Beyond Ransom (The Ransom Series) Read online

  The moment I look away from him his hands are on me, holding my face between them and forcing me to look toward him once again. When my eyes connect with his deep brown irises, his hands move to the back of the gag tied around my head and he unties it. As the cloth falls into my lap, he runs his hands up through my freed hair, pulling the strands between his fingers from root to tip before coming back to cup the sides of my face.

  “Beautiful,” he whispers, holding my gaze.

  “What do you want from me?” I ask with an unavoidable tremor in my voice. I’ll do anything to get his hands off my face.

  His grasp of my skin tightens slightly. He’s tensing as if agitated that I’ve ruined his moment of admiration for me. “Everything. I want everything from you.”

  I try again. “Why am I here? Where am I?”

  The man’s hands finally leave my face as he stands up to tower over me once again. “You’re here because I want you to be here, and here is nowhere.”

  I’m getting frustrated. I’m becoming angry. The only thing I want more than getting the hell out of here is answers, some kind of understanding for my current situation.

  The man turns to walk away from me. I try one more time. “Who are you?”

  He stops abruptly before looking over his shoulder at me. “I’m your worst fucking nightmare, kid.”

  “Fuck you.”

  The reply out of my mouth is swift and spoken with bite. When he turns around completely to look at me, I immediately regret my outburst. I’m poking a goddamn vicious dog.

  He starts moving closer to me. “What did you say?”

  I should be scared. I should back off and shut the hell up in my situation, but I don’t. I’m stubborn, as I always have been, and I say it again, repeating my words slowly and with emphasis. “I said fuck you.”

  In three quick strides he’s directly in front of me, kneeling down to eye-level with me as he grasps my shirt and yanks me and the chair I’m attached to toward him. My face is within inches of his, and I can see he’s fuming.

  “You insolent little bitch.” His breathing becomes ragged. Control is quickly working itself away from this man. I’ve really pissed him the hell off. “You’ll learn not to be so disrespectful.”

  I brace myself for whatever he’s going to do to me, but it never comes. He releases his hold of me and stands up to walk away toward the group of men standing and sitting around on the other side of the room.

  He grabs something from one of the tables there. As he steps over next to the spotlight focused on me and holds the object in front of him, I realize it’s a cell phone. With a couple swipes across the screen, he holds the device up toward me and a flash goes off. He’s taken a picture of me.

  He sets the phone back down on the table and starts rolling up his sleeves. He slowly walks back toward me with just a glance over his shoulder. “Leo, get over here.”

  From the back corner, someone I hadn’t seen in my previous scans of the room emerges from between two other men. While the assailants I’ve seen up until this point all appear in their thirties or forties, this man is definitely younger, perhaps in his mid-twenties.

  I get a better look at him as he walks past the spotlight. His dark, tousled hair is slicked to the sides behind his ears. His skin has a slightly darker complexion. Whether it’s natural or just a tan, I can’t tell. Multiple tattoos cover his arms. His chest appears broad under the black T-shirt he’s wearing.

  I hate to admit that he’s attractive, and I’m instantly embarrassed to be in this position in the presence of someone as good-looking as this man.

  Leo. The first and only answer I’ve been given since waking up in this predicament.

  Leo and the creepy man are coming for me.

  “Hold the chair from behind,” the man in charge instructs from in front of me. I glance back at Leo as he positions himself with his hands on the top of the chair behind me. Our eyes connect for only a moment before fingers pull my gaze forward by my chin.

  The strike across my face is hard and swift, temporarily knocking out my vision and causing a small yelp to escape my mouth. I’m only given a moment to recover before the next hit comes at me, higher on my forehead this time but just as hard. My head is instantly spinning, my insides churning, and there’s nothing I can do to stop this.

  The third hit is to my cheek and draws blood from my inner lip cutting on my tooth. A salty, metallic taste fills my mouth at the same time that I feel the warmth of blood trickling down my face.

