No one.
I take a deep breath and exit my room for the last time. Taking Owen’s advice, I walk casually through the hallway, down the stairs, and up to the front door. It takes everything in me not to look around to see if there is any one nearby.
Shit! Norah! I won’t get to say goodbye to her! My heart squeezes at the thought and I begin to turn around, but I can’t miss this opportunity to go. Plus, I don’t want to put Norah in danger. If she knows that I’m leaving, Lock will eat her alive. I grab the doorknob of the large wooden door and step outside.
Owen catches up to me by the time I’m almost to the end of the two mile-long driveway. I stop for a moment, thinking he is going to let me get into his Jeep, but he passes by and stops at the guard shack, ahead. When I make it to the shack, I overhear Owen speaking to the two men that are currently on duty.
“Yeah, the boss man wants me to take his rich bitch into the city for some shopping. Like I’m her fucking personal shopper or something. I tell you, I didn’t sign up for this shit.” At that instant, he looks up, appearing startled by my presence.
“Oh, Mrs. Finch, there you are. Are you ready to leave?” I look at the two guards, who are staring back dumbfounded. Then, I look to Owen who gives me a signal with his eyes telling me to play along.
“Yes, I would have been ready to go sooner, but I had to walk all of the way down the driveway. Wait until my husband hears about this!” I storm off, get into the back of his Jeep and slam the door behind me. I don’t look back at him, so I’m not sure what him or the other guards say or do, but I don’t care. I am shaking so badly and all I want is to get out of here.
* * *
“Fuck.” I hear Owen mutter next to me. I moved into the passenger seat of the Jeep once we made it out to the highway. I look over at him and see his eyes darting back and forth between the rear-view mirror and the road in front of us.
“What’s wrong?” I turn to look through the back windshield to see what he sees and I catch a glimpse of Steele’s black Lincoln weaving through traffic.
“Oh, shit! Owen, what do we do?” I scream.
“It’s okay. I know a few ways to get through the city. I’ll try to lose him.”
All I can think about is the fact that Steele is on Lock’s payroll for one reason and one reason only. To drive. If he wasn’t the best at it, he wouldn’t work for Lock.
All of the fear and terror that started to dissipate the further we got from the estate is now back in full force. I can feel myself starting to hyperventilate.
Owen puts his hand on my arm and tells me to calm down.
“Lana, I need you to trust me. I will get us out of this.”
I barely hear him as the traffic blurs by outside of my window. Before I know it, Owen cuts over three lanes of traffic and gets off at the exit for 47th Street. Heading at least fifty miles per hour down the thirty-five mile per hour exit ramp has my heart dropping like an anvil into my stomach.
As the car begins to slow slightly, I turn back around just in time to see the black Lincoln rounding the curve of the exit ramp and heading straight toward us.
Owen is looking for a break in traffic just big enough for us to cut in to but, before we get a chance, we’re struck hard from behind by Steele’s car. I scream as my head flies forward, narrowly missing the dashboard.
Just as this happens, the car approaching from the right slams on its breaks and stops short of the intersection, allowing Owen to floor it and get us out of there as quickly as we can. We drive straight until we get to East Fleet Street and take the corner so sharp that we’re practically on the sidewalk.
I turn around and sigh slightly at the absence of the black Lincoln. The feeling is short-lived however. After a moment, I see the front end of the car turn onto the street behind us a ways back.
Just as they make that left, we turn right down and alley. Flooring it the whole way, we make it to the end and out into the traffic on Smith Street before another car nearly t-bones us. We make an immediate left onto Hanaway Street and a sharp right into a parking garage.
“Why did you turn here? There is no way out!”
“Lana, trust me. Remember?”
I swallow to try and get the lump in my throat to disappear. We make it up to the third level and Owen stops the car. He grabs my bag from the back and tells me to get out. He runs over to my side of the car and takes my hand before leading me toward the stairwell. As he does this, I can hear the squealing of tires getting closer to us.
