Out of the Light, Into the Shadows

by Lori Foster

  The man whimpered. “Belle isn’t here.”

  Amos moved to stand in front of him. Unconcerned with the aimed weapon, he braced his feet apart and crossed his wrists behind the small of his back. In a voice eerily gentle, he asked, “Where is she?”

  The man’s mouth trembled, moved, but no words came out.

  Amos tsked. “I can kill you easily, you know. Fast, clean.” He stepped on a twig and it snapped. “Just like that, Bradley.”

  Tears filled the man’s eyes and overflowed to stream down his ashen face. It sickened Brax to see such cowardice after all the pain he’d inflicted.

  “Or,” Amos said, studying him without an ounce of sympathy, “I can make it agonizingly slow with enough torture to make you beg for death. You know about torture, don’t you, Bradley? I’m sure you can imagine what I’ll do to you—and how much I’ll enjoy it.” He waited a heartbeat. “Maybe even as much as you enjoyed torturing those women.”

  “No, please.” Though Bradley couldn’t move, he openly sobbed. “It wasn’t me.”

  Impatient, Brax wished Amos would get on with it. They’d already been gone too long, first in locating the exact position of the man without alerting him to their pursuit, and now this ridiculous banter. He wanted—needed—to return to Cameo. For reasons he couldn’t understand, he felt a great deal of unease.

  “I saw you,” Amos pointed out. “You were there with them, tormenting them, taunting them.”

  “No.”

  “And I saw the women, what you’d done to them.”

  “No,” Bradley denied again. “I mean, it was me, but I did it for her.”

  Amos stilled in the process of removing his Polaroid camera. “You mean for Belle, your wife?”

  A very bad feeling came over Brax.

  The man shuddered, but otherwise couldn’t regain use of his limbs. “Yes, yes, for her. Belle is the one who gets off on it. It doesn’t matter to me. I only do it for her, to make her happy.”

  With the same cutting force of a heavy leather whip, Amos’s voice slashed through the quiet of the day. “Where is Belle?”

  Brax’s phone rang at the same time that the man started confessing.

  “She … she was watching the front of your house from down the street.”

  Oh, God. Brax snatched out his cell without checking the number. “Cameo?”

  “No, Brax, it’s me, Mercy.”

  Intuition cramped his muscles. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing, I hope. I wasn’t feeling well and I went to the hospital—but I’m okay, Brax. So is the baby. The doctor says I have food poisoning, if you can believe that, so they’re keeping me, but it’s not serious. Just uncomfortable.” She sucked in a weak breath, her voice thin with worry. “It’s Cameo I’m worried about. I called her and she agreed to meet me here but she hasn’t shown up. Before we hung up, she said she was already on her way, but it wouldn’t have taken her more than a few minutes to get here, and she’s … not.”

  Icy control crept over him. “Maybe she’s held up in traffic.”

  “I hope so, but I’ve called her cell a couple of times and she’s not answering. Brax, she told me she’d have her cell with her. I’m … scared.”

  Brax felt himself expanding with rage. Protecting his sister was an instinct he couldn’t shake even at the worst of times, so he said simply, “I’ll take care of it, I promise. Don’t worry.”

  Unwilling to waste any more time, he disconnected the call and turned back to Amos in time to see him haul the man up by his shirt collar.

  “We have to move,” Brax said, watching as Amos dragged Bradley along. “Tell me you can track her.”

  “She cut me.” Amos gave one sharp nod. “Of course I can. Let’s go.” He headed for the street, but stopped in his tracks.

  Brax turned on him. “What?”

  “This way. Back to your house.” Amos turned and started running across the massive backyards, forcing Bradley to keep up. “We have to hurry before Belle gets away.”

  “She already has Cameo?”

  “Yeah.” His long legs ate up the distance. “And she’s planning to kill her.”

  CAMEO fought off the lightheaded feeling as the woman jabbed the gun into her spine.

  “Open the door.”

  She couldn’t believe the woman had brought her back to Brax’s home. Fingers numb, she punched in the necessary code and the door unlocked.

  The woman pushed her. “Let’s go.”

