by Susan Stoker
The second they stepped into view, Grace’s tearstained face turned to Felicity. “This is your fault. If it wasn’t for you, I’d still have my baby!”
Felicity gasped and brought a hand up to her chest. It felt as if her best friend had just stabbed her with a knife, her words hurt that much. The tears she’d been holding back, barely, gushed out of her eyes. She took a step backward, wanting to flee. Wanting to be anywhere but there.
But Ryder wouldn’t let go of her hand. Felicity reached down and tried to pry his fingers off hers, but he merely held on more firmly. “Oh my God, please, let me go,” she begged. She couldn’t handle this. It was her fault. If she’d fled when she’d planned, Nate would still be here. He’d be with his family.
“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it!”
Felicity looked up through her tears and saw Grace struggling to stand. She was staring at her and shaking her head.
“Leese. Please. I didn’t mean it. It’s not your fault. It’s not.”
This time when Felicity tugged at her hand, Ryder let go.
She stumbled a couple of steps toward Grace, and they fell into each other’s arms. Both sobbed hysterically.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Felicity sobbed.
“No, I’m sorry,” Grace returned, barely understandable through her gasps and tears. “I know it wasn’t your fault. It was his. No one else’s. You always told me not to apologize for stuff my parents did, so I’m telling you the same thing. Logan will find our son. I know it.”
Felicity felt a hand at her elbow steering her and Grace to the couch, but she didn’t lift her head from her best friend’s shoulder. She held on as tightly as possible. They collapsed on the cushions, still holding on to each other and crying.
Before long, she felt someone at her back. It was Bailey. The other woman wrapped her arms around both Felicity and Grace. Felicity looked up and saw Alexis sitting behind Grace with her arms around her as well. The four of them huddled on the couch for at least half an hour. Talking quietly between bouts of tears.
Nathan put together a light dinner, but no one other than Joel really felt like eating.
When it was dark outside, Ryder came up beside her and leaned in. “Time for bed, love.”
Felicity nodded. She hugged Grace and Bailey one more time, bid good night to the men, and followed behind Ryder, her hand held tightly in his. He led them upstairs to the room they’d been sleeping in since she got out of the hospital and shut the door quietly behind them. “Go on and get ready. I’ll change and do my thing when you’re done.”
Felicity nodded and went into the small attached bathroom.
When he came back out, Ryder was wearing a pair of boxers and was pacing the room. He kissed her on the forehead on his way past her to the restroom.
Felicity put on a black tank top and took off her jeans. She climbed under the quilt and waited.
She didn’t have long to wait. Ryder opened the bathroom door a minute later, stepped to the wall, and shut off the light, leaving the room in darkness. She heard him make his way around the bed and felt the mattress dip as he got in on the other side of her.
Then she was in his arms and could finally relax.
All day she’d been tense. She didn’t have any doubt that Ryder would keep Joseph from taking her, but it had still been a very stressful situation. Then when Grace had blamed her for Nate being kidnapped, she’d felt her heart stop beating. It had been so like her sensitive best friend to immediately recant her statement and be genuinely remorseful for uttering it in the first place.
She melted into Ryder’s arms. Burying her nose into the warm skin of his neck, she could feel the stubble of his beard against her cheek. Overwhelmed with sensations, the tears began to flow once more.
Ryder didn’t once tell her to shush. He simply held her tighter and let her cry.
When she was finally all cried out, Felicity sniffed. Hard.
Chuckling, Ryder leaned over and grabbed a tissue from the table next to his side of the bed. He handed it over without a word.
Not feeling embarrassed in the least, although she supposed she probably should be, Felicity dried her eyes and blew her nose. She chucked the used tissue toward the table on her side and snuggled back into Ryder without checking to make sure she’d made her target.
“Fuck,” Ryder said softly. “Am I glad to be here with you.”
Felicity nodded. “Me too.”
