by J. Kenner
I wait, expecting him to sigh and roll his eyes, then complain and agree.
He doesn’t. All he says is, “No.”
“Ollie. Please.”
“Fuck that,” he says generally. “And fuck you,” he adds to Damien.
“Orlando,” Charles says. “You’re being unreasonable.”
“Maybe. But you’re no longer my boss.” He draws a breath as he looks around the room full of men, several of whom wear shoulder holsters. “I’m guessing I can’t just go back to my hotel.”
“Don’t worry,” Damien says, his voice deceptively calm. “We got plenty of room.”
The house is full of people. Friends. Family.
Damien.
Everyone is here. So many people I care about. So many who care about me.
And I still feel completely alone.
It’s close to two, and I’ve spent the last hour in the girls’ room playing with Lara while Moira took a break.
Now I’m standing alone on the balcony looking out at the Pacific. I feel numb. I feel raw. And the only thing that changes when Damien comes up behind me and pulls me close is that I no longer feel alone.
I lean back against him, letting his strength flow through me. Wishing he had enough for the both of us. Wishing that he had enough to simply will her to be home again.
How often have I thought that about him? That he commands the universe. That the world bends to his will?
But it’s not true. My husband is as mortal as I am, and I’m not sure if that’s a comfort or a tragedy.
“We’ll get her back.” His lips brush my hair as he speaks, his voice rumbling through me. “I promise you, I’ll get her back.”
I want to believe him, but I can’t quite manage. “Why haven’t we heard anything? We should have a ransom demand by now.”
“I know. I’m worried, too.”
I turn in his arms, surprised by the admission, my heart breaking even more from the pain on his face.
“It’s been longer than twenty-four hours.” It’s the first time I’ve voiced this fear. “I’ve always heard that—”
He presses a finger to my lips. “We’ll get her back.”
Our eyes meet and an eternity passes. Then I nod. We’ll get her back.
“What does Dallas say?”
“He thinks the demand will come today. They released Bree as a show of good faith. Next, they’ll demand the money.”
“She must be so scared.” My voice shakes, reflecting my own terror.
Damien closes his eyes, then silently nods.
His phone buzzes, the tone signaling a call from the guard tower. His brow creases as he takes the call, then he rubs his temples. “Blaine’s here to install the painting,” he tells me, then tells the guard to let him pass.
“Oh.” I blink, uncomfortably reminded of life going on beyond these walls. “We never did say where we want it. Have him take it to the bungalow.”
Damien agrees, and we go back inside. I’m prepared to go down to meet Blaine, but I don’t really want to. Apparently, Damien doesn’t either, because he signals to Evelyn, who hurries over, still looking put together even though she spent the night in a chair despite our offer of a guest room.
“Would you mind going with Blaine to the bungalow. He’s at the guard station right now. He’ll be installing a painting.”
“Oh.” She glances sideways at me, and I’m sure she’s thinking about my father. A wave of guilt cuts through me—I haven’t told Frank about Anne. But I know he’d come back, and then what? It’s not as if he can do anything more than is already being done.
Besides, I tell myself that she’ll be back before he could even get on a plane.
I’m not entirely sure where my father and Evelyn are in their relationship. I’m not even sure if there is a relationship. Maybe they’re just friends. Maybe Evelyn is just hopeful. Maybe I’m imagining things.
I’m not entirely sure what happened between Blaine and Evelyn, either. Or how they left things. But I can tell by the look in her eye that she misses him.
That look—that small, innocent look—lodges in my gut and brings tears to my eyes, a harsh reminder of the world outside my bubble. A world beyond Anne. A world of intertwined relationships and friendships and love and pain. And while I resent that Evelyn could be thinking about anyone other than my daughter, in that moment, I want her to have love, whether it’s with my father or Blaine or someone else entirely.
