Healing Danger (Fortis Security Book 1)

by Maddie Wade

“Yes.” She replied followed him out, and waited for him to unlock the interrogation room door, before opening it he said,

  “If you want out just say so, we will have eyes and ears on you at all times.”

  Opening the heavy door, he allowed her to walk in on her own and then shut the door behind her.

  She turned to face the man that she and her mother had spent nearly all her life hiding from.

  “Lauren, God you’re the image of your mother.” He looked shocked, shaken even. She crossed to the chair opposite him and sat down silently. She wasn’t sure how long her suddenly weak knees would support her, and she didn’t want to show any weakness in front of this man. Lauren could feel his eyes on her studying her intently.

  “Why did you kill my friend?” She was blunt and she didn’t care. She didn’t know this man and felt nothing for him, she was waiting for some sort of love or recognition to kick in but it just didn’t come. All she saw was a cold man who had hurt people to get his way. He didn’t answer her question.

  “Did Griffiths hurt you?”

  “Yes he did. Why? Do you care?” she asked calmly

  “You are my daughter of course I care.” They studied each other then, both silently trying to get a read on the other.

  “Did she look after you, your mother?” he asked instead. She considered her answer while they studied each other.

  “She was the most wonderful mother anyone could ask for.” she declared.

  “Was?”

  “Yes, she died a few years ago.” She refused to give him details, which he didn’t deserve. He paled then and bowed his head.

  “I loved her like no other. She was the love off my life -and she left me. I came home one day and you were both gone.” Lauren could see he was lost in his thoughts, as he relived the past.

  “She was terrified of you.” she stated.

  His head shot up then and he sneered.

  “I only ever punished her for her own good, to make her understand that she had to toe the line. She was so blind sometimes she couldn’t see the bigger picture of our ways.”

  “You don’t punish people, you love.” she declared, incredulous.

  He snorted, “Well I can see depriving you of a father left you undisciplined and insubordinate,” he stated coldly. “She took you from me, just because she couldn’t handle a little discipline.”

  She could feel anger boil in the pit of her stomach.

  “You beat her; you were out of control with your obsession.”

  “You don’t understand Lauren, the gifted ones are the only ones who can cleanse the earth of evil and bring order to the world.” He was a psychopath-he had to be. “She took you from me, with the help of that bitch, Larissa. She helped your mother leave me and then took advantage of my pain to worm her way into my life, and what did I get? That pathetic idiot Drew.”

  Lauren had never felt sorrier for Drew, he’d had the pain of being brought up by this man for seven years. She couldn’t believe that he had remained so kind and pure when he was surrounded by such evil. She didn’t try to defend Drew she knew there was no point.

  “Well, Drew is one of the best things that ever happened to me.” Marcus snorted at that, unbelieving.

  “Tell me Lauren, can you still heal?” He caught her off guard with his question. He must have noticed the flicker of unease that crossed her face, because he smiled.

  “Ah you can, you’ll be a wonderful addition to the Divine Watchers.”

  “You’re insane, there is no way that I would help you or your sick friends.” He smiled then a sick twisted smile, which made the bile rise in her throat.

  “That’s what your friend thought; she thought she was too good for us. But in this world there are always ways to bend people to our will and we have some very powerful allies.”

  “Well, I guess we don’t have to worry about you, now do we?” she said with false confidence. He laughed then a chilling cold sound.

  “You can cut the head off the snake Lauren, but it will then grow two in its stead. I am but the tip of the iceberg.”

  “So why kill Claire?” she asked.

  “She was being difficult and refusing to go to the clinic, she thought she was too good to help us and was going to start making a fuss and then that idiot Terry Griffiths started fawning round her, so we had to dispose of her. I should have killed him then too, but he was a very handy person to have around the hospital, so I thought it was worth the risk. Your boyfriend did us all a favour when he killed him.” Lauren didn’t correct him, that it was actually Sly that had killed him. Had they fed Marcus false information to trick him somehow? She didn’t care either way, she just knew that he would never be anything to her but a monster from her past. Picking up the conversation, she continued,

  “But Claire didn’t know anything about what you did.”