Owen tightens his grip on my hand and we sprint down the steps. When we get down to street level, we slow our pace just slightly and duck between the other pedestrians. Once we cross over 43rd Street, we make a right into another parking garage, several streets over from the one where Owen left his Jeep.
We take the steps up to the seventh floor. Owen walks me over to a silver Mercedes and clicks the button on the key fob to open the door. He opens my door for me before walking to the driver’s side and getting in.
We exit this garage drastically different from the way we entered the first garage; nice and slow and just my pace. We’re two streets away from the road that will lead us back to the highway. Once we start up the exit ramp, I turn around and look out the back windshield again, relieved to see that the black Lincoln is nowhere to be seen.
January 2015
Adrienne
I sit there in shock, not believing the words coming out of Lock’s mouth.
“No, there is no way. He was completely, undoubtedly happy about me being pregnant.”
“But not the entire time, right?”
“That’s not fair! It was a surprise… for both of us!”
“Adrienne, all I’m saying is, he took you and the entire situation for granted. He hurt you and that hurt me. I would never treat you the way that he’s treated you the past few weeks. It’s completely unacceptable. I’ve told him this countless times and each time he brushes it off as if it’s nothing.”
I can’t believe the words that are coming out of Lock’s mouth. I can’t or I don’t want to, either way, it’s the same outcome. Shock. Sadness. Heartbreak. This is not my Marshall. This isn’t the kind of behavior that he exhibits.
A voice in my head chimes in, ‘Yeah, but you’ve never put him through such heartache before’. The tears start rolling down my face as Lock comes and sits back down next to me.
“Adrienne,” he says. “Please don’t cry. He doesn’t deserve your tears. While you’ve been here, easing your loneliness, he’s been out there trying to ease the guilt he feels over your situation. It’s not fair to you to continue thinking that he hangs the moon. The man is not the God that he’s made you believe he is.”
Then he grabs me and brings me in for the most passionate kiss that I’ve had since my miscarriage. My mind and body wavers between feelings of lust and guilt. I’ve needed the longing touch of someone these last few weeks. It feeds into my soul and warms me from the inside out. I’m too caught up in the moment that I don’t hear my phone vibrating on the table at my feet.
Marshall
Fuck! I am in my car at this point, driving like a bat out of hell toward Lock’s apartment. I’ve tried calling Adrienne five times along the way and its rung forever and gone to voicemail each time. Is she ignoring me? I start to get angry, but realize that I have no right to be. It’s all my fault that we’re in this situation in the first place.
How could I ever have denied her during one of the most difficult times? Shit! How could I have denied her at all? She’s my everything. The baby was our future and I was so caught up with the whole ordeal that I let everything else in my life go to shit.
I practically Tokyo-drift my way onto the sidewalk in front of Lock’s building. I jump out of the car without turning it off first. Sprinting through the lobby, I press the up button for the elevator way more times than necessary. If his apartment weren’t 30 floors above, then I would just take the stairs.
The elevator doors finally open and I force my w
ay in as several people are trying to exit, giving me snarls and nasty looks as they go. I press the button for the 31st floor, enter the passcode to Lock’s floor and begin my ascent.
I crash into the penthouse when the doors open and run down the hall screaming Adrienne’s name the whole time. When I make it to the living space, I see her enter from the hallway that leads to the bedrooms. Her hair is messy and her lipstick is smeared.
“Marshall? What are you doing here?” she asks, shock written all over her face as Lock appears behind her, enveloping her in his arms. The sight makes me crazy and I charge. The only thing stopping me is Adrienne as she cowers in fear at my attack.
I slow as I get near her and pick her up off of the floor. At the same time, Lock grabs her under her arms and helps to lift her up off of the ground.
“You sick son of a bitch!” I scream at Lock. I try moving Adrienne behind me, but Lock has a good grip on her arm, keeping her back, away from me.