“I’m torn,” he continued. “I’m devastated for Logan and Grace. Pissed way the hell off at Garrick and even Rex for sending him to the meet in the first place. But relieved as fuck that you’re free.”
Felicity could only nod again. Yes. She was feeling all that and more. Picking up her head, she whispered, “I love you.”
“And I love you. So fucking much,” Ryder said. “I want to fuck the shit out of you to celebrate you finally being able to go where you want and do what you want, but unfortunately, this isn’t the time or place.”
His words made her squirm, but she wasn’t feeling the least bit ready to make love. “Do you think Garrick will find him?”
Ryder sighed. “I don’t know. I just don’t know. If he couldn’t control his son when he was alive, I’m not sure he’ll be able to figure out what Joseph had planned now that he’s dead. I wish Black could’ve gotten his hands on him. We would’ve found out for sure if Nate was alive or dead.”
Ryder paused, and after a couple of minutes said, “Don’t take what Grace said to heart.”
Knowing exactly what he was talking about, Felicity said quietly, “I’m trying not to. I mean, really, Nate being kidnapped was my fault. I was looking after them. Joseph was in town because of me. And he wanted to get at me by hurting those I love.”
“Felicity,” Ryder said gruffly, “don’t.”
“But be that as it may,” she went on quickly, “I know that ultimately I did the right thing all those years ago in calling the cops on Joseph. He killed Colleen. He’s an abusive asshole who likes to hurt women. You heard him. He doesn’t think we’re equal by any stretch of the imagination. If it wasn’t Nate, he would’ve hurt someone else. Joel, maybe. Or Bailey or Alexis. There’s no telling what he would’ve done. I’m not sorry he’s dead,” she said fiercely. “Don’t think I am. I only wish he would’ve died slower and more painfully.”
“I think that’s why Garrick did what he did. He knew if the Mountain Mercenaries got our hands on him, we would’ve learned everything about his operation there in Chicago. And Joseph was his son, even if he was a pain in his ass. So he killed him the most merciful way he could.”
“Ryder?”
“Yeah, love?”
“I want to stay here until Nate comes home. But I know that you probably don’t—”
“Don’t finish that sentence,” Ryder said harshly. “I go where you go. If you’re here, so am I. I’ve slept next to you for the last month or so. Don’t make me stop now. Not when you’re free to be mine without any barriers whatsoever.”
“Okay,” Felicity said softly. “Ryder?”
He chuckled, relaxing now that she said he didn’t have to leave her side. “What?”
“You’re going to marry me, right?”
“Yes. But you’re not allowed to propose to me. Remember?”
Felicity nodded. “I remember. But I only picked the name Jones because it was generic, and there are so many people with that last name, I figured it would be harder for Joseph to find me. I’m not attached to it. Frankly, I hate it.”
“How do you feel about Sinclair as a last name?” Ryder asked, tightening his arms around her.
“I love it. Felicity Megan Sinclair.”
“Beautiful,” he murmured.
“So?”
“So what, love?”
“So are you going to propose?”
“Yeah. When we find Nate and things calm down. You’ll get your proposal. Then we’ll go and get married at the courthouse. No long, drawn-out waiting. Okay?”<
br />
“Sounds good to me. I’ve wasted enough of my life on the run as it is.”
“Good.”
“Good.”
“Go to sleep, love. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. We need to track Joseph’s movements from the time he took Nate until today. He disappeared after he took him, and that had to have been when he was stashing him somewhere. Rex and my teammates will find out everything they can. I’m thinking Logan and Grace will need to do some interviews and maybe some press conferences. The more attention we can bring to their missing son, the better. Detective Baker said he’d get an Amber Alert going as well. Grace is going to need you more than ever.”
“Yeah.” Felicity hugged Ryder harder. “I love you.”
“Love you too. Now sleep.”
Felicity didn’t think she’d ever fall asleep, but she was out within ten minutes, the excitement of the day catching up with her.