  I close my eyes and brace myself for the next blow but am met instead with hands in my hair, tearing at the roots and pulling my head forward. A scream escapes me at the vicious move. Tears fall hopelessly down my cheek.

  He holds me there by my hair and grips my neck with his other hand, pressing harder against my trachea until I can no longer breathe. My arms and legs fight against the restraints in desperation, but it’s no use.

  My vision starts to go blurry, and I wonder if this is it. He’s going to choke me right here until I’m unconscious or dead and then ravage my body before cutting me up into little pieces and disposing of me.

  He is in control. He wants me to know it. He wants me to feel it.

  And I do. Very much so.

  With one final bout of pressure against my neck, he releases me. My lungs gasp for air. I’ve never been so happy to be breathing in my entire life.

  I lean forward and close my eyes, concentrating on each slow draw of oxygen I’m taking from the air. By the time I’ve somewhat caught my breath and look up, my attacker is back at the table grabbing the cell phone. He moves next to the spotlight again and pauses to simply look at me. Leo steps out from behind me and joins him.

  “We need more blood,” the man notes, “for dramatic effect.” I feel the blood drain from my face at his words, as if it’s escaping to some hidden part of me to avoid facing whatever this man has in mind for my body next. He pulls a large pocket knife from behind him and hands it to Leo. “You can do the honors.”

  Leo seems to hesitate for a moment before taking the knife. As he approaches me, I wonder how my fucked-up brain could have ever thought he was attractive. He’s just as bad as the rest of them. He may even be worse.

  I’m about to find out.

  He comes to a stop in front of me, towering above my body as the other man had, before bending down close to my face.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispers.

  My mind barely has a moment to process this when a sharp pain assails my cheek. He slices the superficial skin open along the top of my cheekbone with a slow and steady movement of the knife, and it takes all the control I have not to flinch or turn away.

  By the time he’s done, warm blood is already seeping out of the wound and down my face. As he draws the knife away from me and wipes it gently on my shirt, his shadowed blue eyes lock with mine.

  It’s strange. He’s looking at me almost like he knows me. His eyes are apologetic and uneasy. He seems sad and regretful of what he just did. I don’t understand it at all.

  The moment of connection that passes between us quickly dissipates. He folds up the knife and turns around to walk away from me. He returns the knife to the other man, who’s smiling widely as he tucks it away in his back pocket.

  “Much better,” he says proudly. He has the phone out again, snapping another picture of me, now in my bloodied and beaten state.

  I don’t try to hide the desperation in my eyes. I let the fear show openly on my face. My moment of resilience and strength is over. All that’s left is a broken, fearful, stupid girl.

  The man smiles at me. “Time to make a phone call. Shall we give Mom and Dad a hello?” His face becomes stern. “You’ll keep your mouth shut unless I tell you to speak. Do you understand?”

  I nod slightly. Fresh tears threaten to spill out of my eyes at the thought of my parents. They’re about to experience their worst nightmare, the incident my dad has been trying to prevent happening to me since the day I was bo
rn.

  I sit here, helpless, as he connects the call over speakerphone. My heart feels like it’s going to beat right out of my chest with each ring of the phone. Do they even know I’m missing yet?

  “Hello?” my dad’s tremulous voice echoes into the room. I know the sound of worry in his tone. He’s completely aware that something bad happened to me.

  “Ah, Robert, it has been too long,” my attacker greets him.

  A few seconds of silence fill the room.

  “Mark, you fucking son of a bitch.”

  Mark. As in Mark Castili? Dad never talks to me about work, but there was no way for him to prevent me hearing about his most highly publicized case: a powerful criminal mastermind he took down when I was still in middle school. I thought he was safely tucked away in jail, though.

  “Good to talk to you again, too, Robert. I have someone here who you may be interested in speaking with.”

  “Morgan?” he calls to me, his voice cracking slightly.

  I look up at Mark who nods at me.

