by Sam Crescent
“I’ll eat. I’ll eat.”
He gave her the food, taking a seat opposite her. This was going to be a long flight. Already this girl was giving him a headache but so far, he needed her more than he needed peace of mind.
****
Tulip woke up.
She didn’t know where she was, but she knew she was locked in a room. Everything from the past day—or was it longer?—now came rushing back to her. Putting a hand around her throat, she groaned. She’d eaten her food and the man, whose name she didn’t know, continuously asked her questions.
He was there right in front of her, asking her where she came from. He really didn’t like it when she said some sperm and a vagina. Just because some wealthy-looking guy had taken her, fed her, and overall hadn’t been a giant dick to her, it didn’t mean she was ready for any of this shit. Whatever reason he had for kidnapping her, it wasn’t good.
She wanted to go home.
It was kind of crazy. Not too long before he’d turned up at the shitty restaurant where she worked, she thought about going away, traveling. America had come to mind. Now, she wanted to go home, to her rubbish apartment and not have to worry about any of this.
She wouldn’t get that luxury. Climbing out of the bed, she made a note of the expense of it. The silk sheets, the largeness of the room.
There was no weapon in sight. She rushed over to the vanity table where the mirror had been removed to find a little note.
There’s nothing here to hurt yourself or me. Have a nice sleep. We’ll talk more in the morning.
She rushed over to the curtains and threw them open. The curtains hid some doors. She unflicked the lock, stepped outside, and saw it was a long way down.
“Fuck!”
Running fingers through her hair, she felt the grease as she hadn’t gotten a chance to wash it. She probably stunk. She worked hard and always built up a sweat between her two jobs.
She rubbed her temple and groaned. She felt a little sick, but she had no doubt it was from all the drugging. The son of a bitch was going to pay, and big.
“There’s no chance of you ever escaping. You can stop thinking about it now,” the man said.
She turned to look at him. “You want to tell me what this is all about?”
“I told you on the jet. You can help me.”
“How?”
This time, the man who’d taken her wasn’t alone. There were two other men with him. They looked similar and there was no way in hell she was talking.
“You don’t have to be afraid.”
“I don’t know, one woman in a room full of three scary-looking men, I’ll be afraid if I want to.”
“You’re right, she’s nothing like Sarah.”
“You called me that,” she said. “I don’t even know your names.”
“Rick Denton,” the man who’d taken her said, coming forward.
She took a step back.
Rick smiled. “That there is my nephew, Jacob Denton, and the other guy, Gabriel Colton.”
“Why do they look like brothers?” she asked.
“They are. They’re half-brothers. My brother had a little affair. Let’s call it that, shall we?”
“I’m the family drama,” Gabriel said.
“She looks exactly like her, apart from the hair,” Jacob said. “And she what, served you? You’re a waitress?”
“I want to know why I’m here. Why you took me, and why I should ever answer any of your questions.”
Rick pulled something from his pocket and held it out. “If you want to have some answers, you’re going to have to come a little closer to understand the truth.”
She hesitated. “I want to go home.”
“Not happening. We need you. All of it will become clear. Take the photo.”
She’d never been one to back down from a fight, and she wasn’t about to start now. Stepping closer, she took the photo and looked down at it with a frown.
The girl.
She was her, only she wasn’t her. This made no sense at all. “That’s not me.”
“We know that. Her name was Sarah Smith. The boy she was with, let’s just say he’s causing us some trouble. She belonged to him.”
“Belonged to him? She was some kind of present to him?”
“The Denton men, and we have yet to know if it will extend to Gabriel, we have a certain … affliction.”
“Affliction?”
“You do know what these words mean, don’t you?” Jacob asked.
“Yes, I know what they fucking mean.” She glared at him.
“Please, no arguing.” Rick thrust his hands into his pants. “We know who our women are before they do. When we see the woman who’s meant to be ours for life, we have this feeling. It’s like an impulse, a need. We can’t control it. We need to claim her, put a ring on her finger, make her ours. It’s what we have to do. Sarah was Landon’s, but I’ve got a feeling she wasn’t, not really.”
She looked at each man in turn. “Okay, I’m going to let you stop right there.” She pointed the photo at each of them. “I think it’s time you went to the doctors and got on some meds or something. I mean seriously, this isn’t real.”
“Oh, it’s very real,” Rick said. “You’re Landon’s woman, and we need your help to bring him in.”
“Wait a second, you think I can help you to bring in some psycho? First of all, this isn’t me. The next point, no matter how desperate my situation may look to any of you, I’m not going to be second best, ever.” She pointed at the guy in the picture. “This is the guy you’re after, right? He’s looking at her as if she walks on water or something.”
“It’s not the truth.”
“Yeah, truth or not.” She tore the picture up. “I’m not helping you.”
“Okay then.” Rick got up and the two men followed him.
“Let me go home.”
“Not happening.” He slammed the door closed and she heard the lock flick into place. She was royally fucked.
Chapter Three
“I don’t know if I like her or not,” Jacob said.
“I do. She’s different, and considering Landon’s issues, I’d say that’s a plus in our favor,” Gabriel said, taking a seat in the office.
