by Stacia Stone
I pray that it goes smoothly. Even with all that’s happened, I wouldn’t be able to bear it if Hunt hurt or killed my father, even in self-defense. If one of them forces a confrontation, I honestly don’t know whose side I would choose.
Which is a very scary realization.
Never in a million years would I think I’d fall in love with the man who kidnapped and violated me, but that’s what has happened. That is, if you can hate and love someone at the very same time.
Hunt had come back for me. That thought kept moving round and round in my brain, like water circling the drain but never going down. He hadn’t abandoned me. And our relationship, if you could even call it that, was the truest thing that I’d ever experienced in my life.
Twisted, but true.
Savage and Frost scale the side of the townhouse with rope, entering through my bedroom window because they know it will be empty. This must be how they got to me before though I’d never asked how they got out again after drugging me. Maybe Hunt had fireman carried me down the rope. In which case, I’m glad that I was unconscious because I probably would have thrown up on him otherwise. Heights have never been my thing.
At the same time, Hunt kneel over the electrical box on the side of the house and disables the security system. He does it so quickly that I marvel at the ease with which he’s able to defeat the expensive system.
A few minutes pass, and then Frost silently appears at the front door that he’s unlocked from the inside to let us in.
“The old man is upstairs, the second room on the right,” he murmurs as we silently slip past him.
Savage kneels by the stairs. Even in the low light, I can tell that his face is angry. I’m not sure that he has any other expressions. I wonder if he’s going to try to kill my father, he’s always seemed barely in control of himself and now he’s only a few feet away from the man that he seems to hate most in the world.
I think that’s why he seems to hate me so much, I’m just an extension of my father.
I know it’s huge that Hunt is letting his happen. Huge enough that my mind isn’t capable of completely comprehending it, but my heart beats faster at the thought of him doing something for me.
But maybe that’s just the Stockholm Syndrome talking. Isn’t part of being brainwashed the fact that you don’t know you’ve been brainwashed?
They let me go first and the wood creaks beneath my feet as I climb the stairs. I listen closely for any noise from the second floor but the whole house remains eerily silent.
When I push open the door to his study, my father is sitting in his favorite armchair with his back to the far window. A bedside table lamp only casts him in enough of a glow to create an ominous contrast of light and shadow.
And a double-barrel shotgun rests on his laps and points directly at where I’m standing in the doorway.
“Dad?” I make the word a question, despite the quaver in my voice.
“Get out of the way, Sophie. I’ll take care of this once and for all.”
Hunt vibrates with nervous energy behind me and I recognize how quickly and terribly this could all go wrong. If I move out of the way my dad will open fire.
I glance down the hall to the closed door of the master bedroom. “Where is Magda?”
“I sent her to go visit her mother in California. She doesn’t need to know about any of this.”
I take a small step forward, not completely convinced that my own father isn’t about to shoot me. “Dad, you need to put down the gun.”
He waves the muzzle of the rifle in the air, his expression more crazed than I’d ever seen it. “Did they manage to turn you against me?”
“I’m not against you. I just want to know the truth.” My voice stays calm and soft, like I’m talking a nervous jumped off the ledge of a building. “After everything I’ve been through, I think I deserve that much.”
“And those men behind you have their weapons down,” my father snarls. “Let me see who you let sneak into my house.”
To my surprise, Hunt steps out from behind me and sets his gun on the floor. My father tracks his movements with the rifle but his finger isn’t on the trigger.
“Do you remember me, Senator Reynolds?” His voice is low and hard. Even without the weapon, danger practically radiates off of him.
“Should I?” My father asks and I can’t read any deceit in his voice.
“I’m one of the soldiers that you left for dead in Mali. I bet you remember that.”
My father sighs as the expression on his face turns resigned. But the barrel of the gun doesn’t waver from where it points directly at Hunt’s chest. “I’ve been waiting for the day that mess would finally catch up with me.”
“So, it’s true,” I whisper. My fragile hold on reality threatens to break completely. I struggle to stay lucid as darkness encroaches on the edges of my vision. “You really are a monster.”
“I don’t know what they told you, but I guarantee it wasn’t the whole story.” My father’s voice almost turns almost pleading. “There is so much that you just don’t understand.”
Hunt responds before I can. “I understand that you got the bulk of your campaign contributions from people who traffic children and sell weapons to terrorists. I understand that you let an entire squad of good men go down to keep your secrets.”
My father almost looks stricken. “I got involved with some bad people. I didn’t know how bad until it was too late.”
“And that’s an excuse?” Hunt demands, his voice hard.
“You have no idea how deep all of this goes,” my father insists. “I was never supposed to keep any evidence tying us back to Mali. You have no idea who will be coming after me now.”
“Are these the same people who sent those mercenaries after us?” My father’s nod just confuses me more. “They got the information that they wanted, why would they keep coming after us?”
“It doesn’t matter.” My father stands but he angles the weapon towards the floor. “I only stayed here this long in case you came back. We have to get out of here. I promise I will tell you as much as I can, but it isn’t safe here.”