  Grateful for anything familiar, praying Brax would finish his business and return soon, Cameo went inside. “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to have some fun. Now that you’re alone, I plan to enjoy you.”

  “I’m not alone.” Very slowly, her movements cautious, Cameo turned to face the woman. Insanity shone in her eyes and in her wicked smile of anticipation. She fought back a shudder. “Brax will be back soon.”

  “Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong,” she sang. “Bradley will shoot him and the other one, too, and then he’ll join us. We’ll have all the time we need to play.”

  “Play?”

  Keeping the gun pointed at Cameo, the woman withdrew the knife from her belt loop. “Do you know how I brand them? I heat my knife, and then carve my initials into them.”

  “You …” Cameo’s mouth went dry. “You tortured those women?”

  “Bradley helped—with my instruction.” Her smile showed surprisingly straight, white teeth. “Bradley doesn’t have my imagination.”

  Remembering those awful photos, Cameo’s stomach revolted and she nearly threw up. For a single second, rage burned brighter than her fear. “You miserable, sick bitch.”

  The woman’s brows came down. “You’ll call me Belle, or nothing at all. I won’t tolerate insults from you.”

  Incredulous, Cameo shook her head. “How could you bear to do that to those poor women?”

  Belle examined the blade of her knife. “You know what bothered me about torturing them? How they looked at me.” Her piercing gaze leveled on Cameo. “How you’re looking at me now. Like I should stop it just because I’m female.” She came closer. “You know how I can fix that?”

  Cameo said nothing.

  “I can take out your eyes before we even start.”

  No, Cameo thought. No, I won’t die like this. She glanced at the gun, held steady and sure. She looked at the knife, long and thick.

  She would not be a coward. That’s exactly what Belle wanted—and she wouldn’t give it to her. “You go ahead and keep hemorrhaging your vile threats. It won’t matter in the end when Brax gets you. And my God, the things he’s going to do to you …” She mustered a credible, sneering laugh. “I could almost feel sorry for you, except you deserve every bit of it.”

  Belle turned red with rage. “I told you, Bradley killed him.”

  “Oh no. Bradley couldn’t even control you, could he?” Cameo taunted. “Do you really think he’d be able to stop a powerful, determined man like Brax? Never. Brax has already taken care of him, and now he’s on his way back here. He’s going to make you very sorry for touching me.”

  “Shut up!” Belle screamed. She glanced beyond Cameo to the long hallway, and then the stairs. “Go. Up that way.”

  “Why?”

  The knife flashed out, pricking the skin of her waist. Cameo cried out and stumbled back a step.

  Thrilled with her spontaneous reaction, Belle grinned. “Because I said so. Now get up there before I cut your pretty face.”

  Seeing no alternative, Cameo headed for the stairs. Her skin crawled at the sensation of having a demented maniac at her back. She could hear Belle breathing, almost feel her thinking, planning, all of it obscene.

  Each step added to her anxiety until the need to run almost overwhelmed her. Only the certainty that Belle would shoot her kept her in control.

  “The room we bombed,” Belle said. “Take me there. I want to see my handiwork.”

  Cameo’s thoughts shifted this w
ay and that. The office was now in shambles with debris everywhere. Maybe that would afford her a better means to escape. Perhaps she could use a chunk of broken glass or splintered wood as a weapon.

  She opened Brax’s office door and a breeze carried new smoke into the hallway, making her choke and cough.

  Belle chuckled. “Look at that! Bradley did a great job with that bomb, didn’t he?” She prodded Cameo’s back. “It’s too bad your man wasn’t still in there when the bomb exploded. Instead of papers everywhere, it’d be little pieces of him.”

  Her laugh was enough to make Cameo ill. She eased into the room, her eyes quickly scanning everything, looking for any means of assistance. There were a lot of possible weapons about—but with that unwavering gun aimed at her, did she dare try anything?

  Cameo was weighing her odds of survival when she heard the faintest sound.

  Belle didn’t notice. She was too busy enjoying her destruction—but renewed hope surged inside Cameo.

  It was Brax. She just knew it. Somehow, in her heart, she felt his presence. A sense of security eased some of her blind panic and rampant fear. Brax would not let her be hurt.

