by Tijan
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
We could hear them yelling.
We were already over a ridge and down another small hill, out of their sight, by the time they realized their mistake.
But it wasn’t soon enough.
That thought plagued me. Not soon enough. Not for Kai. Not for the way he had everything planned and calculated ahead of time. It didn’t make sense, but I pushed forward. I had to.
Blade and I sprinted past trees, their branches whipping against us. He stumbled once, but rolled right back to his feet. Our Hider training came back to us. Regulate your breathing. Don’t overexert yourself. Keep your head up to see the best. Shoulders in a comfortable position. I pumped my arms when I grew weaker. Push off your heels. Roll through your toes in a circular motion. Envision your feet as if they’re wheels. Keep going.
Just.
Keep.
Going.
We ran. It started drizzling, and we ran through that too.
We kept going downhill. There were two farms. We should’ve been close by now.
But that thought still bothered me. Kai had messed up, big time. But he didn’t make mistakes.
If that were true, then he’d wanted us to run.
Right?
The other option was to stay, unless it’d been a test. I’d failed if that was it.
But no. That was a mind fuck. If you’re given a chance at freedom, you take it. That was a golden rule for humanity.
“There!” Blade shouted, pointing ahead at a light.
It was one of the farms. Veering toward it, we paused just before breaking from the tree line. A large red barn loomed in front of us, the paint fading and stripped off. A large fence circled out for livestock, but there were no animals. The fence was broken in more than one place, and the grass grew tall. It hadn’t been mowed for a long time. There was a small cabin structure behind the barn, but the door was half gone. A side of the house had fallen in on itself. No one lived here, hadn’t for a long time.
“There might be shelter.”
Blade started forward.
I caught his arm. “No.”
“Come on.” He motioned to it. “I know it’s not ideal, but we need a break from the rain. At least for a little while.”
I shook my head. “No, Blade. It’s not right. Something doesn’t feel right.”
“What are you talking about?” He raked a hand over his face, wiping some of the rain away. It didn’t matter. More fell down from the tree above us. “I need a break. Five minutes, then we push off again.”
He started forward, and that’s when I saw the camera. It was positioned at the top of the barn, angled at us.
Right at us.
Oh shit.
A bad feeling sank in my stomach.
I saw the second camera just as Blade stepped from the tree line.
And the first camera moved with him.
They were watching us. That’s why they were late in chasing us.
Oh my God.
He kept going, and that camera kept tracking him. The second was moving around, scanning up and down the trees. It was looking for me.
“Blade,” I called out. “Do not stop. Do not look back at me.”
His shoulders tensed, but he did as I said.
“They’re watching us. There’s a camera on you.”
“Go,” he yelled back.
I shook my head, though he couldn’t see. “I can’t.”
“Go, Riley!” He kept walking forward. “Go! I mean it. Find Carol. She’ll help.”
But I couldn’t. My stomach clenched in a tight knot, but I knew I wasn’t leaving him. Blade had a better chance with me as a captive than me free. The Bennetts had no loyalty to him. At least Tanner and Jonah cared about me. I had to trust that, trust that Brooke loved her brothers for a reason.
“I can’t go.”
I gritted my teeth…
“NO, Riley!”
I stepped forward.
The second camera snapped to my position. I stopped, my arms out, and because I hated just giving in, I raised my middle finger.
The back barn doors burst open, and all those guards from the warehouse came streaming out. Kai was in the middle, walking at a more sedate pace. His gaze landed right on me. He wore the same mystified expression as before.
Two of the guards grabbed Blade, another two headed for me.
I held my hands out. “If you grab me and shove me to the ground, I will kill one of you.”
They paused. One glanced back to Kai, who nodded, still walking forward.
“I’ll handle her,” he said. He nodded to Blade. “Take him.”
They put Blade in one of the SUVs.
Kai took my arm. He walked me to another SUV as the other one pulled away at high speed.
“Was that all a setup?”
Kai glanced at me as the door opened. I got in the back, not fighting, and slid over. He got in beside me. The door closed, and we took off. We only had one guard with us.
Kai was becoming more and more lenient with me. That was good, very good. I glanced over at him.
He was on his phone, typing, but said, “Marcus, can you put the heat on full blast for Miss Bello? She’s chilled to the bone.”
I refused to feel anything for his thoughtfulness. He was the reason I’d been out running. It was nighttime. It’d been raining. I was soaked.
He finished whatever he had to do on his phone, put it away, then reached behind him for a blanket.
He put it over my lap. “Get warm with this.”
I eyed him, pulling it up to cover myself.
There was no anger. There was almost nothing on his face, but there wasn’t the wall I’d grown used to seeing.
Without looking at me, he rested his head against his seat. “We let your friend keep his phone. He tucked it next to his junk. He doesn’t think we knew it was there, but we did. He walked through a full-body scan. We thought he might use it when you ran for your escape.” He stopped and looked at me now. His eyes were piercing. “Did he?”
My mouth dropped.
This was why it hadn’t felt right. It wasn’t just the cameras.
