Redhead On The Run (RedHeads Book 1)

by Rebecca Royce

  Chapter Twenty

  I lay on the bed, this time with my sisters on either side of me. We all stared at the ceiling together. There was nothing good on television. I’d had my morning therapy, where we’d talked about my inner turmoil that had caused me to run out on my fiancé. Funny she was focusing on that. I was kidnapped, lady. Kit was a douchebag. A dead douchebag, but a douchebag, nonetheless.

  That felt like a million years ago, and if I really listed all the ways I’d either been fucked or fucked up in my life, I couldn’t say that I was ranking running out on Kit as being that important. Maybe that made me a bad person.

  “Dad has fled the country,” Bridget announced, and Hope and I both sat up to look at her, colliding elbows in the process. Bridget sat up slowly.

  Hope had fallen silent, so it fell to me to ask the obvious question. “What? Why?”

  “The FBI wanted to talk to him for obvious reasons. As of this morning, he’s a fugitive in another country. Some place that doesn’t extradite to the US.”

  Hope blinked. “France maybe? Don’t they not extradite?”

  I shook my head. “They do. It’s only French citizens they won’t. Dad, they would send back. Roman Polanski has a French citizenship.”

  Why did I know that? I was full of random information sometimes.

  “Does Russia?” Hope asked me, and I shook my head. They didn’t. But Dad wouldn’t go there, right? I mean, I’d been kidnapped by some Russians. It would probably be a very bad idea for him to head there.

  “I hate him.” Bridget sighed. “I know that’s a terrible thing, and all of our years of various schools taught us to not use it like we’re allergic to it. To be more articulate. You’d be more articulate, Layla. But I don’t want to do the ‘when Dad behaves this way, then I feel’ thing right now. Well, maybe I do. When Dad flees the country after getting my beloved sister kidnapped by Russian mobsters, that makes me feel like I knew I already felt, which is that I hate him.”

  Hope and I both stared at her. That was actually quite a lot said for Bridget. “He was going to marry me off to Kit to seal a deal with the mob.” It wasn’t funny, but I started to giggle. “And I was dumped five minutes before I got kidnapped. It’s all…ridiculous.”

  Bridget rubbed my back. “You know, if you’re going to have a nervous breakdown, this is a great place to have it, Lulu.”

  I almost startled at the nickname. No one had called me that for so long. Our nanny when I was six had given it to me, and I’d loved it because it was something a mother might do. A gentle nickname. It had lasted for a little while with my sisters.

  Hearing it was…nice.

  I asked the question that plagued me whenever I thought about it. “Why didn’t they kill me? They’ve killed Kit and his family. Why not me? What were their plans for me?”

  The group who held me was part of a larger, for lack of a better word, conglomerate. I wasn’t dead because Michael, who was really a lot more badass than I’d ever given him credit for, had saved me and killed that group.

  “Because what they wanted for you was ransom. Dad wasn’t a betrayer, just a problem. The Allards were considered betrayers,” Bridget supplied. “Michael explained it to me.”

  I groaned. My father might now be persona non grata, but I hated how much I owed him. My wedding. Now this. “How much did Dad give to get me back? Frankly, I can’t believe he did. He tried to slap me on the street.”

  “He didn’t.” Hope yawned. My sisters had been here the whole time with me, never leaving. Was it a week now? They couldn’t be comfortable sleeping on beds in my room.

  Her words penetrated my scattered brain. “What?”

  “Dad could barely afford this place. He lost all his money. The company is crumbling. He paid for this, probably because I badgered him about it and it was easier to shut me up. This is about the end of his income, I imagine.”

  None of this made sense. “If Dad didn’t pay them, then why didn’t they kill me? Or you know…sell me off or something. And if ransom was paid, why wasn’t I let go?”

  I’d seen enough television specials and read enough books to know what happened to the kidnapped victim. Was I on my way out the door when Michael showed up just in time?

  “Because Zeke paid.” Bridget eyed me as she said that. “He paid what they asked for. Then they wanted more. He was going to pay that, too, but Michael didn’t think we’d ever get you back, so they stormed the house, so to speak.”

