Hunted in the Dark

by Stacia Stone

  “Wait, a minute.” Even with my limited strength, I wrench my arm away from him and take a step back. “Are you schizophrenic? You dropped me off half-dead at the hospital. You got away. Why did you come back?”

  One of his eyebrows raise in a favored expression of his that I have grown to truly hate. “What makes you think that I ever left.”

  That catches me short. “Because I woke up alone in the hospital.”

  He glances down the stairwell as if anticipating that someone will come up behind us. “I brought you to the hospital because you got knocked unconscious during a car wreck and I wanted to make sure that you would be okay?”

  “Then why didn’t you just leave?” I ask through clenched teeth, inwardly seething. As ridiculous as it sounds, I’m hurt that he would just abandon me like that and now I’m having a hard time squaring that with the fact that he’s here now. Which just makes me angrier. “You got your information, you got what you wanted.” He got everything that he wanted from me and I suppress a shudder at the memory. “Why won’t you just leave me alone?”

  Hunt makes a frustrated sound in his throat. “We don’t have time for this, Sophia.”

  “You need to make time, Hunt.”

  He cracks the door to the lobby and shoves my face toward the opening. “You see those guys who look like extras out of an action movie?

  I do see them. Only two or three men, dressed in black pants and matching polos. They’re not brandishing weapons or acting obviously suspicious, but something about them definitely seems off.

  “Yeah, so.”

  “Those are mercenaries and they’re here for you. They’re waiting for you to walk out that door like an idiot and then they’re going to take you.”

  “Take me where?”

  He glared down at me. “To the place you take people when you don’t want anyone to ever find them again. They know you’ve seen what was in that storage locker and they won’t risk you telling anyone. You can leave with me or die.”

  I pushed back from the door and he let it close, blocking my view of the lobby where the very suspicious-looking men were waiting. “You told me those men were hired by my father. Why would they want to hurt me?”

  “I was wrong. Your father is definitely a part of it, but this monster has many heads.”

  “How can you be so sure?” I know this is a bad time to insist on explanations, but I’ve been on too many emotional rollercoasters already to be content without an answer. “The last time I saw you, you were convinced that my father was some evil, criminal mastermind.”

  “And I’ve been tapping his phones, remember? If he’d sent those men, then he would already know you’re in the hospital here. Something’s not adding up.” He makes a growl of frustration before striding towards me. “And we’re leaving now before this conversation gets us both killed.”

  Before I can react, Hunt has me slung over his shoulder and is carrying me down the steps that lead to the basement. Part of me is amazed that he’s able to take the stairs two at a time while carrying me like I weigh nothing at all, but the bigger part of me is just pissed off.

  “God, you’re a caveman,” I grumble, as he shoves open the door that leads into the below-ground parking garage.

  “Just for you, baby.”

  “You’re an asshole, you know that?”

  He dumps me on my feet next to a beat-up Chrysler as he fiddles with the door. “Look, Sophia. This is not a kidnapping. I know you’re mad at me and you have every right to be. If you don’t trust me enough by now to keep you safe, then stay here.”

  I hesitate by the door. “Is that reverse psychology?”

  The ghost of a smile teases across his lips. “That depends. Is it working?”

  “All you’ve done this entire time is use me. Once you got the information you were looking for, you dropped me off at the hospital and disappeared. What am I supposed to think?”

  “I don’t have the information.”

  The revelation drops like a bomb in the silence. “Yes, you do. I saw you take it from that storage unit.”

  “And those men who are waiting for you right now got their hands on it. After the car crashed, you got knocked unconscious and a bunch of them descended on me with guns drawn. Giving up that information was the only way to get you out of there alive.”

  My mouth opens and closes, but no words come out. I swallow hard before I’m able to speak. “I don’t believe you.”

  He shrugs. “Believe what you want. It’s the truth.”

  My mind is reeling, but this is the most earnest that I’ve ever seen Hunt. And he’s never lied to me before. “I don’t know what to think.”

  Hunt sighs, his patience clearly at the limit. “We have about thirty more seconds before they realize that you’re gone. I promise to explain everything if you give me a little time, but I’m not going to force you, not this time. So are you coming with me, or not? It’s now or never.”

  He climbs into the driver’s seat and starts the engine. I stand there for a moment, feeling like I’m caught on the precipice between today and tomorrow, am I staying in the past or diving for the future? Somehow, I just know that the decision that I make now will be one that I can’t take back.

  Taking a steadying breath, I get in the car.

  Chapter 20

  I couldn’t leave her. That is as simple and as complex of an explanation as I’ll ever be able to come up with. I hadn’t lied to her when I said that I’d still been hanging around. I had meant to leave. I never intended to stalk the halls of the hospital in a stolen uniform, staying just out of sight of anyone who might raise an alarm. I’d told myself that I just needed to make sure she was safe before going back to my guys. I just couldn’t leave without knowing she was good.

  Turns out, I just couldn’t leave. Period.

  Sophia is staring out the window as we speed down the highway toward the new safe house. The only obvious difference between now and the last time I was alone with her in a car is that I don’t have her handcuffed to the seat. But in reality, everything has changed.

