His dark eyes found hers before they swung to me. He roamed them over me for a moment before turning back to Connie. “I think you better sit down.”
“Isaac, just tell me.” He quirked a brow at her stern tone but she rolled her eyes. “Please tell me what is wrong, my darling,” she rectified with a sweet manner.
“Much better.” He winked before his face dropped again and he sighed. “I need to know where you placed Annie.”
Connie’s back slammed straight. “Why?”
His fingers enveloped her jaw, pulling her face towards his. I shivered at the memory of my fingers holding her sister’s in exactly the same pose. “Tell me, Connie.”
“Isaac, this isn’t in the rules. You give me the contract, I complete it. No questions are asked, no details are given.”
He pulled in a deep breath. “You think I don’t know that? I own you, Shadow. I own every single fucking Phantom. I made the rules to protect every single one of you.”
I stepped forward when he pushed her back against the wall but stopped when she lifted a hand to me. “It’s okay, Daniel.”
Isaac turned his head slowly. A cold smirk tilted his lips and he chuckled. “Ahh, yes, I seem to have forgotten about your… mmm. I suggest if you don’t want your guts decorating the wall, you stay exactly where you are.”
“What the fuck?” I disregarded his warning and took another step into them.
“Daniel!” I narrowed my eyes on Connie as she spat a caution. “Honestly, it’s okay.”
Isaac stared at me, his expression mocking and goading. “Well?”
Flicking another glance at Connie she gave me a glare, again warning me. Going against everything my body was screaming at me, I lifted my hands. “Fine, but hurt her and I won’t just stand here. You want to find out what I’m capable of, then go ahead.”
They both gawped at me, Connie with her mouth wide open and Isaac with a confused stare. He started to chuckle, then full on laughed as he turned to Connie. “Well, my love, it looks like you’ve acquired an admirer.” He leaned into her ear, whispering just loud enough for me to overhear. “Did you let him in your arse? He seems smitten.”
“Fuck you.”
He winked and dropped her throat, shaking his head as though disappointed with her. “There’s only you I would do this for,” he breathed as his fingers cupped her cheek lovingly, his mood shifting so quickly I was winded.
“Isaac, what?” I didn’t miss the way she pushed her cheek into his touch, her eyes glazing with a softness.
“Trust me, Connie?”
She sighed, blowing out an irritated breath. “You know you’re the only one I have ever trusted in my life. Isaac stop playing with me, I’m not a toy.”
She gasped when he pushed against her, trapping her beneath himself and the wall. “You’re – MY – fucking – toy!”
She licked her lips, her chest heaving. “Always,” she whispered. What the fuck! They were the oddest couple I’d ever met, but there was something both of them displayed in their gazes and glares to each other that I had only ever seen once before - A look in my own eyes when I had watched the life drain from another.
“Who has Annie?” he repeated.
As though fighting with herself, Connie shivered. “She’s with Daniel’s sister.”
Time seemed to pause for a single second. Isaac’s body tightened, his lungs sucking the air from the room as he inhaled the deepest breath I had ever heard. He turned to me, his glare cold but one that wouldn’t bear compromise. “Her name?”
I flicked a glance at Connie. I trusted her, but him, I wasn’t so sure. She gave me a slight nod. “Helen Reynolds.”
He stepped back and turned to Connie. “Did you vet her?”
She frowned at him, annoyance playing across her face. “Of course I did!”
He nodded slowly, his lips parted as his tongue trailed across his lip. “Not well enough, my love.”
That single sentence had my knees buckling and every single nerve in my body crying out in pain. Goosebumps exploded over every inch of me as my stomach vaulted and vomit surged up my throat. My head shook from side to side before I even realised I was moving. “What? What does that mean?”
I pushed my hand into his chest, anger at his riddle bringing forward my wrath. Air gushed from my lungs. I blinked, my cheek squashed against the wall, a knife stuck across my throat in an instance. I wasn’t even aware he had moved. Holy fuck! Now I understood the talk about the lead Phantom, and why he was in control of such a formidable business.