“I’m the sick one?” Lock asks.
“Yes, you!”
“Who is the one that abandoned their wife in her desperate time of need? You were the one who put their feelings above hers. You don’t deserve her! Adrienne, don’t you see what he’s doing?” She looks between me and him, a confused expression on her face.
“Adrienne, you can’t believe anything that comes out of his mouth. You need to believe me right now, more than you ever have before. Lock caused our miscarriage.”
“What?” she shrieks, shooting daggers at me. “How dare you! Lock has been there for me every second of every day for the last three weeks when you weren’t!”
“I know, baby. I’m so sorry for that and I will never be able to make it up to you. But he drugged you! He and Curtis developed a drug to terminate pregnancy no matter the stage. You have to believe me! I was happy! I was ready to be a father. I thought the worst because of what happened to my mother and my brother. Please, baby. Believe me!”
She looks over at Lock and asks, “Is it true?”
“Of course not, he’s crazy! I love you, Adrienne. I love both of you. I love Marshall enough to get him the help that he needs to get through this tough time.”
“Marshall,” she turns back to me. “How do you know this? You’ve always asked me to trust you and I have. I also trusted you to stick by me through thick and thin. You’ve always told me that we can get through anything as long as we have one another. How can I trust you now, when you went back on your word?”
“I have no right to ask this of you, but there have been several times in our lives together where I’ve asked you to trust me, remember?”
“Yes, but I trusted you when you said that you were happy about welcoming our child into this world. But that turned out to be false.”
“No, baby. That’s not the case at all! I was so happy. Happier than I’ve ever been. You know that! Deep down in your bones, you know it! Tell me that you know it!”
She stands there wavering. She looks behind her at Lock and then back at me before answering.
“I do. I know it.”
“Adrienne,” Lock interrupts. “Don’t let him suck you into his craziness. He’s not a good person. He threw you away and blamed you for killing his child!”
“I didn’t kill his child and he doesn’t believe that either. Why would you say that?” she questions Lock.
“I didn’t mean that you killed your child. I just—”
“No! You’re playing me! Aren’t you? Did you drug me?”
I look at Lock thinking that he has a quick answer to shoot back at her, making her believe that he’s telling the truth. It doesn’t look like he is as quick to think of a response though. He turns and runs back down the hallway. At the same moment, Adrienne runs over to me.
I throw my arms around her and kiss her like I’ve never kissed her before. I stand up and turn around, walking back toward the elevators, ready to take my wife home.
Adrienne
Marshall grabs me in a hug, walking me toward the elevator to leave. As he presses the down button to call the elevator, he screams out. I see a spray of red splatter on the walls around us. Marshall turns around, his back to my front.
I look over his shoulder and see Lock moving closer toward us, a handgun firmly in his grasp, a silencer on the barrel. I gasp in fear as Marshall begins to speak again.
“Lock, don’t do this! You want the company? You’ve got it. You want access to all of the research, you’ve got it. Just please think about what you’re doing.”
Before I know it, Lock fires two more shots, hitting Marshall in the chest and the stomach. He falls, like a weight, to the floor. I scream bending over him, praying that he isn’t dead. As I do so, I feel Lock’s hand on my arm.
I look up at him and scream, “What did you do! Why did you shoot him? You’re a monster! Please! We need to help him! Please don’t let him die!”
“Oh, princess… he should be the least of your worries. You’re mine now.” He raises his hand, exposing a syringe. I scream as he plunges it into my neck before everything goes black.
Present Day
Lana
We barely made it to the airport on time. Owen was smart to limit us to carry-on luggage. Quick entry, quick exit. Standing in the line to go through security I look down at my boarding pass. Well, Adrienne Trent’s boarding pass.
I was confused when I first saw the last name. I couldn’t understand why Owen would use Marshall’s last name for my alias. He explained that Lock would never think of it, but seeing that name, just rubs me wrong. Sure, Owen knows what he’s doing but I can’t shake this off-kilter feeling.