  Savage called me crazy for not letting her go, even if it meant leaving her at the mercy of those mercenaries. Frost just got a stupid smile on his face and didn’t say a goddamned thing, but I had a pretty good idea what he was thinking. I know that I’m putting all of us at risk by staying behind to get Sophia, but that’s what I haven’t had a chance to explain to her yet.

  This isn’t a rescue. Because I’m never giving her back. She is staying with me, forever. She just doesn’t know it yet.

  I haven’t told her that she doesn’t have a home to go back to, not anymore. If the Senator truly didn’t send those mercenaries, then it means that there are other players on this chest board, ones with deep pockets. And he isn’t the one who is truly in control. Which means that he’s going to have a hard time keeping himself safe, much less trying to protect Sophia.

  I’m the only one who can keep her safe, now. I just have to figure out how to explain it to her in a way that won’t cause an epic fight.

  Of course, I still have the handcuffs if I need them. And I might pull them out even if I don’t actually need them.

  Her face is in profile as she leans against the door. Not for the first time, I’m struck by how truly beautiful she is and how amazingly strong she’s had to be.

  I don’t deserve her, but I’m taking her, anyway.

  “I can see your wheels turning,” I murmur, my hands gripping the steering wheel in an effort not to touch her. She’s not ready for that yet. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  She makes a low growl in her throat. “I’m fine.”

  I believe that like I believe there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. “Oh yeah, you seem fine.”

  “If I’m not fine, it’s because of you,” she spits out like venom.

  But if anything, I’m relieved. I like her much better angry. I don’t know what to do with her sadness, but the anger is something that I can
deal with.

  “What can I do to make you feel better?” I slide my hand across the seat and brush my fingers down the back of her arm where I know the skin is extra sensitive. “Do you want to have a tickle fight?”

  She slaps my hand away but I catch the tiny smile that briefly curls at the corner of her lips. “Fuck off.”

  My fingers twine in her hair and I pull gently on the strands. “We could try that, too, if it’ll make you feel better. Just give me a minute to pull the car over.”

  Sophia finally turns her head to face me, her cheek resting against the headrest. “Who’s the bad guy here, Hunt? Is it you or my father? I thought I knew, but now I’m just confused.”

  “You want all of this to be black and white. Good and bad. But it’s not, and it never has been. Even if your father is guilty of the worst of this, he is still the man who raised you and loves you.” I pause for a second, not really sure if I’m helping my case or hurting it. “I saved your life, but I’m also the guy who put it in danger in the first place. None of this is as simple as you want it to be.”

  She falls silent at that and I don’t force the issue. Sophia is smart. She’ll figure out the truth of this on her own. But I can see the seed of doubt at her own worldview has been planted. She understands, now, that the world has never been as simple as she’s always been told.

  We drive the rest of the way to the safe house in silence. I keep my eyes focused on the road, but I can sense her gaze slide over me. And her thoughts are so loud that I can nearly hear them.

  Eventually she’ll figure out on her own that I can’t let her go.

  Sophia doesn’t spend any time looking around as I follow her into the safe house. It’s a small house in a neighborhood hit hard by the financial crisis, with more abandoned property and boarded-up windows than nosy neighbors. It isn’t completely secure, but we could stay here for a bit while we regrouped.

  Frost is in the living room at a makeshift computer terminal, his face aglow in the blue light from the screen. He doesn’t bother to look up as we pass but I know he’s very aware of us both. Savage sits on the threadbare couch cleaning a rifle which is always what he does when he’s on edge about something.

  Savage opens his mouth to say something, but I cut him off with a glare that clearly says now is not the time. He scowls, but then shrugs like it doesn’t matter to him one way or another.

  I guide Sophia towards the back of the house and down the stairs to the basement. It’s not as bad as it sounds. The basement is actually the most comfortable of the house because the AC hasn’t been turned on. I’d set up a little workspace for myself and a bed with mostly clean sheets.

  “You should change your clothes,” I say to her as she walks mechanically forward and sits on the edge of the bed without looking at me. “They’re covered in blood.”

  She pulls the stained sweatshirt over her head without saying anything and tosses it across the room. She undoes her jeans and pushes them down her legs without rising from the bed and then kicks them away.

  “Do you want to shower?”

  It’s obvious she wants to speak, maybe scream at me or cry, but there are too many conflicting emotions swirling through her to settle on just one. I approach her slowly with a wide frown on my face. She still doesn’t say a word.

  I kneel on the floor in front of her and look up into her lowered face. I want to comfort her, but I also want to force her to reveal to me what she is thinking by any means necessary. The conflicting desires war within me.

  “If you don’t talk to me,” I put a hand on each of her knees and gently pushed to spread her legs open. I’m very aware of the fact that the only thing separating her from my gaze is the flimsy, cotton underwear that she wears. I don’t have an agenda, just operating off of instinct. “I’m going to have to do something drastic.”

  I watch the little jump in her throat with too much interest as she swallows. “Are you going to handcuff me again?”

