“What business does Stillman have with Frank Scott?”
Fear flashed in his eyes and he slowly shook his head. “You’re playing with dangerous fire, Fox.”
“Oh, I know that.” I pursed my lips and sighed. “But, when you’re gone, what happens to me is none of your concern, is it?”
He gulped, biting into his lip. “But, shit. They’ll go for Madeline if they find out I gave you information. Fuck.”
There was a bit of a crack somewhere in the caverns of my chest, and for the first time, remorse made my gut twist. Guilt flooded through the gates I always kept locked and I squeezed my eyes closed.
Taking a breath, I looked back at Wyman and growled to myself at what I was about to do.
“Okay, let’s change the rules.”
“Katie?” Hope butted in but I lifted a hand to stop him.
“If you tell me what I need to know.” I smiled as ‘nicely’ as I could at Wyman. “Then I let you leave today. You go straight home, pack your shit, and get your wife and child out of France, and away from Stillman.”
“Katie!” Hope hissed, grabbing my arm and pulling me to the other side of the room. “What the fuck are you doing? He’ll go straight to Stillman and he’ll know we’re onto him.”
“He already knows we’re on to him, Hope. You’re willing to use an innocent woman, and her child as a sacrifice? Whatever happens here today, Wyman will die. By my hand, or Stillman’s. But if I can give him enough time to get his family to safety, then so be it.”
“Stillman won’t let this lie, Katie. He’ll come, and he’ll come all guns blazing.”
“Then it’s time we stole his fucking ammo!”
Wyman had his eyes closed when I turned back to him, battling with his conscience with which way to go. He knew he was going to die, Stillman would kill him, whether he told me what I wanted to know or not. However, my offer was his only hope to get his family out before his death. And we both knew it.
Opening his eyes, he nodded. “Okay.”
I nodded, actually feeling quite sorry for him. Still, I couldn’t allow guilt to factor in what was to come. The encroaching shitstorm would not just blow a hole in Stillman’s life, but Hope’s too.
“Frank Scott ships out Stillman’s ‘goods’.”
“Goods?”
Gritting his teeth together, he groaned. “Girls.”
“What the fuck!” Hope snarled. “Stillman is trafficking girls?”
I winced, praying Hope didn’t fit two and two together.
“How old?” I asked Wyman, leaving Hope to rummage through the shit I knew would be flying around his head.
He shrugged. “Four. Five. Fifteen. Whatever age is ordered.”
“Jesus fuck.” I breathed out, fighting with the bile that was curdling my stomach.
Swallowing, I cleared my throat and looked back to Wyman. “Okay, last question. Who is the ‘bookkeeper’?”
“Jesus!” Wyman groaned, his eyes begging for me to leave it. But I couldn’t. Wouldn’t.
“Just a name, John, just one name and you’re out of here.” His face paled and I tapped his cheek. “Don’t pass out on me, you need the time to get Madeline and Henry. Just a name, John.”
“Look, Fox…”
“I need those books, John. Imagine if it was your little boy being shipped out in crates, bought and sold to men that make paedophiles look like god damn motherfucking cherubs. Men that are so sick even the mind can’t conceive every single evil act.”
Looking like he might puke any moment, Wyman blew out a breath and stared me straight in the eye. “Your girl.”
Stunned, I shook my head. “My girl?”
He nodded slowly. “Nola.”
Fuck!
Seventeen
Tristan
The pancakes I’d made that morning hit the bottom of the toilet bowl. Devastation washed over me as image after image of Sarah broke my sanity.
“No!” I heaved again. “Fuck no. Not Sarah.”
“Hope?” Katie’s soft knock on the door, and her gentle voice, made me grit my teeth. She’d known what Stillman did – was – and she hadn’t told me. I’d had to find out from some fucking knob-sack who had probably had a hand in Sarah’s disappearance too. And I’d had no choice but to untie his ropes and set the cunt free. All because Katie - fucking - Steed had made a fucking ‘promise’.
Well fuck promises. Fuck. Them. All.
