If her father had sent them, they wouldn’t have been shooting at a car that had her in it. But her father had already proven that he was capable of things that she could never even imagine.
The seething pit of pain and emptiness opened up inside of her, so deep that she could fall into it and never hit the bottom.
First, she’d felt the sadness and lack of control. Then she was so angry that she could barely see straight. Her father had lied to her. He’d been lying for her entire life. He’d lied to her about her mother even if he’d insisted that was for her own good. He lied about that storage unit. And apparently, he lied about being a human trafficker. Every time he’d sat in a church pew, all bluster and sanctimony, he had lied.
At the very least, he owed her some answers.
The phone on the bedside table was just far enough away that she had to strain to reach it. Her head screamed in protest as she rolled all the way to the side of the bed to grab it. The pain only served to crystallize things for her because anything she felt from the car crash was nothing compared to what she felt on the inside.
Sophia dialed the number that her father made her memorize when she was a child and that had never been changed. The number that he would always answer because it was only meant for emergencies.
It only rang once before he answered.
“Dad,” she whispered and her voice cracked.
“Sophia!” He sounded frantic on the other end of the line. She realized with a start that he hadn’t heard from her in days. And he had no idea what she knew about what had been going on. “Are you okay?”
“I’m in the hospital.” She wanted to stay calm, but emotion crept up on her despite the effort to resist it. Somehow, she was on the verge of tears. “I got hurt pretty bad.”
She wanted to challenge him, accuse him of all the things that Hunt had told her and force him to tell her the truth. But at the end of the day, she was just a scared little girl who wanted her father to chase away the monsters hiding under her bed.
“Where are you?” he asked, voice more frantic than she’d ever heard it.
“I don’t know—”
“Does anyone there know who you are?”
“I woke up in the hospital, but I don’t have any ID on me so probably not.”
“I need you to listen to me very carefully, Sophia. I am tracing this call but that means someone else can too. I’m on my way to come get you, but do not leave there with anyone else. No matter what they tell you.”
“It’s okay, Dad. The kidnappers are the ones who left me here. It’s all over.”
“It’s not over.”
She’d never heard her father sound like this. Afraid. The anger died on her tongue to be replaced by fear. “Dad, what is going on?”
“Just be ready to go when I get there and remember I’m coming for you, myself. Don’t trust anyone else, okay!”
“Okay—”
“We have to end the call before someone else traces it. Don’t move and don’t tell anyone who you really are. I’m on the way to get you.”
The line clicked in her ear as he hung up.
What the hell was going on?
The longer she waited, the more scared she started to feel. Any minute, the nurse was going to come back with her knock-out juice and she’d be dead to the world again. Her father had never sounded as afraid as he had on the phone, like he thought somebody was going to come after her.
But he had also said to stay and wait for him.
Call it an instinct or a sixth sense, but a little voice inside of her was screaming that she had to get out of there. Immediately.
Sophia heard the nurse’s voice outside the door. “Let me finish this up, then I have a shot to give to the Jane Doe in 440 and I’ll be right with you.”
Making a decision, she levered myself up on the bed and placed sock-covered feet on the tile floor. The IV was still connected to the back of her hand and she just looked at it for a moment, trying to work up the courage to tear it out. It was just like ripping off a Band-Aid, she told herself. Just get it over with. She picked off the tape with a broken fingernail and grasped the little plastic piece with her fingers. Taking another deep breath, she yanked it out.
“Oh, shit.”
A gush of blood shot across the sheets and stained the hospital gown that she wore. Who knew that such a little wound could bleed so much.
Sophia rose on unsteady feet as the room slowly spun around her for a minute before finally coming to a stop.
“I will not pass out,” she whispered to herself. If she said it enough times, then maybe that would make it true.
Her old clothes had been shoved into a plastic bag and left inside of a cabinet underneath the television. They were dirty, and the shirt was blood-stained, but she figured that would draw less attention than a hospital gown that barely covered her backside.
When she cracked open the door of the hospital room, the hallway appeared deserted. Thanking her lucky stars, Sophia dashed out and speed-walked in what she hoped was the direction of the exit. She reached the elevator bay and immediately started jabbing the down button as hard as she could. Each elevator had a little screen that displayed the floor it was currently on, and none of them were anywhere near her.
