Running Strong

by Christy Reece

  “Why would he be off-limits?”

  “His family.” Her shoulders lifted in a halfhearted shrug. “They were in a different class of society.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Despite the circumstances, Raphael’s curse gave her heart a lift. Social status had never meant anything to him. She was glad to see that that hadn’t changed.

  “I was so serious about doing everything right. Making sure I didn’t attract attention. Danny couldn’t have cared less about being proper.”

  And if she were being honest with herself, she could admit that his lack of propriety was the thing that had attracted her the most. She had been so serious, so afraid of doing anything wrong.

  “We started dating. He never talked about his family, and I didn’t want to talk about mine. We lived in a bubble, and that worked for both of us.

  “We dated for only a few months. I was young, so very naïve. I couldn’t be honest—tell him who I really was, who my father was—but I did try to tell him that we shouldn’t get serious. That there were things he didn’t know.”

  She shook her head. There was naïve and then there was just plain stupid. She had definitely been in the latter category.

  “None of that seemed to bother him. A few weeks later, he asked me to go with him and a group of his friends to Las Vegas for spring break. It seemed innocent enough. There would be a lot of other people going. Just a group of young people having a good time.”

  She paused. The next part of the story was one of her deepest, most profound regrets, but hiding from her mistakes would do her no good. It had happened, and she was still dealing with the consequences.

  “On our first night there, I…guess I had too much to drink. I woke up the next morning and discovered that we had gotten married.

  “I had never done anything so reckless or foolish in my life. I knew my mother would be devastated that I’d gotten married without telling her.” She closed her eyes. “She found out before I could call her. The news was out.”

  “How did the news get out?”

  “He’s a Fletcher. He was newsworthy no matter what he was doing. Daniel Fletcher the Third marrying the daughter of a convicted human trafficker and murderer? It was salacious, lurid. Perfect for the tabloids.”

  “Did you know who his family was?”

  “Yes and no. Mackie had told me his family was wealthy and influential. At the time, it didn’t really mean anything to me. Danny made it seem like it was no big deal. When I saw my real name and photograph splashed across the front pages of tabloid magazines, I realized it was a very big deal.

  “Legitimate news services wouldn’t have reported it without verifying the info. The Fletchers have some sort of hold over what kind of publicity is printed or said about them. The tabloids didn’t care. They weren’t beholden to the family and, for once, had the truth on their side.

  “After it was out, the major news outlets picked it up as a ‘we haven’t confirmed this report’ kind of story. The damage was already done. My mother and his parents found out in the worst way possible.”

  “Did Fletcher realize how dangerous this was for you and your family?”

  “I had to tell him then—about WITSEC and the difficulties we’d caused. He said his parents were so powerful and so wealthy that no one, including Reddington, would dare touch me now that I was a Fletcher.”

  “And to hell with the rest of your family.”

  She didn’t flinch but felt the shame all the same.

  “Yes. Once the story of our marriage got out, our cover was blown. I went home and said goodbye to my mother, Amelia, and Eric. They were relocated.”

  “You didn’t want to go with them?”

  Of course she had. It had taken every bit of strength she had left to let them go. “I was married. I stayed with Danny.”

  She couldn’t deny that shame had played a big role in her decision to stay. To know that she was responsible for not only putting her family in danger, but also for destroying the life they’d built in North Carolina.

  “My new in-laws, as you might imagine, were not exactly thrilled.”

  “I thought you said they were cordial to you.”

  “They were. That’s the Fletcher style. Play the role until it’s no longer necessary. I had no idea that they felt any antipathy toward me until after Danny died. They were as welcoming as if they had arranged the marriage themselves.”

  She had been so clueless, so happy that they weren’t angry, so eager to please, she hadn’t read between the lines. She was married, determined to try to make her marriage work. They had been the only family she had left.

  In the end, she realized it had been just another monumental mistake. And she had no one to blame but herself.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Having been trained to never show an emotion he didn’t want to reveal, Raphael hid his hands at his sides so Giselle couldn’t see them fisted with rage. The more he heard, the more difficult it was for him to hold himself back. She clearly believed herself responsible for everything. And that was wrong. Damn wrong.

  He put the blame where it belonged—squarely on the shoulders of Daniel Fletcher III. Yeah, he knew he had more than a few unresolved issues, but those had nothing to do with seeing the facts. Giselle had been a babe in the woods when it came to detecting deceit and evil. She had met a player and never had a chance.

  No way Fletcher hadn’t known who she was. They might never know how he’d found out. But Giselle had been played whether she knew it or not. The quickie marriage sounded all too contrived for it to be anything other than a setup. Just how far had Fletcher gone? Considering who his parents were and what they were capable of, the bastard had likely gone as far as he needed to get Giselle’s compliance.

  Raphael remembered the first time he met Giselle, how artless and innocent she had been, believing the best in everyone. Even though Reddington had shattered many of those illusions, she’d still been naïve about the world. And that same naïve, young girl had been thrown into an ocean of sharks, expected to fend for herself.