  “Do you want me to?”

  She grabs at my hands. I assume she’s going to try to shove me away but her hands just wrap around my wrists and hold on tight, like she’s gripping a life preserver. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing.”

  “We’re going to make this okay for you, Sophia. If you don’t believe anything else, you have to believe that I’m on your side.” I take a deep breath because the truth of it catches in my chest and freezes my lungs. “I’ve given up everything to keep you safe.”

  Sophia lurches forward. I don’t understand it, even after I realize what’s happening. The logical part of my brain flees the scene in the very moment that her lips touch mine.

  She kisses me like she is drowning underwater and I’m her only source of oxygen. I want to question her, insist that she tell me what’s going through her head, but a bigger part of me just wants to experience her before something else forces us apart.

  I fight to be patient with her.

  But Sophia doesn’t seem to want patience. She breaks the kiss long enough to pull her shirt over her head and toss it away. She wraps her arms around my neck and yanks my head back down toward hers.

  I pull back just enough that there’s enough room between us to speak. “You don’t have to do this, Sophia.”

  “I need to stop thinking, it’s killing me.” Her eyes and large and so dark that I’m drowning in them. “Please, help me.”

  “Okay.” With a growl, I hook my arms under legs so I can shove her up further onto the bed. Having her beneath me, making soft sounds and little gasps, is like coming home after a hundred years. I crawl up her body until I’m held only by my elbows above her. She wants to forget about everything that’s happened. I want her to forget about everything but me.

  I recapture her mouth as she melts beneath me. I feast on her, taking everything that she has to offer and only pressing harder when she hesitates or attempts to take a breath. I have never been so consumed by another person in my life and the fire between threatened to burn us both alive.

  Her hands roved up and down my body. She pulled at my shirt and I broke our kiss just long enough to tear it over my head and toss it away. And then my mouth returned to hers in the vicious war that had no true victor.

  Eventually, the frantic pace slowed to something more languid as her frenzy subsided. I felt the transformation in her and responded to it in kind, slowing the pace of our kiss and capturing her wrists in my hands in order to pull her arms over her head.

  I like the control and I know she likes to give it to me.

  She’s saying something, but it’s practically incoherent. When I listen carefully, I can just make out that she’s repeating one word: please, please, please…

  My free hand goes to the zipper of my jeans and I only mess with it long enough to let my erect cock fall free. I hook one of her legs up on my shoulder and shove the tiny strip of her panties aside, then I’m inside of her in one thrust.

  The sounds that Sophia makes beneath me are purely animalistic, a mix of stuttered words and groans as I pound into her. She’s gone to another place, a place that I sent her, and I can’t wait to join her there.

  We don’t speak as we frantically move together in a chaotic rhythm that is somehow perfectly matched. She whines when I pull out almost all the way and then lets out a screaming whine when I shove back into her as hard as I think she can take.

  My mouth moves over every inch of skin that I can reach, pressing kisses down the line of her jaw and biting at the skin of her neck, not quite hard enough to leave a mark. When I let go of her hands to brace myself on the bed, she can’t decide where she wants to touch. Her palms skim my back and then she digs in with her nails, drawing a low sound from me as she scratches hard enough to break the skin.

  I want her to mark me. I want to carry a reminder of her touch everywhere I go and the more painful, the better.

  Sophia raises her arms and wraps them around my neck, squeezing hard enough that it makes it difficult for me to breathe
.

  “Don’t stop,” she says on a whispering sigh. “I’m so close.”

  Her eyes shine in the light with unshed tears. I wonder if she even knows what, or who, it is that she’s crying for.

  But then she’s frenzied, biting my ear and lapping at the sensitive skin in the bend of my neck like she has to taste every part of me that she can reach. I recognize this for the exorcism that it is as she casts her demons off in the only way available to us.

  Her arms squeeze tight around my neck when she comes and I’m right behind her, my hips aggressively thrusting as I drive us both over the edge.

  A calm settles over as she falls back on the bed, but it’s deceptive. Her eyes are level on mine when she finally speaks, voice soft but strong.

  “I have to go see my father.”

  I don’t even hesitate. “Hell, no.”

  She glances away, obviously hoping that I won’t see the tears gathering in her eyes. “I won’t be able to survive unless I know the truth.”

  “You can talk to him on the phone. I’ll have Savage set you up with a secure line.”

  “It has to be in person. I have to see his face to know if he’s telling me the truth or lying.”

  I can’t help the sarcastic tone of my voice. “He lied to you for years and you never picked up on it.”

  “I’m not the same girl anymore.”

  The look on her face makes it clear that she needs this if she’s ever going to feel whole again. And I have to give it to her even if it gets both of us killed.

  Chapter 21

  Hunt brings the other two with us when we go to my father’s townhouse, which probably means he thinks something will go down. I don’t argue with him about it because I’m only focused on confronting my father and forcing him tell me the truth.

  It’s past midnight, but I know my father is still awake. He’s always been a night owl and will stay up to have a drink and read the Wall Street Journal for hours after Magda and I have already gone to bed.