Rick looked at his two nephews. He hadn’t wanted to have kids where his now-dead brother Maddox had six of them, seven if you counted Gabriel, and whatever children he hadn’t laid claim to. For him, he just couldn’t bring himself to share Mandy. The fact they had to work was enough of a problem, getting in his way. He wasn’t about to add a brat into it as well.
“She’s the only way we’re going to bring Landon in. If we don’t do this soon, he’ll cause one too many problems we can’t fix. I don’t like to deal with the fallout of people and our associates thinking we can’t control one of our own. It doesn’t make us look good.”
“You heard the girl. Landon was completely besotted with Sarah. She’s gone. Dead. We can’t use this girl.”
“I think that girl is Landon’s real woman.”
“Look, she has no idea who that girl is. How do you even know if she’s Sarah’s twin?” Jacob asked.
“They were separated at birth,” Gabriel said. “It’s the only answer, right?”
“But all the details check out on Sarah. We had her thoroughly checked out. Sarah Smith is, you know, the proper child of her parents. They are her birth parents.”
“Having a kid is overwhelming, right?” Rick said. “What if Sarah was a twin but the parents got rid of Tulip at birth? They kept one they could manage, and the other they put up for adoption.”
“I can tell you if that was me, I’d be so pissed,” Gabriel said. “So wait, you think that between Sarah and Tulip’s twin thing, Landon got the signals confused? Like, he felt something for Sarah but it was kind of like a blur because of the twin thing? I have no other way of describing the twin stuff.”
Rick laughed. “That’s exactly what I think.”
“And if you�
�re wrong?”
“We pay Tulip and send her back home. She clearly needs the money. Believe me,” he said.
“Next question. We have no idea where Landon is, so how do we get the two to meet?” Gabriel asked.
“I’m going to leave that in Tulip’s capable hands. We know Landon hasn’t gone far. In fact, I’d say he’s got eyes on us all the time for him to know where we’re going to be, and where he’s not supposed to be. The boy is clever, I’ll give him that. We’ve just got to wait for the right opening and then he’ll be back with us.”
“Your plan has a lot of flaws.”
“I know but, so far, I can’t see you two coming up with a better plan, so we’ll go with mine.”
****
Landon sat back in the torn, old, stinking seat and clicked on the computer. He didn’t have many cameras within the house but he was curious now.
He’d hacked, or at least gotten one of his friends to hack into his home’s security to keep an eye on things. He didn’t have sound, which fucking sucked.
Squeezing the ball within his hand, he wondered who the girl was. He hadn’t gotten a good look at her but at least it wasn’t Tamsin. Nope, his sister was safe away from all of this.
Picking up his glass of whiskey, he took a sip.
“Should you really be drinking?” Jade Castillo asked. She came in with a tray carrying his dinner, which she put down beside the laptop.
“You’re not the boss of me.”
“No, but the last time you drank, I had to drag you all the way upstairs and it wasn’t nice. You complained of bruises for days. Now, stop drinking.” She took the glass from him. “And eat up.”
She disappeared out of the office and went back to the kitchen.
The place he’d been able to hide away in wasn’t found on any map. This was an old hunting lodge. It had been abandoned for years as it opened up into a giant forest, and a lot of new buyers didn’t want to deal with the environmental nightmare considering there was so much natural wildlife about.
He’d been here for a couple of months, and when the time came to move, he’d take Jade with him.
He had another problem. It was easier to move around without her, but he couldn’t leave her behind, not when she’d been the one to help him cause so much destruction. As she told him, women in their line of work were seen, not heard, but that didn’t mean they didn’t hear anything.
She heard a great deal, and seeing as men didn’t care what women heard, she’d given him a lot of information. The only condition of her helping him was that he had to make sure she never returned to the Castillo home again. She didn’t want to get married. She wished to live a life of her own, and well, he didn’t see a reason not to piss off his family by fucking with them.
He smiled and watched as she started to eat, sitting opposite him.
All of her fingers were perfectly intact. In a strange way, he and his supposed future fiancée were friends.
“So, what’s your plan?” Jade asked.
“I don’t have a plan. I’m curious about the woman they dragged into the house. Uncle Rick isn’t the kind of guy to pull unwilling women off the street.”
“Maybe it’s a trap for you.”
“I’ll see it coming. Besides, they don’t have a clue where I am. I bet that’s pissing them off.”
“Probably. I bet my parents are going crazy. I wish I could see their faces.”
“I wish I could show you.” He laughed. “So, tell me, how was your day?”
“Fine. I didn’t leave the gates, though. I had hoped to go shopping. We’re running low on groceries and the veg garden I found out back isn’t going to last us much longer. I took the last of the tomatoes today.”
“I’ll head out tomorrow. You want to dress up? Go in plain sight?”
“Do you think it’s wise with whatever they’ve got cooking?”
“I know my brothers. They won’t hurt that girl and when it happens, whatever their plan is, I’ll be ready.”
“You always sound so confident,” she said. “You’re not afraid.”
“I don’t have the time or luxury to be afraid.”