She never knew that Ryder stayed awake for more than two hours, simply holding her. Never knew about the tears that leaked out of his eyes. Or about his whispered words, “Thank fuck you’re safe.”
Chapter Twenty
Thousands of miles away, in a rundown and dangerous part of San Antonio, Maria Gonzalez sat in a tiny, cramped bedroom inside a small apartment. Her bedroom door was usually locked from the outside, but after Maldad had left, he hadn’t chained it closed behind him.
The man who had made her life a living hell hadn’t ever told her his name, and Maria had begun to call him Maldad in her head after her first week in her prison apartment. Evil. It fit the man in every sense of the name.
He’d left a thousand dollars along with his “present” and told her to go home.
Home.
She wasn’t sure how long it had been since she’d left her hometown of Fresnillo in the Zacatecas state of Mexico, but she estimated at least five years.
She’d been so stupid. Thought she knew everything there was to know about the world at eighteen. She was tired of looking after her younger brothers and sisters, not to mention her cousins, and had wanted more than working in the mines like her parents, aunts, and uncles did. When she’d read the advertisement in the paper for girls needed to move to the United States to work in a new and upcoming industry, she’d ignored her mamá’s warnings and had slipped out of their rundown house in the middle of the night.
At first everything seemed fine. She and four other women—girls—had met at a local bar. They’d been given new clothes and more money than they’d ever had in their entire lives. They’d gotten in a truck and been driven north.
But somewhere along the way, things had changed. The man who had been so nice to them in Fresnillo disappeared, and was replaced by a sullen older man who didn’t speak more than two words to them.
When they got close to the border, they were ordered into small crates. Maria had been locked inside that small wooden box for hours. She thought she was going to die in there, but she hadn’t. Looking back, she almost wished she had.
She was brought here to this apartment, where she met Maldad for the first time. She had no idea what had happened to the other girls who had traveled from Fresnillo with her, but she supposed it didn’t matter. They were probably locked in a room, much like hers, forced to do the same things she’d been forced to do.
Maria had fought at first, but eventually had given in. Maldad owned her. He was free to do whatever he wanted to her, and it was his right to let anyone else he wanted do whatever they wanted with her.
And he had.
They had.
She’d been beaten and abused so horribly over the years, she was merely a shell of the idealistic young woman she’d once been.
But then a week ago, Maldad had arrived, unexpectedly. He’d unlocked her door, and instead of raping her, he’d shoved a bundle of blankets at her. He’d then thrown a US passport and a pile of money on the floor next to the dirty, stained mattress and said, “Go home, girl.” He always called her “girl.” All the men who visited her called her that. No one ever asked her name because they simply didn’t care.
“Go home, girl,” he’d said. “Take the baby and don’t come back. Ever. Don’t tell anyone where you got him or what happened here. If you do, I’ll find you and kill you. Slowly and painfully.”
He’d left as quickly as he’d arrived, not caring about the small infant he’d shoved at her any more than he cared about her.
Maria gazed down at the infant. He was adorable. His brown hair was long for how old she guessed he was. He was chubby, in the way only healthy babies could be. Maria’s brothers and sisters had never looked as good as this child did. They were always hungry at home, never had enough to eat, and their dull eyes and protruding bellies showed it.
But they’d been loved.
Just as this child was.
Maria could see it from the expensive onesie the infant was wearing and from the glow of his perfect skin.
The first day, he’d smiled all the time and had no fear of her. Only a child who had never been hurt by others would be so free with his affection.
She’d been too afraid to leave her prison at first. She was scared it was a trap and if she set foot outside her room, Maldad would pop out of nowhere and hurt her for trying to escape. She’d tried to get away once before, a week after she’d been locked into her prison. A week after she’d been repeatedly raped by Maldad and his friends. They’d laughed when she’d cried and begged for them to let her go. To stop hurting her. The punishment for attempting to escape was a hundred times worse than what she’d endured the first week. She never made the mistake of trying to get away again. She learned her lesson the hard way all those years ago.
