“I love you!” Christian wrapped his strong grip around the back of her neck, forcing her to meet his eyes. His expression flashed in a mess of confusion and pain, but Adelaide felt no compassion. She never had. He released her. “Do you remember that day you ran from the compound, the day you left me behind?”
She felt his breath against her bare skin, warming her.
“I promised myself I would never let you leave again.” No more than six inches away from her, Christian radiated physical heat. “I love you, Adelaide. That will never change and I will do anything to keep you for myself.”
Adelaide had nothing to lose and so she made the first strike, hoisting her legs up and around his neck.
She didn’t let go.
And tightened her grasp.
His first punch slammed into her stomach.
Her lungs emptied of air, forcing her to release him. Water streaked down her face, and before her next gasp another hit followed up to her face.
“You can’t beat me, Adelaide,” he said.
Adelaide’s skin tingled where he’d punched her, but soon followed with exquisite pain. Her teeth had cut into the side of her mouth and she tasted nothing but salt.
“I love you too much to lose.”
* * *
Christian hit her again, wincing as he did it. Something tore inside his chest with each blow as the skin across his knuckles broke.
Blood dripped onto the floor from her mouth and nose and he tried with all his strength to stop, but he had to do this. Adelaide had to understand she belonged to him, that she’d wedged herself into his life too far to turn back.
Adelaide never begged for him to stop, never cried out in agony, and it took Christian two more minutes before he realized this is what she wanted.
She wanted to feel the pain.
“Adie,” he whispered, pulling her head forward.
Her eyes swelled shut. Bruises started to decorate her skin as blood dripped onto the creamy mounds of her chest, to the flat expanse of her stomach and finally onto the floor, but Adelaide’s expression remained peaceful.
“Adie,” he repeated. “Please. Just tell me to stop.” That’s all he wanted, a response from her. His life almost seemed to depend on it.
She smiled at him, pulling the cuts in her lips farther apart, then spit in his face. She didn’t want him to stop.
Anger flared hot in Christian’s chest as he wiped the blood and saliva away.
She only had to tell him to stop, but even in the last moments of her life Adelaide wouldn’t speak to him.
What had he done to invoke this silence from her, this disregard? He’d taught her to survive in the compound, helped her escape her life of slavery and saved her from rotting in that alley. Christian had dedicated his soul to her since she was seven years old and this is what he got in return? Silence?
His fist moved of its own accord, snapping her head back and exposing the pale skin of her throat from the force. The scar put there ten years ago by Harlow Vicente smeared with fluid, showing the ridged line of skin.
Adelaide’s head collapsed to her chest in unconsciousness.
His anger and outrage had been expressed, his point made. She’d never leave his side again. Not after tonight. Backing himself against the opposite wall, Christian slouched down to the floor, resting his elbows on his knees as he rubbed his face. Her blood smeared against his jawline and neck, but he couldn’t blame himself for the sight in front of him. “You’re mine,” he whispered to her. “You will always be mine.”
Pulling his cell out of his suit jacket pocket next to him, Christian dialed the number slowly, coating the white plastic surface in blood.
The line only rang once and he didn’t bother with greetings. “If I ever see you again, I will kill you myself, Agent Grant.”
* * *
Marcus closed his cell phone and stared at it for a moment. He turned back toward his find, unable to take his eyes off the stack of paperwork, drugs and money sitting on the long conference table in Christian’s office. He’d been ready to hand it over to ATF, ready to take his revenge, but the ledger wasn’t in the stack and he’d surely be arrested on sight.
It has to be here.
The call he’d just ended pushed itself to the front of his mind.
The way Christian spoke pulled doubt into his mind, causing him to stare down at the pile on the table. Unable to focus on the items in front of him, Marcus ran his thumb over the buttons again and again. He wouldn’t hurt her. He couldn’t bury the instinct that something had gone horribly wrong.
“Daniel?” he called, but didn’t receive an immediate answer. “Dan?” Marcus gathered the evidence into one arm and withdrew his weapon with the other. Slowly making his way through the broken window, he searched for his companion. His eyes roamed to the spot where Daniel had been huddling over his son.
The body had vanished.
“Daniel!” he shouted, sure someone could hear him as he circled around to assess the situation. He walked around the secretary’s desk, right to where the body should have been. They were gone. He didn’t understand why Daniel had left him here alone, but didn’t care at the moment. Pushing himself into the elevator, he listened to the sound of his own breathing on the way down. He glanced to his right then left as he made his way out the door with a handful of evidence from Christian’s office, but not the evidence he needed to put the man away for life.
* * *
Her world looked black and white and out of focus. Adelaide pushed the heavy weight of her head back onto her shoulders, her ears grazing sore arms from hanging for so long. She wasn’t sure if she’d survived Christian’s abuse or settled in Hell, punished to live the last moments of her life over and over again.
The room screamed darkness.
Even her monster had gone, leaving Adelaide to suffer alone.
Her body ached, stung, and had been coated in blood. She didn’t have the energy to keep her head up and didn’t know if she wanted to try. Escape would be impossible in this condition and she knew Christian would have been careful. No one knew where she’d gone. There would be no rescue this time, she’d fallen into his mercy once again.
