Freeing Calder: Seas of Seduction 2

by A. E. Murphy

  “I can’t,” he replies quietly. “Your boyfriend still has the information I need including the location of my ship at present.”

  I roll my eyes and laugh at my own stupidity as I sidestep away from him, ducking under his arm to put space between us. Every time he makes me feel wanted and special the truth always comes out. “So that’s why you’re here?”

  “No, I’m here for you. The information is an added bonus.”

  I hear him take a step towards me but it’s too late for him, grabbing the hidden Taser from behind a photo frame on the drawers, I spin and point it at him, pressing the button so a blue strand of electricity crackles between the two sharp points. The battery flashes green with it and we both know I have enough juice in my hands to send him to la-la land for a while.

  “Stay the fuck away from me, Captain.”

  He raises his hands in a non-threatening gesture. “I can’t do that.”

  “What if I get you the information?”

  His eyes flicker between the Taser and mine.

  I continue, “What if I get it for you and send it to that number? Will you leave me alone then?”

  “I don’t want to leave you alone.” The sincerity in his voice startles me. “The thought of a life without you...”

  He steps towards me until I raise the Taser a fraction and press the button again.

  “Calder… I’m warning you.”

  “I fucked up. I fucking fucked it. I know. I know.”

  “Then get out.”

  He growls, frustrated and rips his hands through his hair. “Don’t make me do this.”

  “Do what?” I ask cautiously.

  “I need more time. You need more time to think this through.”

  He moves, a blur of limbs and the Taser is out of my hands and his shoulder is in my stomach. It hurts, I can feel him pressing against my growing womb and my panic kicks in.

  “No!” I shriek, kicking and punching as best I can. “No, Calder… put me down.”

  He ignores my grabbing and bunks me up further, digging his shoulder into my stomach more.

  I fight, grabbing his hair and yanking so hard he curses and we both drop to the side before tumbling onto the floor.

  “Let go of me!” I cry, battling his hands as he tries to grab my wrists and pin them above my head.

  “Rain!” he shouts. “Please, don’t make me do this.”

  “Stop.” Panic ensues further when he pulls a cloth out of his back pocket. I can smell cinnamon. I know what it is. It’s the same thing that was used on me the first time I was kidnapped.

  The chemicals… danger flashes through my mind. The baby. Oh God no.

  “Calder, please,” I beg but he’s straddling my hips, his strength no match for my own.

  “It’ll be okay, we’ll be okay.”

  “No, we won’t, you fucking psycho!”

  I scream at the top of my lungs when his hand pins both of mine above my head.

  It doesn’t stop him.

  What can I do?

  “Calder, please, you can’t.”

  He hesitates, the cloth in his hand only inches from my face but then he mutters, “We’ll work it out.”

  He’s deluded!

  I hear the click of a gun. The safety perhaps? I know the sound, not well but it’s not a sound you forget easily.

  “You have three fucking seconds to get off her or I’m pulling the trigger,” Niall states firmly and Captain drops the rag beside my head before slowly regaining his footing.

  I look at Niall and his eyes which are blazing with fury. He doesn’t take them off Captain as he aims the pistol directly at his chest. Not his head. He always says if you have the chance to shoot you aim for the larger surface area so you don’t miss. Niall is a great shot, he’s not going to miss.

  “Are you okay, Rain?” Niall asks.

  I nod and move to standing.

  “Get behind me,” he commands, nodding for me to creep around the space between him and the door.

  “Niall,” I say, looking between him and the captain.

  “Stop,” Niall grits. “Whatever you’re about to say, don’t. You have no idea what this sick fuck has done to keep me out of the house.”

  “What?” I look at Captain but he doesn’t look at me.

  “The teenage boy who went missing…” Niall starts and I don’t even need him to finish.

  My eyes fill with tears. “How many more people are you going to hurt for your own selfish gain, Calder?”

  Niall steps closer to me. “Get behind me, Rain. Now.”

