by Lily White
The three minutes it takes for Lincoln to call me feel like forever. The second my phone rings, I answer and slam the computer shut, push to my feet and begin packing my stuff.
I don’t give a shit what Grant is doing now that he found his wife missing. More than likely he thinks she escaped herself and is searching the yard for her to drag her back in and finish killing her.
“We’re heading out of the neighborhood now. She’s fucked up, Ari, and passed out cold. What do you want me to do?”
The only downside of our lifestyle is a refusal to be seen where authorities linger. No cops. No fire departments. And no hospitals. If he has to take her there, it will be a quick dump and run, not because he doesn’t care, but because that’s how we stay invisible.
“Will she die?” I ask, not bothering to elaborate because Lincoln already knows what I’m thinking.
“I don’t think so. I checked for any sign her skull is fractured. She’s got a nasty knot, but the bone is intact.”
Zipping my bag closed, I make a decision that might end up killing her if she has internal injuries, but it’s what has to be done.
“Take her back to my penthouse. Put her in one of the guest rooms and keep her in there.”
“Ari, that’s not a good idea. She’ll figure out-“
My voice is a razor sharp blade. “Don’t you think I already know that?”
We both go silent, and I clench my eyes shut thinking about the shit storm this situation is about to become. I consider having Lincoln take her to her old house, but it will be the first place Grant looks, and while Lincoln could stay with her and kill the bastard if he shows, I’m too selfish to let that happen.
Grant Cabot is my prey to run down. Has been since the moment he laid the first hand on Adeline.
“Keep her in the guest room. There’s nothing in there that will give away what I’ve been doing. I’ll be home in a few hours.”
I end the call and step outside to cross the parking lot and get in the rental car. Peeling away from the parking lot, I hope like hell there is an earlier flight home.
Grant Cabot is about to meet the demon in Adeline’s life. And while that thought brings me so much joy I’m fucking swimming in the heat of it, a cold wave of dread washes over me like ice water.
He isn’t the only one about to come face to face with a monster.
Adeline is about to learn the truth of her demon as well. And there’s no telling how she will react to it.
Ari
I pace the airport like a caged tiger, the minutes ticking down while I wait for the flight to be called.
Around me, people keep their distance, their expressions wary, a few security guards eyeing me like I’m a fucking terrorist having some internal battle with myself about whether I’m willing to die for my cause.
In a way, I am. But it’s not random strangers I want to take out, it’s one particular man who doesn’t know he’s dead yet.
Once again, Adeline is causing me to act out of character. I know better than to draw attention to myself. Airports are filled with monitoring devices, and here I am, allowing them to record my rage.
I’m a smear against the polished floors and glimmering ambiance, a stain ruining the cheerful fucking music and fake as hell smiles adorning all the employees’ faces.
And I’m making people nervous.
I call Lincoln every five minutes, annoying the piss out of him because all he can tell me is that he cleaned up what he could on Adeline’s face and she won’t wake up.
Not that we want her to. I’m too worried. Grant has no doubt drugged her again, just like he always does, the pills keeping her in a far away oblivion before she’ll wake up to the truth of her life.
How the fuck am I going to explain it?
Eventually my flight takes off, and I’m surprisingly allowed on the plane, the entire flight a fucking nightmare because I’m cut off from keeping a distant watch on a woman who has turned me into a stalker.
Thankfully, they don’t put me in the emergency exit aisle. That would end badly.
In the mood I’m in, I’d pop the hatch and toss every asshole out at 35,000 feet because they looked at me funny, coughed, slurped their drink a little too loudly, or hell, just existed at a time I feel the need to kill, to shred, to fucking destroy and tear down the entire world if need be to get at Grant Cabot.
I’m not in a better mood by the time the flight lands, but I’m on the phone with Lincoln immediately to find that nothing has changed.
Adeline is still sleeping with no idea she’s locked in a space with her entire life surrounding her, some parts of it visible, others hidden.
The first step I take off the flight is made with the knowledge that it won’t matter what she thinks of it.
Adeline is mine now.
I have no plans to let her go.
I’m not the hero in our story. Never have been. And you need to remember that. I’m just a man with an obsession that’s lasted too fucking long, the truth of it carved into every bone, seared into every muscle, and spread out over my entire penthouse so that there’s no hiding it once Adeline wakes up.
Now, I’m in the back of a cab finally heading home, my foot tapping against the floorboard because the driver is following every traffic rule, playing it safe, driving me so goddamned mad that I imagine every possible way I can kill him quietly and dispose of the body.
The timing of this couldn’t have been worse. Had I not been out of town, I would have my car, I would be breaking every traffic law, and I would be inside my penthouse right this second.
But I’m not.
Fortunately, the drive only takes another fifteen minutes, and after I’ve mind-stabbed the driver every time he stopped at a yellow light or took too long at a stop sign, I pay him and climb out of the car, my stride eating the ground between the street and the elevator, my body practically vibrating as I insert my key, input the code and wait out the short ride with my teeth grinding together.