“You never answer this, but I’m going to keep on asking. Are you wanting to kill your brothers? Is that why you’re always watching them?”
“Kill them? No. My father has a bounty out on my head. I killed him and until I can find that man, there’s no way I’m going home. You know this. Is there any other resource that can help me?”
“I gave you everything. I don’t know what else to suggest. You know, at times it feels like we’re in our own little world here, I get to talk and to do my own thing. It’s easy to forget about the old life. Being married off, and you having a death sentence hanging over your head. It doesn’t bother you?”
“No. I’ve got nothing left to live for, Jade. I told you.”
“What about your sister?”
“She’s safe and far away from any danger. I did what I had to do to keep us both alive. I’m not your savior, Jade. I was going to kill you, remember? I had every intention of slitting your throat. I’ve got nothing. The one person I cared about was taken from me.” What he didn’t like was how the pain had started to lessen over the past year. He didn’t get it. Sarah was his one and only and even now, thinking about her caused him a little pain but nothing it once did. There was no need to kill himself, to end what miserable existence he had.
He wouldn’t allow his change in feelings to stop him from doing what needed to be done, and that was to deal with the bounty hunter, wherever he was, and of course, keep Jade from being taken by her family.
****
Boredom sucked big time.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, Tulip wanted a bath. She wanted to strip out of her clothes and wash the last day or however long she’d been locked up off her body. Only, she couldn’t do neither. Nope, she was fucking stuck here.
After sliding down the edge, she landed on the floor. Closing her eyes, she brought her palms together and then slumped forward. She slapped her hands to the ground and took several deep breaths, hoping to control her temper, but nothing was happening. Her anger was at an all-time high, and she was pissed off.
Finally, the door lock flicked open and in walked Rick with Gabriel. No Jacob this time.
Yay.
“I need a bath. I stink.”
“You can have a bath as soon as you agree to help me.”
“And what do I get out of it?”
“A life of luxury. A man who will be completely devoted to you.”
“This is if you believe I’m the right woman for him. This guy, he could kill me.”
“That’s true. I can’t tell you it won’t be a risk.”
“Ugh, I hate you right now. You know that, right? Like, I really fucking hate you.”
“It’s a given.”
“All I need to do is get this guy to fall for me and I get a bath. When can I go home? I mean, once I’ve lured him in, I don’t have to do anything, right?”
“What part of you will have this guy completely devoted to you don’t you understand?” Gabriel asked.
“Look, a week ago, I was a waitress and the post lady. In a matter of hours, I’ve been taken against my will, brought to a foreign land, and told that I’m someone’s twin, which by the way, hurts. I was never adopted. While my better half got a good life, I had to fight to survive and believe me, it wasn’t an easy fight, and now you’re telling me I don’t even get to go fucking home!” She looked from one to the other. “On top of that, because I’ve got issues with it, I can’t even have a bath!” She slumped back and groaned. “Kill me now.”
Rick chuckled. “We both know you’re going to take this deal.”
“How do you know? I don’t want to have some weirdo obsessed with me.” She didn’t see an alternative. Not that she intended to play along completely. She’d done this game with a foster dad who wanted to fuck her. He didn’t get what he wanted, but she got a warm bed for
a short time. “Fine. Fine. I’ll do it.”
“That was easy.”
“I want a bath, okay? I may be scum of the earth to you, but I like to be clean.” Even when she’d lived on the streets, she’d always tried to make it so she could have a bath. When she earned change from people passing by and wanting to do a good deed, she didn’t spend it on drink or drugs. Food, and a nice trip to the local swimming baths. She got a shower out of it, and it was relatively cheap on admittance.
Once she got her shit together to rent an apartment, there was no way she was ever going back on the streets, at least that was what she told herself daily. She had a plan and a way of executing it. She’d always been able to have a plan and to work around problems. Right now, it was a problem, a big one, but nothing she couldn’t fix. It would be easy for her handle.
“Fine. A bath it is.” Rick helped her to her feet and led her out of the room. She didn’t attack them. No, she would have to play along for the time being. It was the only way she was going to survive.
They went down a long corridor toward the end of the hall, then down a flight of steps. It was like a maze. Rick entered a huge bathroom. The bath itself was like a mini-pool. “You have everything you need in here. You’ve got ten minutes.”
“Wait, it will take that long for me to run the bath.”
“Oh, you’ve got ten minutes and then I’m coming in to make sure you’re not trying anything funny.” He held her wrist and lifted it up. She’d been too busy checking the layout of the house for a possible escape to realize he’d been holding her wrist, feeling her scars.
She tried to tug out of his hold but his grip tightened. “I didn’t try to kill myself, okay. This was an attack.”
“Really?”
“If you’re so smart, check it out. One of the kids didn’t take their meds or whatever. He tied me up, a couple of the other kids as well, and slashed our wrists. Told us he was bleeding the evil out of us. He ended up killing himself before the police got to us.” She shrugged. For weeks afterward, she had nightmares. “I’m sure there’s a police report for it. Believe me, no matter how horrible life gets, I’m not taking mine. Not yet. I will fight.”
