She knew…at least she thought she knew, but she wanted, needed, to hear the words. She had created a film company in Lion’s honor and, inspired by him, had dedicated her life to making films that made a difference. And Liam had dedicated his life to finding her, and he had built this beautiful home with her in mind. Yes, she knew the answer, but she needed to hear the words from him.
His dark eyes swam with emotion. Emotions she recognized in her own heart.
Realizing she couldn’t wait to give him the words herself, she said, “I’ve been waiting a long time for this moment,” she whispered. “To tell you I—”
Before she could say them, he pressed a finger to her lips. “We need to talk first, though. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Come on. Let me show you around. Then we’ll sit on the deck and talk.”
She followed him into the house, commenting on various aspects that pleased her the most. From the wraparound porch, to the heavy oak double-door entrance, to the wide-open living space, to the exposed beams of the ceiling, everything was exactly as she’d dreamed. The décor was comfortable and easy. The colors were muted earth tones with the occasional splash of color in a throw pillow or painting.
“I haven’t done a lot of decorating. I thought about getting a decorator to come in, but…” He shrugged. “I figured you’d have an idea or two about that, so I waited.”
If he didn’t stop, she was going to break down into a mess of emotional tears. This man had done so much for her already.
“Come on. Let me show you the view.”
She stepped out onto the deck and caught her breath at the beauty.
“Those are the Bitterroot mountains. We climb them occasionally.”
He pulled out a chair for her and then sat beside her. For long moments, they drank in the view. The sheer majesty of the snow-capped mountains brought peace and lessened her nerves. He wanted to talk to her. And she needed to share some things with him. They both needed to face that last day in prison before they could move on.
She settled herself and began, “The day they took me away.” She drew in a breath. “Let me start from the beginning. Okay?”
She had only ever told her therapist everything that had happened while she was in prison. Her mother and Becca knew some aspects of it, but she hadn’t been able to share all of them. But with Liam, she could. He was the one man, the one person who would understand.
“Any way you want to do it.”
“My cousin Becca and I were supposed to travel to Paris together. She caught a bad cold a couple of days before we were supposed to leave. She has asthma and her doctor recommended that she not go. She was disappointed, but I was devastated. Nothing and no one could talk me out of going by myself.”
She paused for a few minutes, contemplating how that one decision had cost her so very much. Naïve and clueless, full of youthful arrogance, she’d believed she had the whole world in her hands and nothing could touch her. Certainly nothing was going to stop her from doing what she wanted to do.
Yet, if she hadn’t gone, she never would have met Liam.
“I was in an open-air market when they took me. I don’t remember a lot. They injected me with some kind of sedative. When I woke up, I was in a room. My hands were tied, and I had a hood over my head. I couldn’t see anything. I could hear them, though. There were three of them.”
She paused again, gearing up for the next part. Apparently knowing what was coming, Liam took her hand from the arm of her chair and entwined his fingers with hers. He squeezed gently.
Taking strength from the tender gesture, she continued, “While two of the men held me down, one of them raped me. I fought, screamed, cried. They hit me to shut me up. I remember their vile words and their laughter the most.”
She paused again. Liam didn’t say anything, giving her the time she needed to regroup.
“When he finished, one of the men carried me to a large cell and chained me to the wall. When he walked away, I was able to pull the hood from my head. That’s when I saw the other women.
“There were eight of them in there with me. They didn’t speak and I was in too much pain to say anything. I don’t know how long I was there. Maybe a day or two, I’m not sure. I think a couple of the women tried to talk to me but I was in shock. Then I got sick. When I started coughing continuously, they moved me to a cell by myself.
“I don’t know how long I was there before you came. Maybe a couple more days. No one would talk to me, tell me why I was there. One of the men would just shove food into my cell once a day and then leave. I thought I would die there.
“I was in the midst of crying and praying for a miracle when I heard the most beautiful voice I’d ever heard say, ‘Hello.’”
Tears filling her eyes, she turned to him. “You were the answer to my prayers, Liam. I never told you that and so regretted not telling you before they took me away that day. You saved my life. Without you talking to me, encouraging me, giving me hope, I wouldn’t have survived.”
“And yet I almost got you killed.”
“What do you mean?”
Now it was his turn to tell her what he knew about her last day. The guilt he’d carried with him would never go away, but she deserved to know everything.
“I knew they would use you against me. I shouldn’t have made a connection with you. I should’ve kept my distance.”
The hurt on her face was painful to see, but he had to make her understand that what she went through that last day was his fault.
“When they took you, I could only imagine the horror of what you were going through. A few hours later, one of the men—the British guy—came back. He had a recording. It played for two days straight.”
“A recording?”
“Of your…assault. I heard you screaming and crying. You were calling out for me, and I couldn’t do a damn thing but listen as they tortured you. All because of me.”
“No.”
“Yes. If I hadn’t gotten close to you, you would’ve been spared. I fell into their trap. I knew what they wanted, to use you against me, and I let them get away with it. What you went through was my fault.”