Christian had made his point.
Adelaide’s eyes closed, heavy and swollen as she coasted back into the numb place she reserved for times when she needed her delusion the most.
* * *
When he stepped into the parking lot, Marcus searched over the asphalt, hoping he’d forgotten where he’d parked, but his luck had never been that good.
No car.
Anger coursed through his veins at the unfairness. Daniel was missing, a body was missing, Adelaide and Christian were missing, and now his car was missing. He studied his surroundings, choosing a hedge of bushes to hide the evidence as he called for help.
Pulling up in his Ford truck twenty minutes later, Brent stepped down from the cab looking like hell. Bandages and white gauze stretched over his neck as blood and bruises dotted the visible skin.
Marcus flinched in sympathy, reaching for his own neck. “How bad is it?”
Brent unconsciously moved his hand to one of the bandages and smirked. “She didn’t kill me. I’m thankful for that.” His rough voice sounded raspy from damage. “But now I understand why you didn’t want us to follow her.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t get there sooner, man.” Having retrieved the files, money and drugs from their hiding spot, Marcus loaded it into Brent’s waiting arms.
“Yeah, Lilly is going to kill you next time she sees you.” His partner laughed, always trying to make light of any situation. “Said she’s going to make you sing soprano.”
They loaded their find into the truck, placing it between them.
“You know your face is plastered all over the TV for that stunt at the federal building. We got to get you somewhere safe,” Brent said from the driver’s seat and put the truck in gear.
“We need to get this to headquarters first, then to Wr
en’s club.”
“Probably not a good idea, my friend. ATF is all over you. They’ll arrest you on sight and me for being with you. I don’t mind doing grunt work every now and then, but I do not want to be someone’s bitch. Plus, I’m claustrophobic.” He chuckled at his own joke.
“You’ve been a good friend, Brent. I can’t thank you enough for that.” The statement surprised Marcus as it left his mouth. He’d never been the sentimental type, but Brent had put his life and career on the line.
Brent pulled the truck out of Wren Industries’ parking lot. “I couldn’t do it, man. I’m sorry. I couldn’t keep them off your back.” He shook his head in what Marcus imagined as shame. “But I can’t believe you got caught.”
“I was at the federal building,” he answered, disbelief tinting his every word. “But I made sure the explosives wouldn’t go off. The building didn’t come down.”
“I know that, man,” Brent responded. “I know, but Internal Affairs isn’t going to see it that way. Your prints were everywhere.”
Marcus stared out the passenger-side window as he spoke. “It’ll all work out in the end.”
“I don’t like the sound of that, Marky. What are you planning?”
The streetlights and citizens of Los Angeles passed in a blur as he thought the question through. What was he planning? What was the right thing to do here? “I just got to check something out. It’s a feeling I have.”
“And this feeling? What is it telling you?”
He exhaled gruffly. “It tells me that Wren has done something very stupid.”
The drive took only minutes, but seemed like hours.
He wasn’t looking forward to facing off with the captain, or worse, with Internal Affairs, but it had to be done. Wren had to be brought to justice. Marcus just needed the ledger and he’d have his revenge. Scott wouldn’t have been killed for nothing once this was over.
Captain Beth Howard greeted them at the door, her arms crossed against her thin frame. Distorted smudges of eye makeup told Marcus exactly what kind of mental state his captain had fallen prey to and what kind of conversation they were going to have.
“Agent Grant.” She nodded in greeting, her eyes glued to his. Howard’s voice seemed small compared to the booming tone she usually took with him, and for just a moment Marcus imagined this conversation going in a different direction. “May I have a word with you?” She turned without another word, working her way around the cramped desks of other agents and LAPD.
Marcus followed Captain Howard tentatively into her office, bombarded and questioned by expressions of betrayal and anger from his fellow colleagues. This wasn’t something he’d been expecting, considering all he’d done for ATF and his country, but he understood. It wasn’t every day one of your own sided with the enemy in an act of terrorism.
Standing motionless, the captain waited for him to enter then closed the door behind him. “Please”—she motioned to the chair—“take a seat. This may take a while.”
He did as he’d been told. Hundreds of thoughts rushed through his head. He’d surely be suspended, perhaps terminated or arrested for conspiring with Christian Wren, but what he had on Captain Beth Howard was even bigger. Marcus kept his mouth shut as she took her seat behind the desk she’d never earned.
“I imagine you understand why you’re here, Agent Grant. There are many things that need to be discussed concerning Christian Wren and his activities.” Captain Howard didn’t give anything away, her face stripped of emotion as she leaned forward, planting her elbows on the cherrywood desk.
Marcus’s heart pounded loudly behind his ears. This is it. He’d lose everything. His career, his house, any future he had going for him and the case against Wren. It all meant failure. Scott’s murderer would walk again and the woman sitting smugly in front of him didn’t give a shit. “Captain, what I did—”
“Shut up.” Captain Howard rose from her desk, her usual composed expression and posture slipping slightly.
