Copyright © 2019 by Callie Anderson
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No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book was originally published under the CONSENSUAL SERIES. It has since then been re-edited and changed to a new story.
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Contents
Prologue
1. Cole
2. Cole
3. Katherine
4. Katherine
5. Cole
6. Katherine
7. Cole
8. Katherine
9. Cole
10. Katherine
11. Cole
12. Katherine
13. Cole
14. Katherine
15. Cole
16. Katherine
17. Katherine
18. Cole
19. Katherine
20. Katherine
21. Cole
22. Katherine
23. Cole
24. Katherine
25. Katherine
26. Katherine
27. Cole
28. Katherine
29. Katherine
30. Katherine
31. Katherine
32. Katherine
33. Katherine
34. Katherine
Also by Callie Anderson
To Jennifer,
You always make my days brighter.
Prologue
The darkness suffocated me.
It held me by my throat and made it impossible to breathe.
The memories haunted me. Flashes of my past invaded my mind, and no matter how hard I ran, I couldn’t escape him. I couldn’t free myself of Gary. There was no point in fighting it anymore. I was in too deep. The dark hole of misery had sucked me in.
My mind raced, my body drained and exhausted. Tears stained my cheeks as I welcomed the opioids that ran through my veins like venom. They would make me numb.
I wouldn’t hurt anymore.
I wouldn’t care anymore.
I wouldn’t love anymore.
I would be empty.
1
Cole
Wednesday afternoon I sat in my office, irritated that Katherine had left early Monday morning and had yet to reply to any of my calls or text messages. I knew she would be busy at work, but she was just ignoring me at this point. She had managed to find a curveball that threw this case out the window and made my team work twice as hard. Hell, I’d known she had something up her sleeve, but I didn’t want her to feel guilty for not sharing it with me. What I didn’t fucking like was her ignoring my calls.
Something must have scared her off. Was it something I did? Maybe the fact that I had become a pussy and fallen for her?
Attempting to wrap my brain around how females worked was pointless and a waste of my time. I squeezed my stress ball tighter in my hand as I waited for my phone to ring or an email to appear.
“Mr. Rhodes?”
“What?” I shouted, turning my chair to see who had interrupted my brooding.
Melissa walked into my office, closing the door behind her. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I wanted to let you know that Mr. Goldstein has confirmed that his team is all set for court on Friday.”
“Okay,” I sighed and pushed off my desk. For any other case, I’d be jumping through hoops trying to find anything incriminating on the plaintiff. But I didn’t care if Evan went to jail. “Make sure we go through the file again. There has to be something in there we’re missing,” I ordered. There was no need to let the team think we’d lost this case. They needed to see me determined to win. It was good for moral.
“Right away, sir.”
When Melissa was gone, I pulled my cell phone out. The blank screen stared up at me. Instead of calling Katherine, I decided it was best to call Evan. I needed to break the news to him before he was blindsided in court.
“Am I a free man?” Evan said after the phone rang once.
“About that…” I paused. “It looks like they’ve found something—”
“You have to be fucking kidding me. I told you to handle that fucking little bitch.”
“Hey!” I barked into the phone. “I have my team working on it,” I lied. What Goldstein had in his hands was hard evidence—not speculation. There was no shot in hell the judge would side with us. “I just wanted to keep you informed on the progress.”
“Which is?”
“We need to convince the judge to have a pre-trial.” I decided not to tell him about the check because I was afraid he would go after Katherine.
“Isn’t that why I hired you?”
“No, your father hired me,” I retorted. “I have my team working non-stop. I need you to be on your best behavior, Evan. Keep a low profile. Do not leave your house unless it’s to go home or to work.”
“You have to be shitting me.”
“If you want this to go away, listen to what I’m saying, home and work. That’s it.”
“Fuck no.”
“Try it,” I threatened. “I dare you. Let’s see how quickly you end up in jail.”
“Fine.” I heard the defeat in his voice.
I hoped that was enough to keep him away from Katherine’s path.
2
Cole
I was overreacting.
No, I had gone fucking insane.
Katherine never showed up at my house. She ignored me the entire weekend. And when I knocked on her door Sunday night, there was no answer. It had been five days since I’d seen her, and I knew in my gut that something was wrong. It was like a light switch had gone off. The Katherine who appeared at my house a week back, thrilled to have found hard evidence on Evan, was gone. There was something more to this story, and like her, I couldn’t let it go.
Pacing the length of my office, I pulled my cell phone from my pocket and dialed. “Caleb, it’s Cole.”
“Hey, Rhodes. How’s it going?”
