Chaos Remains: Greenstone Security #4

by Malcom, Anne

  Of course, my first reaction was fear. Terror. But then, my second, irrational thought was, he knows how old our son is?

  My third reaction was to do exactly as he said, to do anything to save my son.

  Anything.

  Even if it was getting in the car with him, knowing I had a high chance of never getting out.

  Lance

  He was ring shopping.

  Nathan was with him.

  Because he wanted to teach Nathan about being a man. Show him that sometimes that was going to a jewelry shop, buying fancy shit, not because it sparkled, but because it lasted. The expensive shit was not bought by real men to show off. It was bought because they wanted it on their woman’s skin forever.

  Also, because he wanted his kid’s opinion on the ring he was planning to slide onto his mother’s finger.

  Nathan was his kid.

  He considered his just like Elena was his.

  Not as a replacement for Nick. Never. But as something different. Something as precious.

  He was planning on getting the paperwork together as soon as the shit with Hudson was sorted. As soon as the fuck was behind bars and outta their fuckin’ lives. That would be soon. Thank fuck.

  He had been wild when he was put out on bail. Cursed himself for not killing him when he should. But he had been quiet. Smart. Surprising for a stupid fuck.

  They’d kept tabs on him. Close fucking tabs.

  Made it known that was what was happening. Hence him holing up in the McMansion, doing nothing.

  He relaxed slightly after the first couple of weeks.

  He would never relax completely. Not ever. Not even when the fuck was out of the picture. Because monsters didn’t need to be chasing Elena or Nathan to ruin everything. Life was big enough of a monster. A slippery road. Sickness. Accidents.

  Hence him not wasting time.

  “I like that one.” Nathan pointed at the exact ring he’d spotted when they came in.

  It was Elena. A little showy, without being obvious about it. Classy. Unique. One of a kind.

  He ruffled Nathan’s hair. “I like it too.”

  Nathan looked up at Lance. “You’re marrying my mommy, does that make you my daddy?”

  The punch went straight to the gut. It took him a second to handle his shit to answer. He bent down so he could be eye level with that. “Is that what you want?”

  Nathan thought about it. Because that’s what the kid did. Considered every question, didn’t answer straight away. Then he nodded slowly. “Yeah, that is what I want.”

  Another gut punch.

  Lance kept it together.

  “Good. Me too.”

  Nathan smiled. Big.

  Right about the same time his phone rang.

  And his world imploded.

  * * *

  “What are you gonna say to her?” Heath asked.

  They were at the offices. He’d dropped Nathan off with Karen, the second he got the call, tried to act like nothing was wrong. But she caught it. Kid caught it.

  Because he couldn’t rein it in. Couldn’t mask his panic when he’d excelled at masking everything for a decade.

  He broke all traffic laws driving to the city, on the phone to Keltan, Wire—the Sons of Templar’s resident computer kid—Luke, Rosie. All of whom had nothing. Nothing but Elena’s car in the parking lot of the diner and not Elena.

  Nothing but Hudson’s house empty.

  It took Lance a few seconds to understand the words, them having been spoken in such a calm, even tone. A calm even tone didn’t exist around here. It was impossible to be spoken with the chaos that was hurtling around his head.

  The fucking universe.

  How could anyone even think about being calm when his whole world was falling apart?

  Again.

  But he forced himself to swallow that chaos, that pain, that panic. It would do nothing to let it leech onto the false façade of calm that he was battling to keep on his face.

  So he focused on Heath’s words.

  On the man himself.

  He respected him. He respected all of the men. But Heath had gone through shit with his wife. Some of the worst that even Lance had ever seen. And Polly was a woman that should never have even known that kind of ugliness existed, let alone have it carved on her soul.

  It was carved on Heath’s too.

  In a different way. In the same way a kind of pain was on Lance’s.

