Broken Hearts: A Dark Captive Romance (Heartbreaker Book 2)

by Stella Hart

  I smiled triumphantly. “So a doctor who literally works at that exact hospital can’t get into its therapy records... and yet, a group of evil Circle henchmen are able to? Wow. Magic.” I scoffed.

  Alex rose to his full height. “Is it really so hard for you to believe that an organization like them could have the ability to hire extremely talented hackers? It’s all members of society’s so-called elite. We’re talking high-ranking judges, lawyers, City Council members, politicians, CEOs, diplomats, and so on. They’d find a way.”

  I folded my arms. “Okay. If you say so.”

  “I know you’re stubborn, but do you believe anything I say, Celeste?”

  I nodded and crossed my arms. “I do. I’ve seen some of the stuff you’ve told me with my own eyes. Yes, the Circle are real. Yes, they are completely fucked up. Yes, my father was one of them. But that’s as far as it goes. I don’t think they’re after me. I think you purposefully led me to believe I was in grave danger from them so that I’d be too scared to leave you, even if I had the chance. And I honestly think if you let me go and I went home, nothing would happen.”

  He threw his hands up. “Okay. I know you don’t believe me when it comes to that subject, and you might never believe me. That’s fine, as long as you are safe. I’m protecting you, whether you accept that or not.”

  “Right. Sure.”

  He shook his head slowly. “I really was just doing what I thought was best when I brought you here. I know I went about some things the wrong way. A lot of things, even. We all make mistakes.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “You stuck a needle in my neck, kidnapped me, and kept me in a cell. Even now, I’m confined to this house, or this room. That’s a bit more than a mistake.” I practically spat the words. I wasn’t afraid of any punishment for my insolence. He said there wouldn’t be any, and besides, I didn’t care anymore. I was sick of playing nice, sick of being the meek, wilting prisoner. Sick of being spoon-fed bullshit every day.

  Alex raised his brows. “If I simply approached you and asked you to come stay with me forever, claiming you were in danger, do you think that would’ve worked?” he asked.

  From the burning look in his eyes, I knew he was finally tiring of my attitude. Despite his promise of zero punishment, he still probably wanted to tie me from a beam and try to whip it out of me, but he knew I wouldn’t even care at this point. I’d probably just say: ‘please, sir, may I have some more?’ in some sort of twisted Dickensian spectacle.

  “Maybe.” I shrugged.

  “Bullshit. You know the answer is no. You would’ve thought I was a lunatic and told me to fuck off. You would’ve never come willingly,” he said.

  I glowered at him, hating that he had a point. Of course I wouldn’t have gone with him willingly. I would’ve thought he was a creep and threatened to spray him with mace if he randomly approached me and tried to tell me I was supposedly in dire need of protection. Him, a complete stranger at the time.

  Now that I thought about it, he was still very much a stranger to me. I didn’t know his birthday, his middle name, where he grew up, what his favorite food, music and movies were. All I really knew was that he liked hurting me the way I liked to be hurt, and that he had a serious vendetta against the Circle. That was it.

  I turned away again. Alex reached a hand down and stroked my cheek before forcing me to turn my head back to face him. “I’m not done, Celeste. There’s something I need to tell you.”

  My eyebrows rose. “Oh?”

  He cleared his throat and scratched at his jaw. Was he… nervous? I wondered if this would be the time when he finally admitted that I wasn’t the first girl he took.

  “I know how unhappy you’ve been. It’s made me do a lot of thinking over the last few days. And the thing is, I should have told you this long before now, but....” He looked down for a second, then back at me. “I love you.”

  I gaped at him. “You love me,” I said slowly.

  His jaw was set, his gaze steely. It wasn’t the expression of a man who’d just declared his love, and it made me wonder if he was actually capable of real love… or if there was something else coming.

  “Yes. I do. I’m in love with you, Celeste. That’s why I’ve come to make this decision,” he said gruffly.

  “What decision?” My heart began to pound. I knew it. I knew there had to be something else going on.