“Listen to me, Liam, it wasn’t.” She held up her free hand to stop him from talking. “They never asked me anything about you.”
“Don’t try to make me feel better, Aubrey. I heard what they did. For two damn days, I listened to it. Even after the batteries ran out, I could hear you in my mind. I know what they did.”
“No, you don’t, Liam. They probably wanted you to think that, but that’s not what happened.”
His frown darker than any she’d ever seen from him, he said, “What do you mean?”
“They put a hood over my head and took me to that same room as before. I know it was the same, because it smelled like garlic, like the first time. I think that’s where they must’ve eaten their meals. Anyway, they threw me around. Mostly to scare me, I think. I cried and screamed. They laughed and called me names. And yes, I’m sure I did scream your name. I couldn’t help myself. You were my only anchor, so I called for Lion numerous times, I’m sure.
“Finally, one of them pushed me so hard against a wall, the blow knocked me out. When I came to, I was on the floor. They were a few feet away from me, talking about what they should do with me. Two of them wanted to sell me to some man in Austria. But the British one thought they should take the ransom that was offered.
“I was dazed, in pain, so it never really hit me that someone was going to pay my ransom. They argued for a while, and finally the British guy convinced the other two that the man in Austria would likely be disappointed that I wasn’t a virgin. He said he wouldn’t pay as much for me, so the ransom money was a safer bet.”
“Are you sure they didn’t ask what you knew about me, what I told you?”
“I promise you, Liam. They never mentioned you. At all.”
“The recording was explicit, Aubrey. I heard them.” Even now, after all these years,
he could close his eyes and hear her pleading, crying for them to stop. Hear her screams of pain and terror as she called out for him.
“Could it be they recorded what they did to me that first day?”
“I don’t know. You called out my name. Maybe the recording was from both the first and last days.”
Hell, the bastard had even given him a clue, and he hadn’t caught on. He’d said the recording was his little Cat’s greatest hits, implying it was more than one event. How had he missed that?
What had they wanted with her if it wasn’t to get intel from him?
“There’s more.”
He jerked back to the present. “What?”
“Once they agreed to take the ransom, the British guy said something I’ll never forget.”
“What did he say?”
“He said they were to send me home with a message. Seconds after that, they pulled me out of the corner, and the British guy started stabbing me.”
Liam closed his eyes. The scars Serena had mentioned.
“He didn’t intend to kill me, even the doctors said that. The cuts were deep, but he apparently knew enough about human anatomy to make sure he didn’t hit any major arteries. I passed out from the pain and blood loss. When I woke up, I was in a hospital in Connecticut.”
Send her home with a message.
A message to whom and for what reason?
She had been taken for a completely different reason than what he’d thought. Selling her had likely been one of the reasons, but not the main one. Why could an NYU college student, a young woman from a small town in Connecticut, be targeted in Paris and taken to Syria? What was the real purpose of her abduction?
That was something he intended to find out.
Was that why he’d never been able to find out anything about her? Everything had been covered up. It was like she had never existed. Serena Donavan was the best in the business when it came to finding people, and she had not been able to confirm that Cat even existed.
“When you came back home, did they do any kind of investigation?”
“Yes. I talked to someone from the FBI and the State Department. I was out of it for a few days, but when I woke, I told my parents about you, about the other women. Several people came in and got details from me.
“I didn’t hear anything for several days, but when I demanded to know what was happening, I learned that the prison had been decimated. They had no information on who had taken me or why. It was just assumed it was for the money.”
And yet there had been no official record of her abduction anywhere. If that wasn’t the definition of a coverup, he didn’t know what was. They’d given her minimal information, counting on her being too damaged and unknowledgeable about how investigations worked. Showing her the destroyed prison had been their final proof to her. It’s been destroyed, those people are dead, now get on with your life.
He’d learned long ago that if something smelled like a dead rat then it damn well was a dead rat.
“Liam? What’s wrong?”
He’d get to work on that later. For now, he needed to concentrate on Aubrey. She had just shared the most painful, agonizing moments of her life. She needed him to be fully present. And he needed to hold her and reassure himself that she was here, safe and secure.
“Come here.” He tugged on the hand he was still holding and pulled her up and onto his lap. He held her for several long moments, breathing her in and cherishing the strength and fortitude of this one precious woman.
She was shaking a little, revealing that the story had completely drained her.
“I don’t know why that happened to you, and I wish I could have been there for you.”
“You were there. If I didn’t have your voice in my head, telling me to be strong, be brave, I wouldn’t have survived.”
Holding her tight, Liam closed his eyes as he envisioned the pain and terror she’d experienced.
“What about you? You said your team rescued you. Were you in the military?”
“Yeah. Special Ops. I was a SEAL. So was Xavier. We got moved from our team and put on special assignment. We were in Syria to help a small faction that was trying to infiltrate a terrorist group. Somebody ratted us out. We got nabbed to give up the names of those people.”
