I grabbed the broken handle of my luggage and swore when the sharp edges of the handgrip bit into my palm. Climbing up to my feet, I steadied myself and wiped away my sweat and tears. “We’ll be there?” I asked.
“Well, I certainly can’t let you go all the way there on your own, love. You can’t even speak with your assistant without bloody flipping out, so how are you going to handle being on a jet for a few hours. I’ll be there to box your ears, love.”
“You’ll just get in the way, Mum, and when I find him, I’ll most likely be going straight to jail after.”
“Well, dear, if you find him, I’ll help you bury whatever’s left of him,” she said, smiling tightly, as she walked out the door.
Chapter 12
Am I still alive?
Shifting slowly, my muscles fought against any movement. They roared in pain and ached with helplessness. My eyes snapped opened to a blur of light when I felt the tiniest movement of my fingers, the twinge of motion and lust for freedom. Hesitantly, I stretched each finger, one by one, until I knew how much mobility I had, and realized I was no longer tied down.
“Sir says you will be able to move around again by tonight,” a soft feminine voice drifted past. Keeping my head still, I moved only my eyes in the direction of the voice. I knew it was Aurora. You hear some people in your nightmares on a daily basis. Her and David’s voice, I would be able to pick out of a crowd of screaming monkeys in Grand Central Station.
A flawlessly groomed Aurora sat on a rusty folding chair in a finely ironed shirt and long flowing red skirt. Perfectly manicured fingers folded, locked together in a perfect lady-like gesture. She crossed one long leg over the other and offered me a tight smile.
My throat was parched. Sharp needles of pure misery slid down my esophagus as I tried to swallow. “Where…is…he?” I croaked hoarsely.
Her smile widened at my pain. Deep chocolate brown eyes danced in joy with my struggle to speak. She shrugged her shoulders coolly, and shook her head, “I’m not quite sure, but I’m positive, Sir, is doing something important.”
I tried licking my lips to coat them, help them to move, but all I tasted was the salty tang of blood. “Did you…did you just call him, Sir?”
“Would you like some water?” She asked in a creepy gesture to comfort me.
Thanks, bitch, but I rather skin myself alive then drink whatever you’re offering. “Are you fucking stupid?” I seethed. “Aurora. I need more than a damn glass of water. You need to help me get away from him.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I can’t do that. I would never go against David. I belong to him,” she whispered. “When you tell him where you hid the money, he will let you go, so just do what he says. Everything will be fine then. You can go back to doing your things with that writer, and David and I can finally be together like we always should have been.”
A sudden wave of nausea slammed against my body, filling my mouth with vomit, and left me retching straight down my chest. Holding my head as still as I could, I cringed at the feel of the liquid dripping down my bare skin, but there was no way I wanted her to know that I was getting my ability to move back. I gasped and spit, then locked my eyes with hers. “You should go and find the truth first, before you go and produce a Disney princess movie out of this situation. That man is going to kill me no matter what. He has already tried.”
“Nonsense. When you were sick after losing your baby, he was there for you. You’re the one who tried to hurt yourself, not him. When you overdosed on those drugs, he almost snapped,” she said, wide-eyed.
“You really believe that? Violent people like David Stanton don’t just snap, sweetheart. They make precise-well-thought out choices for their victims, and act on them. David injected me with a drug that caused my unborn child’s heart to stop beating, and then the sick fuck gave me a mixture of poisons to stop mine.”
“NO!” She shrieked. “Stop making up stories! You are the sick fuck. I know what you did to him when you ran away. You almost killed him that night. I found him and called 911. He was in the hospital for weeks, because of you. Do you want to be arrested? Just tell him where you hid his money and he will let you leave,” she hissed.
“Take a good look at me, Aurora. Do I look like someone who is just going to get to leave? Does he do this shit to you?”