  “No, she didn’t know of our plans but she knew enough to cause problems and threatened to go to the press and we couldn’t afford the attention.”

  “But what did you want her for?”

  “Ah Lauren, I can’t tell you that until you agree to join us.” He looked pointedly down at her engagement ring then which she was twirling on her finger

  “I’m disappointed he didn’t have the decency to ask me for your hand in marriage, but no matter. I look forward to meeting my grandchildren and hopefully they will all have your gift.” He leaned back in his chair then, looking relaxed, like this was normal. She was incredulous-he was mad as a box of frogs, he had to be, one minute talking about the world being cleansed and the next calmly telling her how he had her friend murdered. Lauren stood-she’d seen enough, this man was nothing to her and she knew that whatever happened to him she would feel no remorse.

  “You are nothing but a sick coward that hides behind strong people, who are better than you.” Then head held high she walked to the door that now stood open for her. As she walked through Dane was there and she sagged into his arms.

  “Take me home, please.”

  ~~~

  Lauren was very quiet on the drive back, and Dane was worried about her. Several times Zack had had to restrain him so that he didn’t go in there and drag her away from the sick evil that had fathered her. How could someone so kind and wonderful come from that much evil?

  Thank god, her mother had got her away from him or his evil would have swallowed her up. They’d decided to go back to Fortis before going home. They hadn’t told Lucy or Drew about their engagement, wanting to get this meeting with her father over with first. Zack knew, of course, he didn’t miss anything, but he hadn’t said anything to anyone else.

  Arriving at Fortis was a relief, he wanted to get this done so that he could take her home-she was still recovering from her injuries and he didn’t want to tire her out. It was all quiet in the outer office when they arrived. Zack and Dane had talked about getting a receptionist so that the outside world would believe they were a normal security specialists company, not a specialist company that did government black ops jobs as well, but as yet they hadn’t got round to it.

  They walked hand in hand to the tech room, were Lucy was showing Drew some of their new highly secretive surveillance equipment. Both looked up as Lauren and Dane entered.

  Coming over, Lucy hugged her brother and then Lauren. Stepping back she suddenly zeroed in on Lauren’s hand as if she was some super-guided missile. Squealing like Imelda Marcos at a shoe sale, she started jumping up and down while holding Lauren’s hand.

  “Oh my god is that, did you?” Dane laughed.

  “Yes and yes.” Wondering what all the fuss was about Drew came over and seeing Lucy’s face asked,

  “What, what did I miss?” Still jumping with excitement Lucy grabbed Lauren’s hand and shoved it in Drew’s face.

  “They’re engaged.”

  Drew looked at them both.

  “Really, that’s great, congratulations.” He hugged his sister and then pretended as if he was gonna hug Dane.

  Dane ste
pped back “Hey man, we ain’t brothers yet,” he said laughing, but then grabbed Drew in a headlock and messed his hair up.

  “God-why do you people keep doing that?” He said, smoothing his hair out, but secretly he liked it, he’d never had a proper family and loved having one now, one that actually seemed to care about him.

  Lucy was in heaven, “When are you getting married?”

  Lauren and Dane looked at each other, “We haven’t thought about it really,” she said.

  “Maybe early next spring?” He looked at Lauren for her answer. She gave him the most beautiful smile.

  “Perfect.”

  ~~~

  By this time, Nate had hobbled in on his crutches and Sly came with him. It turned out the bullet had nicked Nate’s femur and they had to put steel pins in it. She had offered to heal him but he had flat-out refused, saying she needed all her energy to help herself get better.

  Lauren hated that she could only heal certain things and that she couldn’t heal herself. However, she wondered if the ability to heal herself would have made her more flippant about life, she hoped not, but it wasn’t as if she could control it anyway so she put it from her mind.

  They came straight over to the group and hearing the news slapped Dane on the back and hugged her.

  “If this guy doesn’t treat you right, you let me know,” said Nate with a friendly wink. Dane gave him a friendly punch on the arm and banter ensued. Lucy dragged Lauren over to the computer.