  The man had suffered through what Lance was going through right now. He found it hard to understand that someone else had experienced a pain this big, because he didn’t think the world was large enough to contain more of this. But he knew better. Knew the world always accommodated more pain.

  He didn’t have to answer Heath for the man to know he’d gotten his attention.

  “When you first lay eyes on her, once we get her back where she belongs, what you gonna say to her?” Heath asked, still in that same, calm, reasonable voice. Like it was a forgone conclusion that Elena was coming back. That she was just out getting the fucking groceries or something. Not that she was taken by her unhinged and violent ex with nothing left to lose.

  His fists clenched at his sides. As he was about to lose it, he realized what Heath was doing. He was giving him something to hold onto. Something to focus on that wasn’t the fact that Elena was fuck knows where with her abusive husband.

  “I’m gonna tell her I love her,” he said without hesitation.

  Heath nodded. “Smart opening, man.”

  Lance’s fists stayed clenched. “She’s already said it to me,” he continued, remembering the way the fucking air tasted after she’d put those words out there. “She didn’t mean to say it. Elena always blurts out exactly whatever’s in her fucking head at the time. I never have to wonder what she’s thinking.”

  He almost smiled at the memory of that. Then he remembered that there was no reason to smile right now. That there might not be another reason to want to smile.

  “It was offhand, natural,” he continued, having no idea why the fuck he was blurting all this shit out. “She didn’t realize that she said it until after.” He paused. “I didn’t say it back. Not because I didn’t. Not because I don’t. But I wanted to say it after. When all this shit was in our rearview. When she didn’t have that fucking shadow behind her eyes.” His vision blurred. “I waited. And now I fucking don’t know if I’m gonna get to tell her.”

  Heath moved forward, despite knowing what a dangerous move that was when Lance was like this. His hand settled on Lance’s shaking shoulder.

  “You’re gonna get to tell her, man,” he said, making a promise that he had no way of being able to keep.

  Lance gritted his teeth. “Yeah,” he said, sounding more sure than he really was. “She told me once, to have faith that things were gonna work out for people that deserved it.” He struggled to get himself to control his emotions, control the sudden need to smash Heath’s face in. To rip this whole fucking room apart with his bare hands. To rip this entire fucking world apart until he found her, until he was covered in the blood of the man that took her from him.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “Is Mom gonna come home soon, Captain?” Nathan asked, eyes wide and voice wobbling just a bit.

  It was a punch in the fucking gut, and Lance was surprised he was able to feel new blows, he was in that much pain. But the kid who stole his heart, just like his mother had given him new pain.

  Because he was trying to keep his shit locked. His fear. Pain. Five fucking years old, and he was braver than Lance himself.

  He didn’t know what was going on, that his father was a fucking psychopath and had kidnapped his mother, but he wasn’t stupid. Elena hadn’t been at home, the home she’d made for all of them. She was a ghost already, her presence everywhere and fucking nowhere.

  Lance didn’t lie to him when he’d asked where his mom was. He did that because of Elena.

  “I never lie to him,” she whispered, trailing
circles on his pec with her finger. It was after the initial court hearing, when she’d told Nathan his daddy had to go to jail because he’d done some bad things to nice people. Nathan had taken it well. Very fucking well. Just nodded and saying, “Yeah, he didn’t seem very nice when I had my visit with him.”

  “I always wonder if it makes me a bad mother,” she continued, her voice smaller, more vulnerable. “Telling him the truth when a lie would be easier.”

  His arms tightened around her and he had to stop himself from squeezing hard enough to hurt. He had to do that a lot. Stop himself from hurting her because he couldn’t fucking control how much he loved her. He was broken in that way, he knew. Life with Elena would always be beautiful, but it’d be a battle. Because he didn’t know how to love her right, gentle. She knew that. And she loved him anyway.

  “That’s what makes you a good mother,” he ground out. “The best. Because you’ll never do what’s easier, you’ll always do what’s right.”

  And that’s why he didn’t lie to Nathan.

