Behind her, there was a commotion, and Naomi’s mind and body fell out of sync. She turned to the source of the sudden noise, weapon raised and ready to fire, but a second later she recognized Marcus as he barreled toward her, concern brimming in his eyes.
She felt hollow as he pulled her into his arms. She barely registered the bitter, coppery taste of blood pooling in the space between her lips and teeth, or the acerbic scent filling her nostrils. Looking around him, the bodies on the floor caught her attention again, and this time it registered, in razor-sharp clarity.
She’d done that.
Bile rose to her throat, and she pushed away from Marcus, sinking to her knees. The men wore masks, but their cold, blank eyes were uncovered, cruelly taunting her with the hard truth that she’d taken lives.
Her chest heaved, and her gun clattered to the floor. She recognized that things were happening around her, yelling, heavy footsteps, more gunshots, but she felt dizzy, sick, and disgusted. Naomi’s hands shook as Marcus grabbed her again, trying to haul her up from the floor, but she shoved him away, to stand on her own.
Where are the girls? Are the girls okay?
She ignored Marcus’s confused words as she headed for the pantry. She almost tripped again as her feet connected with something heavy and fleshy on the floor – another body. Naomi froze, not taking another step as that horrible night flashed again in her mind. One, two, three lives snuffed out, in a matter of minutes. She saw the bodies on the ground, pools of blood gathering around them. She saw her father, pleading for his life, and all of the strength left her knees.
Marcus caught her before she could hit the ground. She slumped in his arms, conscious, but weak under the heaviness of her heart. The memory of Damien Wolfe’s voice taunting her father just before he pulled the trigger made her skin crawl, multiplied the nauseous feeling clawing at her gut. She closed her eyes, and there was blood everywhere. She opened them, and there was blood everywhere still.
A sob lodged in her throat, right behind the guilt, which was behind the fear, which was behind the anger. She clutched her stomach as pain sliced through her lower abdomen, echoing up to her chest as she remembered how hard she’d hit the floor. All of those emotions waited in line behind the gut-wrenching knowledge that this, all of it, not just today, not just that night, it was all too much. Pain swept her again, and distantly, she heard Marcus speaking, but his words seemed distorted. The stress, anxiety, constant danger… there was no way she—
It was just too much.
She pushed her way out of Marcus’s arms again, turned her head, and emptied her breakfast onto the floor.
&
Terry had always been quick to jump the gun. If there were one weakness, one fatal flaw in such a man, it would be that he reacted too swiftly, with too much finality, and with a level of confidence he'd be wiser not to feel. But that was Terry. He'd always been that way, no patience to think things through and finesse a situation to work in his favor.
Damien Wolfe was abundantly clear on two things: who he was, and who Terry was, and neither of them was a good person, by anybody’s definition. Powerful? Yes. Fair? Mostly. Good? Hell no. Through the years, Damien had often wondered exactly what Terry had on God. What terrible secret did that bastard hold over omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence, that he should be granted such continued favor in his dealings?
He didn’t fucking get it.
Yes, they operated differently. And maybe… maybe therein lied the answer. Damien preferred a life of as little pretense as possible. He conducted business like a businessman, illegal dealings like a crime boss, and charitable organizations were simply not on his radar. He treated his family well because they were his, but he didn’t put on a front to the world that he was a good guy, because it went against his biological makeup.
Terry, on the other hand… that motherfucker was a master magician, specifically skilled in the art of illusion. Benevolent CEO and Philanthropist by day, money launderer, bribe taker, rapist, and some would say murderer by night. And the funny part was… he was relatively clean now.
He got to be held up as some sort of golden boy, even while making reckless mistakes, executing plans that could have – and should have – been given more thought than he allowed them. And somehow… somehow, that bastard always slipped away, by the skin of his teeth.
Screwing Damien’s sister, undercutting him in that drug sale, abandoning Renata, the thing with AHI, the scandal with King Pharmaceuticals, invading the Wolfe compound, violating Noelle… so many things Terry should have reconsidered, but did anyway, and somehow, he remained unpunished.
Not this time though.
Even in a pitch black room that smelled of piss and decay, with his legs rendered useless by gunshots, his body bloody and battered, with no idea where he was, Damien knew, without a doubt, that this was the last time Terry would get away with his bullshit. Because while Terry liked to be reactionary, Damien Wolfe had mastered the art of looking at the big picture. He liked to look long into the future, and plan for it.
Contingencies.
Damien had a strong fondness for a good contingency plan, and for the… admittedly unfortunate situation he found himself in now, he had several. None of them worked in concert, and hell, some might sabotage the others, but in the end, he would win. It was now just a matter of seeing who would come through for him first.
Across the room, the door swung open, shrieking a desperate need for someone to oil the hinges. A second later, the distinct buzz of a fluorescent light began to fill the silence left behind by the creaking door. In short flickers of brightness, the overhead light came alive, and through swollen eyelids, Damien watched Terry stroll into the room.
Bastard.