“You ever fucking touch me again and I will slice you into so many tiny little pieces that even the worms will be able to feast on you.”
“Isaac!” Connie warned as she rushed over to us. “It’s okay. It’s his daughter. You would be the same.”
He turned on her so quickly I was dizzy with each of his swift movements. “I never got the fucking chance though, did I? And you…” he spat. “You are still trying to fill that gap with someone else’s child!” His hands covered her face before he’d even finished his vicious words. “I’m so sorry, my love. I shouldn’t have said that.”
Her face tightened as her lips disappeared behind her teeth but she nodded and placed her own hand gently on his cheek. “I know.” It was whispered but the grief in her tone was so very loud.
“Will you stop fucking playing with each other and tell me what the hell is going on?” I didn’t care if he gutted me right there in the hotel, I couldn’t cope with what my mind envisioned.
He sighed, letting my anger ride over him. “A single contract was taken out on you, and then one including you and your daughter. Luckily for you, and unfortunately for the client, they are unaware of our refusal to hurt any child. The child is always placed with alternative carers with new names and new lives to protect them.”
My estimation of the Phantoms rose tenfold with his declaration but I remained quiet and allowed him to continue.
“The dual contract was taken out by… Helen Reynolds.”
I watched Connie drop to the floor as did I. My whole life rushed at me, snapshots of my beautiful Annie, all of them bombarding my mind one after the other in rapid succession, each one shattering my heart more and more.
“No!” Connie wailed. “No, Isaac.”
He gripped her arms tightly and pulled her upright. Her head was shaking from side to side, her ashen face crumbling under the torrent of tears. “What have I done? What have I done?” she repeated over and over.
My eyes widened when Isaac shot his hand across her cheek, her skin flushing instantly. “Look at me!”
Her sobs were loud and almost as heart-breaking as the knowledge that my own sister wanted her only niece dead. “You are no longer a Swift. You are a Phantom. Rein it in.” He pulled her further into him, his words hitting her with a fury. “I taught you better than this! Find the Phantom inside you. You need that fucker, you need to find the shadow that eclipses your heart and pull it free for what needs to be done.”
I watched as her body went stiff. “Lock it down, Shadow,” Isaac continued. “Do not mourn your sister. Avenge her. Fight for her. Honour her in the best way only you know how.”
Her eyes closed for a brief moment before she opened them and nodded. “I’ll need a safe house, an execution zone, Panther and Bullet.”
Isaac smiled the cruellest of smiles. “There’s my girl.” He nodded once. “I’m on it. You have enough ammo?” She replied with a nod as she strode almost mechanically across the room.
“You really think she’ll be in the place you left her?” I asked, knowing that Helen would have immediately taken Annie somewhere unknown.
“No,” Connie answered in the coldest voice I had ever heard from her.
I couldn’t hold in the choked sob that wrenched itself free from my throat but I watched over Connie’s shoulder as she fired up the program she used to locate each of our microchips. A map loaded up. She hit numerous buttons on the keyboard and almost instantly
a small pink dot blinked at us.
I stared at her. “You gave my daughter a microchip?”
She glared at me. “You really think I would do that?”
“Then how the hell do you have her blinking away on the screen?”
“That’s not her. It’s Herbert, her bunny.”
I didn’t know whether I wanted to kiss her or bend her over the desk and fuck the living daylights out of her in gratitude. As though reading my mind, she stood up, pulled out a leather wrap and unrolled it, displaying to me various knives as she winked. “You can thank me later.”
“Well, this I would love to see.” Isaac chuckled from across the rooms as he leant against a wall and watched his wife with pride.
Glancing at Connie, determination and coldness surrounding her, I knew I was to witness something terrifying come to life, but she was equally astonishing when the Phantom inside her came out to play. I licked my lips, squirming at the way my cock strained against my shorts.
“Do you need me?” Isaac asked her.
She smiled softly. “Always. But I’ll have to wait until this is done.”