  “I don’t know, buddy,” he said honestly. “But I promise you I’m gonna find her. And you know that men never break their promises.”

  Nathan nodded. “I know, Captain.”

  He trusted him, that kid. He trusted Lance so completely, with a purity he didn’t deserve. A dedication he didn’t deserve. But he’d work to earn it. He’d keep his promise. He’d get Elena back, for the both of them.

  He crouched down so he was eye to eye with Nathan, who was sitting on the same sofa his mom had been in waiting for him in the Greenstone Security offices. Fucking full circle.

  Karen and Eliza had been against him coming here, telling him it would be better for him to be in his own surroundings.

  It probably would be.

  But Lance wanted him close.

  To her credit, although her eyes narrowed, Eliza had conceded, her and Karen in the kitchen preparing supper for Nathan.

  “But she’ll be back, right?” Nathan asked him.

  “Yeah,” Lance ground out. “She’ll be back.”

  Nathan nodded. “Okay.”

  Lance got his strength then. From a five-year-old. From the woman he loved. The woman he would be getting back. Whatever it took.

  Elena

  Robert had lost it.

  That much was very clear.

  But I didn’t think he ever had anything to lose. He was just excellent at pretending.

  Pretending to be human.

  “If you’d just let me have the kid, if you’d just come back and didn’t act like a total cunt, then we wouldn’t be here, I wouldn’t be here,” he hissed. “We’d be a family.”

  I glared at him. “We were never a family.”

  That got me another backhand.

  The sting reverberated through my skull but it wasn’t as effective as I knew Robert wanted it to be, because he was focusing on the road.

  It was getting darker now.

  That was a good thing.

  It meant a lot of time had passed. I wasn’t sure how long Robert had been driving around with me drugged in the seat beside him, or if he’d taken me somewhere. It had been light when he took me.

  Nathan would be out of school. I wasn’t there to pick him up. But Lance would have been. He would’ve known something happened. Logan and Esther would have called him as soon as I didn’t turn up for my shift, with my car in the parking lot. He would pick up Nathan, keep him safe. Robert had used an easy lie to get me to go with him. But I was okay with that. I’d never be more okay with a lie in my life. Nathan was safe. He was safe.

  I had to chant that.

  Because it became clear that Robert didn’t have Nathan when I got in the car. When he rattled on about “Greenstone Security fucks keeping me from my son.” That was before he’d plunged a syringe into my neck, when I was still conscious.

  It was then I got it. He’d used the weapon he knew would shatter me, without lifting a finger. He couldn’t get to Nathan. We’d protected him. Lance protected him.

  And Lance would find me. I would try to escape if I could, I would fight. But I was cuffed, still struggling with the aftereffects of whatever he’d injected into my body. I couldn’t move my hands properly, or my legs. I guessed that was the point.

  “You’ve changed,” Robert said, slowing so he could pull into a parking lot. I couldn’t move my head to see where we were. “That fucker has changed you. You’re not going to be a good wife anymore. A good mother. I can’t change you back. But I can get you back for what you did to me.”

  “What I did to you?” I laughed, it was weird and slurred but I got my point across. “You’re insane.”

  He smiled, it was unnerving. This whole situation was unnerving. But the smile, it was empty, unhinged, the face of a man watching things burn.

  “Remember our first date, honey?” he asked instead of lashing out with the insult that I expected him to. “You were trying so hard not to look like the white trash whore you were, we had a nice dinner, then we came out here where you let me put my hand up your cunt, showing me what a whore you were.”

  I did remember. I remembered not having anything nice enough to wear to the restaurant he took me to, so I wore a secondhand dress that was two sizes too small and didn’t go with the décor. I remembered the compliments, the smiles. The nice guy. Then we came out to a wharf that was Robert’s ‘secret place’ that somehow no one had ever found because it was in a strange spot, outside of the city and not worth most people’s time.

