by Brandi Evans
I stopped him.
I stopped him.
I stopped him.
The words repeated in my head on a loop. I'd neutralized him. Now, I needed to get out of these shackles and find a way to restrain him until help arrived.
But I didn't move.
A little voice inside whispered through the cacophony of noise in my head. You can't let him walk out of here alive. He knows too much.
He did know too much, and when they took him into custody, he'd tell everything. Even if I walked out of here alive, Théo could still destroy Max's life, and in a way, if that happened, my life would be destroyed, too. If Max went to prison, the future I'd imagined with him would be a thing of dreams only.
Of course, he may not go to prison. A man of his status could and would hire the best attorneys. They'd play up his childhood abuse, on the situation, on the fact they'd stopped his father from killing his mother. I knew all of this, but, but, but…
I had to kill him.
It was the only way.
"No."
I shook my head, trying to silence the buzzing in my brain. My thoughts were frantic, zooming, pounding against my skull like a drumline. I couldn't focus. The room was starting to spin. Nausea bubbled up, and I began shivering.
My breath grew shallower and shallower with each passing second. I stared at the chains attached to my wrists—wrists that were mangled, swollen, and caked with wet and dried blood. And I couldn't put weight on my right leg. Théo had done that. He'd taken my kidney, too. He'd taken Giselle's life. Possibly Karen's. He stood on the precipice of taking Max's metaphorical life.
I could stop all that.
Chapter 15
Max
"Bree! Bree!"
I slammed both fists against the table in an auxiliary room at the police station and rocketed to my feet. I needed to help her, to save her, but we still didn't have a clue where she was. I'd never felt so impotent and useless in my life.
I glared at Detective Inspector Dayton. "Where is she?"
"I don't know." The middle-aged detective with his cheap suit and competent face looked at a monitor over an electronic tech's shoulder. "The signal's showing us they're somewhere in Shanghai, but we're trying to—"
"Fucking find her!" I leaned closer to where my cell was plugged into the electronic tech's computer and strained to hear anything.
Come on, my sweet. Give me something. Anything.
Muffled conversation teased through the speaker. Were they talking about chess?
I closed my eyes and leaned even closer. "Max's queen," Bree was saying. Something about power and checkmate, but I couldn't make it—
Bree's primal scream pierced the air. On instinct, I jumped back. The sound of chains clanking and the unmistakable crack of bones snapping following quickly after.
Oh, god, no…
"Bree! Bree, please god, answer me. Bree!"
I banged my fists against the table, helplessness a dark void trying to consume me. Tears pressed hard and hot against the backs of my eyes, and my stomach knotted.
I looked at the detective inspector, begging without using words.
He just shook his head.
"Goddamn it!" I hit the table again, knowing without a doubt, I was listening to the woman I loved being murdered.
Finally, the shouting stopped, and a long, torturous silence was the only marking of time as we waited and waited and waited…
Scott moved closer as another of those bone-crushing thumps fractured the air—and the ground beneath me. Then another thump and another—followed by a silence that stretched into eternity.
Through my phone's speaker, the clanking of chains, gentle this time, and the shuffling of feet filled the room. I imagined it was Théo dragging Bree's lifeless corpse along some dirty floor. I braced myself for his voice, for confirmation Bree was gone for real this time.
"Max?"
My heart stuttered to a stop and then sprinted. Her voice was the first breath of air after being trapped underwater, but I couldn't allow myself to believe what I was hearing. It could be a trick. Théo could have recorded her voice to use to give me hope before yanking it away again.
"M-Max, p-please answer me. I need you." The end of her plea turned desperate. "Max."
It was her!
"Yes, Bree. I'm here. I—"
My voice broke, and Scott took me by the elbows and eased me into a chair—and not a second too soon. My knees had been on the verge of buckling.
I pulled myself together enough to ask what needed asking. "Is Théo still there? Can he still hurt you?"