  “I’m here, Dad,” I say quietly. It’s too much. I can’t help the tears escaping from my eyes.

  “God, it’s so good to hear your voice. Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”

  “She’s fine, Robert,” Mark interjects.

  “I want to see her,” Dad demands. “I need to see that she’s okay before we take this conversation any further.”

  “I had a feeling you might say that.” Mark pokes around on his phone for a moment. “There. You should have a picture.”

  Silence fills the room again as we all anxiously await my dad’s response.

  He sighs heavily over the phone. “Thank God.” He has clearly been sent the wrong picture. Fucking Mark and his fucking before and after pictures.

  “Let’s discuss my terms,” Mark says, getting right on with it. “I want six million dollars cash provided in large duffel bags. One million for each year you kept me in jail seems reasonable, right, old friend?”

  Ransom. My heart sinks. I’ve been taken for money. I’m being offered in trade for an amount that I already know my parents don’t have and won’t ever have between their bank accounts and assets at any one time.

  Hope is quickly fading away from me. All thoughts of being found or rescued are swallowed up by thoughts of my painful destruction by these men. They’ll use me until I’m spent, then they’ll dispose of me, all because they didn’t get paid.

  “Six million. You really think I have that kind of cash?”

  I can hear the hopelessness in my dad’s voice. It seeps into me, withering my heart into nothing and chipping away at my resolve.

  I’m never going to get out of here.

  “I’m sure you can work your magic,” Mark says confidently. “The good news for you is that I’m a patient man. I’m not giving you a twenty-four-hour or even a week deadline. You take as long as you need to pull the money together, but I’ll be keeping your beautiful daughter in the meantime.”

  “Let’s be reasonable here,” my dad pleads. “You and I both know I don’t have six million dollars.”

  Mark laughs slightly. “You’re a smart man. You’ll figure it out. In the meantime, don’t bother trying to trace this call or find us. I’ve taken the necessary precautions to ensure that my calls are untraceable and our location remains hidden.” Mark looks at me. I hate being under his gaze. “Morgan, love, you can say goodbye to your poor old dad now.”

  I stare at him for a moment and consider my options. Dad is there on the other end of the line with what I’m sure is an army’s worth of police officers and detectives. It’s my opportunity to help them, to give them the limited information I have on my surroundings that might help lead them to my location.

  I make a split-second decision. I can only hope it’s the right one.

  “Enclosed cement room. Exposed light bulbs. Dozen men.”

  I’m barely able to get the last word out before Mark’s hand is over my mouth and he’s on top of me, tipping my chair over and sending us careening backward against the floor. When the back of my head hits the hard cement, I temporarily black out.

  My vision comes back to see Mark’s angry eyes looking directly at me. My head tilts back and forth lazily. I feel my mind pulling me toward unconsciousness. Mark removes his hand from me and stands up.

  “Morgan? What happened?” My dad’s voice vaguely registers with me.

  A few moments of silence follows before Mark speaks again. “You wanted to see your daughter? Want to see what her big fucking mouth and disobedience got her? Check your phone, asshole.”

  Tears fall down each side of my face, intermixing with the blood that started to dry from my forehead. I just want this all to be over.

  “Oh my God,” Dad says, his voice barely audible before exploding out of the phone. “I’m going to kill you. I’m going to fucking kill you!”

  Mark laughs almost maniacally. “We’ll talk again soon, friend.”

  I hear the phone fall down on the table. The call is over. My dad is gone. The tiny amount of relief I felt at hearing his voice, even with its fear and pain, falls away from me.

  “Someone get the bitch cleaned up and out of my sight.”

  I’m fighting to keep my eyes open as my brain processes Mark’s words.

  “I got it,” fills my ears from somewhere in the room. Leo’s voice?

  My suspicion is confirmed as the dark-haired man appears above me. I’m vaguely aware of him lifting the back of the chair up and untying my restrained hands and feet.