  We’d sat on a wharf we had to ourselves and watched the sunset.

  And I had let him inside. Because he’d kissed me sweetly. Made all sorts of promises. Because I didn’t know my worth, so I attached it to those kisses and promises.

  “I thought this is the best place to take you,” he said. “It’s my secret place after all. The place where you became mine. Where you’ll always be mine.”

  He turned off the truck then and got out. I willed my hands to move, despite the fact they were in cuffs. They were in front of me, I could see them, limp and red, blood trickling from where the skin scraped off against metal.

  I could wiggle my toes. Slightly. Not enough.

  The door opened and I fell, right onto the concrete, without my hands to break my fall, my head took most of the impact. The pain was blinding and immediate.

  Warmth trickled down my face, obscuring my vision as a figure stood above me.

  I couldn’t see his face, but I knew what the expression would be, the same expression he always wore when he hurt me.

  Then I was up, limp in his arms, though my brain was screaming at my limbs to work, to fight.

  They did neither. So I was helpless as he walked us down the dock.

  It was then I knew exactly what he was doing. What the purpose was here.

  It was always going to be the endgame with Robert. He wasn’t done with me. No, not with the white trash whore who’d bested him. He was done when I stopped breathing.

  “They’re going to find you,” I said, desperate to use whatever I could to stall him. Until Lance came.

  Even though we were in a place that no one knew about. Even though Robert hadn’t used a cell phone that I saw, even though this car was most likely stolen and not traceable.

  He’d find a way.

  He was a superhero after all.

  “You’re not going to get away with this, whatever happens to me,” I hissed as the end of the dock approached.

  “I know,” Robert said, surprising me with his lack of delusions of victory. “But that’s okay, I’ll be okay knowing I’m breathing and you’re not.”

  We stopped.

  At the end of the wharf.

  I knew the water wasn’t that deep. Robert and I had gone swimming here before. He’d dunked me playfully, but had kept me under for too long, so I panicked and almost passed out.

  That should have been a sign.

  But you could dive down to touch the bottom.

  �
�Almost impossible to drown in,” Robert had joked after he’d almost drowned me.

  But nothing was impossible.

  Especially when you were handcuffed and none of your limbs worked.

  Fear clutched my throat at how helpless I was. Robert had my life in his hands.

  “And you know the last thing you’re gonna taste before you die?” he asked, squeezing me tight and moving me so my face was by the shadow of his. “Me,” he snarled.

  Then he kissed me, brutal, sloppy, invading. His tongue slipped in and I didn’t hesitate to sink my teeth in, biting as hard as I could.

  His body jerked and he let out a moan of pain, ripping his lips from mine. I tasted his blood in my mouth, happy that my fight would be the last thing I tasted, if this was really the end.

  “Cunt!” he screamed, voice garbled and wet.

  Then he threw me.

  No ceremony. No long monologue like the villains did in the movies to give the heroes time to get there to save the day.

  Nothing.

  The water hit me fast and cold.

  Though I hadn’t been expecting it, I managed to hold my breath just before I made impact. I sank, immediately, all the way to the bottom. I tried to kick my legs, flail my body, nothing moved.

  But I should come back to the surface, shouldn’t I? Humans were buoyant.

  I did begin to float up just a little, enough to spark hope. But I stopped somewhere in the water, I had no idea how far I was from the top. But it didn’t matter how close or far I was. I wasn’t there. My limbs didn’t work. My lungs were burning.

  But I could see. Everything. Most importantly, I could trace the face of my watch, sparkling above the handcuff at my wrist.

  I knew I shouldn’t be able to see this clearly. I knew that I most likely wasn’t seeing this clearly, this was probably some kind of hallucination that my brain conjured to distract me from the fact I was dying.

  I didn’t care.

  I just stared at the glittering metal, reflecting in the water, and I let it distract me from the burning in my lungs, from the panic in my soul and the breaking of my heart.