“So either you taught your daughter really well, or she’s made herself some very good, very dangerous friends in this world,” Terry said, his voice so casual you’d think he was sparking conversation with a free man, rather than one chained to the floor. One of the bodyguards produced a chair, and Terry sat down, looking at Damien through narrowed eyelids. “And here I was thinking the girl was just a pretty face with sticky fingers. What aren’t you telling me about her? What piece of the puzzle am I missing?”
Damien managed the best frown he could with his battered face. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
“You keep on denying it, but I think you do,” Terry smiled. “Naomi Prescott. Daughter of Noelle and Nelson Prescott, if you believe the birth certificate… but I don’t. I mean, you told me yourself how sweet Noelle’s pussy was, and there’s only one way to find something like that out.”
“So?”
“So, it stands to reason that Naomi could be your child. And, based on the fact that you destroyed everything that belonged to Nelson except her… I think there’s more than just a “chance” she’s your daughter.”
Damien tried to shrug, but the movement sent a heat wave of pain over his body. “Just because you say it, doesn’t make it so. I have two daughters – Taylor and Kennedy – and you won’t get your hands on either of them.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Terry chuckled. “My guys got into the house.”
Those words made Damien’s blood run cold, but outwardly, he had no reaction. His face felt like nothing more than a smudge because of the beating, but Damien tried to make his expression seem bored. “So what? They didn’t make it back out, did they?”
Terry laughed louder at that, and Damien wondered what could possibly be so fucking funny. The other man shook his head, relaxing into the chair with his elbows resting on the arms. “No, they didn’t. We’ll get her though. And your younger daughters too.” Terry turned to one of the bodyguards and said something, and the man went to the door. A few seconds later, Damien was met with a sight that made his stomach turn.
Noelle walked in, perfectly applied makeup covering most evidence of the abuse Terry had given her the night before. Her beautiful body, wrapped in sleek mahogany skin, was bar
ely covered by a deep blue negligee. She strolled right up to Terry, planting herself at his side, then bent to plant a kiss against his cheek. A kiss that promised much, much more. A kiss that promised everything.
She looked like… sex, and luxury, which was exactly why Damien liked looking at her. That skin, that body, that hair, those eyes… Noelle was rare, and exquisite. She was a treasure.
One that appeared to no longer be his.
Instead of the adoration and reverence that used to fill her eyes when she looked at him, Damien saw nothing but abhorrence and disenchantment. That beautiful face, those regal features, were pulled into what could only be described as a sneer, an expression he’d only ever seen her use when looking at one other person.
Nelson.
He looked away, lest his expression give away the pain clawing at his chest – pain that had nothing to do with his physical body – but Terry was already laughing. “Ah, Damien. This bitch was always your weakness, wasn’t she? Turns out, she’s not that loyal. She goes wherever the power and protection is, and right now… that ain’t with you, my man. This burns you up, doesn’t it?”
Damien said nothing, and Terry laughed again.
“Let me share this with you. Noelle has graciously argued that just taking Naomi, doing to her what you did to my daughter… that would be too easy. You’ve spent your life protecting that girl, keeping her uninvolved with your empire, but she’s your legacy. I heard how proud, how confident in her you were, when I told you my men had gotten into that house. She has the skills not to easily get taken by force, and you know it. And now… so do I.”
He stopped talking to pull Noelle onto his lap, using his legs to spread her thighs open wide. She was bare down there, smooth and pretty and pink at the center, and Damien swallowed a bellow of rage as Terry touched her, making her moan.
“So,” Terry continued, as if this was a normal thing, “I think what I’d rather do, is turn her against you. Make her hate you so much that she would put a bullet through your head, and somehow… I don’t think it would be that hard to do, because you’re such an easy person to despise. And then… I’m going to use her to destroy everything you have, like you tried to use Renata.”
Damien worked hard, very hard not to smile, but still said nothing.
“Naomi is such a beautiful girl, just like her mother. And I mean… you were certainly right about Noelle,” Terry said, nipping Noelle’s shoulder with his teeth. The way she giggled and squirmed made bile rise to Damien’s throat. “So I wonder… will Naomi’s pussy be this good? You see… I could just kill you, get it over with. But you taught me something: keeping you alive and watching you suffer will be so much sweeter.”
“You realize I don’t give a shit about Naomi, right?” Damien struggled to form words through his swollen lips, and what he suspected was a broken jaw. He spoke through the pain anyway. “That girl is Noelle’s. Not mine.”
“Liar.” Noelle’s voice was full of venom when she spoke, looking Damien right in the eyes as Terry watched, grinning. “You know she’s you daughter.”
Damien winced his way through a cackle of laughter. “Do I? Hell, do you? You’ve been drugged up since before she was born… does your ass even know your own name?”
It was a low blow and he knew it, attacking something Noelle was sensitive about. Something she’d struggled with, her coping mechanism for the demons and skeletons that haunted her after years of abuse with Nelson, and before that, her father. Damien was supposed to be her respite – her supported in that, keeping her clean through her pregnancy with Kennedy, and most of the time after. But still… she struggled, and it was a sensitive topic.
But… at this point, in this situation, he would say whatever it took.