His eyes followed her to a bookcase matching her desk in the corner.
Pulling a book from the shelf, she smiled down at it as she stroked the cover and turned back toward him. She lifted the book to the level of his eyes. “Do you know what this is?”
The book didn’t look familiar. No title or book cover. He shook his head. His insides screamed at the time she was wasting. His time was precious. Both Adelaide and Christian had disappeared and he only had a small window of opportunity before they’d leave the country.
“I imagined you’d find something very similar to it in Wren’s office.” His captain handed it to him and walked back to her desk, taking a seat. “But when I looked, it wasn’t there.”
Her statement took him by surprise. “You were the one who left the code on the mirror?” Marcus looked down at the binding, running his hands over the slightly raised edges. The book wasn’t old, but it showed signs of use, its edges frayed. Thumbing to a page in the middle, he tried to understand the words.
At first the numbers didn’t make sense, but the longer Marcus stared, the more his disbelief surfaced. Barely able to raise his eyes, he looked to his captain for authenticity. “This is—”
“Every transaction I was a part of between the district attorney and Wren Industries,” she finished for him. “Not all transactions are there, just the ones I witnessed, but it should do the job.”
Marcus looked back down to the book in his hands, at the feminine handwriting taking hold of his chest and squeezing the life out of him. He couldn’t believe his luck, but a realization hit him. He sobered instantly, closed the book and set it on the desk.
Captain Howard’s expression changed from emotionless to confused in an instant. “Is there a problem?”
“What do you want for this?” he asked, nodding toward the book. “You won’t incriminate yourself for nothing. So what will it be? My job? My pension? What?”
She remained silent for a moment, meeting his eyes with ease. “Christian Wren has done things for me no one else would. He saved my life once and he supported me when I needed it the most.” She paused. “I was in love with him, Agent Grant. And I thought that meant something.” Her eyes fell to the book as she continued. “But it seems I was only a means to meet his ends. If you find Wren’s ledger and use it with this, your case should be a slam dunk.”
“The ledger was missing from the safe,” Marcus said. “I don’t know where to go from here.”
Her cold blue eyes focused on him. “Well, Captain Grant, you’ll figure it out.” She stood, walking around the desk to open the door. “I want you to do your job. Take down that son of a bitch any way you can.”
The word rang in his ears. Captain. It made him shiver, but not in pleasure, as most would expect. “I can’t accept,” he said, rising from the office chair to face the woman who’d help bring Christian Wren to his knees.
“Which part?” Her eyes narrowed into slits, studying him as she waited for an answer.
“I can’t be captain. I will bring Wren in, but I cannot accept responsibility of my own team.” His heart started to flutter, remembering each and every detail of the last time he’d been put in charge of other men’s lives. “I can’t go through that again.”
Beth Howard opened the door for him. “Can’t?” she asked. “Or won’t?”
Marcus walked toward her slowly, keeping his eyes level with hers. “Both.”
Chapter Twenty-five
The team pulled into the club parking lot and rushed inside, past the dancers and bouncers. Marcus headed down to the basement with two of his team as Brent headed upstairs with the rest. Silence engulfed the hallway beneath the club, secluded, a perfect place to take care of business. He prayed with all his heart Adelaide had escaped unharmed, but a gut feeling told him otherwise. If they happened to run into Wren during their search, all the better, but Marcus knew guys like Christian too well. He wouldn’t hang around.
He tried each and every door down the long white hallway, finding
all of them locked. He removed his service piece and blew the lock off the door closest to him. Empty. He shot the next lock off and came up with another empty room. He tried a third and a fourth, but found only emptiness.
Speaking into his earpiece, he signaled for the two others to follow him. “This is the last door.” He shot the doorknob and pushed his way inside. The overhead light was off, leaving the room in darkness. He couldn’t see a foot in front of him, but something told Marcus he had the right room.
The coppery scent of blood in the air made his stomach turn. “Find the light.” He coughed, his hands spread out in front of him as he moved farther inside.
A clicking sound came from the doorway. “No go. The switch doesn’t work.”
He heard footsteps running down the hall, running toward him.
“Marcus!” someone shouted.
“In here! Bring a light!”
Brent’s shadow hovered in the door frame. “I have a lighter. What’s that smell?”
“Blood,” Marcus replied. “Light it.”
The space illuminated in an orange glow as he made his way to the back of the room. He kept his gaze focused, prepared for anything. This is what he’d been trained for, but when a form took shape in front of him, he wasn’t ready for it.
“Over here,” he whispered.
“Oh, shit.” Brent gasped, covering his mouth in the crook of his arm. He moved in for a closer look, but Marcus pressed a hand against the large expanse of his partner’s chest.
“Don’t touch her,” he said, unable to take his eyes off of Adelaide. “I need you to go back upstairs and question every single person on that dance floor. They might have seen something.”
Brent’s gaze centered on the body. He didn’t move for a series of seconds, then snapped out of it, sobering. “Yeah,” he said. “I can do that.” He looked one last time before leaving, swallowing loudly.
Let Me Out (For Me, #1) Page 24