Goddamn him. Goddamn him!
My nostrils flared. “Were you watching the whole time?”
No hesitation. “Yes.”
“The woman? Was that a show?”
Still no hesitation. He answered freely. “No. She’s the head of a victim’s advocate group. She’s been after us for years. Her son died in a shooting. She thinks we’re to blame for her son’s murderer having his gun in the first place.”
“Was she right?” I bit out.
“Maybe.” His eyes dipped before coming right back up. Still no emotion. “There was no serial number. We don’t typically transport those guns, but we have in the past. Her son was murdered by his lover. I have no idea if we’re to blame or not.”
Why was he telling me this? This was more than I needed to know.
Then I knew. “Did you put a tap on me? You heard Blade tell me about her, didn’t you?”
His eyes enlarged, just a fraction of an inch. “No. We were given confirmation that she approached your friend, not the other way around. He didn’t even know her, did he?”
I shrugged, my jaw hardening. “Does it matter? She’s dead. You killed her.”
“She got one of our guns—”
“Bullshit! I know you don’t make mistakes. She was allowed to grab that gun.” I shouldn’t have been yelling, but I was. Too much had happened over the last few days. “You wanted a reason to kill her, and she gave you one. Self-defense. Your only mess-up is that I saw it.”
I quieted.
He didn’t reply.
And then—fuck. “You meant me to see that, didn’t you?”
Of course he did. I closed my eyes, my head hanging forward. I felt a headache coming.
“You wanted me to see because if I hadn’t, I would assume it was a blatant murder. Blade would’ve said the same, but we both
saw, and if need be, we’ll testify it was self-defense.”
Of course.
My God, of course.
Not a goddamn thing happened without Kai’s calculation behind it.
He was cold, ruthless, and not human. No one with humanity could plan all of this out to the umpteenth detail.
“Did you have cameras in the woods?” My voice was dull, bleak. It made me cringe, just hearing myself.
“Yes.”
Honesty. That was one good trait he had. Maybe the only one.
“Of course, you fucking bastard.”
There was no fight in me anymore. Those words left me on a surrendering sigh, and I turned toward the window. We were moving fast. The trees rocketed past us. Here I was, locked in this vehicle. I was warm, but moments ago, I’d thought I was running for my life.
What a fool I’d been.
“You thought if you let us go, Blade would call for help.” I already knew that was the plan. I was starting to catch on to his methods. Slowly. “You were going to trace the call and see if they led you to Brooke. Weren’t you?”
A pause.
I felt him watching me, but I refused to look at him. I refused even to search him out in the window’s reflection.
“Your friend said he knew where Brooke was,” he said. “He failed to bring her. He wouldn’t cooperate and answer our questions. We had two options: put him in a situation where he’d show his cards willingly or make him do so with force. I promised not to hurt your friend, so I chose this route. I would do it again.”
His phone buzzed. He took it out of his pocket and read the screen before replying and putting it back. “And you were wrong. While you were running, he did stop and make a call. We have a new target.”
“Who?” I turned to him.
He looked away this time. “We’ll find out.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I’d been shut out.
We didn’t go back to the hotel, and I had no clue where they’d taken Blade. We drove up to another huge house, and they took me to my own wing. Yes. Wing. Again. It wasn’t the same house, but once I stepped out on another balcony, high above another death-defying fall, I recognized where we were: their Vancouver estate.
This was home for Brooke, the home she always used to talk about. I knew from those stories that there was an Olympic-sized pool, a tennis court, and a lazy river where she would go tubing with Tanner and their friends. There were more houses on this estate, and a garden that had its own maze.
Brooke loved this home.
She spoke about it with such fondness. She had also talked about her father’s study, though when she did there was no warmth in her voice. There was fear. He’d conducted his business in that room, which had its own entrance.
Sighing, I had to stop myself.
I was thinking back as if this were a common occurrence, as if Brooke had opened up to me about these memories. She hadn’t. These were small snippets I’d gathered from a comment here and there, spread out over an entire year.
She’d talked about the tennis court, about swimming, about the river. She’d mentioned her father’s study. One time she mentioned seeing a man enter through the side door.
But I’d listened and absorbed everything, because that was the kind of girl I was. It was the same now.
It was day three of me being in this house.
My wing had its own kitchenette, and a coffee machine too. I could pick up the phone and ask for any food I wanted. I was in the lap of luxury, but it wasn’t mine.
This had been Brooke’s life.
There was a small-theater-sized screen in the living room, and a sectional couch that had a bed in the middle so it was one giant square.
I couldn’t imagine this life.
Mine had not been like this. There’d been wealth, yes, but everything was overshadowed by my parents, by my father. I’d slept in the hallway most nights, a blanket with me and nothing else. I’d had to sneak back to my room each morning.
I’d had a chef who cooked for me, but it wasn’t normally what I wanted. It was whatever my father ate and left behind. I was never allowed to eat with him. My mother usually took her meals in her room. If she didn’t, she still couldn’t eat with me, only with him. So while I’d also had a gilded cage growing up, a line of terror had run through my background.