"He's, he's, he's—" She sounded as if she'd been replaced by an emotionless robot. "He had me chained up and, and, and—Max, please come get me. I can't—"
Her voice fractured. Her sobs were slashes across the chest. She was breaking.
"Bree, my sweet, do you know where you are? We're having trouble pinpointing your location."
"I don't know. Hold, hold on."
A moment later, my phone dinged with a new message: Breanne Jennings is sharing her location with you.
"Sit tight, my sweet. I'm coming to get you."
Headlights bounced over the Jewel of the Isle as our caravan stopped, the blue flash of police lights adding an eerie glow around the old hotel that had sat abandoned since World War I. Rumored to be haunted, the Jewel of the Isle had become a local oddity and tourist attraction; it was also two miles from where Bree had been abducted.
My stomach knotted at the thought of what Théo had done to her in there and how much more he could have done, but she'd escaped. She'd beaten him again. I wasn't sure how, but she was free. That was all that mattered.
Unless it's another trick.
But I pushed the taunt aside. I needed to believe this was legit. It was the only thing keeping me from collapsing under the weight of grief and guilt.
Our call had dropped about two minutes before, and I hadn't been able to re-establish a connection. The call kept going straight to voicemail.
"This looks to be as close as we can get," said Danyon, and I could immediately see why. The driveway looked like Salvador Dali's impersonation of a parking lot. We were better going on foot.
Scott was beside me the moment I stepped from the cruiser. "I guess there's not a chance in hell I can convince you to stay here until the building's clear."
"No."
"Yeah, I didn't think so. At least, stay behind me, sir. I've already lost enough people on my watch today."
I nodded. Scott had been my head of security since I'd moved to America. I trusted his judgment, and I didn't blame him for anything that had happened.
But before I could tell him so, someone called out. "Over here! I've got her. North end of the building. Get the paramedics over here now!"
Paramedics.
I took off in a dead run after the rush of officers and paramedics hurrying the same direction. I didn't know how I managed to keep from tripping over the uneven surface, but there she was, sitting on the bottom step of a crumbling brick staircase, the same shackles I'd seen on the video still locked around her bloodied wrists. The skin there was red with dried, matted blood.
How much damage did that gore conceal?
The image of her shackled in whatever room she'd been held filled my mind. The way she'd kicked and spun as she'd fought with everything she had. She'd been so incredibly brave while I'd been a complete wreck.
Starting from the shackles, crimson lines extended from wrists to elbows. Gravity had created that pattern when her arms had been bound overhead. That alone was enough to sucker punch me, but it was her expression that ultimately did me in. She stared at the ground as if it held some mesmerizing secret; she didn't even seem to register we were there.
One of the paramedics was about to kneel in front of her, but I stopped her with a hand to the shoulder. She looked at me, and without me having to say a word, she nodded in understanding and took a step back.
Slowly, I knelt in f
ront of my fiancée. "Bree, my sweet. It's me."
She didn't look up, didn't appear to even breathe.
"My sweet."
Her head lifted drunkenly, and she blinked three times before she seemed to recognize me. "M-Max?"
"That's right, my sweet. It's me."
"Max." This time, her voice was watery, and she lifted a hand as if to touch my face but instantly groaned in pain. She cradled her hands to her torso.
"Don't move, Bree." I inched closer and touched her face, pressing my cheek to hers. "I'm here. I've got you. You're safe."
Dayton knelt beside us. He kept his voice non-threatening as he murmured, "Ms. Jennings, where's Théo Roux?"
She flinched the moment the detective inspector said Théo's name. "He's inside. I got loose somehow. He's—I don't remember." Shaking her head, she burrowed into me. She shivered as if the temperature had dropped a hundred degrees.
Dayton pushed to his feet and motioned the paramedic to take his place. "We need to get her to the hospital. I think she's going into shock."
The paramedic nodded her agreement.
"Shock?" I questioned. I would have pulled back and examined Bree, but I couldn't release her.
"She's gone through an ordeal," the paramedic said. "Her body doesn't know how to handle it."