  Alex looked away, his eyes distant, as if he were somehow looking into the past. “When I first brought you here, I intended to keep you. I had what I suppose was a delusional fantasy that you would accept your place with me and stay forever. Not out of fear, but because you would love me back. I see now that I was wrong. You don’t love me back.”

  That wasn’t entirely true, but I didn’t say anything. I let him go on, curious as to what he had to say.

  “And how could you ever love me? After the things I’ve done, the thing that I am. Of course you wouldn’t. So, as difficult as this is for me to say, and as much as I never want to let you go….” He took a deep breath and cleared his throat again. “I will.”

  I leapt to my feet. “You’re letting me go?” I said, my eyes wide as saucers.

  He held up a hand. “Not yet. Once I’ve gotten rid of the Circle—hopefully with your help—I won’t make you stay with me anymore. Like I said, I originally hoped you would, and it’ll probably fucking kill me to let you go… I can’t stand the thought of it. But I also can’t stand the thought of you suffering. And you are suffering. You’re miserable.”

  I shrugged. He wasn’t wrong, but I didn’t know what to say. He’d just offered to let me go one day, and my mind was spinning too far out of control to put anything into words yet.

  “All I want in the end is for you to be happy. You can choose to stay with me if you like, out of your own free will. Of course, I’d like it if you made that decision, but I cannot force you. So if you don’t want to, you can go. If you choose that, I won’t contact you ever again. I’ll stay out of your life forever. It’ll be like I never existed to you.”

  “What would I tell people when they ask where I’ve been?”

  His shoulders sagged. “I suppose you’d have to tell them about me, unless you decided to lie.”

  “You’d go to prison. Even if I never told them you were a serial killer, they’d put you away just for kidnapping me and holding me as a hostage.”

  He let out a long sigh. “That’s okay. As long as my work is done. As long as you’re safe.” He looked back at me, right into my eyes. “You really are in danger, angel. But once that danger has been removed, you’re free. I promise.”

  I sat and bit my bottom lip, mulling it over. Perhaps he was telling the truth. Perhaps he really did love me. Or maybe this was another lie, another manipulation, another game. Something to make me feel better for now and lull me into a false sense of security, when he had no intention of ever letting me go, even once he’d eliminated every Circle member.

  When I didn’t respond, Alex crouched down before me again. His eyes were clouded, slightly watery. It seemed like real emotion, though as usual I couldn’t be sure that it wasn’t just the skilled acting of a sociopath. “I really do love you, Celeste,” he said softly. “All I want is to keep you safe.”

  I decided to bite the bullet and finally ask my burning question. If he truly loved me as he claimed, he wouldn’t get angry at me for revealing what I knew. “What about the other girl before me? Did you love her too?”

  He frowned. “What?”

  “Did you love Ev—”

  I was cut off by a loud beeping sound, and Alex held up one hand as he grabbed his phone from a front pocket. “Sorry, I have to look at this. Could be an emergency. Give me a second.”

  Oh, for god’s sake….

  “Shit,” Alex said, his brows knitted. “They’ve brought the surgery forward half an hour. The hospital is thirty fucking miles away; I have to leave now or I’ll never make it in time.”

  My shoulders slumped. Typi
cal. The minute I finally built up the courage to ask about the girl he kidnapped before me, something had to come up.

  “We’ll finish our talk later,” Alex said hurriedly before standing up and striding toward the door. Before he left, he turned back to look at me. “Take the day to think about what I said. Think about whether you want me gone from your life forever. Like I said, if that’s what you choose, I’ll respect it. When you’re safe, I’ll be gone. It’ll be like I never existed, and you will never see me again.”

  I nodded. He didn’t say goodbye. He carefully closed the door behind him, and with that, he was gone.

  18

  Celeste

  At a quarter past seven that evening, Alex was still gone. It was still raining too, thick sheets of water sliding down my window, and I was bored out of my skull. None of the books or movies in my room appealed to me now; I was well and truly sick of staring at a page or a screen. I wanted to do something else, like go outside and check the greenhouse, but of course, with Alex out, that wasn’t an option.