He nodded and pulled out his phone as he pulled the hotel door open. “I’ll have everything prepared for you. Alert me to the rendezvous point for Panther and Bullet. Be safe and use your head, Shadow.”
“I will.” She gave him a glance that broke my heart for her. Their love was so very strong. I didn’t acknowledge the loneliness that curled through me.
“I love you,” she whispered across the room to him.
“Almost as much as I love you.” He pulled the door closed behind him.
I watched her prepare her tools and weapons, staring in awe at the numerous firearms she had in her possession. She turned to me. “Ready?”
I gave her a nod as she narrowed her eyes then sighed and handed me a pistol. “Do you know how to shoot?” I quirked an eyebrow and she shrugged. “Then let’s go take out this bitch and bring your daughter home.”
A strength I never would have expected poured over me. I couldn’t explain what I felt but I knew deep within me that this woman who planned my death would save my daughter from hers.
THE SILENCE IN the car was suffocating. Daniel had been staring out of the window, his mind elsewhere, or rather on Annie, the same as mine.
The rain bounced off the window, the wipers struggling to keep up with the river rippling across the windscreen. The wind had picked up, forcing the rain harder, the driving beat of it and the wipers regular rhythmic sway hypnotising in the quiet. I fought with the steering wheel as each gust blew the car across the empty motorway.
I glanced at him, not risking taking my eyes off the road for too long. “I need to know, Daniel.” He turned to me. His face was so full of anguish that I moved my eyes back to the front before I spoke again. “I need to know what to expect. Why she’s doing this.”
I saw him nod slowly before he reached forward and adjusted the heating after a small shiver shook his body. “Helen and I, we were close. She…”
I rolled my eyes and gritted my teeth when my phone rang. Glancing at the console, I hit the accept icon. “It’s me,” Bullet’s tiny voice came from the speakers. “We’re both prepped,” she continued without waiting for me to speak. “We’re awaiting your instruction.”
“I’ll send detail via secure connection. Although with the way the weather has deteriorated, I’m going to have to abort until morning.”
Daniel’s head snapped round to mine. Just as he opened his mouth I held up a hand, halting him.
“I agree,” Bullet said. “We’re around ten miles from the centre. We’ll settle and await your correspondence.”
“Okay.”
“The other requirements you needed are set. And…” She sighed and I frowned. Bullet was never one to mince her words yet I could sense her struggle. “And you know that I will do anything to…” She clicked her tongue, knowing that we weren’t on an encrypted network and had to be careful how she worded things. “What is needed. Anything… Anything.”
“Family is more than blood,” I whispered back to the closest person I had ever had as a friend. I knew she would understand my words after she had just told me she would sacrifice herself for my niece and me.
“And blood is what makes us family,” she replied giving me cause to smile. “We bleed together, my friend.” Her parting words calmed my anguish.
“They are your family now.” Daniel spoke into the darkness that had descended in the car.
I glimpsed at him and smiled. “Yes. Yes they are.”
He nodded and gave me a very rare smile. “That’s good, that you have them.”
We were quiet for a moment. The road started to blur and I was finding it increasingly difficult to carry on driving. “We’re going to have to stop.”
“But we need to find her.”
“Daniel.” I sighed, trying to convey the truth in what I was to say. “For one, I can’t do my job properly in a storm. I need it to be clear to grant me an opening to gain access and to survey the area properly. I can’t risk anything for Annie. And Helen wants to hurt you. She is expecting us to find her. That’s why she has taken Annie to your childhood home. She is waiting for you.”
He rubbed at his face. “I know.” He laughed bitterly and shook his head. “You know. I always expected some sort of avengement to be sought after the way my life has taken its toll on others, but to be perfectly honest, I always thought it would be one of the stock, or maybe the parents of a girl, even their husbands or investigators that have been hired by the family who would be the ones to finally grant me redemption.”
I sighed and shook my head. “You think death is penance for your sins, Daniel?”
He turned to me, the faint light only showing me half of his bewildered expression. “Yes. Do you not?”