“I need Lila’s cell phone number.” I bit down and clenched my jaw with doubt.
“Lila?”
“Yeah. Long story, but I need to talk to her. It’s urgent.”
“She took an extra shift today, so you won’t be able to reach her on her cell, but she’s at Memorial Hospital. Anything I can help with?”
“Thanks, man. No, I just need to get in touch with Katherine. It’s work related.” Hanging up the phone, I grabbed my suit jacket and walked out of my office.
“Mr. Rhodes?” Melissa called out after me.
“Hold all my calls, Melissa.”
“But you have a meeting in twenty minutes!” she hollered back.
I pressed the elevator button and looked back at her. “Cancel it, reschedule it, do whatever you need to do. I need to go out.”
She nodded, and I stepped inside the small cart.
The sterile scent of the emergency room greeted me once I passed through the automatic doors. Locating the closest nurses’ station, I walked up and waited until the brunette behind the counter was off the phone.
“Hi, can I help you?” she asked, smiling coyly. A year ago she would have been my type—very easy on the eyes, a cute grin, and responsive to my presence.
“I need to see Lila...” Fuck. What was her last na
me?
She typed on the computer and looked up at me. “Do you have a last name?” I shook my head. “Is she a patient here?”
“No, she’s a doctor on staff. An intern I believe.”
“Do you have the department she works in?”
“Fuck. Hold on,” I said, retrieving my cell from my pocket.
“Cole?” a familiar voice called from behind me. Turning, I watched Lila walk closer to me. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, but I need to talk to Katherine. Have you seen her?” I ran my hand through my hair.
Crossing her arms over her chest, she pursed her lips in irritation. “The last time I saw Katherine was the day you showed up at my house—and you two had a screaming match. What do you want with her?” Her lips pouted and her nostrils flared.
“That was the last time you saw her?” I questioned. That was almost two weeks ago.
“Look, what happens between my roommate and me is none of your business. I don’t know what you think I am, but I am not her sitter. You want to talk to Katherine, call her.”
She snapped an attitude the same way Katherine did, except Lila’s eyes weren’t soft when she did it. When Katherine snapped, her eyes gave away what she really felt, even though she attempted to mask it.
“I’ve called multiple times, but she doesn’t answer, and I feel like something is off. I came here to see if you knew what was going on.”
She pulled me away from the audience we’d attracted in front of the nurses’ station, and I followed her to the waiting room. “Katherine and I aren’t really speaking at the moment, so I’ve been crashing at Caleb’s house, but she sent me a text yesterday morning letting me know that I have a ton of mail at the house. Just give her space. She’s probably overwhelmed.”
“Overwhelmed?”
“I don’t know how much you know about her, but she tends to close off to the world when she’s working things out in her head. If she’s not responding to you, it’s because she doesn’t want to talk.” Lila shrugged.
“We’re going to trial in a few weeks, and she’s disappeared. Something’s not adding up,” I attempted to explain, but from the look on Lila’s face, she couldn’t care less.
“Isn’t Evan your client? I told you what I know. Try Ben. Maybe he knows where she is. Now, I have patients to get back to.” She turned and walked away without a goodbye.
I left the emergency room determined to find Ben, but aside from his name, I knew nothing about him. Driving down the West Side Highway, I called Melissa.
“Mr. Rhodes?” she answered on the first ring.
“Melissa, I need another favor. Can you please call your friend, the one who gave you the transcript information on Katherine Wolf, and have him look for a Benjamin Ortiz? He’s about the same age as Katherine and should show up on her social media sites. Whatever your friend’s fee is, tell him I’ll triple it if he can have it to me first thing tomorrow morning,” I said, taking the exit for the Lincoln Tunnel. I needed an escape from my head, and driving was my cure.
“Right on it, sir. If you don’t mind me asking, is everything all right?”
The fewer people who knew, the better. “Everything is fine. Just find me Benjamin’s cell phone number or home address.”
I pushed the end call button before I pressed down on the accelerator, letting the horsepower take over. I needed to quiet my screaming thoughts. Taking I-95 North, I focused only on the road ahead.
Moving the ice around, I watered down my single malt scotch. My drive out of town had been unsuccessful, and I found myself back home. Hitting the gym didn’t help either, so I found solace in the amber liquid. I glared out the window at Manhattan below and tried to figure out where she could be, where she was hiding. My phone rang on the kitchen counter, and I moved to answer it, hoping it was Katherine, but disappointment set in when I saw the name on the screen.
“Melissa,” I answered.
“I found Benjamin’s cell and home address. I’m sending it over to you right now.” I heard her yawn.