I didn’t remember a time when I wasn’t scared my father would snap, find me, send for me.
I didn’t feel that with Kai.
Maybe I should’ve.
I should’ve feared for Blade’s life. The logical part of my brain told me to think about that, but my instincts told me he was safe, just as I was.
I let out a breath and reached for the remote control. I was changing the channel when I heard a soft knock on my door.
I looked over from the couch. “Yeah?”
I expected a guard to walk in with dinner. It was that time, and they always knocked. If I didn’t answer, they told me my food was outside the door. Of course they were there when I opened—if I opened—the door, but they never came in unless I granted them permission.
This time the door opened and Kai walked in.
I sat up straight, my heart slamming against my chest.
It’d been three days since I ran from him. I’d had no word from him since.
He looked good.
I tried not to notice, but I did.
My eyes ran over him, taking in the way his shirt fit his chest, showing the leanness of his stomach and falling in just the right place over his pants. He looked all business, his hair combed back. I had to pry my eyes away from the rest of him.
I didn’t want to see the knowing smugness in those dark eyes, or the smirk that curved his mouth.
“Where’s Blade?” I scowled.
He stopped. I heard a soft sigh before he took a seat on the couch parallel to me. He leaned forward, resting his arms on his legs, his hands folded together over his knees. He angled his head toward me, a shadow falling over half his face.
“I brought a chef in. The guys said you haven’t eaten dinner yet. Would you have dinner with me?”
I frowned. “You’re not telling me? You’re asking?”
“I’m asking.” He inclined his head. “Tanner and Jonah are coming later tonight as well, if you’d like to have drinks with them.”
I studied him, really studied him.
That wall was there, but there was more. A lightness? But that didn’t make sense, not for someone like Kai Bennett.
Still, I was curious.
I sat up, stiffly, and shrugged. “Sure. What time?”
“Dinner will be in thirty minutes. Will you have enough time to dress?”
I scanned over his clothes. He could’ve been on the cover of a fashion magazine.
I sighed. “I’m guessing you don’t do dinner in sweats?”
A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. “For the right occasion, always.” He stood, nodding toward the closet in the bedroom. “There are dresses in there, or you can dress however you like. I know Tanner and Jonah will be coming from a night at the club. It’s your choice.”
And with that said, he strolled out.
I hated to admit it, but it was good to see him. It was good to see anyone, talk to anyone. The guards didn’t count. Though I’d considered trying to have a conversation with them.
Okay.
I had tried. They ignored me.
Hearing Tanner and Jonah were coming gave me a little kick of excitement too.
I missed Blade. I missed Carol.
I missed my routine of going to work, working out, and being a Hider operative.
I missed my normalcy, which wasn’t that normal, but it was to me.
As I dressed, I knew I needed to question Kai about Blade. I wanted to make sure he was safe, was okay, and if I could, talk Kai into letting him go.
I was nervous and grew even more so when I’d picked the outfit I was going to wear.
I didn’t want
to go too dressy, but I heard what he was telling me without saying the words. Tanner and Jonah would be dressed up. Everything they wore screamed money. So maybe it was them in the back of my mind, maybe it was Kai, or maybe it was the hope that maybe I could talk Kai into letting Blade go, or maybe there was a part of me that didn’t want to feel like the outcast. Whatever the reason, I chose an elegant black pantsuit. The middle plunged down all the way to my stomach, but sheer lace covered the midsection.
I stepped back, looking in the mirror, and again, I didn’t recognize myself.
I was a far cry from the Hider operative who dressed in scrubs, workout clothes, or whatever set of clothes my “cover” had me wearing.
Blade, Carol, and I had dinner out once or twice a month, but nothing fancy.
When I left my father, I’d left that world behind.
This would’ve been me if I had stayed, if I had lived.
If.
That was a big word there.
I’d been happy with Blade and Carol, but being here, coming back to this world, a small what-if had started to take root in me. It wasn’t the what-if of Brooke staying at school, or of somehow growing up with the Bennett family. It was what-if my father had been a different man, if my mother hadn’t been abused by him, if I hadn’t been scared of living in my own home—that what-if. What would life have been like if I’d had a normal family?
Not even wealthy.
If we’d had a meal at a restaurant? If there’d been no factories or business conglomerates, no privileged schooling, just a father, a mother, and a child? A home with three bedrooms instead of three wings? Or one bathroom instead of one entire servant quarters?
What would that life have been like?
I sighed, fixing my hair back into a high bun, and I even put on makeup. All those thoughts were useless. That wasn’t the card I was dealt growing up, and in the end, I was alive. I had a mission, an important mission to focus my life, and that was good.
I was good.
I slipped my feet into a pair of sandals, but I felt naked walking out of that room without a sweater, runners to run, or any type of covering I might need if I had to make a break for my life.
No matter the thoughts swirling in my head, that part of me would never be gone. But for the first time ever, I began to wonder if that’s what I wanted for the rest of my life.