“Aw, Texas, honey. Come here.” She pulls me close, assuming, I’m sure, that my tears are for my daughter. Not realizing that they’re for everything. For all the pain. And, yes, for all the hope, too. “It’ll be over soon. You’ll have your baby back.”
I sigh, then release her, my smile wobbly.
“Come with me,” Damien says, then leads me past the conference table. Past the clusters of exhausted friends and Stark security personnel. Past the kitchen and the smell of too much coffee and too many sugary donuts. Where Gregory is trying valiantly to keep everyone fed and the place reasonably tidy.
He takes me into our bedroom, then pulls me onto the bed with him. Then he holds me close, my back pressed against him, his lips brushing my hair, his hand on my hip.
I feel like I should protest. To tell him that we have to get up. We have to do. But I don’t. I relax against him. Because right now, this is what we need. To try and be strong together.
We stay like that for a while, and I’m about to doze off when his low whisper rouses me. “Are you still angry about the painting?”
I frown, then turn in his arms. “You knew about that?”
A smile—albeit a small one—touches his lips. “I wanted the painting. I bought the painting. And you were worried about the kids growing up in a world where they can write a check for anything they want.”
“That’s not the real world,” I say, not sure if I’m pleased or frustrated that I’m so transparent. “But I’ve thought about it more. And that’s not really what you do.”
His brows rise. “Isn’t it?”
I allow myself a small smile. “Well, maybe a little. But mostly you buy things that mean something to you.” I think about the first editions of Ray Bradbury books he has in the library on the mezzanine. I think about the portrait of me that hangs on this floor, and about the one that Blaine’s installing right now. A painting that Damien bought to lock in the memory of our first night. Extravagant, maybe. But not foolish. And what does extravagant mean, anyway? God knows Damien can afford those things. It’s not as if we’ll all go hungry. Maybe extravagance really is relative.
I sigh, trying to organize my thoughts. “I just…I just want us to be better parents than ours were.”
He nods. “I know.”
Silence lingers, and I know we’re both thinking the same thing. We’re thinking of Anne.
“Damien, I—”
He shakes his head, cutting me off. “You’re wrong, anyway.”
I tilt my head, confused. “About what?”
“About what my money can buy. Billions,” he says, his voice heavy with disgust. “And I can’t get her back.” He shifts, propping himself up on his elbow, his expression haunted. “Do you think it doesn’t kill me that this is a problem I can’t solve with either my mind or my money? That there is nothing—nothing—I can grab onto here. Nothing I can make right. Nothing I can fix. How am I supposed to live with that, Nikki?”
His throat moves as he swallows, the sound wet with unshed tears.
“Nikki,” he says as my heart breaks. “I don’t think I can—”
“Yes.” I reach for him, clutching his hand. I think of the scalpel. Of what I overcame. Of what we’ve both survived. “Yes,” I repeat. “We can.”
I’m looking into his eyes, and he looks back into me. His eyes are flat at first, and then I see a hint of something. A spark of determination.
“Nikki,” he says. And then his mouth is on mine. I twine my fingers in his hair and tug him closer, our tongues battlin
g in a heated, desperate kiss. We need this. Both of us. Heat. Passion. Wildness.
We need to burn away the fear. To push through the dark shadows. We won’t survive this without each other, and we both need to take and take and give.
“I can’t wait,” he says, breaking apart to tear at my clothes. “Christ, Nikki, I can’t wait.”
“I know.” I push his hands away, my own more nimble, and I strip while he does the same, finally kicking off his jeans with one final, impatient thrust.
I grab his shoulders, pulling him down on top of me as I fall back onto the bed, then pull my knees up to my chest. “Hurry,” I beg, because this isn’t about making love. This is about sex. Connection.
About need and fear and loss and escape.
Escape. God, yes. Right now, that’s what I need from Damien, and I whimper in frustration when he takes his time sliding over me, his cock right there at my entrance, but not inside me. “Please,” I beg. “Take me. Take me hard.”