  But a few seconds later, it wasn’t Brax who stepped into the room. It was a stranger with glassy eyes and inflexible movements. Though he said nothing, his bizarre gaze clapped onto Belle like a lifeline. In his right hand was another gun. Stiff-legged, he came farther inside.

  “Bradley!” Belle stepped over rubble to reach him, but when he didn’t open his arms for her, she slowed. “What is it? What’s wrong with you?”

  He still said nothing. Beads of sweat poured down his temples and matted his light-brown hair. His eyes were so wide that the whites showed all the way around, amplifying his dilated pupils.

  And Cameo knew. Brax controlled him.

  Fascinated, she watched as Bradley raised his gun—and aimed it at Belle.

  “Bradley?” she snapped as she stumbled back a step. “What the hell are you doing?”

  He caught her arm with his other hand and yanked her up close to him. He shoved the gun hard against her sternum. Tears mixed with the sweat.

  As the macabre scene unfolded in front of her, Cameo backed up, horrified, relieved, and sickened.

  “Bradley!” Belle struggled in earnest—and the gun fired.

  In the high-ceilinged office, the sound was so loud that Cameo flinched, but she couldn’t look away. Belle’s shocked expression faded to blank dismay, and she slowly sank to the floor amid broken glass and shattered wood. Blood oozed from her midsection like a blossoming flower until it soaked through fabric and began to drip over her side.

  Big, imposing, and in control, Brax came through the doorway. His booted feet squashed everything in his way as he made a beeline for Cameo. She was still reeling from witnessing the loss of a life, but Brax stopped in front of her and in rapid order examined her many minor injuries.

  His hands were gentle as he pushed back her hair to see her face, stroked along her arms, each leg, over her back and belly. “Talk to me, Cameo. Where are you hurt?”

  “I’m … I’m okay,” she told him.

  As if he needed to collect himself, his eyes closed for a moment. With tender care, he lifted her into his arms and briefly pressed his mouth to her forehead. “God, sweetheart, I am so fucking sorry.”

  Cameo touched his face. “Don’t be. You saved me.”

  “I’m taking her to the hospital,” he announced to Amos, who had just joined them in the room. “She might need stitches.”

  “She’s okay?”

  Cameo spoke up. “I’m definitely okay, and I’m not going to the hospital.” But mention of the hospital reminded Cameo of why she’d left the house in the first place. “Mercy is there, though.”

  “She’s fine,” Brax told her. “She called me when you didn’t show up.”

  “The baby?”

  He frowned at her, but little by little, his face relaxed into an expression of wonder. “Everyone is fine except for you.”

  “And Belle.” Her gaze went to the zombielike expression on the man’s face. She shuddered. “And him.”

  Voice hard, he ordered, “Don’t you waste a second of remorse on either of them.”

  “I won’t,” she promised. “It’s just … unsettling.”

  Brax groaned, hugged her, and then carried her out of the room, down the hall, and into his bathroom. He set her on the edge of the tub while he dampened a towel. “Let me see your arm.”

  Dutifully, Cameo held it out to him. He cleaned away the blood with incredible care.

  She looked at her skin, at the angry red cut, but really, it was nothing more than a bad scratch. “I don’t need stitches.”

  Unconvinced, Brax continued to clean and inspect her arm until, finally, he nodded agreement. “Maybe not. But it has to hurt like hell.”

  It did, but given how stoic Amos had been over his injuries, she felt compelled to say, “It’s not too bad.”

  Brax rinsed out the towel and then started on her face. “Damn,” he said when he uncovered the small cut caused by the wreck. A wealth of emotion shone in his golden eyes. “You’re going to be black and blue.”

  “Maybe Amos and I will look related.”

  When he didn’t laugh, Cameo wished for a way to soothe him, to remove that horrible guilt from his face.

  “Brax, I am fine, I promise.” She didn’t want to look weak, but she couldn’t help giving him a small truth. “I really just wish you’d hold me.”

  His gaze shot to hers.

