RunningScaredBN

by Christy Reece

  But even more frightening were those rare nightmares in which she hadn’t really gotten away from him after all. That her life with LCR was merely a dream. That she would open her eyes and she would still be with the monster.

  Most times, after walking around her apartment for a ten or fifteen-minute pep talk, she was able to go back to sleep, reassured that he had no idea where she was or what she had become. Occasionally, the pep talk didn’t work. On those nights, she forced herself to do something, anything to take her mind off her past.

  No one knew that she often felt as though she were on the very precipice of a cliff, and with one slight nudge, she would fall into the deepest hell pit where he would be waiting to devour her. She fought her demons every single day. Probably always would.

  So if she turned around and went home now, no one would blame her. Except she would know. She, who had come so far, overcome so much, would know that she hadn’t taken that final step. And if she didn’t take the step, she would have to acknowledge that she had failed. That even if she never saw him again, he had won. He had already taken so much from her. Damned if he would be in control of her any longer.

  She knocked on the door and Noah called out for her to come inside. Shoulders erect, chin set with determination, Riley opened the door.

  There was no turning back now.

  Chapter Ten

  The minute Riley walked into his office, Noah felt instant reassurance. The expression on her face was that same determination he’d watched develop over the years. Her eyes held not just the will to survive, but also the glint of purpose. They said she was ready to go to battle. She would persevere, no matter what came her way.

  “Come on in. Mara’s already here.”

  She gave Samara a quick hug and, after refusing coffee or soda, sat on the sofa. Noah watched as she visibly tried to relax. He knew she wasn’t nervous about meeting with him or Mara. Her real nerves came from what she had come to tell them.

  She surprised him, however, and said, “I’ve asked Anna to be here, too. Hope that’s okay.”

  “Of course it is,” Mara said. “I didn’t get to talk to her at the wedding. I looked for her at the reception but didn’t see her.”

  Riley gave one of her rare smiles. “That’s because we went to my room and ordered room service.”

  Samara laughed. “Excellent idea.”

  “I didn’t get to spend a lot of time with her, though, since we got the call about Taylor Vaughn. I texted her yesterday to see if she could come to Virginia. Turns out she’s in DC for some meetings so she’s heading over on the Metro. Since she was instrumental in my recovery, too, I thought it best that she join us.”

  Those few sentences told Noah something else. Despite her calm demeanor, Riley was nervous. Her explanation about Anna might sound normal coming from another person, but not Riley. She had a uniquely economical way of speaking. Five sentences in a row from her was unusual.

  Knowing there was no other way around this other than to reveal what had happened and let her begin to process it, Noah sat in a chair across from her. “You need to know something before Anna arrives.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I had a meeting with a man yesterday. His name is William Larson. Does that ring a bell?”

  “No.” Her brow wrinkled as she tried to recognize the name. “No,” she said again. “Why?”

  “He’s looking for his daughter. Showed me a picture of her. Said her name is Jessica Larson. It was a picture of you, Riley.”

  Her face went bloodless, and her pale lips whispered a shocked, “What?”

  “He said his daughter went missing eight years ago. That she just one day disappeared. Said she had a history of mental illness. Even claims to have doctors’ reports.”

  She was quiet for several seconds, and Noah gave her that time to digest the news.

  She drew in a small, shuddering breath, gave a brief nod. “So, apparently Lloyd King became William Larson. That’s why we were never able to find him. And my mo—” She gave a rapid shake of her head. “His wife. Was she with him?”

  “No. She stayed at home. Goes by the name of Loretta Larson. They live in Los Angeles. I met with him in Chicago. Mia and Jared Livingston helped me out and followed him. Jared flew back on the same flight with him, followed him to his house.”

  “You know where he is,” Riley said softly, her voice trembling slightly. “After all these years, you know.”

  “Yes.”

  She straightened her shoulders, sat up in her chair. “So why, after all these years, is he trying to find me?” Her eyes went wide. “You don’t think he knows I work for LCR, do you?”

  “Absolutely not. I have a few suspicions about his reasons for wanting to find you. But believe it or not, that’s not my biggest concern now.”

  “What is?”

  “He claims he has another daughter. Her name is Keira. She’s sixteen.”

  “I didn’t have a sister.”

  “Exactly.”

  He went silent again, allowing her to take in the information and grasp its implication.

  As it hit her, Riley closed her eyes. Oh no, oh no, oh no. The shock of learning that her father was searching for her shrank to minuscule portions as she absorbed the meaning of Noah’s words.

  “They have another young girl. They’re going to do to her what they did to me.”

  His answer was a grim, “Yes.”

  “We can’t let him do that.”

  “No,” he said very gently, “we can’t.”

  “We need to get her out of there. You know where he lives. We can—”

  Noah held up his hand. “Hold on. Jared and Mia have already scoped out the house, and there’s no sign that any children live there. We’re assuming he has her stashed somewhere else.

  They’ll stay there and keep eyes on him until we decide how to proceed.”

  Before she could respond, the buzzer on Noah’s desk sounded, and his receptionist’s voice called out, “Anna Bradford is here to see you.”