The back of her head bounced off the wall when I grabbed her throat and pushed her back. Like she’d been expecting it, she remained stoic, but the sadness in her eyes just made me even angrier. “Hope, listen to me.”
“Listen to you?” I raged, unable to stem the flow of fury building in my chest. “You knew! You fucking knew what had happened to Sarah! Why didn’t you tell me? Why?”
My grip tightened, yet, still, she endured the pain and the restriction on her voice-box. “What was I supposed to say? Oh by the way, Hope, your sister isn’t dead, she was just sold as a sex slave to some…”
Her words registered through the deluge in my head and I let go. She gasped for breath and rubbed at her throat. “Yes, Hope. I have no doubt your sister is still alive.”
Stumbling back, I grabbed hold of the wall when my knees buckled.
“Why do you think I want those books so bad?” she whispered, as if the words would hurt me. “They have details of every transaction. Including your sister’s.”
“Fuck. She’s still alive?”
I slid down the wall and Katie crouched down beside me. The tenderness in her gaze made me reach out and cup her cheek. “She’s alive, Katie?”
Nodding, she smiled softly. “I think so. Well, Stillman didn’t kill her, that’s for certain. We just need to find her.”
I blinked when she stroked her thumb across my cheekbone, collecting a tear I didn’t even know was there. Trailing her fingers down my face, she gently drew them across my lips, wiping away more tears.
“I promise you, with everything,” she whispered, slowly leaning towards me. “I will find her, Hope. I promise you.”
She licked at my lips, tasting my tears before I opened my mouth and allowed her in. I allowed her in to everything. My mind, my soul. Under my skin and into my veins. And in to my heart. I couldn’t keep her out. It was impossible, and implausible. I didn’t want to lock her out. I wanted to feel her in the very core of me.
She moaned softly when my hand slid into her hair and held the back of her head, holding her to me. Her hands grappled with my belt, unbuckling it, and very slowly, she slid it through the loops.
Expecting her to undo my zip and get my cock out, I frowned, puzzled, when she folded the belt in half and pressed it into the palm of my hand. Her eyes sought mine, the hopeful look in her gaze making me realise exactly what she wanted.
My cock roared to life and the oxygen in my lungs ignited with excitement.
“You want me to hurt you, tiger?”
“I want you to pleasure me,” she corrected.
My mouth dried and I struggled with my next words. “Go and bend over the bed.”
Immediately, she did as I asked, pulling off her clothes as she walked along the landing. I watched as she hurriedly exposed her naked backside to me, and I shivered with excitement as I pictured the red stripes that would soon be decorating that amazing arse.
Like a Goddess, she leaned over the bed with her arse directed upwards and high, eager for the first strike of leather on her soft skin.
Wrapping the belt around my palm, I held it tight and lifted it high. The first strike wasn’t gentle, but nor was it severe. I needed to gauge her levels.
“Harder,” she breathed after jolting slightly at the hit.
The second thrash stimulated every one of my senses. The streak of red that erupted over her creamy skin. The sound of the leather smacking the round of her buttocks. The way her back arched and she hissed at the pain. Each one made me bring down the belt harder, her cries of ecstasy driving me cr
azy.
Unable to stop, I pulled out my cock and forced myself deep inside her. “Fuck, you’re so wet.”
“Fuck me, damn it,” she demanded, looking at me over her shoulder.
She bucked back against me when I brought the belt back down on her arse as I thrust hard and deep. “There’s that insolence again.”
An orgasm ripped through her instantly, the squeeze of her pussy walls on my cock making me fuck her harder and faster.
She thrashed beneath me, her fingers digging into the bed as I put my hand on the back of her neck and held her down, climbing completely over her and mounting her.
Our grunts were primal, animalistic and raw, our fucking just as brutal. Sheer white-hot pleasure shot up my spine and back down to my balls when I came inside her. She cried out, another climax driving her wild beneath me. I struggled to hold on as she growled and writhed under me, my cock buried deep in the squeeze of her tight pussy.