  Zeke paid. Suddenly, my stomach hurt. “He wouldn’t do that. I’m nothing to him. He made that clear. Actually no.” Speaking aloud helped me clear up my thoughts on this, even as I said them. They were muddled, and I didn’t know exactly what I was doing. “He might feel guilty. I was taken outside his house. Guilt might make him pay. Yes. Fuck. Now I owe him. How much did they get from him for me?”

  Hope took my hand in hers and squeezed. “Layla, it’s okay.”

  “No, it’s not.” How could they think that? “I humiliated myself in front of him in a way that was somehow even worse than running from my wedding and making a spectacle of myself. How am I ever going to pay him back?”

  Bridget shook her head. “You won’t. Lulu, I watched the social media for the last weeks. Saw you two together. That is not a man for whom you were nothing. He’s in love with you.”

  She didn’t understand. I’d explained it, but maybe not well enough. “Bridget…”

  “I know what he said, and Hope and I have been waiting for the right time to tell you this. We didn’t want to make things worse, and we didn’t know what he’d done, exactly. Until you finally explained in a way that made sense, today. I didn’t really understand it myself, what you were saying versus what was happening. Listen to me, the man is in love with you. I get what he did. He really fucked up. I don’t know his story, and he’d better make up for hurting you, but Ezekiel Scott is a man half out of his mind for worry for the woman he is in love with.”

  My head spun. “How do you know that? Is he…texting you?”

  She shook her head. “No, he’s not texting me.”

  I didn’t have my phone, but Bridget held up hers. “Look at these pictures of the two of you together.”

  She’d absolutely not answered my question, but I looked anyway. There we were in Paris. On his motorcycle. Eating together. Laughing together. Smiling. In one, he kissed me. Fed me ice cream. I had my head on his shoulder in another. Yes, I’d lived these moments. Loved them. And I did see what I’d seen then, that he was falling in love with me. But he didn’t feel that way. Made it clear. And asshat that he might be, Dad had said he had a history like this.

  “Bridget.” I looked up from the photos. Looking at them brought me a mixture of happiness and pain. “How do you know?”

  “Because he’s been sitting in a car outside of here for the last six days. I imagine it took him the extra day to find you. Dad hid you away pretty well. Maybe he paid an investigator to follow us. Maybe Michael, who quit, told him where you were. I don’t know. All I know is that he is sitting in a car. The same car. Day in and day out. He leaves the car there when he goes somewhere to change his clothes, shower, and use the bathroom.”

  Hope shook her head. “I made eye contact with him yesterday, but he didn’t speak to me. Didn’t ask for any information. It’s like…it’s like he just wants to be close to you.”

  “Sort of the way a man who is deeply troubled by his behavior might be if the woman he loves was locked away in this impenetrable castle,” Bridget finished.

  “There on the street where you live.” Hope sang the lyric from My Fair Lady.

  I rose. “If he’s been here six days…” That was mind boggling. “Why hasn’t he come in? If he has something to say, say it.”

  Zeke Scott didn’t wait. If he had something to do, he got it done.

  “Dad barred him. The place won’t let him in,” Bridget answered. “That was how I found out that he was here in that car. The director let me know he was banne
d, but he’d tried to see you. That’s when I spotted him.”

  I had to catch my breath. “Where?”

  Hope walked to the window. They were tinted so we could see out, but they couldn’t see in. From the street, it looked like just another converted Upper East Side brownstone that might belong to anyone. Woody Allen had one just like it.

  “He doesn’t move the car. He takes a taxi or a rideshare. But the car stays there.”

  There was the car. He’d gotten street parking. No way was he moving it. Maybe ever. That was impossible to get. I blinked. That didn’t matter now. I could make him out. He was in a black SUV. Sitting in the driver’s seat, staring at the building. That was all I could make out.

  My heart beat really fast, and I wrung my hands together. Everything was muddled. I’d understood things, and now I didn’t. What was he doing?

  “Well, what am I supposed to do? If he can’t come, I can’t…make sense of what he thinks he’s doing. I can’t…work it out. Is this really just guilt? He could have sent flowers.”

  Hope laughed. “Sorry you got kidnapped at my house. Hope these roses make you smile. Best, Zeke.”