Her gaze shifted down towards the floor, indifferent to my appearance, shook her head and sighed. “You don’t understand our lifestyle or our nature, and that’s why he should have never married someone like you. He married you for appearances only. Your father forced him. You were supposed to die overseas. You were never supposed to make it back here, you know.” Talking about my death so nonchalantly, as if I were just some unloved pet goldfish ready to be flushed down the toilet. This fails to surprise me on every conceivable level.
Twinges of muscle spasms traveled just under my skin. Deliberately without Aurora knowing, I tried out soft miniscule motions across my body, feeling out the range of movement I was getting back. I needed to keep her talking, pass the time until I got complete control over all my muscles again, without her knowing I was mobile. I couldn’t let her be aware that I could fight back. The element of surprise was the only weapon I had right now. The anger settled inside of me, pooling in the pit of my stomach. All the panic and terror from what had been done had to be set aside, called back later, at another time. I needed to be in control of my emotions to get myself out of this situation. Just like in a war. I was facing my enemy, standing on the front line, two against one, and I did not want to lose. “What lifestyle? Are you talking about the way he treats you like his slave? That’s okay with you?”
Lips pursing, then puffing out a small laugh, “I’m a natural submissive. And believe me, whatever you think that is, it has a different meaning to me. David Stanton is a sheer unadulterated dominant, and you would never be able to let him control you like I let him control me.”
Leveling my voice to a calm croak was maddening. I wanted to scream and claw my way out of the room. My toes were wiggling now, and the muscles of my calves tightened when I flexed them. “So, this is all just role playing for the both of you, and apparently me. Innocent loving sex play, right?” I licked at my lips again, which caused her eyes to zone in on them, “So, tell me then, if it’s all just playful, why have I been drugged, beaten and…” Fuck the word stuck to the back of my throat, heavy and filthy, coating my inside with cancerous cells that threatened to overtake my mind. “Raped.”
“Raped? Really? You are so delusional. Do even understand what kink is? What David’s sexual desires are?” She scooted forward in her seat, smiling. “Would you like me to tell you? Sir says I have to stay in here until you are able to move around. I could teach you all about what we like, and I can show you how good it feels,” she said.
Yeah, right there, my mind…officially blown. I was dealing with someone who demonstrated the mental capacity of a fourteen-year-old horny boy.
What the freak? “What, are we bonding now? This conversation is insane. This has nothing to do with sexual fucking preferences and levels of kinkiness. I was married to him, sweetheart. I knew he liked it rough. Couples play games, experimenting. It’s fucking healthy-but this…this, what he's doing to me is not healthy, Aurora, it's a fucking crime!” I started feeling the tingling sensation of pins and needles along my skin, as I flexed whatever muscles able to move, as slow as possible. “We’re not talking about two people enjoying a bit of slap and tickle and bright red handprints on ass cheeks, with a side of rope burns for bracelets, Aurora. I didn’t want what he did to my body. I don’t want to be here. That man hurts me because he is pure fucking evil.”
“He’s not as horrible as you are making him out to be…”
“My, God, Aurora, if you really believe that, you’re dumber than I originally thought you were.” I was getting full feeling in my legs now. Maybe if I get her pissed off at me, she’ll slip up and make a mistake, look in another direction. I needed her off gua
rd, because I was pretty weak to be fighting, so I needed all the advantage I could get.
“No, David is brilliant and wonderful. He’s perfect, and you’re just jealous.”
“Yes, he’s so perfect, ask him to walk on water. If he can, then by all means, I give him the right to do this to me, but if he can’t…”
“He loves me, he’s never loved you,” she stated. “You’re just jealous.”
“And you are romanticizing rape and violence. How do you think this is going to end? This isn’t a fucking lifetime movie that you can pause, or a book you can snap shut. I get playing roles and dom/subs and sex play, but this is beyond. Can you leave here? Can you honestly look at me and think what he is doing is fucking normal? Maybe for you, but not for me, lady. I don’t like this. This is someone holding me hostage. It is a criminal act. I would never let another human being hold me hostage or hit me…I’m not playing a part in a sex game.”