  From the moment of her birth until she’d left that island, she had been sheltered, protected…virtually smothered. Every ounce of information she had received had been carefully filtered. She hadn’t been allowed access to newspapers or the Internet. The only things she knew were the things Stanford Reddington had deemed appropriate.

  Life lessons were learned out in the world through firsthand experience, but Giselle had received no preparation for that. With the right amount of money and influence, the scum of the earth could make themselves look like paragons of virtue and goodness. And she had fallen into their trap.

  It only made sense that Fletcher had seen her, wanted her. A beautiful innocent who’d had no clue who he was and what his family was capable of doing. He had betrayed her, put her entire family in danger. That sure as hell hadn’t been love.

  In truth, Raphael placed some of the blame on his own shoulders. It didn’t matter that she had left him. He should have put his bruised heart aside and made sure she was okay.

  She had said she didn’t make friends easily, but she’d had one friend—him—and he’d betrayed that friendship.

  “You called me after you married.”

  “Yes,” she said softly.

  “I’m sorry, Giselle. I should have called you back. Been there for you.”

  She frowned, shook her head vehemently. “You have nothing to apologize for, Raphael. None of what happened is your fault. It’s taken me a long time to come to terms with my bad decisions. Don’t take that away from me by trying to place the blame on yourself or anyone else.”

  Since she looked so miserable, he saw no point in arguing.

  “What happened after your family moved away? You stayed in college? Got your degree?”

  “Yes. We were only a few weeks from graduation, so we both went back and finished. After graduation, we moved to New York and lived with his parents.”

  “That co
uldn’t have been pleasant.”

  “It was actually quite nice for the first few months. In both public and private, they were very kind to me. There was never a hint at how much they resented or hated me.”

  “It didn’t stay that way.”

  “No. Danny grew bored with staying at home. We traveled a lot, which was fun at first. I had traveled so little, and it was exciting to see the places I’d only ever read about. But eventually, that became a bone of contention between us.”

  “How so?”

  “I wanted to settle down for good and raise a family. Have roots. Buy a house, make friends our own age. Live a normal life. Danny was always looking for the next grand adventure. It wasn’t until later that I realized how very much he hated his life. Traveling was just a way for him to escape.”

  “Having a child didn’t settle him down?”

  “Danny loved Gio, but being a father didn’t hold his attention for long.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with wanting a home and a family.”

  Years ago, that had been his hope for them. Marriage, a family, sharing their life together. He shoved aside those thoughts. They sure as hell didn’t help.

  “And your in-laws? They were okay with you living with them?”

  “Yes. Although we didn’t see each other that much. Daniel and Clarissa have an active social life. Gio and I stayed to ourselves much of the time. It was fine.”

  And she had been lonely. That much was easy to see.

  “When did you realize how your in-laws felt about you?”

  “It wasn’t until after Danny died that I knew for sure, but things changed a few days before that.”

  “How so?”

  Giselle took another sip of water before answering. In her mind’s eye, she saw herself back then and wanted to shake that naïve young fool until her teeth rattled. She had still been so very foolish, so very stupid.

  “I overheard something I wasn’t supposed to hear. As you know, the Fletchers’ house is a monstrously huge place. For a little boy of Gio’s boundless energy and curiosity, it was a wonderland waiting to be explored. One of his favorite games is hide-and-seek. One day it was raining, and we were playing. Daniel, my father-in-law, was rarely at home during the day. I was behind a sofa in one of the living rooms not far from his office, hiding from Gio. Daniel and another man came into the room.”

  She shrugged. “I would have made my presence known, but the other man was Hugh Rawlings, Daniel’s closest friend. Rawlings has always made me nervous. There’s just something about him that makes me uncomfortable. I decided to stay silent, hoping they would leave quickly and would never know I was there.

  “They didn’t, of course. They thought they were alone and began to discuss the murder of a family the year before. A woman and three children had been found dead, murdered in a seemingly random home invasion. They talked about how it disrupted the life of the husband and father. He was out of town when it happened and was a suspect for a while, but was finally cleared. No one was charged with the murders, but the husband was destroyed by them. A merger his company was working on with another company fell through.

  “At first, I thought Daniel was expressing sympathy. How you would when it’s someone you don’t personally know, but you identify with them on a human level of how awful life can be. It wasn’t until they continued on that I realized they were calmly talking about how successful the ploy had been and how much money Daniel and Hugh made off the man’s tragedy.

  “I don’t exactly know how that worked. What I do know is that Daniel was responsible. He, along with Rawlings, arranged the murders to destroy the man. Killing this man’s family prevented the merger, and Daniel and Hugh somehow profited.”

  The sheer horror of that moment often replayed in her mind. After hearing the damning conversation, she’d planned to stay hidden until they left. Her greatest fear had been realized when she’d seen a small, dark head appear at the doorway. Gio was still playing the game and had come to the room seeking his mama.