“Did you ever find out who ratted you out?”
“No, not really. We got some intel pointing to certain people, but nothing we could hang our hat on.”
“So you’re like Jason Bourne or maybe Ethan Hunt?”
He snorted with laughter. “Not hardly. Those guys get shot, beat to a pulp, and blown up, then show up the next day with a bruise on their chins. When I get hurt, it shows.”
“Were you injured when you escaped the prison?”
“No, not then. Although I was close to the point of insanity, thinking about finding you. I had decided to lure them into my cell and overpower them. Don’t know if that would’ve worked, but I realized they weren’t going to bring you back. My only option was to escape. Then I didn’t have to. The team came and let me out. I went looking for you. No one was there.”
“The other women were gone too?”
“Yeah. Everyone was gone except for the three men my team took down. None was ever identified.”
“It was hard for you, leaving without knowing what happened to me.”
Hard was the mildest word he would use to describe how he’d felt. “I knew you weren’t there, but I couldn’t get it out of my head that I was leaving you behind.”
She gave him the saddest of smiles. “When we made that date to meet in New York, a big part of me knew it would never happen. But I held on to the hope.”
“We’ll do that someday soon. Go to New York, the library. Just like we planned.”
“I’d like that.”
Arms around each other, her head on his shoulder, they took in the beauty around them and the peace within them. There were still things to say, things to share. He had an investigation to launch. But for now, for just this little while, Liam soaked in the calm. His world was in his arms. What more could a man want?
Chapter Thirty-Two
Aubrey watched Liam devour the meal she had prepared, delighted that he seemed to be enjoying it so much. She hadn’t had much to work with—the man’s pantry and fridge were in dire need of a grocery trip. Not only that, he wasn’t exactly into health food.
“Did you know you have eight boxes of mac and cheese?”
“It was on sale.” He took another giant bite of the pasta with tomato sauce, chewed, and then grinned. “This is good. First home-cooked meal I’ve had in a while. I’m usually home a couple nights a week at the most. When I am here, I pop a couple of frozen dinners in the microwave.”
She wasn’t the most domestic person in the world, and definitely not the best cook, but she needed fresh fruits and vegetables daily.
He swirled up another massive forkful of pasta and carried it to his mouth, but stopped halfway. “This is a lame, first-date question, but what do you like to eat? What’s your favorite food?”
Before she could answer, his eyes wide with mock horror, he added, “You’re not a tofu-omelet-and-kale-milkshake kind of girl, are you?”
“What if I am?”
He shoveled the pasta into his mouth and shrugged. “Then I’ll build another pantry just for you.”
Her heart melted. Not because he said he would build her another pantry, but because to him it was a foregone conclusion that she would be staying with him indefinitely.
“You can relax. I’m an all-American cheeseburger kind of girl, but I do like fresh fruits and vegetables.”
“I can handle that.”
“Maybe after Serena leaves, we can go to the grocery store.”
Serena was coming over to review the information she had given them on Ferante. What she had wouldn’t hold up in court—most of it was conjecture and theory. But she had gladly given all she had to OZ and would offer any aid they needed. The man needed to be
stopped. For Emma and for all the others he’d destroyed over the years, she would do whatever was needed to help bring him to justice.
“We can do that. I’ll—”
He stopped and frowned down at his phone.
“What’s wrong?”
“Looks like I’ll have to leave for a couple of days.”
“What’s going on?”
“Just got a text from Ash. A guy we’ve been looking for has been located. I need to go have a chat with him.”
A “chat” with Liam was likely not a little conversation like it was for most people. Guns, knives, blood, and guts were often involved.
“This is crazy, but it suddenly occurred to me that what you do is very dangerous.”
“You going to be able to handle that?”
“Will I worry? Absolutely. But this is who you are. You save lives, and I can’t think of a more worthy thing to do. I would never want to change you.”
He took a swallow of his drink and then grabbed her hand, his fingers entwining with hers. “We haven’t talked about where we’re going with this. But I need to know. Are you with me?”
Her heart soared with happiness. “I’m one hundred percent with you. I fell in love with a strong, honorable, golden-voiced man named Lion. My love hasn’t changed just because his real name is Liam.”
His chair scooted back, and he was up in an instant, pulling her up with him. Cupping her face, he roamed his eyes over her. “And I fell in love with a sweet, spirited, courageous woman named Cat. Nothing’s changed to make me feel any differently.”
“Are we crazy?” she whispered. “Other people would say we don’t really know each other.”
“Other people don’t matter. We know each other in the most basic way possible. The other stuff we’ll learn along the way.”
He kissed her then, the way she’d been longing for him to kiss her from the beginning. His mouth moved over hers tenderly, persistently. His tongue entwining with hers promised delicious delights and pleasure untold.
She moaned against him, wanting more. Wanting everything.
RELENTLESS: An Option Zero Novel Page 20