The elevator dings, the doors slide open, and my stare meets Lincoln’s where he stands in the hallway awaiting my return.
“She’s still alive.”
I shoulder past him without saying a word, drop my bag on the ground in the living room and head straight for the guest room. I won’t believe anything until I see it for myself.
The amount of bruises on her face and body are going to matter. I’ll count each one, dedicate them to memory, and be sure to return them to Grant before ending his miserable life.
His won’t be an easy death. More like the worst I can imagine. And the thought only brings me a little peace as I step into the shadow of her dark room and approach the bed.
Adeline lies motionless over the mattress, the blanket tugged up to her chin, but her face is so swollen, she won’t be able to open her eyes fully for a day or two.
He beat her to a damn pulp.
Rage blooms through me like algae in warm water. It becomes a virus racing through my veins, infecting every cell, locking every muscle in place as I stare down at her.
But I’m not just mad at Grant.
I’m mad at myself.
It would be ignorant of me not to realize I had a part in this.
And that just pisses me off more.
I hate it when Adeline is still. She hasn’t so much as twitched a finger in the time I’ve spent watching her.
It has to be the drugs.
She’ll never touch the fucking things again.
I turn and walk out of the room. A man on a mission. A blade that will gut Grant Cabot and feed his intestines to him as he screams and bleeds out.
There are so many different ways I can imagine his death that it’s difficult to pick just one.
“What are you going to do now?”
Shutting her door quietly, I pull my keys from my pocket and lock it from the outside. It’s fucked up, I know that, but I can’t have her waking up and stumbling into the living room where a new nightmare awaits her.
&
nbsp; “I’m going to kill Grant Cabot.”
Lincoln follows me as I march into the living room, grab my computer from my bag, toss it on the surface of the grand piano and flip it open.
“Well, that’s obvious. But how do you plan on doing that without two and two being put together? People will remember you, Ari. A week isn’t much time for them to believe you’re out of the picture.”
“I’ll wait it out,” I answer as I access Grant’s camera again, my lips curling at the corners to see him standing with police in his foyer, an expression of feigned panic on his face.
“He’s called the cops,” I mention, scanning through the cameras in the other rooms to see a forensics team in the bedroom analyzing the broken French doors and photographing the blood on the floor.
Fucking dumbass. Doesn’t he know the first thing they’ll check is his security system? It might clue them in when they watch him beating Adeline. With that thought, I check the archives and curse under my breath.
“He’s smart.”
Lincoln cocks a brow in question.
“He erased the footage of the beating.”
I was a little surprised he had the forethought to do so, but apparently Grant thought along the same lines as me. I’d already erased everything from the night I went to their house for dinner so he had no record of me.
“Don’t you think the cops will wonder why it’s missing?”
I lick the front of my teeth, scrape my tongue against the sharp edges and grin.
“Not if I gave him the perfect excuse to claim the security system was malfunctioning by tripping all those false alarms.”
Son of a bitch. He was going to play this off as if someone broke into his house and abducted his wife.
Soon, Adeline’s face would be all over the news, her abusive fuck for a husband crying and begging for her safe return. I wondered briefly how he would explain his busted knuckles.
Although most would consider this a bad turn of events, I see it as opportunity. It only means Grant won’t be arrested any time soon, and he’ll be out there unprotected in the world where I can eventually find him.
I tap a few more buttons, returning to the camera monitoring the foyer to see Grant handing the police Adeline’s burner phone.
It would concern me if the number on it had been my actual phone. But, all they will find by investigating that particular phone is that it’s a cheap throw away, paid for in cash, with a fake name attached to it. Still, I wasn’t taking any chances.
Crossing the room, I pull open a drawer and fish around for the phone. Hitting the button to turn it off, I notice a text before it powers down.
Adeline: Help Me
A new surge of fury explodes through my body to see she reached out for my help.
I shut the phone off to prevent tracking and drop it back in the drawer.
“The only choice I have is to wait this out. A few months, if need be.”
It feels like too long a wait, but I’m a patient man. If it takes years to finally have a clear path to Grant, I’ll do it. This was never about him anyway.
It was always about her.
I have what I want.
Revenge for what he did to her is secondary.
When I turn back, Lincoln is standing with his arms crossed and his back braced against the side of the piano. His expression says it all. I’m in a seriously fucking bad situation, one he’s been warning me about for years.
No longer am I just an assassin and a stalker, I can now toss kidnapper on the list.
“What are you going to do with Adeline?”
“Keep her,” I growl as I head to the wet bar to pour a glass of scotch. Slamming it, I pour another.
“She’s not a stray pet, Ari. They don’t have babysitting services for abducted women while you’re out on a job.”
I grin at his comment. “Your services have worked out pretty well so far.”
Intelligent brown eyes pin mine from across the room. Between us, the place is littered with proof of the years I’ve watched Adeline. It’s littered with proof that I’ve intentionally fucked with her life.