He isn't planning to shoot us. Hunt isn't the person that he's afraid of. The realization dawns on me just before all hell breaks loose.
Without warning, the sound of multiple gunshots explodes through the night air. I’m shoved to the ground by Hunt before I can put together that we’re being shot out. Glass explodes from the window on the far side of the room as it shatters from bullets’ impact. I hear a gurgling sound, just barely loud enough for me to make out over the crash of gunfire. My father lies several feet away. He is on his side and facing away. He is so still that I could almost convince myself he was sleeping if not for the pool of blood growing slowly bigger beneath his body.
“Daddy!”
I crawl towards him and roll him onto his back. Blood trickles from the corner of his mouth and his eyes are unfocused as he stares up at the ceiling.
“You have to run,” he gasps, his voice wet with blood and gasping for air. “Run before they come back.”
“I’m not leaving you here.” But I can already tell by the ashen color of this skin and the growing circle of blood that soaks through my jeans that his wounds are fatal.
My father closes his eyes and takes a rattling breath. The sound is like wind rustling through bare trees and it isn’t a noise that any human should ever make. “I’m so sorry—"And then I watch my father take his last breath.
Cold shock settles over me like a wet blanket and I struggle to stay in the moment instead of passing out. I feel more disbelief than sadness as the reality of it descends on my consciousness. I’m frozen in place and it feels like hours go by as the world around me recedes into darkness but only a few seconds have passed.
Hunt is already crouched beneath the window returning fire at a black van that is already halfway down the street. It has to be those same mercenaries that came after us at the storage unit. The only question i
s why they sped away before making sure they’d finish the job. One answer is the distant sirens I hear growing slowly louder with each passing moment.
“We have less than five minutes before the police descend on the house.” Hunt’s voice is completely emotionless as if a firefight hadn’t just exploded around us. “We have to get out of here, now.”
He holds his hand out to me and waits. I realize that he’s not going to force me to go with him. For what it’s worth, Hunt is giving me a choice.
I don’t move as the sirens grow louder outside.
Savage bursts into the room with an assault rifle half-flung over his shoulder. “Hunt, we have to move. Leave the girl and let’s go.”
Hunt doesn’t bother to turn around to look at him, his gaze steady on my face. “I’m not leaving her. Not unless she tells me to.”
So he really is giving me a choice. I could stay here and face the police, they’d almost certainly believe that I’d been brought here by the men who kidnapped me and then they’d shot my father and fled. Any details I went fuzzy on would just be chalked up to shock or memory loss from the trauma. I could try to forget all of this and go back to a normal life.
But what kind of life would that be? Both of my parents are dead and I have no real family left.
I stare into Hunt’s eyes and try to figure out what it is that I’m feeling. Is this really love, with so much pain and obsession? Am I willing to take this leap with him to find out and become a fugitive from the law.
It all seems so crazy so, but I’m fighting every urge in my body to take his hand and jump.
Savage glares at me over Hunt’s shoulder, but less anger on his face than resignation.
“Fuck you both,” he snaps, hefting the weapon and turning towards the door. “I can buy you maybe five minutes.”
Savage disappears into the hallway. I hear him stomping down the stairs and then the sound of rapid gunfire. When I turn to look out the window, he’s walking down the street outside and firing the gun into the air.
Hunt still has his hand out, his body so still that he could be a marble carving of himself. “Last chance,” he murmurs.
I’m standing on the edge of a cliff, caught between the mind-numbingly comfortable safety of my life so far and the dangerously churning future down below.
My father’s body still rests next to me, his eyes staring unseeing in the distance. I rest my hand gently on his cool forehead and then move it down to close his eyes.
And then I make my decision.
Taking Hunt’s hand, I decide to jump.
Chapter 22
We managed to get away before the police arrive, but without Savage. He got himself arrested while distracting the police so we could get away. If they manage to run his prints through the international database, they’ll have him on a list of charges about a mile long.
Right now, Frost and I have focused all of our energy on putting a plan together to bust him out. We haven’t forgotten about Kidd but we don’t stand a chance at finding him without Savage. And Savage wouldn’t have gone down if he hadn’t been trying to buy time for Sophia and me. I owe him for that.
I don’t know yet if Sophia has figured out that this is forever. She’s in this with us now and there’s no getting away.
I’ve got us set up in a new safe house that has a nice picture window in the bedroom and she sits up there for hours, staring out the window like all the secrets of the world are written on the glass.
Usually, I try to distract her from her thoughts in the only way that’s ever worked. Because when she’s screaming my name in ecstasy, she’s not thinking about everything that she’s been through.
But today is different.
I approach her slowly. She always looks so pensive and beautiful sitting there, especially when the light hits her in just the right way and she looks like something out of a dream. She is wearing a light sundress that’s almost the same color of the bright sky behind her, just the right color to set off the glow of her skin. Sophia has always reminded me of something ethereal and haven’t quite convinced myself that she’s here and mine.