“No. Redemption is having each family member taken from you. It is giving your life for your sister’s only to find that God had been cruel anyway, mocked you and your search for salvation. It is spending hours tied to a wooden cross in the bitter elements of winter, naked, bleeding and bruised while the rats start to feast on you. It is watching someone you love being raped and beaten just because you love them. It is having your soul ripped from you when the only child you were ever to conceive is killed so fucking brutally. It is hearing the cry of someone you love so desperately tear you apart.”
He was silent, his face dropping to the floor as the forbidden words slipped from me. Why did this fucking man break every damn rule in me, tear down the walls I had erected around myself and pull truths out of me that had been buried long ago?
“And what exactly do you need to seek punishment for, swan?” I could feel his eyes boring through me, his stare penetrating my soul as he waited for my answer.
A sign for motorway services lit up on the left and I indicated, turning onto the slip road.
“We’ll stay here tonight. It’s too dangerous to carry on.” I said, ignoring his question. Luckily he didn’t push, just nodded as we pulled up to the small hotel. Sleep seemed so appealing right then. And I knew we’d both need it for what was to come.
“It was my fault,” Bullet lied as Frederik held us both before him, Gregory holding me flat to the floor as Jacob pinned Bullet down by her hair.
“What?” I gasped. “No, no, Bullet.”
“It was me, Master. I stole it!”
“Bull….” I cried out when Frederik’s boot slammed into the side of my hip, the crack loud on contact. I wedged my lips together to stop the scream that wanted to hurtle from my throat.
“Refrain from talking. You are both liars. Liars and whores. I’m holding you both accountable.”
Bullet’s eyes shot to mine. “I’m sorry,” she mouthed. I shook my head at her. I knew why she had done it, I even understood her. I would have taken the blame for her if she was pregnant, knowing what cruel torture Frederik would have lined up for us.
We both flinched when we were pulled up together,
both of Frederik’s puppets knowing what he wanted without him having to even voice a command. That’s how manipulated we all were.
He walked slowly over to Bullet, his cold eyes making me shiver. He stood before her, looking over her as though she were an insect that had crawled over his food. I hated him so much. I wanted him dead. I wanted to kill him myself, and I think if it weren’t for the fact he was my lover’s father, I would have ended him by now. I had no doubt in my head I was capable. As Isaac had told me often enough, I was the most formidable Phantom of the whole clan. I also knew this was the only reason Frederik kept me alive, because I was useful to the family, not because of any compassion towards me. If he ever found out about my relationship with his son and heir, then I knew that would change with a snap of his fingers.
I flung forward when Frederik slammed his fist into Bullet’s face, knocking her to the ground. Jacob and Gregory grabbed each of my arms, holding me back.
“Master, please don’t.”
He laughed, shaking his head. “You will see what your disobedience brings, Shadow. You refuse to be controlled. So maybe making your friends take your punishment may start to control you better.” He turned back to Bullet. “You stole from me, so I think the only appropriate punishment is to steal something from you.”
My eyes remained dry, my ability to cry stripped from me years ago, as my friend took my punishment. They raped her, each of them, after they broke her frail body. One after the other they took her and then all three of them together. Bullet never shed a tear. We held each other’s eyes through the duration of both our visits to hell. Another piece of my soul shattered as her blood trailed along the ground and pooled against my foot where they had tied me to the pole that was fixed to the floor for occasions of punishment.
Their sick grunts twisted my stomach as Bullet’s silence shredded my heart. It was then that I felt my baby kick for the first time. A moment of absolute joy held me up in that moment of sheer desolation. I couldn’t close my eyes, I was made to watch what my actions for stealing some bread from the kitchens to feed my child had brought. We were all so very hungry, each one of us malnourished and weak. It was only because of this that I had managed to hide my pregnancy and I had been amazed at how my baby had even survived in the devastating condition my body was in, hence the need to steal food. Unfortunately this time we had been caught as Bullet had kept watch for me.
The Salvation of Daniel (The Blue Butterfly Book 2) Page 13