But after a while, the baby had gotten hungry. And dirty. And Maria didn’t have anything to make a diaper out of except a torn T-shirt one of her visitors had left behind. So she’d carefully made her way out of her unlocked room into the kitchen. No one was lurking out there to beat her for stepping foot outside her prison. There wasn’t any baby food, but she’d managed to mash up peas from a can in the pantry. There was some evaporated milk, which she tried to dilute and give the child, but he wasn’t having any of it.
Desperate, Maria had finally worked up the nerve to leave the apartment and walk down the street, with the baby in her arms. She wasn’t going to leave him alone and chance one of Maldad’s friends showing up and hurting him.
She bought some formula, a small box of diapers, and a box of cereal from a gas station.
The baby didn’t exactly love the meal, but he was probably so hungry that he didn’t have the energy to complain too loudly.
The way the baby’s eyes constantly searched the room, and the way one of his little hands kept opening and closing, as if looking for something, or someone, unnerved her.
Wanting, no needing, information about the outside world that had been denied her for so long, Maria had been watching the Spanish channel on the small television for hours. She learned that she’d been living in the small apartment for three years. She’d gone from an innocent eighteen-year-old eager to escape the poverty of her homeland to a twenty-one-year-old who dreamed about the simple but safe life she used to lead.
With the infant fretting in her arms, Maria watched the news with fascination. So many things had changed in the last three years. But when a story came on about a missing child from Colorado, she froze. Maria stared at the television as a picture of the infant flashed on the screen. She tuned out the words from the reporter as more pictures were shown.
Pictures of his distraught parents.
Pictures of his uncles.
But it was the photo of his twin brother that caught her attention.
The missing child everyone was looking for was currently in her arms, crying. And he had a twin. His constantly moving eyes and his grasping hand made sense now. He was instinctually missing his brother and searching for him.
Maria looked down at the precious bundle. If she was this child’s mother, sh
e’d be frantic to get him back, just as she knew her own mother was for her. Even though she wasn’t a child anymore, she knew deep in her bones that her mamá wouldn’t give up trying to find out what had happened to her.
The money Maldad had thrown at her was sitting on the kitchen counter. Maria hadn’t seen anyone in several days. It was the longest she’d ever gone without being raped or assaulted. Suddenly the urge to leave the apartment was overwhelming. Maybe it was a trick. Maybe the border agents would know at a glance the passport Maldad gave her was a fake. But wouldn’t being caught at the border be better than staying here? Spending time in jail and being deported to where she wanted to go in the first place would be heaven compared to being raped every day and treated as if she was an object.
But the baby.
Maldad wanted her to take him with her over the border. Into Mexico. The man hadn’t done one nice thing for her in three years. He certainly wouldn’t start now. He had to have done something bad in order to have gotten the baby. If she took the child across the border, she’d be playing right into whatever horrible scheme Maldad had planned.
But on the other hand, the smiles and snuggles from the baby were the first friendly gestures she’d had since she’d been abducted. He was a helpless babe, and he needed her. Maria looked back up at the television. Even though an advertisement for some useless gadget was now being shown, all she could see was the frantic worry on the faces of the baby’s parents as they’d pleaded with the public for any information about their kidnapped son.
Moving with a sense of urgency, and mentally berating herself for waiting so long to follow Maldad’s orders, she ran into her former prison and scooped up the blanket she’d used for so long. Carefully swaddling the infant until he was in a cocoon of fleece, she continued to get ready to leave. The only shoes she had were an old pair of men’s flip-flops. She’d worn them to the store, and they’d hurt her feet, but she didn’t care. She needed to leave. Now.
Maria Gonzalez slipped out of the apartment much the same way she’d entered it all those years ago . . . silently and unnoticed by the drug dealers, prostitutes, and gang members who milled about.