  I went into the walk-in closet and pulled the stolen photo of Evangeline out of a coat pocket. I originally had it hidden under my mattress, but after the knife incident, I knew Alex would check there regularly, and so I’d carefully re-hidden it.

  I stared at the girl’s expressive brown eyes, wishing she could somehow communicate with me and give me the answers I needed. If I just knew what happened to her, then my thoughts and feelings wouldn’t be so jumbled. I’d know if I could trust Alex or not. I’d know if I should actually love him or not….

  I nearly jumped a mile a moment later when the power went out. My room was immediately shrouded in darkness. At the same time, an alarm started to wail somewhere outside the house. Shit. Alex’s security system had been tripped. That meant someone had broken through one of the doors or windows.

  With a metallic taste of fear in my mouth and my heart pounding, I slipped the photo in my pocket and tiptoed out of the closet. Then I headed toward the bathroom. I had a vague memory of someone once telling me that bathrooms were the safest place to hide in an emergency, although now that I was thinking about it more, that may have been in regard to storms. This obviously wasn’t a storm—this was a home invasion.

  Okay, so maybe the bathroom wasn’t the best place to hide in this case. All wide open space, unless you counted the shower or the tub, and it wasn’t like they were great hiding spots anyway. I turned and headed back toward the closet, figuring I could try and hide somewhere in there instead.

  Before I was even halfway there, a big hand closed over my mouth from behind. Adrenaline flooded my system, and I struggled against my assailant, trying my best to scream through their fingers.

  A man spoke into my ear in a soft murmur. “Shh, Celeste. Calm down, you’re safe. I’m sorry for scaring you. I just didn’t want you to scream the place down.”

  I frowned, immediately recognizing the voice. No, it wasn’t possible….

  The man removed his hand and gently spun me around to face him. It was Dwyer, one of the ASACs at the field office in the city.

  “Oh my god! It’s you.” My heart was racing at a million miles a minute, threatening to explode out of my chest. I sank onto the end of my bed, my legs almost buckling. “How…. How….”

  My hands shook. I couldn’t form coherent sentences anymore. Dwyer leaned down and put a hand on my shoulder. “It’s okay, I’ve got you. You’re safe now, okay? We’ve secured the place, and Magnusson isn’t here. So just breathe. Breathe.”

  “Is it just you here?” I managed to choke out. Alex could probably overpower him if he came back, even if Dwyer had a gun.

  “Of course not. Our team is surrounding the rest of the property as we speak. Are you okay?” He peered at me in the dim light.

  ‘Okay’ didn’t exactly describe me very well. I felt like I was about to collapse from all the emotions streaming through me. I was trying to remain calm and push the feelings aside for now, but it was like trying to stop a tsunami with one little bucket. I was riddled with angst, confusion, uncertainty, dread, disbelief; all that on top of what felt like a flood of tears about to erupt out of me.

  I sucked it up as best I could and nodded, trembling. “I think so,” I mumbled, wiping my eyes as the tears began to spill. “How did you find me?”

  “Jason West. Remember him? He’s been working for weeks trying to track you down. He had a theory that the Heartbreaker might’ve taken you, and he was right. It is Magnusson, isn’t it?”

  Of course it was, and yet, I somehow didn’t feel right betraying Alex to the FBI by admitting that I knew he murdered all those men… even though the FBI had once been my own damn people. It seemed like they already knew—they must’ve found some evidence—but I didn’t want them to hear it from my own lips.

  I shook my head. “I… I don’t know for sure. He’s kept me locked up the whole time.” Dwyer raised his thick brows, as if he simply couldn’t believe I’d been here for two months without learning a single thing about my captor. “All he told me was that there’s a group of people he was chasing after,” I added lamely, figuring I had to give them something.

  He nodded. “West figured that out too. Apparently there may be a secret society of sorts, and they could have tattoos to mark them. He noticed that the killer always removed some part of their arm, possibly to cover it up. Did he tell you anything about that?”

  I let out a defeated sigh. They obviously knew everything. “Alex, um… he mentioned that,” I murmured. “He said they’re called the Circle, and that they torture and rape children and teenagers. My father was one of them. Alex said they were after me.”