  “I’m not physically hurt,” she said again, “but inside … I’m still shaking so badly.” Her voice wavered, then broke on a thin, high note. “I’ve never been so scared in my entire life.”

  With a growled curse, he gathered her close, lifting her off her feet and back into his arms, rocking her, hugging her close. “You’re safe now, Cameo. Safe. I swear it.”

  “I know,” she said with tears in her voice. “Because I’m with you.”

  For long minutes, he held her like that, still rocking her, kissing her every so often.

  A knock sounded on the door. Amos stuck his head in, looked at her with concern, and frowned at Brax. “It’s done.”

  Brax nodded. “Go ahead and call it in.”

  “What’s going on?” Cameo asked.

  Brax went into the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed with her. Matter-of-factly, as if he spoke the truth rather than a fictionalized story, Brax stated, “Bradley and Belle broke in after throwing that pipe bomb into my office. They terrorized you. You and Belle were struggling. Bradley meant to shoot you but accidentally shot Belle instead. Filled with remorse, the miserable fuck threw himself out the hole in the wall and ended his own life.”

  Cameo could only stare at him. She swallowed. “Did he really … ?”

  Brax smoothed back her hair. “Yes, baby, he did.”

  She accepted that—but she didn’t want to see it. “This is going to be tricky for you, isn’t it? I mean, you’ve never had this happen in your home before.”

  “No.”

  She had really screwed up everything. “If I hadn’t opened the door and let her inside—”

  “Thank God you did.” He put his forehead to hers. “It made finding you fast and easy. Once I knew you were in danger …” Words failed him and he hugged her tight, so tight that she gasped. “God, Cameo. I thought I’d go crazy. I don’t ever want to feel that again.”

  She stroked his broad, solid back and absorbed his incredible strength. “Belle thought you were dead. She thought Bradley had shot you.”

  “He might have,” Brax said against her hair, “if I were an average man.”

  For an altogether different reason, tears stung Cameo’s eyes again. “But you are oh so extraordinary.” She pushed him back to see his face. “And you are mine.”

  He went still. His eyes glittered. “Yes.”

  Breathing too hard and fast, Cameo said, “Marry me?”

  Seconds tic
ked by, and his mouth quirked. “Yes.”

  The tears she’d held back suddenly spilled over. “Really?” She laughed around her tears. “You mean that?”

  Using his thumbs, he brushed her cheeks. In the gentlest voice she’d ever heard from him, he said, “I can go on one knee if you want.”

  Feeling like an utter fool, she started crying in earnest. “Brax, I am so sorry that I didn’t immediately call you when I knew Mercy was unwell. As your personal assistant I know that’s the number one rule—that Mercy always comes first …”

  He interrupted her to say, “I love my sister, Cameo, you know that. But as my wife, you’ll need to know that my number one rule has changed.”

  She took in a shuddering, hiccupping breath. “To what?”

  “I love you.”

  Her heart skipped a beat. Her mouth opened, but nothing came out. Finally, one hand to her mouth to stifle the near-hysterical giggles, she managed to say, “That’s a rule?”

  Brax slowly nodded. “I love you. I need you. I want you with me always. And from now on, that’s the only rule you can’t forget.”

  EPILOGUE

  POSITIONED near the fireplace, trying not to grin like a sap, Brax stared out at the room at large. He enjoyed seeing the family dynamics at play in front of him. To announce his and Cameo’s impending nuptials, they’d invited everyone over. In six months, she’d be his wife. He was anxious to have her tied to him legally, but to give her the wedding she wanted, he could show some patience.

  His brother-in-law, Wyatt, hovered over Mercedes, still worrying about her even though she’d gotten through the food poisoning and was now radiant with her pregnancy. Every couple of minutes Wyatt kissed her, and he continually touched her swelling belly in a protective gesture. He’d be a great dad. He was already a terrific husband. And as a brother-in-law, Brax couldn’t be more pleased.

  Mercy hovered over Amos, thrilled to get to know one of her uncles better. Amos had at first chosen to stay around just in case any problems arose with the police over Belle and Bradley’s deaths. After their story was accepted, Brax talked him into extending the visit for his engagement announcement.