For a beat, he looks at me. Then he grabs my hips and tugs me down the bed. I gasp when he flips me over, then orders me onto my knees, my head down, my forehead on the mattress.
He’s behind me, his hands on my breasts, gripping me so tight it’s almost painful, and I close my eyes, relishing his touch, wanting exactly this. To be used. To be his.
He pulls one hand away long enough to slide his fingers over my core, readying me before thrusting his cock hard and deep inside me. Then he’s bent over me, his chest to my back, and he’s thrusting hard inside me, the entire bed moving, hitting the wall, probably echoing through the whole damn house. But I don’t care.
This is what I need. What I crave.
This. This connection. It’s what will give me the strength to survive. I know that. And Damien knows it, too.
His fingers stroke my clit with each thrust, and we’re so connected that I can feel every spasm in his body. Every hint of tension as he comes closer and closer to release. To exploding.
“Nikki.” He groans my name, his free hand closing around my neck as he pounds into me, harder and harder, until I can’t tell where I end and he begins. Until I’m nothing but a volatile mixture of pleasure and pain on the verge of combustion.
And then—oh, dear God, and then—the explosion comes, violent and intense and so damn perfect. My body shakes, my muscles clenching around him, pulling him deeper inside me until I feel his body tighten and hear him cry my name as he explodes inside me, then collapses to the side, pulling me down and holding me tight against him.
I roll over to face him, my breath coming hard, my heart beating fast.
My body starts to cool, my sanity returning.
And as it does, so does reality. These few minutes of forgetfulness swept away as my mind fills again with Anne.
I’m stronger now, but still my mind drifts to everything we have. And to everything I can’t bear to lose.
“Damien,” I whisper.
“I know,” he says. “We’ll get—”
He rolls over, diving to the ground as I sit bolt upright, yanked back to full reality by the ringing of his phone.
Damien rips the phone out of the back pocket of his crumpled jeans as someone pounds on our closed door. “Take the call!” Ryan yells as I scramble back into my clothes. “We’re set!”
And then, with one sharp look at me, Damien presses the button and puts the caller on speaker.
At first there’s nothing. Then the staticky, voice-altered words ring out:
“Do you want your daughter back?”
23
“What do you want?” Damien’s voice is ice cold, his words a demand, not a question.
He’s in his element now, taking charge. Commanding. If the kidnapper were standing in the room, I have no doubt he’d bend to the force of Damien’s will.
But we’re not in the same room. And all we have to go on is an altered voice. And whatever information the team can pull from this phone call.
“Two million dollars,” the mechanical voice says. “Small bills. Delivered tonight. Seven o’clock.”
“It’s already almost five,” Damien says. “I can’t pull that much together that quickly.”
“Bullshit. That’s chump change for you. I’d bet my own mother’s life you’ve had at least that much pulled and ready to go since this whole party began. Don’t play games with me, Mr. Stark. It won’t be you or me who loses. It’ll be your little girl.”
I’m holding Damien’s arm, and now my hand tightens. The kidnapper is right about the money. Damien arranged for five million in small bills to be delivered within an hour after we learned what happened. It’s been sitting in the utility room ever since.
Damien looks at Dallas, who nods.
“I’ll get it,” Damien says. “But I want to talk to Anne. I need to know she’s unharmed.”
“I’ll call you back.”
And click, the line goes dead.
“He’s afraid we can trace the call,” Quincy says.
“Can we?” I ask.
“Theoretically.” Quincy shrugs. “But this isn’t theory. So no.”
I look to Ryan, wanting an explanation.
“He’s undoubtedly calling from a burner phone,” Ryan explains. “And he’ll call back from another one. If we had the time, we could triangulate the location of the phone, but he’s not going to stay on line long enough for us to do that. So—”
“It’s doable, but not doable,” I say. “I get it.”