“Fucking hell,” she wheezed when I rolled over and pulled her little body into the crook of mine.
Burying her face into my chest, she exhaled sleepily and placed her arm across my stomach.
“I need to tend to your backside.”
She nodded once, and yawned.
Always contagious, I also yawned. “I haven’t been this relaxed for so long,” I murmured, lazily stroking my fingers up the groove of her spine.
When she didn’t reply, I tipped her head back. She was sound asleep, her eyes closed. The look of absolute peace on her face captivated me and I couldn’t look away. I’d always seen her as pretty but now she was simply beautiful. Exquisite.
She was such a strong woman. Or rather, she wanted people to think she was strong. And, in a way, she was, but I had witnessed the woman she truly was. The caring and warm soul she carried around inside her, even if it was broken. There was so much pain inside her that I marvelled at how she kept breathing under the weight of it.
Her arm around my waist tightened and she snuggled deeper into me. I needed to tend to the welts on her backside, except, I couldn’t move. I was mesmerised by her, the soft way she breathed, the expression of tranquillity on her stunning face, and the way she fit perfectly against me.
It was as I drifted off to sleep, I heard her sleepy murmur. “Steed.”
And the warmth in my chest chilled.
Eighteen
Katie
The plane touched down at Heathrow and as soon as the seatbelt light went off I was up and out of my seat and the first in the queue to get off.
Hope had been weird all the way back, quiet and contemplative. He was usually upbeat and always had some sort of banter going on with me, but I’d hardly managed to get two words out of him.
I was also eager to get to Nola. It hurt how she’d betrayed me. I had to wonder how long she’d been sliding the knife into my back, and how deep she’d managed to sink it. No wonder Stillman knew every move we made, yet I couldn’t understand why Nola had verified his whereabouts in France.
Stillman hadn’t made a move on either myself or Hope, so what had Nola gotten out of getting us over there? She must have known I would see him with Frank Scott and put two and two together.
It was late when I pulled into my driveway, but I wasn’t surprised to find Sam sat in his car waiting for me. Disappointment churned at my gut when I saw his sympathetic look.
“Hey, pumpkin.” He smiled and dropped a kiss to my cheek before following me into the house. “You on your own?”
I nodded and switched on the kettle.
Sam shook his head and sighed. “Gonna need something stronger than tea for this, Katie.”
“Ahh, fuck,” I grumbled.
Taking the whisky from the cupboard, I grabbed two glasses and gestured for him to follow me into the lounge.
“All of them, or just Nola?”
Taking a long swig of his drink, he swallowed it down and looked directly at me. “Everyone except Mark.”
“God fucking damn.”
I’d managed to hold the tears in for so long, even through the death of my husband and my family. Yet it was Sam’s revelation that finally broke the dam.
Hot devastation brought the destruction, and when my glass hit the wall and shattered, Sam was instantly pulling me into his large arms to protect me from myself.
Indescribable anger took my breath and I looked up at him through the river of tears. “Who took out Mark?”
“Jared,” he divulged bluntly but softly.
“Do they all work for Stillman?”
“Yes, but I don’t think it has been all along. I think Stillman offered them something they couldn’t refuse.”
“And how easily they turned,” I spat.
Sam grabbed another glass and filled it, passing it to me. “We’re all here for you, pumpkin.”
“All?” I scoffed. “Including my parents, eh? And what about Steed? And my brother? You’re not ALL here for me, are you?”
“Babe.” The look of torment on his face was so raw that I shook my head in apology.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, don’t be. But, Katie, when I said we’re all here for you, I meant it. Your mum and dad are always with you. They’re in your blood, your soul, your genes. They’ll never leave you.”
I nodded and slumped back into the couch. “What the hell am I going to do, Sam?”
“You’re going to do exactly what your father trained you to do. You’re going to fight. And you have each of us right the fuck behind you for one last time.”
I frowned. “What?”