  Neither Daniel nor Rawlings had realized what was going on. Daniel had swept Gio into his arms, and both men had left with her son. Gio had seen her, though. Her heart had been in her throat, knowing if the men saw her while they had her son, she would have done anything they asked. But her beautiful boy had continued to play their game. She had put her finger to her mouth in a shushing motion. His dark brown eyes, so like his father’s, had twinkled with mischievous merriment, and he had said nothing. The men had walked out of the room, and she had dashed out another door.

  She had thought she was safe.

  “How did they find out?” Raphael asked.

  “There’s a camera in almost every room. I didn’t know that. One of Daniel’s security people saw the footage and went to him.”

  She had replayed over and over in her mind how that moment could have gone differently. In her fantasy, she jumped up before they could start talking, apologized for being there, and left quickly. Having the knowledge of what Daniel Fletcher was capable of, what he had done, had destroyed her life.

  “What happened when he found out?”

  “He came to me, told me to keep my mouth shut, or he’d make sure I regretted it. I acted like I didn’t know what he was talking about. He just nodded and smiled, told me to keep it that way.”

  “Did you tell anyone?”

  “I told Danny.” It had taken her forever to be able to find a private spot to do so. She had no clue whether their bedroom was bugged, but she couldn’t take the chance.

  “I managed to get him to agree to a walk on the beach. I told him what happened. What I heard and the threats his father made.”

  “What did he say?”

  The shock of that brief meeting still haunted her. “He told me almost exactly what his father told me. That I should forget about it. That it wasn’t any of my business.”

  “He wasn’t surprised.”

  “No. Apparently, doing away with people who get in their way was an accepted practice in the Fletcher household. Something he was very aware of.”

  “What happened after that?”

  “I told him I wanted to leave, to take Gio away from them. He surprised me by agreeing. He said he had a quick trip to make, and when he returned, we would leave. I didn’t believe him. I knew I was going to have to get out on my own. Before I could do anything, Danny was dead.”

  “Car accident?”

  “That’s what they said. I don’t know. His parents had him cremated before I even got the chance to say goodbye.”

  “Do you think Daniel arranged for his son’s death?”

  “I wondered, but I don’t know for sure. I certainly never asked. But why would he? Danny accepted the Fletcher way of doing business. He was no real threat.”

  “Did you try to leave on your own?”

  “I didn’t have a car. The only option was to have one of their drivers take us somewhere. If I’d called a taxi, it wouldn’t have been allowed inside the compound. If we’d left on foot, I knew we wouldn’t get far.”

  “There was no one you trusted to tell?”

  “Not really. The Fletchers hold an enormous amount of influence everywhere, including over law enforcement. Every dinner party they gave was filled with judges, police chiefs, even a couple of state Supreme Court justices. Going to the authorities would have meant certain death. I couldn’t take the risk.”

  “And then things changed between you and your in-laws?”

  “Yes. All I wanted to do was take my son and leave. They, of course, wouldn’t let me.”

  “Is Fletcher’s wife, Clarissa, involved? Does she know about the murders?”

  “I don’t know. Possibly. And even if she doesn’t, I don’t think it would really matter to her. She has her own priorities and agenda. What I told you before is the truth. Clarissa has an obsession with Gio. Maybe it’s because she failed so miserably with her own son and sees Gio as her second chance. I don’t know.”

  “Eith
er way, having you out of the picture would be beneficial to both of them.”

  “Yes.”

  “We’ll protect you, Giselle. You don’t have to worry about that. And we’ll get your son back, too.”

  “I believe you, Raphael. You’ve never let me down. And I know you never will.”

  “What happened after Danny’s death?”

  “Nothing at first. They included me in everything related to his memorial. They waited until things settled, and then it started. I was so focused on Gio, on comforting him, I didn’t notice it at first.

  “Clarissa’s remarks became more pointed, snide. I passed them off as a consequence of grief. When it became worse, I confronted her.”

  “How did that go?”

  “She denied it. Said it was my imagination. Or my own feelings of guilt.”

  “What would you have to feel guilty about?”

  “She needed someone to blame. I was a convenient target. If I had been a better wife, Danny would have been home instead of looking for his next adventure.”

  “Bullshit.”

  She sent him a grim smile. “I told her I thought it best that Gio and I leave. And that’s when I began to lose control over my life, my child. I became sick. The doctor said I could be contagious, so they kept Gio from me. The last thing I wanted was to make my son ill. I couldn’t think straight.

  “Late one afternoon, I woke and had no real idea where I was or what was going on. I only knew I needed to find my child. I went looking for him and couldn’t find him. I ended up outside. They were having a party. I probably looked like a ghostly wraith or something. I think I had my nightgown on, and I’d lost so much weight by then I probably looked like death. I was too distraught to care about my appearance.”

  It took every bit of Raphael’s willpower not to reach out to comfort her. He could tell the experience was devastating to her.

  “I’ll spare you the dramatic details. Suffice to say that several people saw me, heard my tearful ranting. I don’t really remember much. I think someone must have carried me back to my room. It wasn’t too long after that when I woke up in the mental hospital.”