  I groaned. “Okay, point taken.”

  “Lulu, if he can’t come in, and maybe he can if you go plead your case and get paperwork done. I mean you’re an adult, it’s sort of hard to tell a twenty something woman that she can’t see someone because her daddy, who is a fugitive from the law, said no, go out.”

  Go out. Yes, I wasn’t locked in. The doctor had even suggested if I wanted to go to the deli around the corner, it had great baklava. But I hadn’t considered it. Why would I leave right now? Where would I go worth being?

  My hand went to my head where my hair should be and wasn’t.

  “It’s too bad, they make great wigs. If we’d thought about it,” Hope sighed, “we’d have brought one over today.”

  Bridget shook her head. “No, she doesn’t need a wig. This is Layla, if she walks around bald, everyone will shave their heads.”

  That’s right. I’d be spotted if I left. The cameras. My mind went to that moment coming out of the place where they’d held me in France. There must be those pictures too. No matter. I could only deal with right now. I hated the idea of being caught on display again.

  But it was a choice. See Zeke and get answers, or stay inside afraid and get none.

  I’d pick number two.

  I swallowed. “This is going to be a random thing to say. Well, two things. Number one, Hope, can I borrow your hoodie please? I can’t find my cap. I put it down, and I think it got swept up with the sheets when the maid came.”

  “Sure.” She rushed to the chair where she’d draped it and handed it to me. I was in a white hospital uniform but at least I had my sneakers. I’d been in them when I was taken and still had them. “Number two?”

  “You guys know Mom killed herself, right?”

  They both stared at me, and Hope visibly swallowed. “No, she just overdosed.”

  “I know,” Bridget said, and Hope rounded on her like she couldn’t believe it.

  “I used to think like you did, Hopey. But I think we all need some truth now. And that is truth. She ended her life. With four kids in the house and a husband who was away. I can’t blame her for her mental illness, but I will blame her for not arranging for someone to care for us. Poor Justin. He took the biggest hit.”

  Bridget put her arm around Hope. “It’s okay. We’re all stronger than her. Especially you, Lulu. Always were. Go get your answers. We’re right here and not going anywhere.”

  I headed out of the building. It was quiet in the lobby. A receptionist smiled at me but said nothing. A guard opened the door. That was when the quiet vanished. New York was a noisy town. So was Paris, but this was different. The Upper East Side was actually quiet for Manhattan, but I was momentarily overwhelmed by the change. I hadn’t been anywhere but the sanctity of my room for some time.

  Still, I made it to the crosswalk, and was going to cross when Zeke spotted me. He darted from the car and shouted at me, “Layla, stop. Wait. I’ll come there.”

  In jeans and a black T-shirt, he rushed to the other end of the street, waiting for the sign to cross. That was good. It gave me a second to steel my back and put my nerves away. I could do this. Absolutely I could. I’d finally talk to Zeke on the corner of 76th and Park Avenue outside the offices of an eye doctor with half of New York walking their dogs on a bright sunny day.

  Finally, he rushed toward me, and when he would have touched me, I moved back. Not ready for that. No. The movement made my hood fall down. It was a ridiculous garment for this weather. Hope only had it because she got cold in air-conditioning. Still, I’d wanted my head covered. So much for that.

  His gaze moved over me, taking me in, and I did the same to him. He looked tired, probably from sleeping in his car, and his whiskers were almost a full-fledged beard. Still, there he was, ever gorgeous, ever outside my reach, Ezekiel Scott.

  “Are you okay?” He had to see I wasn’t. I’d had my head shaved. I couldn’t stand the idea of eating. I never slept. I didn’t look in mirrors, but I could guess what the reflection would show.

  Since it was obvious, I didn’t hold back for politeness. “No.”

  He visibly swallowed. “I…I’m never going to be able to express to you how much I regret what happened between us before you were taken.”

  “You said your truth. You don’t have to regret that. You weren’t obligated to return my feelings. I’m going to figure out how to get over myself.”

  “No.” His response came so fast, he actually spoke over me. “I returned your feelings. I still do. I love you.” He swallowed again. “I lied.”