The paramedic reached for Bree, but she jerked from the other woman's grasp.
"I'm not going to hurt you," the paramedic said, instantly pulling back and holding her hands up in the gesture of surrender. "I promise. I just want to make sure you're okay and to start an IV. I want to give you something for the pain."
But Bree turned into my body and folded herself into me. "Don't let them take me, Max. Please. Don't let them hurt me, too."
"No one's going to hurt you, my sweet. It's okay. They're here to help." I kissed the side of her head, and after a few moments of consoling, I got her to rest one arm out to the paramedic. And like I did when she woke from her nightmares, I whispered to her until the meds carried her off to peaceful sleep.
When Garrett stepped into Bree's hospital room, close to twenty-four hours had passed since her epic showdown with Théo. I hadn't seen much of my friend since our lives had nearly fallen apart. He looked haggard, the dark circles beneath his eyes the same color as his hair. I doubt he'd gotten more than a power nap since the shooting; I know I hadn't.
He shuffled to Bree's bedside and, after a long, careful look, captured the fingers of her right hand in his, where they extended from her cast, and bent to press a soft kiss to her lips. When he righted himself, he stood there and just stroked the hair back from her forehead. Pain contorted his face, pain for Bree's ordeal and for his wife's.
His pain mirrored my own. This was the second time I'd sat at my fiancée's hospital bed as she'd borne the brunt of a punishment that should have been mine. She'd suffered for the sins of my past—twice. She deserved so much better than me. Part of me prayed she'd realize that when she woke up, that she'd walk away. The selfish part of me, on the other hand, was terrified she'd do just that.
"I'm sorry I haven't stopped by before now," he finally said. "When I heard she'd been taken—" He stopped, shook his head as if warding off a breakdown. "How's she doing?"
"She's pretty beat up, but she'll make it." I pushed to my feet and stood beside the bed opposite my friend. "They had to perform surgery on her right knee. Théo hit it with a hammer at least once that I saw."
"Saw?" Garrett looked up, staring at me.
"Théo called me from Bree's phone. Video chat, actually. I'm pretty sure he wanted me to watch him kill her."
"Goddamn ball-less motherfucker."
"He cracked several of her ribs, and her arms—" I touched the cast on the arm nearest me and tried like hell not to remember how raw they'd looked when I'd found her. "They're both broken. The left one is fractured in two places, but the right one, the ulna snapped. They had to set it with pins. All things considered, it could have been so much worse, but I'm afraid all the physical injuries will pale in comparison to the psychological trauma. The last attack left her with severe PTSD. I can't imagine what this will do to her. She was in shock when we found her. I don't think she recognized me for a second."
"Jesus H. Christ." Garrett returned his gaze to Bree. "But you beat that motherfucker, love. You beat him."
Yes, she had.
"She's strong, Max. She'll find a way to pull through this. Just be there for her, and for god's sake, tell her you love her all the goddamn time. You never know when it could be your last."
After a brief hesitation, I reached across the bed and placed my hand atop Garrett's where he still held Bree's fingers. "I'm sorry, Garrett. With everything that's happened, I should have—"
"Isn't your fault. You didn't do anything. That psychopath did, and he got exactly what he fucking deserved."
"But—"
"Don't make me fucking punch you, okay? Because right now, I want to take this out on someone so fucking badly, and if you keep offering yourself up as a scapegoat, I may take you up on it."
Before I could respond, a gentle knock sounded against the door, and Dayton walked in. I couldn't be sure, but I thought the detective inspector was wearing the same suit he had yesterday. Had he even been home yet?
"Is this a bad time?" Dayton asked.
"No, of course not." I moved to the foot of the bed to greet him. "She still hasn't woken up for any length of time, and when she does, she's frantic. I think part of her thinks she's still in the basement with him."
"Well, the mind does funny things after and during a trauma," the cop said as he pulled the door closed behind him. "She may not ever fully remember what happened that night or it may come back to her over time. It could all come back in one vivid moment of recollection. I'm not sure which scenario might be worse."