  “I didn’t hurt him, he was paid to vanish for a while, that’s all,” Captain replies but I don’t believe a thing he’s saying. “I needed to see you.”

  “Big mistake.” Niall’s hand trembles, he’s furious. At least his finger isn’t on the trigger, I imagine in his current state of duress he could very easily accidentally discharge the weapon he’s not even supposed to have.

  Captain looks between us both and then over to the bed, a smirk appears. “How does it feel, fucking her knowing I’ve been inside her over and over again?”

  Why is he tormenting him?

  Niall stiffens, I place my hand on his bicep but he shrugs me off. “How does it feel knowing I’m the one who’s going to be inside her for the rest of her life while you rot in jail?”

  His smirk fades. “She’ll come back to me.”

  “Are you really that deluded?” Niall laughs bitterly. “You’re a loser, a psychopath, a criminal. You’re nothing to her. She’s my girl.”

  Fucking caveman.

  “She’s a woman not a girl and she’s a criminal too. Or had you forgotten?”

  “The difference is she did what she had to do to survive. You did it for greed and vengeance and who knows what the fuck else.”

  I hear the sirens in the distance and so does Captain. He mutters a curse and stares down the barrel of the gun.

  “Move aside, cop.”

  “Go fuck yourself,” Niall bites back and lowers the gun so it’s aiming at Captain’s groin. “Back to prison you go. You should never have come here and if you ever try again I’ll put a bullet in your dick and watch you bleed out.”

  Captain smiles smugly. “I escaped once, I’ll escape again. I hope you like looking over your shoulder.”

  “Captain, stop,” I plead, knowing if he pushes Niall too far he could end up with a bullet in his chest. The thought of that happening is a devastating one. “I’m not worth this.”

  “That might be what he tells you,” he replies, looking at me directly in the eyes. “But to me you’re worth everything.”

  My heart has stopped. It’s not beating. Not even flickering.

  “You’re crazy, mate. She doesn’t want you.”

  His eyes come to mine and his smirk returns. “Oh, but she does.” As footsteps storm upstairs, police ready to arrest him, he grins menacingly and suggests, “Dip your hand into her pants, I bet she’s wet.”

  My heart has started again and it is really fucking angry.

  “ON THE GROUND!”

  I touch the handle of my cup, trailing the soft pads of my fingers over the ceramic glossiness. “Niall isn’t talking to me properly, things are tense right now. So tense I almost want to run away and never look back. I can’t live like this. My entire world has come crashing down and it’s not my fault. I didn’t fucking ask for any of this! I didn’t ask to be kidnapped! I didn’t ask to be put in a position where I felt I had to do things to survive…”

  My therapist, aka Adan, watches me pace and rant, his calm façade gives me the courage to do that. “You feel as though you’re being blamed because of things out of your control.”

  “Duh.”

  “That’s normal and definitely frustrating.”

  “Yep.”

  “How have you approached it? Have you tried to be intimate with Niall since the incident?”

  I blow out a breath. “Not really. I tried to go to him after Calder was tak
en away.” I twist my fingers and chew on my lip nervously as I stare out of the window at the scenery below. Nothing more than rows upon rows of buildings can be seen forever. Welcome to London.

  “And?”

  “He put his hand down my pyjamas like Calder told him to.”

  He shifts closer in his seat. “That’s not okay.”

  “No, it isn’t, but he did it anyway and I probably would have too if I were him.”

  “What did he find?”

  “What do you think?” I laugh through my nose but there’s nothing funny about it. “I was as wet as a fucking waterfall.”

  I make breakfast, eggs and bacon with a side of toast for both of us. I stare at the broken shells that rest on the top of the rubbish pile in the bin. I’ve had a lot of those digging into my feet lately. Metaphorically of course.

  I place the plates on the table and pour us both a glass of apple juice. I’m really into apple juice at the moment funnily enough. It must be a pregnancy craving.