  I tried to take that in. I should feel joyful. He loved me, and the truth was that I was absolutely hands down in love with him. So why didn’t I feel better? “You lied?”

  “I lied. I’m such…” His voice trailed off. “You scared the shit out of me. Of course, I’m in love with you. I’ve never felt for anyone the way I do for you. I didn’t know I could. I thought that was long put away. But your father was right. Even my own mother didn’t love me. Why would I want to put myself through the pain of another woman rejecting me outright? Why would I let that happen? Layla, I can dress myself up in fine clothes, I can buy one of the most expensive homes in France, but I can’t undo the truth, which is I’m a kid no one wanted who spent his childhood with two-bit gangsters. You lived on yachts. I freaked out. I was coming to get you, to apologize and beg forgiveness, when they took you.”

  I almost reached for him. My instinct was to comfort. This was Zeke. I was always going to want to make him okay. I’d heard a crash behind me when they put the bag on my head. I’d forgotten that. It was Zeke.

  “You’re so young, princess. You can do better than me. But I am in love with you. And I want a future with you—for us.”

  I swallowed, trying to suck down the tears, and successfully, for the moment, managing to do so. “Do you think I don’t know you? I know that you aren’t actually all that well versed in all the things that let the rich show off. You think I don’t? I lived in your house.”

  He furrowed his forehead. “I don’t understand.”

  “Whoever did your downstairs needs to never work in design again.”

  His smirk, that stupid smirk I loved so much, appeared on his face. “Really? Why didn’t you say something?”

  “It’s your house. That would be rude.” I shrugged. “I guess getting kidnapped kind of takes down those barriers. Thank you, by the way, for paying my ransom. I’ll never be able to pay you back.”

  This time when he reached for me, I let him clasp my arms. “Don’t you dare try. We can fix up the house however you want. I don’t care. You do it.”

  “No.” My voice wavered now. “There are fundamental problems. I can’t live in France, and that is your city. You’ve made yourself a home there. You have people. A life. Hell, the sunset belongs to you there.”

&
nbsp; He shook his head. “It doesn’t, princess. It belongs to you. All the colors of it. But I’m sorry I don’t understand. Why can’t you live in France?”

  “I can’t speak the language, and it’s not the kind of thing that if I just work at it, I can do it. There is a fundamental deficit in my language processing. I am never going to get over it. And I can’t live where I can’t talk, can’t understand. I can’t have my life translated to me. Or hope everyone there can suddenly speak English.”

  He nodded. “Then we’ll live somewhere else.”

  “Zeke, that is your place.”

  “Layla.” He moved his hands from my arms to my cheeks, pausing only to run his hand gently over my head where my hair should have been. “You are more important than any location. Wherever you are, that’s where I am. Period.”

  “I’m not done with my truths.” He had to understand.

  “Give them to me. All your truth. Because I see you, too. You say you can see me, well I see you just as well. Tell me. All of it. I’m listening to you.”

  A horn blasted on the street, and I jumped into the air, terrified, my heart thudding hard. I was in his arms then, holding on like he could protect me from all danger. I buried my head into his chest. His arms held me tight, and he didn’t let go, even after the point that it was right for me to be out of his arms. We were on the street. But Zeke didn’t seem to care.

  “I’ve got you. It’s okay. No one, and I mean no one, will ever hurt you again. That is a promise.”

  What was funny was that, although that was not a promise he could realistically make, I believed him. So when I spoke, it was through tears streaming down my face as I forced myself to pull back before talking to him.

  “Zeke, I’ve been very unfair to you.”

  He wiped at my tears with his thumbs. “How so?”

  “I fell in love with you when I was thirteen. Or, well I had a big crush. Since the boat. You came, saw Dad. Knew who I was when the nanny didn’t. I fell over in love the way teenagers do. And I’ve built you up in my mind. I used to touch myself thinking about you when you didn’t know I was alive.” Fuck. I was really saying this. “You don’t want the things I do. You saw me perfectly. House. White picket fence. Husband. Kids. That’s me. That’s not what you want, so even if you love me, I can’t ask you to stretch that far. It’s fundamentally unreasonable for either of us to expect the other to alter who we are for the convenience of the other person.”