  Dwyer put a firm hand on my shoulder. “We’re looking into all that, and if there’s any merit to those claims, those people will be found and arrested. They won’t be able to harm you any more than him. But for now, we need to get you out of here, okay? Do you feel strong enough to walk?”

  My legs were still shaking, but I nodded. “Yes.”

  He extended a hand and helped me to my feet. “That’s it. Good girl. You’re doing so well. Just a few steps, and we’ll have you out of here.”

  “What’s going to happen to Alex?” I asked with a tremor in my voice as he slowly guided me out of my room and down the hall.

  “We haven’t located him yet, but we figure he’ll come back here at some point. So we’re surrounding the place, and when he gets back, he’ll be arrested and held in a county jail while we carry out a full investigation.”

  The thought of someone arresting Alex, or worse, shooting him dead if he tried to resist, made my stomach curdle. I wanted my freedom, sure, but I didn’t want him dead. I wasn’t even sure I wanted him locked up. My mind was still fighting this silent battle over him, one half of me wanting to believe him, love him, stay with him, while the other half screamed for me to not trust him, not have feelings for him, not stay with him.

  “Where’s Agent West?” I asked, tears pricking at my eyes.

  Dwyer glanced at his phone before replying. “Out the front, keeping an eye out just in case Magnusson comes down the driveway. I had the rest of the team find alternate routes onto the property so they could get it all surrounded quickly. Don’t worry, you’re perfectly safe. He can’t hurt you now,” he said soothingly.

  After all these weeks of mental torment, I was so used to not being able to trust anything anyone told me that I almost didn’t believe Dwyer. But then we stepped outside, and I saw Agent West standing right there on the front porch. This was a real rescue mission. If I wanted freedom, this was it. I finally had it.

  West’s face lit up when he saw me. “You’re really here,” he said gruffly, stepping over to me. “You’re really okay.”

  Dwyer patted me on the back. “Yup, she’s okay. You did good, West.”

  “Thank you for finding me,” I said, my voice scarcely above a whisper. “I can’t believe you did it.”

  West waved a hand. “Don’t thank me. I was just doing
my job. Thank your friend, Samara. She didn’t give up, and she practically forced us to keep looking for you.”

  I was overcome by another wave of emotion. This whole time, I’d wondered if anyone was still looking for me. To hear that my best friend refused to give up on me made me want to cry grateful tears for hours.

  “Did he hurt you at all?” West asked, his forehead creased in concern. His eyes were searching my face and any other bare skin like my hands and neck, presumably for any bruises, cuts, or blood.

  I hesitated. Did Alex hurt me? He whipped me, spanked me, and paddled me, which hurt… but I liked that pain. He knew I liked it, even when it was framed as punishment. “No. He actually helped me,” I ended up saying. “He helped my nerve pain. It’s much better than it was.”

  Dwyer’s lips pressed into a thin line. “He killed a lot of people, Celeste.”

  “I guess,” I said softly. I looked up at West, then back at Dwyer. “Before we go, can I... can I go back inside and get something?”

  I saw the two agents exchange meaningful glances. I knew what they were thinking. This girl is crazy. Stockholm syndrome to the max. Maybe they were right. But I couldn’t just leave here without taking some sort of memento. This might be the last time I ever saw this place, and as insane as it sounded, it had been my home for the last couple of months. I didn’t want to tear myself away from it with nothing to remind me.

  Dwyer checked his phone, and then his watch. “Look, if you really have to, then you can,” he said slowly, as if he were speaking to a child. “But we need to be quick about it. The team has the place surrounded now, and apparently Magnusson’s car was just spotted heading out of the city. He’ll probably arrive in under half an hour, and I’d rather you weren’t here when he’s taken down.”

  My stomach lurched. “Okay.”

  “I’m coming with you.” Dwyer led me back inside and followed me up the stairs. With the power out, I was able to get into Alex’s study again, and I went straight for the cupboard with the boxes. I opened the one with my name on it and rummaged through it, searching for the silver bracelet with the heart charms on it.