The sun is rising outside the large windows, and it casts brilliant color over all that evidence, like fiery spotlights of accusation on each photo, each instrument, and over a bookshelf filled with everything she’s ever read.
Sadly, that’s not all of it. Only what can be easily seen.
“So, what? You’ll just keep her locked in a room until she comes around to the idea that she now belongs to you?”
Swallowing, I clench my fingers over the glass. “If I have to.”
He shifts his position, crosses an ankle over the other. “You’ve lost your fucking mind.”
He doesn’t know the half of it. The truth is, I lost my mind on the night I first saw Adeline. What’s occurring now is that fate has handed me a shovel and is forcing me to dig my hole deeper.
As much as that’s been happening, I’m already halfway to the other side of the world.
But Adeline will come around.
She has to.
Because there is no other choice I’m giving her.
The sun rises higher, and my energy wanes. I need sleep if I’m to deal with Adeline’s reaction when she wakes up in a strange room, her face so swollen she can’t see.
But she will recognize my voice, and I hope it’ll be enough to calm her down.
“You can take off,” I say to Lincoln as I set my glass down and make the decision to take a nap in Adeline’s room so I’m there when she wakes. “Thanks for helping me out tonight.”
Lincoln slaps my shoulder as I pass him, a low grunt sounding in goodbye before he dips down the hall toward the elevator.
After going in my room to change into a pair of loose sleep pants and a t-shirt, I grab a pillow and blanket to take to Adeline’s room.
I unlock the door and creep into the darkness, shutting it behind me quietly just as something heavy hits the wall near my head and shatters.
Spinning, I can barely make out Adeline’s small body crouched at the corner of her bed, her eyes bare slits staring at me and a collection of objects she’d found in the room on the mattress around her.
She picks up another object and launches it at me. Thankfully, she has shitty aim, and I’m able to dodge it.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I roar, dropping the pillow and blanket to step toward her.
Hand clenched over something bigger, she lifts it with the threat of swinging it at me.
I stop in place, stretch my neck side to side because I don’t have time for this shit.
“I saved your fucking life,” I tell her, figuring she’s hurt and confused and doesn’t realize who I am. “You know me. Put the lamp down.”
Adeline shakes her head, her expression unreadable because her face is one big, swollen bruise.
But her voice is clear, her words setting the tone for how much shittier this situation is than I realized.
“Your name is not Harrison Nash,” she says as she brings the lamp up to swing at me like a bat.
“I don’t know who the fuck you are. And if you take one more step toward me, I swear to God, I’ll take your head off for it.”
Adeline
He takes a step back when I shake the lamp at him. My entire body is in throbbing pain, and it’s anybody’s guess how I’m even able to move. Maybe it’s the adrenaline of knowing I’ve gone from one life-threatening situation to another.
Whatever it is, I refuse to let Ari anywhere near me.
Even if he somehow stole me from Grant.
Even if he’d gotten my text and managed to come running to save my life.
I was desperate when I sent it, and I certainly didn’t expect to wake up in a strange room with the door locked from outside.
“What are you going to do with Adeline?”
“Keep her.”
“She’s not a stray pet, Ari. They don’t have babysitting services for abducted women while you’re out o
n a job.”
“Your services have worked out pretty well so far.”
“So, what? You’ll just keep her locked in a room until she comes around to the idea that she now belongs to you?”
“If I have to.”
“You’ve lost your fucking mind.”
I heard the entire conversation after waking up and managing to crawl from the bed to the door. Slowly pressing on the lever, I’d found it locked, and I pressed my ear to the wood despite the pain of anything touching my face.
There is so much pain and I can barely open my eyes. The drugs Grant fed me are still running through my veins, but I’m fighting against them, my adrenaline too much. I refuse to let this newest threat get anywhere near me.
Fuck. I have no one who can help me. All my friends gone. No real family to speak of. The only people I can potentially call are Rebecca and her husband. They seem like good people, the type who will help a woman in my situation.
Not that I have their number without my phone.
Ari moves slowly to flip the light switch on the wall, the sudden brightness of it blinding me.
I lift a hand to shade my eyes and feel the lamp jerked from my grip, the rest of the crap I could find to defend myself knocked from the bed to clatter loudly against the ground. I didn’t even hear him move before he disarmed me.
I scream and cower into the corner, my back against hard plaster as my feet slide over the blanket on the mattress.
Raising my arms to protect my head, I go still, waiting for a beating that never comes.
Seconds pass in silence, my body trembling.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he says softly from several feet away from me. “But I won’t tolerate you trying to hurt me either.”
“Who the fuck are you?” I scream. Not giving a damn about how much it hurts my throat, not caring that it causes the pounding in my head to become harder.
“I’m Ari. The same man you met in the cemetery. The same one you danced with at the company event. The same -“
“The same fucking man that got the shit kicked out of me by playing a game against my husband.”