  He scoops me up in his arms in an effortless movement. I look up at him and his sad eyes one more time before I let my eyes close and don’t try to reopen them.

  3

  Beginning

  My eyes shoot open to find fluorescent light beaming down on me. I’m not tied to a chair, but my body is draped across someone’s lap. In a strange way, waking up like this is just as terrifying. Before I can even orient myself with my surroundings, I find the owner of the lap beneath me.

  Leo.

  In his downward glance at me, stray strands of his dark hair have worked their way to the front of his face, dangling down between us. His features are shadowed, the contours of his face hiding from the brightness of the light above us.

  Instinctively I try to move away from him, to scramble off his lap and put as much distance between us as I can, but my body is weak and his hold of me is strong. Within seconds I give up, allowing him to continue to hold me there.

  I can’t look in his eyes, though. I don’t want to experience that moment of connection with him again that we seemed to share before. I just want to curl up inside and shut it all out. It may be the only way for me to survive this ordeal.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” Leo says calmly.

  His voice is soft, almost caring. I’m not stupid, though. I won’t let myself believe for a moment that this man could possibly give a damn about me given where I am and what he just allowed to happen to me, not to mention what he himself did to me.

  I feel movement behind my head and realize there’s something cold back there. Leo has an ice pack of some sort pressed against me. My senses must be slowly awakening, because it’s only now that I’m aware of the pounding pain reverberating throughout my skull.

  My eyes squint closed as my face twists into a grimace. I’m trying to will the pain away, but it only seems to increase. My hands move to my face, my fingers running slowly down my skin from forehead to chin on each side of my nose. There’s a gauze bandage taped to my swollen forehead and butterfly bandages on the cut on my check. My skin is otherwise clean and smooth.

  He cleaned my face and treated my wounds. He’s got an ice pack on my head. He’s not trying to hurt me.

  Everything I feel inside tells me to trust him, but can I? I have no fucking clue.

  His hand finds both of mine and slowly pulls them down to my lap. “You just need to relax,” he insists.

  My eyes finally open to find him staring
down at me. That connection I was afraid of unavoidably hits me again as we look into each other’s eyes. My brain is screaming at me to look away, but I can’t. I don’t want to.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” I ask, almost exasperated by the intensity of his continued gaze upon me.

  Leo smiles down at my face. “You’re good to look at.”

  What the hell do I make of that statement? My eyes widen as I look down the rest of my body. I become very aware that I was just unconscious in the lap of this man for an unknown amount of time. He could have done anything to me while I was out.

  He must recognize the look of concern on my face. “Don’t worry. I didn’t touch you other than fixing up your face.”

  I don’t know whether I should believe him, but I have to, because I can’t even fathom any other case right now. I try to take Leo’s advice and relax, letting out all the tension in my chest and limbs.

  “There you go. Good girl,” he compliments.

  I should be creeped out by this, but strangely I’m not. I should try to get away, but I don’t. I should keep my damn mouth shut, but I can’t help my curiosity. “Why are you helping me?”

  Whatever hint of a smile that was left on Leo’s face disappears. He seems a bit lost in thought. “Mark wants you alive. I’m just helping keep you that way. Also, you’re good to look at.”

  A smile tugs at my lips, but feelings of guilt and shame immediately wash over me. I shouldn’t be smiling in this situation. I shouldn’t be happy or socializing or feeling normal. I’m a prisoner in the hands of the enemy. I’ve just been beaten and knocked unconscious, and I’m letting myself smile. What the fuck is wrong with me?

  “Can I sit up, please?” I ask, unsure of whether such a question is required. I feel like I’m in a place where any choice I make is not going to be my own. These people practically own me.

  Leo nods and supports my back with the hand holding the ice pack. I rise to sitting and scoot off his lap to sit next to him on the tiny cot. I feel instant relief in moving off him, though I’m still not sure whether I believe that he didn’t take advantage of me at all in my unconscious state.