  Captain Calder loved apples, I wonder if…

  No. I shut that train of thought down immediately.

  “Niall?” I call, my tone a question to see if he can hear me.

  He hums from somewhere in the house, not using words because apparently that would be too much.

  “I made breakfast.”

  I add a yellow flower from the garden and drop it into the empty, glass, milk bottle in the centre of the table.

  He steps in and scans the placement. A smile touches his lips and his eyes soften. Seeing him in this light properly for the first time all week only proves to me how tired he is.

  He takes his seat and I take mine.

  “This looks great.” He wraps his lips around his forkful and I grin when I hear his stomach growl. “I guess I haven’t been eating much lately.”

  “Don’t talk with your mouth full,” I jest, trying to lighten the air between us.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  We share a sparkle of the same kind of flirtatious humour we had before all of the drama but it’s gone as soon as it comes.

  I sigh and prod my toast into my egg. “Do you want me to find my own place?”

  “Excuse me?”

  I shy away from his sudden dark gaze. “You’ve been distant and short since…” I wet my lips. “You know… that night. It’s hard to live with.”

  “I’m hard to live with?” After dropping his fork onto his plate, he laces his fingers together and looks at me sternly.

  “Yes, you. You’re making me feel like I have to tiptoe around you. I don’t know what you want me to say.”

  “I want to know what fucking happened on that ship.”

  I meet his gaze dead on, unwilling to shy away like I usually do. “I did what I had to do to survive.”

  “Just to survive? Seems like you did a little bit more than that.”

  My lip trembles. “You don’t know what it was like. Captain was the only person keeping me safe.”

  “In return for sex?”

  “I didn’t want to find that out,” I shout. “I was terrified. He admitted they’d kill me anyway. I thought if I could get him to like me and trust me he wouldn’t kill me.”

  His clasped hands meet his forehead. “Did he rape you?”

  “It was…”

  “Yes or no, Rain, did he fucking rape you?”

  “I don’t… it’s not…”

  His hands slam on the table with a bang. “Do you feel like he fucking raped you?”

  “I DON’T KNOW!” I shriek in reply and he winces. “I don’t know because he was fucking drugging me!” I stand and push my plate from the table, it shatters on the floor but neither of us wince. Though my anger isn’t for him, it’s for the captain and what he did. “I don’t know what was real and what wasn’t! But yes, at the time it all happened it felt real, I felt things, I wanted it. Is that what you want to hear? Do you hate me now, Niall? I fucked him, I slept in his bed with him, he held me in his arms and for a while I even considered never coming back!”

  My chest rises and falls like massive waves and my limbs tingle from stress.

  His chest deflates and his body sags as he asks softly, “Was that so hard?”

  “Yes,” I admit sadly and tears fill my eyes. “That was really pissing hard, Niall. To admit that to you, of all people.”

  He rounds the table and yanks me into his chest. “It’s called Stockholm syndrome, or some variation of it—”

  “What? No, it wasn’t—” I clamp my mouth shut because I don’t know that. Maybe it was like that. Maybe I do have that.

  “He’s a sick man, Rain. He’s no good for you,” he whispers against my hair. “What kind of life could he give you and our baby? He’s obsessed with you and not in a good way.”

  My immediate thought is to defend Calder, the sweet man I thought I knew. He’s not like that, I want to say it and think it and feel it. I don’t want to be so easily fooled, I want it to be real.

  He just got arrested again to be with me. Didn’t he? Or was it a trick for information? No, because he’s smart, he’d have gone about it another way and avoided arrest.

  He told me I was worth everything to him.

  So much that he’d go to prison for me?

  No, something isn’t right about this, what’s his angle? Or am I his angle? Did he not think the police would come for him? Perhaps he underestimated Niall’s intelligence?

  “I’m good for you. I can look after you,” Niall insists and I press my face into his neck.

  “I’ve been so confused. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. It’ll take time, babe, but we will get through this.”