Voices came down the hallway and Sophia immediately went for the stairwell. What was ten flights of stairs when you were running for your life?
Or maybe she was just crazy and running from her own imagination.
She had calmed down a bit by the time she got down to the main floor. Maybe she was overreacting, she had to admit to herself. Maybe her father had sounded so scared on the phone because this was the first time he’d been able to communicate with her since she was violently ripped from her home by kidnappers.
Anybody would be rattled in that situation.
But she just knew that there was more to it than that. The men who’d chased them down at the storage unit were very real, and what assurance did she have that they wouldn’t come after her again. Hunt had gotten the information that he wanted, but maybe he would eventually decide that she was another loose end that needed to be tied up.
She just needed to get away from here and that was the only thing worth focusing on. Even if she were completely overreacting, there wasn’t any reason that she couldn’t wait for her father at a coffee shop a few blocks away. She’d call him from a payphone and he could just pick her up there.
By the time she hit the lobby, Sophia nearly had herself convinced that running out of her hospital room in blood-drenched clothes was a complete overreaction.
That was when someone grabbed her from behind and dragged her back into the stairwell.
Visions of rape and murder danced through her head, like blood-drenched sugar plums. This was it. She’d survived so much and now she was going to die in the stairwell of a hospital, because she couldn’t just do what she was told. The one time she’d decided to disobey her father and it was about to get her killed.
But the smell of the hand covering her mouth was intimately familiar. That impression was immediately confirmed when the hands wrapped around her body fell away and she turned to face her would-be assailant.
“Hunt!”
He was dressed in the same blue scrubs that all the hospital employees wore. She hoped he hadn’t hurt anyone to get their uniform.
“Sophia,” he responded evenly, like he hadn’t just dragged her into a stairwell.
“What are you doing here?” she practically shouted. All the hurt, anger, and naked fear threatened to overwhelm her.
“Saving your life.” He grabbed her arm and started to pull her toward the stairs leading down to the basement. “We have to go.”
“Wait a minute.” Even with her limited strength, she wrenched her arm away from him and took 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 raised in that favored expression of his th
at she had grown to truly hate. “What makes you think that I ever left?”
That caught her up short. “Because I woke up alone in the hospital.”
He glanced down the stairwell as if anticipating that someone would come up behind them. “I brought you to the hospital because you got knocked unconscious during a car crash and I wanted to make sure that you would be okay.”
“Then why didn’t you just leave?” she asked through clenched teeth, inwardly seething. As ridiculous as it sounded, she was hurt that he would just abandon her like that. And now she was having a hard time squaring that with the fact that he was here now. Which just made her angrier. What was his game? “You got your information, you got what you wanted. Why won’t you just leave me alone?”
He had gotten everything that he wanted from her and she suppressed a shudder at the memory.
Hunt made a frustrated sound in his throat. “We don’t have time for this, Sophia.”
“You need to make time.”
He cracked the door to the lobby and pushed her toward the opening. “You see those guys who look like extras out of an action movie?
She did see them. Only two or three men, dressed in black pants and matching polos. They weren’t brandishing weapons or acting obviously suspicious, but something about them definitely seemed 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 her. “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.”
She pushed back from the door and he let it close, blocking her 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?” She knew this was a bad time to insist on explanations, but she’d 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 made a growl of frustration before striding toward her. “And we’re leaving now before this conversation gets us both killed.”
Before she could react, Hunt had her slung over his shoulder and was carrying her down the steps that led to the basement. Part of her was amazed that he was able to take the stairs two at a time while carrying her like she weighed nothing at all, but the bigger part was just pissed off.
“God, you’re a caveman,” she grumbled as he shoved open the door into the underground parking garage.
“Just for you, baby.”
“You’re an asshole, you know that?”
He dumped her on her feet next to a beat-up Chrysler as he fiddled with the door. “Look, this is not a kidnapping. I know you’re angry with me and you have every right to be. If you don’t trust me enough by now to keep you safe, then stay here.”
She hesitated by the passenger door. “Is that reverse psychology?”
The ghost of a smile teased 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 dropped 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.”