“I need everyone to take off their shoes, belts, and watches, and take your keys and money out of your pockets. Place all of it into one of these bins” the security guard picks up a shallow, tan, rectangular bin to show to everyone. “Then, place the bin on the conveyer belt, along with your carry-on luggage, so it can pass through the x-ray scanner.”
I unlace my shoes and take them off, holding them in my hand. Once I make it to the stack of bins, I take one and place my shoes in it along with my purse, passport, and boarding pass. Then, I turn and walk through the metal detector.
Fear creeps up my spine just before walking through it. Getting here, pulling this whole plan off, it all seems too good to be true. It seems like it was too easy.
But, if I can make it through here, if I can actually make it onto that plane and leave behind the terror and hell that runs my life then maybe it will start to feel real. Until then, I can’t help but think that there will be a brick wall, stopping me from running at every turn.
When we make it to the gate, I turn to Owen and let him know that I need to use the rest room.
“I’m not letting you go by yourself. I can’t lose sight of you.” He looks around. “Let’s use that family rest-room over there. I’ll wait just outside.”
He starts walking and I follow him. When we make it to the restroom, I stop before opening the door and look at him with tears in my eyes.
“Owen, I don’t know how I will ever thank you for doing this. Countless times, you’ve risked your life for me when you didn’t have to. You and Norah were the only good things in that horrible place.”
He looks at me almost with pain in his eyes. “There isn’t anything that I wouldn’t do for you, Lana. I love you.” He leans in and kisses me, softly, on the lips. “Go ahead, we’re going to be called to board any minute.”
I’ve always wondered if Owen’s feelings for me ran deeper than I thought, but not once in the time that I have known him have I ever felt like he wanted more out of our friendship; until now.
I haven’t had any kind of passion in my life that I remember, so you’d think that our kiss would have given me butterflies. Unfortunately, for a reason I don’t quite understand, it leaves me feeling uneasy and suspicious.
Does he want more from me? Does he believe that I owe him my heart and my body for being there for me for the past three years?
I’d like to believe that I would want to and be able to give myself to him one day, but Lock has ruined the feeling of another’s touch for me; so much so that the kiss sends panic through my body immediately.
* * *
Since Owen had to wait until the last minute to get the airline tickets, he wasn’t able to get seats next to one another, but we are in the same row. Owen sits by the aisle, I have a window seat, with a woman sitting between us, but that does little to calm my nerves.
Between not having Owen next to me and the fact that I’ve never been on a plane before, I feel like I could be sick at any moment.
In an effort to distract myself, I reach down and pick up the magazine in the pocket of the seat in front of me. At the same time, almost as if he can read my mind, I hear Owen begin to speak to the woman sitting next to me.
“Excuse me, ma’am?” he looks at her with that killer smile of his.
“Yes?” she responds.
“I don’t suppose that you’d want to switch seats with my wife? That way we can sit next to each other? We’re on our honeymoon.”
She turns to look at me, and then back at Owen, “Oh, absolutely!“
I mouth “thank you” to Owen and stand up. Owen and the woman move out into the aisle to let me through. I hear the woman speak as I turn around to thank her.
“Congratulations, by the way!” she says, before moving to the window seat.
I follow her in. Owen and I take our seats as the flight attendants move up and down the aisle making sure that everyone’s electronic devices are off and ensuring the overhead bins are secure.
Once that is complete, the chief flight attendant moves to the front of the cabin and begins giving her speech on the intercom.
“Attention passengers, my name is Chloe and I’ll be your chief flight attendant today. On behalf of Captain Smith, First Officer Banks, and the entire crew, welcome aboard Island Airlines flight 1379, with non-stop service from Pittsburgh to Miami, then continuing on to Willemstad, Curacao.
Stolen Love (The Wildheart Duet Book 1) Page 15