  Standing, Noah went to his desk and answered, “Send her on up.”

  He turned back to look at Riley. “Are you okay?”

  Saying yes would be a lie of major proportions. Of course she wasn’t okay. Everything was spiraling out of control. She had been set on a specific course, determined to see her plan through. And now that plan had taken off on a completely different trajectory. She was crumbling like decayed bones as her stomach churned like a wild sea.

  Making the monumental decision to find her abuser and bring him to justice had been difficult enough. Now she would have to face the people responsible for handing her over to him. The people she should have been able to trust above anyone else, who had betrayed her in the worst possible way.

  She had been focused on finding Dimitri and making him pay. And now this. She felt adrift, unfocused and confused.

  “Ingram?”

  Noah saying her last name, in that way, brought her focus back to where she was, who she was now. Not who she had been.

  She straightened her spine and answered him. “I will be okay. I have to be.”

  Samara sat on the arm of her chair, put an arm around Riley’s shoulders. “We’ll get through this together. You’re not alone. You’ll never be alone again.”

  Riley allowed herself a rare moment of self-indulgence and leaned into Samara. She could only imagine what would have happened to her if she had not met Noah. Without him and then later Samara, Riley was almost certain she would be dead.

  The day she’d left that monster’s house, she had assumed she would go someplace and die. There had been no hope of ever having a life. She had just wanted to escape. The news he had imparted to her on her twenty-first birthday had been the final act…the final impetus to get her to leave. She had been determined to escape or die trying. Surviving hadn’t really been on her radar.

  Stowing away on the ship bound for France had seemed like her only chance. No one had noticed the
small shadow that had flitted about during the night, looking for a place to lie down and die. She’d recovered from most of her injuries by then, but she’d been a broken woman. Dying in privacy, away from the demon, had seemed like her only chance at peace.

  She had landed in France, surprised that she was still alive. The voyage had taken over two weeks, and if anyone had noticed her, they’d been kind enough not to out her. At night, she would steal into the kitchen and rummage for food and water. She hadn’t taken much, just enough to keep from starving. Despite feeling as nonhuman as one could, she had a core of ethics that hated the idea of actual theft.

  The day they’d docked in Marseille, she was stronger but still so weak that if Dimitri’s men had been waiting for her, she wouldn’t have been able to fight them. But when she’d slipped onto the pier, not a soul had looked at her. She’d walked away, free for the first time in years.

  A knock on the door pulled Riley from her memories. The door opened, and Anna Bradford stepped inside. Lovely, lighthearted Anna, who always looked for the best in everyone, was Riley’s opposite in almost every way possible. And from the moment they’d met, they’d been fast friends.

  After hugging everyone, as was Anna’s way, she sat across from Riley and said, “So what’s up?”

  Riley had to smile. That was Anna’s way also. Where Riley was cautious, weighed every word before she spoke, and trusted almost no one, Anna dove in and got to the point. Considering she was one of LCR’s rescued victims, it was astounding. But Anna had used her experience as a victim to fight for others.

  Noah and Samara sat side by side on the sofa. It didn’t surprise Riley to see them holding hands. It wasn’t until she’d met them that she saw what true love and devotion really were. Their commitment to each other was one of the cornerstones of her life.

  “What’s going on?” Anna asked again. “You were very mysterious on the phone.”

  She tried to smile, decided it took too much effort. “I asked you here because I wanted to tell you that I decided to try more hypnosis and, if that didn’t work again, drug therapy.”

  “What? Why?” Her face a mask of concern, Anna jumped to her feet, pulled her chair next to Riley’s and took her hand. “Are you sure? I mean, after all this time.” Her gaze went to Noah and then Samara. “Can’t you guys talk her out of it?”

  Riley squeezed Anna’s hand. “That’s not important anymore. Things have changed.”

  “Changed how?” Anna’s gaze went from Riley’s pale, determined face to Noah’s grim one and Samara’s worried one. “Okay, seriously, will someone please fill me in on what’s going on?”

  “My father…” Riley almost strangled on the word, “came to see Noah. He’s searching for me.”

  “Oh shit.”

  Anna cursing was rare. As an advocate and counselor for traumatized children, she was hyperaware of her image with her young clients. To avoid cursing, she often invented words to use as substitute curse words. This time, Anna didn’t mince her words. “Why the hell didn’t you take the jerkwad down, Noah? You had him in front of you. You could’ve had him bound, gagged, and on the way to jail within minutes. Why in the world would you let him leave?”

  Riley held up her hand to stop her tirade. “There are complications. Noah will explain.”

  In short, succinct sentences, Noah gave Anna the details of his visit with Larson, including the news about the young girl, Keira.

  “They’ll do to her what they did to you,” Anna said.

  “That’s what we believe,” Noah said. “We can’t risk him knowing that we’re on to him until we can rescue her. Larson said they adopted a child a few years ago. We can’t find any records of adoptions, closed or otherwise. Nor can we find a birth certificate for her.