Her mouth opened and closed, but no words came out. She swallowed hard before she was able to speak. “I don’t believe you.”
“Believe what you want. It’s the truth.”
Sophia’s mind was reeling, but this was the most earnest that she’d ever seen Hunt. And he had never lied to her before. “I don’t know what to think.”
Hunt sighed, 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 anymore. So are you coming with me, or not? It’s now or never.”
He climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine. She stood there for a moment, feeling like she was caught on the precipice between today and tomorrow. Was she staying in the past or driving toward the future? Somehow, she just knew that the decision she made now would be one that she couldn’t take back.
Taking a steadying breath, she got in the car.
Chapter Nineteen
He couldn’t leave her.
That was as simple and as complex of an explanation as he would ever be able to come up with. He hadn’t lied to her when he admitted that he’d still been hanging around. He had meant to leave. He never intended to stalk the halls of the hospital in a stolen uniform, remaining just out of sight of anyone who might raise an alarm. He’d told himself that he needed to make sure she was safe before going back to his guys. He couldn’t leave without knowing she was good.
Turned out, he just couldn’t leave. Period.
Sophia was staring out the window as they sped down the highway toward the new safe house. She still seemed to be struggling with the decision that she’d made and he gave her the space she needed to process it.
Savage had called him crazy for not letting her go, even if it meant leaving her at the mercy of those mercenaries. Chase had just got a stupid smile on his face and hadn’t said a goddamned thing, but Hunt had a pretty good idea what he’d been thinking.
He knew that he was putting all of them at risk by staying behind to get her, but that was what he hadn’t had a chance to explain to her yet.
This wasn’t a rescue. Because he was never giving her back. She was staying with him, forever. She just didn’t know it yet.
He hadn’t told her that she didn’t have a home to go back to, not anymore. If the senator truly hadn’t sent those mercenaries, then it meant that there were other powerful players on this chess board, ones with deep pockets. And Reynolds wasn’t the one who was truly in control. Which meant that he was going to have a hard time keeping himself safe, much less protect Sophia.
Hunt was the only one who could keep her safe now. Even with the monster inside of him that yearned to know what her flesh tasted like and was very aware of the blood from her wound scenting the air. He just had to figure out how to explain it to her in a way that wouldn’t cause an epic meltdown.
Of course, he still had the handcuffs if he needed them. And he might pull them out even if he didn’t actually need them.
Her face was in profile as she leaned against the door. Not for the first time, he was struck by how truly beautiful she was and how amazingly strong she’d had to be.
He didn’t deserve her, but he was taking her anyway.
“I can see your wheels turning,” he murmured, his hands gripping the steering wheel in an effort not to touch her. She wasn’t ready for that yet. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
She made a low growl in her throat. “I’m fine.”
He believed that like he believed there was 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 spat out the words like venom.
But if anything, he was relieved. He liked her much better angry. He didn’t know what to do with her sadness, but the anger was someth
ing that he could deal with.
“What can I do to make you feel better?” He slid his hand across the seat and brushed his fingers down the back of her arm where he knew the skin was extra sensitive. “Do you want to have a tickle fight?”
She slapped his hand away but not before he caught the tiny smile that briefly curled at the corner of her lips. “Fuck off.”
His fingers twined in her hair and he pulled 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 turned her head to face him, her cheek 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 so 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’s still the man who raised you and loved you.” He paused for a second, not really sure if he was helping his 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 fell silent at that and he didn’t force the issue. Sophia was smart. She’d figure out the truth of this on her own. But the seed of doubt had been planted, and now she questioned her entire worldview. Now she understood that the world had never been as simple as she’d always been told.
They drove the rest of the way to the safe house in silence. He kept his eyes focused on the road, but he sensed her gaze slide over him. And her thoughts were so loud that he could practically hear them.
Eventually she’d figure out on her own that he couldn’t let her go.
Sophia didn’t spend any time looking around as he followed her into the safe house. It was a small house in a neighborhood hit hard by the financial crisis, with more abandoned properties and boarded-up windows than nosy neighbors. It wasn’t completely secure, but they could stay there for a bit while they regrouped.
Hunted by the Feral Alpha Page 19