  A shadow of Calder appears over Niall’s shoulder when I look up, smirking at me like an omen.

  I wonder if Niall’s hope is misplaced, it doesn’t feel as though we will ever get past this.

  I am at the end of my tether, stuck in a home lacking any kind of intimacy and love. Niall has been on edge consistently since Calder’s arrest and so have I. It feels as though he’ll pop up at any moment despite constant reports that he’s under lock and key.

  Niall hasn’t mentioned where he’s being located and I’m too scared to ask.

  Lines etch his face as he pores over multiple sheets of paper scattered on the table. The next victim he needs to find. He’s scanning every detail, every statement of this person. He always gets to know them first because it’s often that knowledge of them that leads to their whereabouts.

  “I’ll be done soon,” he informs me.

  “It’s fine, I’m going to see River anyway.”

  “Without me?” The lines in his face deepen and his concern and stress are so entirely evident it hurts my soul.

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “You might not be. I have to finish this, I can’t take you anywhere right now.”

  I blow out a harsh breath. “Niall, life has to go on. We can’t live like this.”

  His gaze darkens. “It’s not safe.”

  “It’ll never be safe now you’ve antagonised him.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  I roll my eyes. “Dangling me in front of him, asking him how he feels that you get to fuck me and he doesn’t. Ring any bells?”

  He looks away and shame clouds his features. “I just… shit.”

  “Yeah, you messed up.” I snatch my bag from the side and hook it over my shoulder with a smirk. “I’ll be back later, I have my phone, my panic button, my Taser, my tracker, and my rape whistle.”

  “I don’t like this. It’s not just about you anymore.”

  “I know,” I mutter and slide onto his lap. My arms go around his neck and his hand rests on my stomach. “I’ll be okay.”

  “I’ll never forgive you if you’re not,” he admits, giving me a gentle squeeze. “Please be careful.”

  “I promise.”

  He walks me to the car and watches me start the engine. I drive away carefully, ensuring I don’t hit any pedestr
ians as I reverse out of the driveway. Then I make the hour’s journey to my brother’s hell.

  I go through the normal motions of being searched, patted down, and manhandled inappropriately. When all of my devices are secured in a locker I’m led to the greeting hall and rush to my brother who looks equally as pleased to see me.

  “Rain,” he mutters, wrapping me in his arms until we are ordered to separate. “You made it.”

  A loud buzzer sounds, startling me. It’s just the call for the second lot of relatives to enter. They deal with us in groups of four to eight and the room holds around twenty prisoners at different tables. It’s heavily guarded but not as secure as you’d expect for such a strong facility.

  “How goes things?” I ask softly, looking at his healing tattoo and growing hair.

  “Things go well,” he replies, yawning loudly. “We just got a few new inmates to toy with.”

  My heart starts hammering in my chest. There are only so many prisons in the UK that can contain prisoners like Calder and my brother, intelligent men with a lot of pull in the outside world. Chances are Calder will be coming here and if he has as much pull as I think he does, he’ll be in the same area as my brother. My concern for my brother’s safety skyrockets. “Oh really? Who?”

  “Don’t know yet, they haven’t been brought into the blocks. Why?” His eyes narrow curiously and his body straightens.

  I glower at him. “Stop acting like Niall hasn’t told you about what happened.”

  His lips twitch. “Okay, then you stop acting like you haven’t been looking for him since you arrived.”

  “I’m paranoid.”

  “You don’t look paranoid and trust me…” He motions to the room with a large sweep of his hand. “I know paranoid.” Leaning forward, he lowers his voice. “Look, Niall isn’t here to listen in, so why don’t you tell your brother exactly what happened on that ship and maybe, when that fucker rolls in here, I won’t kill him. Hmm?”

  “You’re going to kill him?” I squeak and my heart starts beating rapidly. “Are you insane?”

  “If he’s a danger to you then yes, that’s exactly what I’ll do.”