“Keep the endgame in mind,” Dallas says. “This is about getting your daughter back. An exchange of money for the child. There’s a difference between information we want and information we need. Right now, we need to talk to Anne. We need to know how the drop’s going to go down.”
I nod. “And you think he’ll really make the exchange? What if he just takes the ransom and disappears. What if—” But I can’t finish the thought.
Dallas moves closer, so that he’s right in front of me. “This isn’t an action movie. And in the real world, there are very few kidnappings for ransom. And most are resolved favorably.”
“Meaning?”
“The child is returned.”
Warm relief floods me.
“And the kidnapper?”
“Sometimes apprehended, sometimes not. But we’re focused on Anne.” He points to his eyes, then mine. “That’s all we’re looking at right now. That little girl.”
“Yes,” I say, sniffling to hold back the tears that are starting up again. I meet Damien’s eyes. “Yes, that’s all I want.”
The phone rings, and I jump. Ryan holds up a finger, then signals to Damien once the team is set to record and monitor the call. He answers on speaker.
“Mommy?”
My legs fall away, and Jamie rushes to my side.
“Anne, baby. I’m right here. So’s Daddy.”
“No more Nemo.” Her voice sounds drowsy. “Want kitties next time.”
I search Damien’s face, seeing my own confusion registered there.
Then I remember. “Aristocats? Is that what you want?”
“Risto,” she says, still sounding loopy. “Please, Mommy.”
“Whatever you want, baby.” I can barely talk through the tears. “Mommy and Daddy love you.”
“Love—”
And the phone goes dead.
“He’ll call back,” Quincy says. And five seconds later, the phone rings again.
“What did you do to my daughter?” Damien demands without preamble.
“Just making it easier on her. A little Versed to keep her calm. And lots of cartoons. She’s fine. You should thank me. She probably won’t remember this whole ordeal.”
Damien’s face goes tight with worry. “You’re drugging my daughter? You son-of-a-bitch.”
“Hey! I’m being nice. The kid’s totally chill, and she’s going to barely remember any of this. You’ll have her back soon enough, no harm, no foul. So long as you cooperate.”
I see the control i
t takes for him not to reach through the phone and strangle the guy. I feel the same. He could give her too much of the drug. She could have a reaction. Anything could go wrong and—
“It’ll be okay.” Jamie stops my pacing, her hands on my arms. I didn’t even realize I was moving. “It’ll be okay,” she repeats, which is ridiculous, because she doesn’t know that. But she has to believe it. And so do I.
I concentrate on breathing as Damien comes to me. He draws me close, and I stand with him, our bodies tense, as Anne’s tormentor gives the instructions.
“Two million. Two rolling suitcases. Black. No hidden GPS systems. No tracking devices. You take the cases at midnight, and you leave them in the laundry room at the Carousel Inn on Lankershim in North Hollywood. Use a bike lock and lock them to the plumbing pipe. Lock the cases, too. Combination 123. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Then you leave.”
“And then?”
“Five minutes. Your final call. Gee, this is exciting, isn’t it?”
Once again, the line goes dead.
“No,” Quincy says, his eyes hard on Damien before they cut to me. “We’re not surveilling. It’s too damn risky.”
For a moment, I think Damien’s going to argue, but he nods, and I exhale in relief.
I pace as we wait for the next call, and when I see Evelyn climb the stairs, I hurry to her side, letting her pull me into the kind of maternal hug I so desperately crave. “How are you holding up, Texas?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Right now it feels like I’m learning to walk. We’re taking a step, then another, then another.”
She gestures to the cluster of men and Jamie. “Bring me up to speed,” she’s says, then listens as I do. “Quincy’s right. Do as the bastard says. This is a payday for him. He wants the money, not Anne.”
“I know.” I’ve been telling myself the same thing since this nightmare began.
The phone rings.
Damien waits, gets the signal from the team, and answers on speaker.
“The southwest corner of Ventura and Laurel Canyon. Your wife stands there. She comes alone.”