But she’s also a little too quiet these days, hiding herself and her feeling from me. Part of me wonders if it’s regret and part of me doesn’t care. Because she’s mine, and she’s not going anywhere.
If I was a better man, I’d let her go. I’d find somewhere safe for her where no one knew her face, help her create a new identity and make sure that she never saw me again.
But I’m not a good man.
Sophia startles a little when I stroke a hand down her bare shoulder, but relaxes when she turns to see that it’s just me. The men who came after us haven’t found us, but I don’t reassure her. She needs to keep that edge, always alert to any hint of danger, because that edge is the only thing that keeps up alive.
“Hunt.” She says my name on a little sigh that’s all breathy and deep. I’m instantly hard as a rock at the sound, but it doesn’t take much with her.
Except that will have to wait.
“I’ve got something for you.”
Her gaze immediately shutters closed, and I can tell she’s already anticipating the worst. “What is it?”
I set the open laptop next to her so she can see the half-a-dozen or so documents that I have open. “I’m piecing some things together based on what I can remember of the info we found in the storage locker. About your dad.”
She winces. We haven’t spoken about her father in the weeks since he died. “I don’t want to see it.”
“I’m not giving you a choice.” The words sound harsh but I keep my tone soft. I’m doing this for her, whether she can see that or not. “Your dad said that he didn’t know the extent of all this until it was too late. I think he was telling the truth.”
Her expression is still guarded, but Sophia looks a little more interested. She leans forward and starts scrolling through the first document on the screen. “How do you know that?”
“Most of the campaign contributions that he got from these shady looking shell companies happened before my squad was attacked in Mali. I think that whatever group was running this operation used the dirty money to blackmail your father into doing what they wanted.”
“But he could have turned them in. And he didn’t.”
“He had a lot to lose. Those campaign contributions were part of some international money laundering scheme that’s so big in scope I haven’t even been able to put all the pieces together, yet. He would have gone to prison and you would have lost both your parents.”
“Which is exactly what happened.” Sophia leans back, pushing the computer away. “Finding out that my dad isn’t a hundred percent the monster that we thought doesn’t really change anything.”
I want to shake her out of this funk but I know that reacting to her will only make things worse.
My hand pushes into her hair so I can make a fist against her scalp. I don’t grip tight enough to hurt her but enough that she can feel the control that I have over her because that’s how both of us like it. She lets out another breathy little sigh, and it’s almost enough to break me.
“Tell me what you need, baby.”
She whimpers. “I need to forget.”
I scoop her up in my arms and carry her towards the bed. I practically throw her onto the mattress and I’m top of her before she’s stopped bouncing.
Her body fits underneath mine like it was made to be there.
My face pushes against her neck so I can rub my stubble against the sensitive flesh. “Tell me what’s going on inside that head of yours.”
“I don’t want to talk, just fuck me.”
I instinctively react to her filthy words but I fight the urge to give in the way she wants me to. Sophia wants me to replace her fear and uncertainty with something else so she doesn’t have to deal with it. Instead, I slip the strap of her dress over her shoulder and down, exposing her bare chest. I pinch one swollen nipple, drawing a gasping moan from her l
ips.
“Maybe I want to talk.” I press my teeth hard against her neck, just this side of biting. “Maybe I want to keep you here just like this until you talk to me.”
She tries to push me away but I fend it off about as easily as the beat of butterfly wings. “Hunt…stop.”
“Do I need to tie you up again.”
“No,” she bites out. Although the slight clench of her belly and the racing of her heart say the opposite.
Both of her hands are captured with one of mine and I pull them over her head so she is completely trapped beneath me. She isn’t moving until I let her.
She glares up at me, eyes full of anger and desire. But she doesn’t ask me to let her up. Either because she knows that I won’t listen or because she doesn’t really want to be released.
My free hand slides under her skirt to play at the edge of her panties. I wedge my legs in between hers until she’s forced to spread them open wide enough for me to settle between. The little slip of cotton at her crotch is already damp and I let out a low growl at the feel of it. I push the scrap of fabric aside and plunge a finger inside of her.
Her breathing comes in shallow pants as my thumb moves over her clit, just enough to stimulate her but not enough to make her come.
“You have to fuck me.”
“You have to tell me what’s going through your head so I can help you.”
“So you’re just going to torture me?” she grates.
I slip a second finger inside of her, but keep my pace slow and deep. So slow that we could practically keep this up for hours before she fell over the edge. “If that’s what it takes.”
“Fuck you.”
“Not yet.” My head moves down so my lips capture the peak of one breast and I can pull it into my mouth. I suck hard enough to pull the very soul from her body and she rewards me with a soft cry. “You’re hiding from me. And I don’t like it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
My teeth close around her nipple and shake my head back and forth, worrying the delicate skin. I know it hurts, and it’s something that she both loves and hates at the same time. Which is a nice metaphor for our relationship.