  “We have much to do, let’s check out the wedding pages.”

  “Great, you know I think I’m gonna like having a sister.” Lauren said quietly, and put her arm around Lucy for a hug. Lucy hugged her back and smiled and they sat down to plan.

  ~~~

  Climbing into bed that night Lauren was exhausted, but had never been happier, she missed her mum and wished she was here, but she’d found a wonderful man who loved her and was getting an instantly large family. They had skyped his dad who was thrilled and they had arranged to meet next week. The only person who didn’t know was Daniel; they wanted to tell him in person.

  She cuddled up to Dane’s warm body and thought about the man who had fathered her, she found it hard to believe that they had the same blood running through their veins-or her brother for that matter, the only parent they shared was a maniac and yet they were normal.

  She though about Claire and still couldn’t understand why she had kept so many secrets. She missed her so much. She felt herself drifting off to sleep and smiled, she had her family and life went on, that’s all that mattered.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Zack poured over the evidence that had been gathered when Marcus Preedy’s house had been raided. Most of it seemed to be in a language that neither he nor his team didn’t recognised. Fortis had agreed to take the lead on this. The government would try Michaels for the murder of Claire Thompson and Marcus Preedy would be kept out of it until they knew how far up this went.

  The Intel that they could decipher so far suggested that some government agencies had been compromised, so at the say so of the Home Secretary, this was staying completely off the radar until it came time for the praise, then they would swoop in and take credit. Zack and his team preferred it this way anyway, they weren’t in it for the glory.

  Looking again at the files in front of him, he sighed and rubbed his hand across his eyes. He was going to have to call her; they hadn’t spoken in two years not since that last mission in Afghanistan. She’d probably tell him to go fuck himself after the way he’d left things, but she was the best linguist in the world, so he was gonna have to suck it up and call her. A light knock on his door had him looking up.

  “Sly, what can I do for you?” Sly looked tired, not regular tired, but how he’d looked before he quit the Special Forces.

  “I wanted to let you know that I’ve decided to take you up on your offer to join Fortis.” Zack stood up and came round the desk; he leaned back against the desk and crossed his arms across his broad chest.

  “What made you change your mind?”

  Sly paused “I saw how quickly you got things done, without the red tape. I love what I do but everything is just so political now, it takes forever to get anything done.” Zack nodded his head and held out his hand “Welcome to Fortis.” Sly smiled

  “I need to finish this last tour them I’m all yours. It’s an eight month tour, so I’ll be free by the end of March.”

  “Be safe,” Zack said and turned back to his desk, dismissing him.

  ~~~

  Sly liked how no nonsense Zack was, and how he didn’t speak just for the sake of it, he thought, as he wandered down the hall. He looked up and found himself outside the tech room and sure enough, there was Lucy. He watched her un-noticed, she was so beautiful, with her long thick wavy chestnut hair pulled into a ponytail. She was concentrating really hard and doing that cute little thing with her tongue, it peeked out from the corner of her mouth all pink and inviting.

  She turned then and caught him looking.

  “Sly!” She jumped up and ran to him. She was always like this-so happy to see him. It broke his heart that he had left it too late. She was Nate’s now.

  “Hey I just dropped by to let Zack know I’d be accepting his job offer.”

  “You did? That’s great. Are you bugging out soon?”

  “Yeah, I’m heading back to base first thing.”

  She threw her arms around his neck and held on tight. He let his arms go round her and just held her tight enjoying the feel of her pressed to his body, and the scent of her tickling his nose. She leaned back and then kissed him gently on the lips and it was the sweetest kiss he had ever had-it was only a gentle meeting of lips, but it was the most intoxicating kiss ever and it killed him.

  “You stay safe and come back to us, okay?”

  “Of course, can’t deprive the world of all this perfection,” he laughed

  He pulled back before he embarrassed them both. “Say goodbye to Nate for me.”