Aurora leaned forward in her chair and a streak of crimson anger flushed her cheeks. “You don’t understand the power I feel when I’m in my submissive mind. I am Perfect to him there.”
Yep, just a PERFECT PIECE OF PUSSY. Nothing more.
Taking a slow deep breath in, I felt the shift of control in the muscles of my shoulders and back. Clenching my inner thighs, and slightly tightening my stomach abductors, I knew I finally had full control of my body again. A swell of relief drifted over my shoulders, and I scanned Aurora’s eyed for any acknowledgment from her that she knew I could now move. Nothing. She had to think I was still under the influence of whatever paralyzing agent he’d injected into me, probably Suxamethonium Chloride. There was one thing that could not be denied, as I laid in front of her, naked and still. Aurora had a lot of problems with fucking reality. That woman sitting before me, blinded, and in love with a sadistic misogynistic man, and he was the King of her Auroraland. Nothing I could say would be able to touch that. Nothing I could do to save her, I just needed to save myself from this crazy train wreck. “Look, Aurora. I think you and…Sir…make a beautiful couple. You both obviously fit together perfectly, and I don’t belong here.” I gave her the smallest smile I could muster, which tore a spike of pain across my bruised face. “Why don’t I tell you where I hid the money, and then I just leave you both to a happy long life together. Sir would be very proud of you if you were the one who found out where I hid it. Can you imagine his surprise?”
Her eyes turned into tiny slits as she slowly stood up and walked towards the disgusting mattress I had been thrown on. “I said I was submissive, not stupid,” she hissed, leveling her face with mine.
Shoot, that didn’t work. Well, time to go.
Adios, bitch.
Instantly, my fingers clamped tightly into fists and my body sprung up. With the momentum of all my weight, I slammed my fist into the side of her head, hoping the force would rattle her brain against her skull and knock her out quick.
Of course, I barely had enough strength, but I felt the surge of adrenaline burn across my skin as she scrambled to get away from me. I lunged after her with a fury. Hurting people went against everything I was ever trained to do as a surgeon, but there was truly only one thought in my head at that moment. Escape. And the bitch was blocking my exit.
Hitting her with my hands made her move, but slamming her in the head with the metal chair got her to fall.
GOD, that felt fucking GOOD. And for a split second, I had the urge to go all bloodthirsty Kade-like on her stupid ass, and then thought better of it. She’d probably like it too much.
Running my hands over her pulse and head quickly, I knew she was fine. She would have a splitting headache when she woke up, but I wasn’t planning on sticking around to find out and help ease her pain. I needed to get out of there as fast as I could. Ripping through her pockets, I found the key to the lock on the door, and then looked down at myself, realizing how bloody and bruised my naked body was. And sick to my stomach, holy shit, was I sick to my stomach. I gagged and dry heaved, as I quickly stripped off the clothes from her limp body. I had to stop three different times, because the convulsions in my stomach where so powerful that my temples and chest burned from effort and restraint.
Thank God, she wore a pair of flat boots. They were probably three sizes too big for me, but at least she wasn’t wearing those lethal stilettos today. Wiping the filth off my chest and stomach, I quickly dressed in her clothes and boots and quietly opened the door. Then, with my trembling battered body, I walked right the fuck out.
Mission set. Goals defined. My thoughts focused, cleared. Escape. Kill David. Get back to Kade.
Nothing was going to stop me from getting back to Kade.
Nothing.
If something did, I was going to kill it.
Chapter 13
After five straight hours on an airplane with my mother, and a handful of flight attendants who listened in earnest as my mum regaled the story of our tragic relationship, I seriously had to encourage myself not to open the emergency latch and jump to my highly desired death. Every single tendon in my entire being felt as if it was getting coiled tightly into an anxious stress filled band of steel. Images raced through my head as I was up in the air. Not in control, helpless. Thousands of feet in the sky, thousands of miles away, fucking bloody helpless.
Somewhere, hundreds of miles away, miles below the metal box I flew in, my Samantha was in trouble. There was nothing I could do, and nothing that anyone could say that would make a damn ounce of difference in anything. The blood pounded in my head the whole flight. Torture was in not knowing what was happening below.
