m going to hurt her.” Jonas pressed the razor sharp edge of the blade flat against the young woman’s collarbone, his gaze hard. “Until you beg me to stop.”
Genny sobbed, and Owen felt his stomach twist in acute horror. Even though his knee was most likely in pieces, and the pain threatened to steal his consciousness, he grit his teeth, refusing to give Kant the pleasure of seeing him black out. “I will do whatever you want,” He ground out, the veins in his neck standing out in sharp relief, “I swear to God. Just don’t hurt her.”
Kant appeared to consider for a moment, tapping the knife methodically against Genny’s neck. Then, slowly, a cruel smile split his face. “I want you to watch me hurt her.” With that, he placed the blade just above Genevieve’s ear, at the exact site of the scar on Owen’s face. “Let’s make you twins, shall we?”
He cut.
Genny screamed.
Blood flowed.
An enraged roar ripped from Owen as he attempted to stand. Though he bore the chair’s weight easily enough, his injured leg immediately crumpled beneath him. His bound legs twisted around one another and he hit the ground, hard, on his ruined leg.
The pain was enough to make colors burst to life before his vision and he groaned in agony.
Kant laughed. The son of a bitch actually laughed.
Owen lie on the floor beneath the chair he was taped to, trying to draw breath. After a long moment, he managed to straighten into a seated position, the chair on its side behind him. The awkward position twisted his arm into an impossible angle and he grunted at the additional discomfort.
In a trice, Kant had the gun pointed at him again. “Stay right there. You stay right there, Lieutenant.” Owen could have screamed in frustration. This bastard was sick. “I’m not finished yet.”
Genevieve moaned his name and Owen flinched. He could do nothing. Kant was going to slice her up and he could do nothing but watch. When the SEAL didn’t move, Kant smirked, setting the gun on his thigh before turning back to a trembling Genevieve. This time, the knife rested on her thigh. A thigh th
at Owen had kissed and caressed enough to memorize every dimple and line. “I know this hurts, Owen. And as much as it hurts, it’s nowhere near the pain you’ve caused me. What you’ve taken from me.”
He was absolutely out of his mind.
The knife disappeared again and Genevieve’s shriek made Owen buck involuntarily against the carpet, a low, helpless sound escaping him. Genevieve looked directly at him, pleading wordlessly for help. Her face was bloodstained, her entire body shaking like a leaf.
“You bastard.” Owen croaked, incensed. “You fucking bastard.”
He didn’t know how long the torture continued. Jonas would lecture him, demeaning him for “acting superior”, for believing that he was some kind of saint, for thinking that he could actually protect anyone. He could talk for five minutes or twenty, but eventually, he always cut.
And Genevieve always screamed. Until Owen could hear nothing else.
Owen wished he were dead. He wished Genny were dead so the son of a bitch couldn’t hurt her anymore. He was taking his time. Though what he did to the young woman hurt, her injuries were still superficial. He was just toying with her.
It seemed like an eternity passed before Kant finally fell silent. His hands and the bedsheets were stained with Genevieve’s blood, and Owen wanted to kill him more powerfully than he’d ever wanted to kill anyone. The woman he loved had been reduced to a quivering, sobbing figure at their tormentor’s mercy, and every soft hitch of her breath tore him apart.
“Well, as wonderful as this has been.” Kant was breathing hard. What he did wasn’t difficult, but it was clear that the sight of so much blood excited him. “We have to wrap things up. My ride will be here soon.”
At his words, Owen’s gaze darted to the clock next to the bed. It was ten minutes until ten.
The car meant to take Kant home would arrive soon. If he could somehow stall until then, maybe they could get some help.
Saving the Seal 2: A BWWM Navy Seal Interracial Romance Page 14