  “We’ve known for years that there are online auctions for children. With the dark web, they’ve become more prevalent.”

  “So you’re thinking Keira was either abducted by this guy, or she was sold to him on the dark web,” Anna said. “If it’s the latter and we take him down, we could take down a whole bunch of other guys like him.”

  “Job one is to rescue Keira,” Noah said. “Regardless of how he got her, we need to move on him as soon as we can.”

  “Noah.” Riley almost hated to ask, because if it was true, a whole new avenue of hope, along with the specter of hurt, opened up. “Do you think it’s possible that’s what happened to me? That I was stolen, and these people pretended to be my parents?”

  “I think it’s a strong possibility. I did some research when you first came to LCR, but it led nowhere. Once we rescue Keira and bring Larson in, we’ll make him tell us the truth.”

  Riley didn’t doubt that for a moment. William Larson aka Lloyd King didn’t know what he had unleashed by contacting LCR. She couldn’t wait to see his face when he realized how badly he’d screwed up.

  “My plans haven’t changed for Dimitri. Think Larson will give up his location?”

  A small, grim smile played around Noah’s mouth. “I believe we can arrange that. Are you ready to take on the Larsons, too?”

  If he’d asked that question when she first arrived, her survival instinct would have urged her to say no. What Dimitri had done to her was brutal and inhumane, but in a weird way, understandable. He was a sadist, a monster, the epitome of evil. Since then, she had learned to battle monsters. She knew how to win, how to overcome evil. But the people she had called her parents were a different kettle of fish. For eighteen years, she had thought they were her biggest supporters, her champions. The people she’d trusted the most in the world. Their betrayal had been worse than any pain Dimitri had ever inflicted.

  She saw no judgment on anyone’s face. Knew there would be no urging for her to even be involved if she said no. But then, what would that make her? A coward? Less than what she had become? A victim once again, too afraid to face her demons? She was a rescuer. She did whatever it took to save lives. In LCR, the victim always came first. Personal grudges had to be put aside for the greater good. Larson had to be stopped before he destroyed another life. There was no other choice to make.

  She took a breath, this one soul-deep, and said, “Let’s bring these bastards down.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Mediterranean Sea

  With silky elegance, the yacht sailed through velvety smooth water. Majestic and sleek, the Jewel of the Sea was the largest of its kind. Two hundred and fifty tons of graceful steel, the vessel was the envy of every man in the world. Dimitri Soukis took pride in that fact.

  Though he had inherited some wealth, Dimitri still considered himself a self-made man. Through his vision, perseverance, and sheer doggedness, he had been able to maintain that wealth as well as amass more. Times were tough for many. Most of his acquaintances had lost everything. The jealous ones accused him of dishonesty, of taking advantage of the less fortunate. He laughed in their faces. Less fortunate? Through grit and strength, he had gained his wealth. While others whimpered and whined as they saw their riches dwindling away, he swooped down and took what he wanted. The spoils of victory were always the sweetest.

  Was it any wonder that he’d been nicknamed The Vulture? He enjoyed the comparison. He had no sympathy for those he had taken from, those he had destroyed. They had been too stupid to retain their wealth—bad luck for them. Luck had nothing to do with Dimitri’s success. He saw, he wanted, he took. To hell with the rest of the world.

  There were two rules he’d set for himself when he’d taken control of his family’s empire. He swore he would never break them, and to his knowledge, he hadn’t.

  The first rule: Be ruthless in all things. If his father were still alive, he’d cut his feet out from under him if necessary. To win, one had to be ruthless. Dimitri had no real friends…didn’t want any. He had business associates who liked to call themselves his friends. Did they know he could have them destroyed with barely a wave of his hand? He hoped so.

  He’d learned long ago that there were two
kinds of people in the world. The ones who wanted what you had and the ones who wanted you to give them a handout. The first kind he enjoyed destroying. The second kind he used to his advantage. Amazing what people would do for you for money.

  His second rule was just as important as the first: Be willing to dump the garbage. No. Matter. What. He had eliminated more than a few relatives, several business acquaintances, and if a servant displeased him, Dimitri didn’t give him a second chance.

  And then there was Jessica.

  In his most private moments—ones he would never reveal to anyone—he considered her his only failure.

  She had been pure and perfect. His beautiful girl. His to remold and remake into what he needed.

  Making her into what he expected had been a time-consuming, sometimes grueling endeavor. Not to say there hadn’t been times he hadn’t enjoyed the training. Especially during the first year. Later on, when she realized how much he enjoyed her tears, she learned to withhold them. He’d had to work even harder on her then.

  When she had left him, the embarrassment had been much worse than his heartache. He had offered her everything, and she had practically spit in his face. People, most especially women, did not leave Dimitri Soukis and live.

  He had searched for her, discreetly, of course. His business rivals didn’t need to know what went on in his personal life. They especially didn’t need to see that he hadn’t been able to control one slight female. In private, he raged and roared his fury. In public, he was amused, blasé. A woman who didn’t appreciate the gift of living with Dimitri Soukis was deserving of pity. How stupid she must be to leave everything behind.