“Mr. Grayson, would you care for a drink? Is there anything that I could…”
“For all that is good and holy, just go the bloody hell AWAY,” I snapped.
My mother’s hand reached out from her lap faster than my eyes could see, and she slapped me upside the head like I was a disagreeable teen. “Kade Charles Grayson! I did not bring you up to be a dick to women.”
“I’m good like that, king of dicks, and that bloody hurt,” I snapped.
“You are acting like an arse!”
“Bloody awesome, thank you. I might add that to my business card. May I quote you? For one bloody moment, could you, and everyone around me think about what I might be going through sitting here helpless? All I could see in my head are images of her somewhere hurt, so forgive me if I snap at the twits who are trying to shove a bit of liquor down my throat!”
I was allotted two hours of silence after that, which I spent hyperventilating into a bloody brown paper bag in the back cabin, and going over the last conversation I had with Deputy George before I boarded the plane. I gave him permission to access my computer where the GPS to Samantha’s phone was. You’re wondering why I hadn’t done that myself to begin with, yeah? Well, I bloody tried, but I never got a signal. I figured it was just a cheap piece of shit, or she’d taken the tracking application out to make sure I wasn’t going to follow her. I should have tried harder. I should have believed in her more. Fuck, I should have believed in us and never doubted her.
The only hope I held onto was that of Stanton’s greed. If David Stanton did have Samantha, he wasn’t going to kill her until he had his money back. George explained that Stanton had complete control over all the computer modules and bank accounts at the hospital, their insurance claims… They signed checks…forging signatures continuously for millions of dollars to a fraudulent pharmaceutical company they owned; he wasn’t going to walk away from all that work easily. No bloody way. Knowing everything that Samantha had told me about him, he would terrorize her until she gave him the money, and I knew she never would. I knew that for a fact, because Samantha didn’t have the money. When we went to the Sheriff, she gave him a key to a safe deposit box with all the evidence she had stolen from David when she ran away. I still don’t know the details, but did it matter? Sam was being held somewhere probably getting hurt, alone, while bratty flight attendants tried to get me on the piss.
As soon as I felt the landing gear lower, I was out of my seat with my bag around my shoulders, daring the flight attendants to ask me to sit back down.
No one said a word to me, which was excellent, because I was nearing my breaking point. I’m talking Christian Bale in American Psycho, here, but with a British accent and the chainsaw.
When I stepped my feet on the blacktop of the runway, my knees weakened with the realization of just how much time had passed since she was last seen alive. I awkwardly stumbled into the waiting car that was to take us to wherever the sheriff’s were gathered, dealing with the mess. I could visibly see the warm mist of my breath as I climbed in, but I felt not one degree of the coldness. I was completely numb, and strangely, for the first time since the age of sixteen, my brain was completely calm and focused, because I knew it had to be, because I had to fucking save her. Taking a slow deep breath, I sat in the back seat, pulled my phone from the pocket of my jacket, and turned it on. As the driver spoke in whispers with my mother, the light from my phone illuminated the car, and I vividly remembered Samantha and me locked in a closet in my brother’s bar and my stomach dropped. I wanted a chance to feel those lips against mine again. I wanted the chance to give her the ring I’d been holding in my pocket since the day I was going to ask her to marry me, the day she went missing. I needed to see her again. I needed to hear her voice. I just plain fucking needed her. With trembling fingers, I hit the contact button for Deputy George and waited for my world to end.
“Grayson, did you land yet?” he barked. Not even a proper greeting. Curt and serious. Oh, bloody fucking hell.
“We’re driving to town now. What’s happened?” I replied, my voice cracked and shook, immediately giving away my emotional mindset.
“We tracked the GPS to her phone,” he began, and my heart thudded painfully hard against my chest. I swallowed back the urge to scream and stayed fixated on his voice. “We found her car off the side of the road on Forest Home Road.”
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