“I know you promised to protect her.” Noelle’s eyes were cold, colder than he’d ever seen them, and tiny twinge of something like fear swept down his spine “And you lied.”
The next thing Damien saw was Noelle pulling the gun from Terry’s side, aiming it in his direction, and pulling the trigger.
Five.
“Don’t think that because you’ve been gone I won’t get in your ass little girl. I’m still your mother, and you’ll respect me whether you like it or not!”
Raised voices and a slammed door brought Quentin into the hall.
He’d been working – or at least, trying to work – on figuring out the whereabouts of the two men who seemed to be continuously waging destruction in the lives of his team. King and Wolfe had gone dark, completely off the grid. If the circumstances were different, he could be grateful for that, but as it currently stood… he needed to know where these motherfuckers were.
The process of questioning Harrison had been interrupted by gunfire, but once they’d abandoned Inez’s compound and moved to a new safe house, they went right back into it. They had to understand what happened, how they’d been found when they’d taken such special care to disable any tracking devices that could have led to them.
Apparently, they hadn’t done enough.
Quentin had personally confiscated the cell phones of the teenagers who were suddenly thrust into living in their midst. He’d mined any useable data and swept for bugs and tracking apps, both of which he’d found none… until he found the second cell phone Taylor was hiding, with full knowledge and support from her sister. He’d not had a reason to think they would lie. They – the adults – thought the girls would have understood the gravity of the situation after the whole escaping-in-a-shower-of-bullets thing, but apparently not. It took the second near-death experience for her to hand over the device, which they hadn’t even tried to disable or take data from. That one, they just tossed out of the car.
Since then though, things had been different. Where they had regarded the girls before with a sort of trust that rested entirely on their youth and perceived innocence, there was now the legitimate concern that there was more being left unsaid.
And, of course, there were the attitudes.
The girls’ teenage insolence barely registered to Quentin. He was busy figuring out what was going on with everything else. Renata, on the other hand, had priorities that were slightly different. Taylor was her child, and putting a shitty attitude in check was something she would make time to do. The hiding of the cell phone wasn’t the only problem though… it was the things Taylor had overheard about her father.
The many, many sins of Damien Wolfe were no secret to any of the adults involved, but the kids had been shielded from those ugly truths. According to Harrison, Wolfe was serious about keeping the shadier side of his business dealings from his daughters, and with the lengths he went to make sure his name went mostly untarnished on TV and internet, it was no surprise that neither girl thought of him as anything less than a knight in shining armor.
It only took that angry overheard conversation to bring that lofty view of him crashing down. For whatever reason, Taylor had decided that not only was everyone lying on her father, to turn her against him, but Renata was the primary culprit. And she hadn’t heard all of it yet.
He found Renata there in the hall, braids spread around her shoulders, face buried in her hands. She looked up when she heard him moving down the hall, and he held his arms out for her. Immediately, she accepted the invitation, burying her face in the soft fabric of his shirt.
“I almost can’t believe I was so anxious to get her back,” she mumbled against his chest.
Quentin chuckled. “You don’t mean that, cher. It’s just a difficult time.”
“Yeah well, I’m about to curse her little difficult ass out. Blaming me for the mess her father did, like I asked to be involved in this. Maybe I sheltered her too much. Maybe if she knew the way I struggled to keep her pure in all of this, she’d show a little more respect.”
Pulling back, Quentin cupped Renata’s face in his hands, tilting her chin upward to plant a kiss against her lips. She moaned, pressing herself closer and opening her mouth for him, and just that quickly, he was r
eady to abandon the gathering of information. Renata’s fingers at his belt, the prospect of doing a little something that would flip her mood like a switch, seemed much more pressing.
But… their safety was a concern, so logic won.
Reluctantly, Quentin ended the kiss, but kept his hands at Renata’s face. Her coppery skin wasn’t glowing as much as usual, but she was still beautiful, with her heavily lashed, soulful brown eyes, and lush, full lips he desperately wanted to kiss again.
He settled for a brief brush of his thumb across her bottom lip, and she immediately – absently – followed it with a swipe of her tongue. Not quickly enough that she touched him, but quickly enough that he thought about it.
Focus, fool.
“Give it time, Ren.” He indulged himself with another soft kiss. “This shit is stressful for everybody involved, and she’s a kid. All these traumatic events, everybody’s world turned upside down… cut her a bit of slack, cher.”
Renata sighed, then rested her head against his chest again. “I guess you have a point. It’s just hard to be calm, knowing… never mind. I can talk about it until my throat gets tired, and it won’t change anything.”
“You know what will though, right? Putting these pieces together. So, let baby girl have her moment, and you come with me and get on these computers. Let’s see what we can figure out.”
Quentin grinned at Renata, and after a brief sigh, she nodded. She followed him into their small workroom, where the computers were set up and running, processing information even when they weren’t there. The first thing Quentin noticed when he sat down was the file on Harrison, now complete with the results of facial recognition, identity scanning, fingerprinting, everything they could think of. If it existed on any system that could be accessed through a network, they had it.
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