I prayed she never remembered what had happened, what she'd done, but I doubted we'd get so lucky.
"I actually stopped by to tell you we think we've worked out what happened in that basement. It's… intense." Dayton removed the leather-bound notebook tucked between his crooked arm and side. "If you don't want to know the details, I'll understand."
"No, she survived the trauma. The least I can do is know what all she endured." More than that, I needed to know. Bree would likely forever live with those memories. It was only fair I did, too.
"Fair enough." Dayton looked at Garrett, back to me. "If you'd like to go somewhere private and—"
"I don't have any secrets from anyone in this room," I told him.
Dayton nodded and dragged Bree's rolling bedside table over so he could use it as a makeshift desk. He placed his portfolio on it, opened it, and began taking out paper after paper as he spoke.
"We got into Roux's computer and found evidence of multiple payments to known mercenaries. He farmed out most of his crimes. Dropping off the letter at Creative Sundries, placing the gas used in the attack on the Lanyon's residence, the poisoning of your mother, Mr. Penn." He looked at Garrett. "Your wife's shooting and Ms. Jennings abduction. After that, they scattered. We may never find them all."
"Do you know who actually shot my wife?" On the surface, Garrett's voice was cold, but I could sense the rage burning below the surface.
"Not for certain, but I've got it narrowed down between two prime suspects."
"Goddamn it, I need someone to pay for what happened to her." Garrett skulked around the bed to the window.
"Someone did pay, Mr. Lanyon," Dayton said. "The mastermind who orchestrated everything is dead. He was a victim of his own revenge plot."
The cop shuffled the papers until he came to a series of glossy 8x10s. They were of the basement, and a dread dropped into my gut. I wanted to look away. I'd said I needed to know, but I hadn't realized how much I didn't want to until now.
Garrett must have sensed or heard something in my breath because he came to stand beside me as Dayton said, "It's still unclear exactly how Ms. Jennings was transported to the abandoned hot
el basement, but once there, Roux shackled her to an old lead pipe system. I checked the pipe myself, as well as other pipes in the room. They were old, yes, and a bit rusty, but they were solid. I don't know how she was able to break free. Logic tells me she shouldn't have been able to."
But she had broken it, and it had broken her in return. "That would explain the extent of her arm injuries," I said.
"She'd have had to yank down with enough force—repeatedly—to do it," Dayton said. "Flesh and bone would have given long before the metal, which meant she would have kept yanking, even after she'd broken her arms."
I hadn't realized I'd moved until I'd gingerly closed my hands around the cast nearest me. "She's a fighter," I said.
"No," Garrett countered, "she's a badass. A complete and total badass."
For the first time since I'd heard that gunshot rip through the idyllic seaside air, I chuckled. "That, she is. It's part of what I love about her."
The look on Garrett's face told me, no words needed, it was part of what he loved about her, too.
Dayton dug back into his leather portfolio, produced a sheet of paper, and held it out to me. "We enhanced the audio of the video call Roux made to you, specifically the part after the phone was knocked across the room. There's a specific part I think you'll want to read."
He held the sheet out to me. I took it, noting several paragraphs of text highlighted. Dialogue, I realized.
I held the paper so Garrett and I could read together.
Théo Roux: You fucking bitch! I had planned to kill you slowly, to make Max watch and suffer, but you're not worth all this fucking pain. This game is over. It's time for you to die.
Breanne Jennings: You called this a game of chess, and you're absolutely right. It is, only Max isn't the one in checkmate; you are. You keep underestimating the most powerful piece on the board.
Théo Roux: And what piece, ma chère, is that?
Breanne Jennings: Max's queen.
I was suddenly unsure of my knees' ability to keep me upright, and I had to grip the side of Bree's bed to steady myself. He'd planned to kill her slowly just to make me suffer? I'd say it was a gut punch, but that wouldn't do the pain in my stomach justice. She'd been a means to an end to him. She hadn't been human, just a thing to use to hurt me.