He smiled. “Liv and Nate are, right this very minute, on a plane back. Layla is already tooling up. Greg has pulled himself out of the fucking bottle and kicked his own arse to be there for you. Grace and Kade are already here. William has his guys looking into shit, and Lucas is burying himself into the dark web to find out whatever he can about Stillman and Frank Scott. We’re here, Katie. Every single last one of us.”
My heart swelled, more tears spilling over.
“For the very last time, the crew are coming together. It’s time to end this shit, Katie. It’s time for you to be happy, and live. It’s time to let your parents go. In a damn fucking blaze of glory. Make them proud, pumpkin. Find their strength in your veins and fucking feast on it.”
I had thought I had laid Katie Fox to rest. But she would never die. My parents had made sure of that. I was a Fox, right to the last fucking breath. I was my parents’ legacy, and I’d make damn sure that they would live on in me.
Nineteen
Tristan
I stared, stunned, at Katie when I opened my front door and she threw a shotgun into my arms a few days later. “Time to party, Hope.”
She squeezed past me, letting herself into my home.
“Stillman?” I asked as I closed the door behind her and followed her into my apartment.
She shook her head. “No, my own crew.”
I froze, unable to process what she had just said. “Sorry, what?”
The hurt on her face made me instantly step towards her and take her hand. The need to soothe her distress confused the detachment that forever lay deep inside me, and I couldn’t figure out what it was about Katie that reached so far inside me. I’d always been such a cold and distant man, never really relying or wanting to rely on anyone. It was safer on my own, and a damn site easier, and the fact that this small but feisty woman was touching the core of me wasn’t exactly welcome.
“Apart from Mark, the people I took on, the people that I would have died for, are all in Stillman’s pocket.”
“All of them? I thought it was just Nola.”
“Nope.” She tried to appear blasé about it, but I could see every ounce of the upset in her striking green eyes.
Embarrassed, when she knew I saw her distress, she moved away from me, dropping my hand, and strolled around the room, moving her attention away from me and onto my home.
She picked up the small photo of me and Sarah from the mant
le. “She’s so pretty.”
I smiled, going to stand behind her so I could look over her shoulder at the picture. “She is. And her heart is just as beautiful.”
Her scent overwhelmed me, her unique perfume filling every one of my senses. Instinctively, powerless to stop myself, I buried my nose into her soft red waves and inhaled. “Rather like you, tiger.”
Her chest heaved when she drew in a deep breath, however, she didn’t move away like I anticipated. “My heart is anything but beautiful, Hope. It’s cold and hard. But it’s also broken and vulnerable.”
Her honesty floored me for a moment and I couldn’t find the words she needed to hear. I wanted to tell her that I would shelter her heart, protect it, but I couldn’t. I would hurt her, and we both knew it. I wasn’t even sure where we were on our ‘deal’ anymore. Would I even be able to take her out if it came to it? The tightness in my chest made me hiss.
Katie coughed, her face flushing at the awkwardness of our intimacy, and placed the frame back. “Grace has got Nola and I’ll deal with her later. I need her alive.” She turned to face me. “Jared is mine. He took my best friend from me, I want to take his life from him.”
I nodded. “Does that just leave Graham?”
“And Tommy, my doctor. We’ll play it by ear with him. I’ve called a meeting so everyone will be in the same place. We can’t risk anyone warning Stillman, or running, so they need to be together when we do this.”
I nodded, pulling on my boots. “Are we going for Stillman after?”
“It depends if I get the books from Nola. Otherwise we may need him to find Sarah, and hopefully all the other poor little fuckers he’s sold over the years.”
I doubted we’d ever find them all but I didn’t voice that.
“Stillman will be tough to take out. We have to be very careful. He’s the police commissioner, and not only will he be well protected, we’ll need to make sure it won’t come back to us. Planning is essential, Hope. As I’m sure you’re all too aware.”
Again, I nodded. “Yep.” Unlocking the drawer where I kept my kit, I grabbed a gun and a knife, and picked up the shotgun.
Nemesis: Katie's story (Heart of Stone Book 15) Page 9