  She frowned, “Okay I will, when I see him.”

  ~~~

  Lucy watched as Jace walked away and she prayed that he would come back to them. She had loved Jace since the day Dane had brought him home after they had passed selection. She had only been a teenager, but she had known even then. Of course he never saw her as a woman, he saw her as Dane’s baby sister. She’d watched as over the years he had brought different girlfriends to their family gatherings and bided her time. Well that time was up. When Jace came back she was gonna tell him how she felt and to hell with pride.

  ~~~

  It was two weeks since Lauren had seen her Father or Marcus as she thought of him. She had thought a lot about her mum and Claire in the last few weeks and the fear that both of the women she cared about had faced at the hands of that man. She’d arranged for everyone she loved and who had loved Claire, to have a picnic and family day up on Hay Bluff on an August bank holiday.

  They had arrived early so that they could all spend the day together. Everyone had brought some sort of food, Sylvie had brought her German potato salad, Lucy had brought enough cupcakes to feed an army, she and Dane had brought meats and a portable barbecue that Zack was now dominating, much to Malcolm’s annoyance.

  The whole group was having a wonderful time. Even Dane’s sister Lizzie and her husband and son Mateo, had come. Paige and Mateo were getting on like old friends and Daniel looked a little better, too. He had been relieved when everything had become known about Terry Griffiths, but also horrified that Claire hadn’t told him.

  She had a feeling it was going to take a while for him to come to terms with everything that had happened, but watching him with Paige now gave her hope. Seeing Dane playing tag with Mateo and Paige and throwing them up in the air had made her so broody, and she couldn’t wait for it to be their turn, he was going to make a wonderful father.

  After everyone had eaten until they could hardly move the group started to break up, Lizzie, Lucy, Drew, Dan
iel and the kids went for a walk up the bluff. Sylvie, Malcolm and Colin-Dane’s dad just sat enjoying the peace and tranquillity. Nate and Zack decided to test the new mini-drone they had acquired and went in the other direction. Taking Lauren’s hand Dane pointed round the bluff,

  “Want to take a walk?”

  “Yes sure, why not?” Walking, along the bluff in the sunshine with a gentle wind tickling her neck she felt happier than she ever hoped to be, she was all healed from her wound and physically was fit. She’d started having nightmares about her abduction and the attack by Terry Griffiths and had agreed to see someone about it next week. Dane had wanted to go with her, but she didn’t want him to, she needed to face this on her own not have him save her.

  Pulling her gently to a stop, Dane pulled out an envelope from his pocket.

  “What’s this?”

  “Sit down and read it.” She sat down with slight trepidation, the feelings of contentment from moments ago gone. Sitting down next to her Dane put his arm around her back and gave her the envelope. Her hand shook when she saw the handwriting. Opening it slowly she began to read.

  My Dearest Lauren,

  If you’re reading this then the fates have prevailed and I am dead. I’m sure you have so many questions you want to ask. I will try to address the obvious ones. I did have a dream about my getting shot, but in my dream Daniel always tried to stop him and we both ended up dead. That is why I couldn’t tell anyone. If he had found out my beautiful Paige would be growing up an orphan and I couldn’t let that happen.

  Secondly, I knew Terry Griffiths had a crush on me but it wasn’t until the night I was to be shot that I realised how sick and dangerous he was. He had broken into my house and was going through my underwear drawer when I came home from work. I played it cool and told him we would be together soon and he agreed to leave. I am writing this letter now, as I know I don’t have long left. The tumour is inoperable and I knew if I told you, you would have wanted to try to heal. We both know you can’t heal this type of thing and that would have eaten you up inside. I decided on no treatment when I found out about the tumour being terminal. I didn’t want Paige to remember me as sick and weak from chemotherapy or radiation, especially as it wasn’t going to work. Please understand I didn’t tell you out of love for you, not for any other reason. Lauren, please be careful. The Divine Watchers are evil and they are coming for you. My time is nearly up. Please know that I love you, my dearest friend, I am not afraid, and when I die it will be with happiness in my heart for all the love I have received from you all. Please take care of my Paige and Daniel for me.