I looked down at my watch—it was past one in the morning. “Are you still in the office?”
“No, I’m home, but this seemed urgent.”
“Thank you.” I made a mental note to give her a raise.
“No problem, boss. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She yawned again.
After the call ended, I opened the email from Melissa. Figuring it was too late to call him, I finished my scotch and headed to bed. Tomorrow morning my first stop would be Benjamin’s apartment.
I sat on the hood of my car, waiting for a decent time to ring his doorbell. If I had stared any harder at my watch, I might have missed him opening the front door.
Benjamin walked down his steps towards me, crossing his arms over his chest as he got closer. Like Lila, I could tell I wasn’t his favorite person. Obviously, they both felt a need to protect Katherine from me.
“Can I help you?” He did nothing to mask the annoyance in his voice.
“Do you know where she is?” I asked.
“Do you think I’m going to tell you?”
“I know you’re not my biggest fan—”
“No, I’m not,” he interjected. “She’s not the same person because of you, and she’s going against everything she’s ever worked for to be with you, so pardon me if I’m not completely forthcoming.”
“Ben, I know how important you are to her, so I’m going to refrain from being a complete asshole, but what happens between Katherine and me is none of your fucking business. We are consenting adults. You want to make me the bad guy? Fine. My relationship is with her, not you, so I don’t give a rat’s ass what you think of me. But there is something off with her. I spoke to her every day, and now she’s gone.” I refrained from telling him that I was on the brink of hiring a PI.
His face softened, and he sighed. Pulling out his cell phone, he showed me her last text message to him. “That’s all I know.”
Ben: Want to grab drinks later?
Katherine: I’m not really up for it. I have a ton of work. Raincheck?
Ben: Sure thing.
“Lila said that she’s done this before. That she closes herself off. Do you know where she might be?”
“Have you tried texting her?”
“Yeah, but she doesn’t reply.”
He sent her a quick message.
Ben: Hey. Dinner tonight? I haven’t seen you in a couple of days.
His phone chirped seconds later with her response.
Katherine: Can’t. We’re going to trial, so work is kicking my ass. I’m so behind.
“See. She’s fine, man.” He shrugged.
“Thanks,” I replied. If it was me she didn’t want to speak with, I couldn’t force her. I left Ben and headed to work. If Katherine wanted to talk to me, she would find me.
By lunchtime I had my head lowered, pressed to the palms of my hands. Still no news from her, and for the life of me, I couldn’t understand where it had gone south. She’d finally let me in, told me about her past, and I saw the look she gave me when she wrapped her legs around me in the tub. It wasn’t a look you gave someone who you didn’t call the next day.
Pathetic, that’s what I was becoming. Fucking pathetic.
She responded to Ben right in front of me, and Lila had received a message from her, so it was me she didn’t want to talk to. But we were going to pre-trial, and one way or another she would have to talk to me.
She would have no choice.
3
Katherine
One was never enough.
Two would help me function through the morning, but three would get me through the day. I dropped the three little pills into my hand. There were only a few left, and I would have to use them wisely. That or find a way to refill the bottle.
I had spent an entire week at home alone, never once stepping outside. I emailed Mr. Goldstein that I was sick and would need to take a few days off. In reality, I sat in bed with a bottle of tequila and a bo
ttle of oxy.
It was Friday morning. I should have been ecstatic about the pre-trial, but I felt nothing. I had worked so hard to get to the point. I’d harassed women for a statement. I’d befriended Mackenzie and persuaded her to speak up. But for what reason? Gary had tormented me most of my life, and I had never uttered a sound against him. Why was I so determined to fight for everyone else, but run and hide from my own demons?
I tossed the pills in the back of my throat and brought the glass of water to my lips. The pills would shut my brain off. They would let me live on autopilot.
I was halfway dressed when I decided to lay down for a bit. My head was heavy and my arms exhausted. I still had two hours before I had to appear in court. Closing my eyes, I welcomed the silence that took over.
My alarm buzzed, and I rolled out of bed, dressed in the clothes I had laid out and walked out the door. Soon this day would be over. Soon I could come back to waste another day away.
I arrived at the courthouse twenty minutes late. Mr. Goldstein was sitting with Natasha Seymour as Cole was talking to the judge. My throat tightened as I looked at him. He was perfect, so handsome and smart, and yet he had wanted me,— but would he want the freshly broken me.
My heels tapped against the floor as I sat in one of the back pews. Mackenzie was nowhere in sight, and when Evan looked back at me, I felt the anger that radiated from his eyes. It was fine that he hated me. At that moment I hated me too.
Redemption (Savior Seires Book 2) Page 1
