Beyond Ransom (The Ransom Series) Read online

  His fingers start just above my hip, tracing over my stomach to my other side. He stops to put pressure on a few places with just enough force to reactivate the sharp pains, causing me to suck in a breath.

  “Sorry,” he whispers.

  His hands linger on my skin for just a few moments longer until they let go of me and I feel my shirt fall back into place. When I hear him back away, I finally open my eyes.

  The fury that was in his face before is back again, but it’s more subtle and controlled. “It’s only bruising. Nothing’s broken.”

  “I can think of a few things that are broken,” I reply. My dignity, my pride, my confidence. It was meant to be a joke, but Leo clearly doesn’t find it funny.

  With my failed attempt at humor, I move over to the sink and turn the metal knob to start the flow of water. It’s freezing cold and there’s no soap, but I do what I can to scrub my hands clean anyway. I want desperately to splash water against my face to help calm the pounding in my head, but given my bandages and healing wounds, I opt to turn off the water instead.

  I turn around while wiping my hands dry on my shirt to find Leo standing there staring at me. It’s like I’m a puzzle he’s trying to figure out, but he’s completely dumbfounded and doesn’t even know how to approach me. I don’t know what to think of it. I wonder if I’ll ever understand what it’s about.

  He breaks his stare to look out of the bathroom and into the hallway. “We should go.” His hand reaches for my shoulder for just a moment before he draws it away, seeming to think better of the move.

  Before I even realize what I’m doing, my hand reaches out for the one he withdrew and I grasp it tightly. I feel him tense through our touch. I see the confusion on his face as he looks from our connected hands to my eyes, but I don’t know how to properly explain myself.

  “I want to hold on to you for as long as I can,” I admit, heat flushing my face at my own words.

  His lips turn up in a slight grin and he reciprocates my hand squeeze. “Keep holding on. You’ll get through this.”

  I hope to God he’s right.

  5

  Honesty

  It takes almost ten minutes to get from the bathroom to the heavy metal door that is the entrance to the main room. This prison must be enormous, a realization that only further dwindles my hope of rescue. Even if my parents and the police are able to find me, there’s too much ground to cover in here. Mark will have me long gone from this place by the time anyone has a chance at finding me inside.

  Leo pauses with me for a moment outside the door, leaning down close to my ear. “I’m going to have to put on a bit of a show here. I may be a little rough, and I’m sorry for that.”

  My pulse begins to race. I don’t want to enter this room. I wish Leo would take me far away from this place and hide me from Mark forever. I wish he could protect me all the time the way he has helped me and sheltered me the few chances he’s had.

  I grasp his hand still holding mine and try to steal some amount of the comfort and warmth I feel from his touch. “Okay,” is all I can manage to say.

  In the time it takes for Leo to swing the door open, his demeanor completely changes, and I’m almost scared of him. He grabs me viciously by the shoulders and pushes me into the room with such force that I lose my balance and collapse to the floor.

  Laughter fills the room around me at my stumble. I look up to find several men seated at the tables on each side of me: one set of them playing cards, the other set sitting back smoking cigarettes.

  “Where is Hutchinson?” Mark bellows from somewhere else in the room. I can’t see him, and that scares the shit out of me.

  “He’s getting a fucking grip on himself,” Leo says from behind me. “He needs to learn to keep his hands to himself. If he goes off protocol one more time, I’m going to beat the shit out of him.”

  I’m frightened by Leo’s rant, unsure of whether he’s just a great actor or if this is reflective of how he really is.

  I feel a sharp kick to my shin. It’s my cue to get my ass up. I push myself back up to standing, knowing that it’s not something Leo or anyone else is going to help me with. Leo nudges me in the direction of the familiar chair that I occupied during my first conscious moments in this hell.

  When I sit down in the chair, I’m almost glad for a reprieve from the events that have happened since I was thrown out of the cot this morning. I close my eyes and take a moment to calm down.

  Hot breath sweeps across my ear, sending shivers throughout my entire body. “Did Mr. Hutchinson get a little touchy-feely with you, Ms. Whitford?” Mark whispers in my ear, and my eyes shoot open. “Was he touching you like this?” He reaches his arms down my shoulders from behind and slips his hands past the neckline of my shirt.

  The moment he grabs my breasts with each hand, my body reacts. I grasp his wrists to push them up away from me while trying to slink the rest of my body down the chair and away from him.

  My plan backfires. As I’m trying to slip out of his grip, I set myself up for the perfect chokehold.

  He holds me there, compressing my already bruised neck in the crook of his elbow tight enough to lift the rest of my body off the chair at least a few inches. I count the seconds that pass by and only get to eight before he releases me and I sink back onto the chair, gasping for breath.

  “I hope you’ve all learned something,” Mark says loudly as he turns toward the other men in the room. “No one will touch her unless I say so.” He directs his attention back to me with fiery eyes, grabbing my chin to force me to look at him. “If I decide to touch you, you won’t resist. You’ll do as I say. Do you understand?”

  I nod, unable to speak as I’m still learning to breathe again, but it’s clearly not enough for him. He grabs for my crotch, pinching it with his fingers hard enough to cause a wave of pain and pleasure to flow wildly through my body. I half-gasp, half-moan at his sudden touch and immediately wish I could take back the sound that came out of my mouth. Every set of eyes in the room is on us, and I can only imagine what my reaction has just done to all of these men.

  My attention returns to the man touching me where he shouldn’t be. “I understand,” I whisper.

  He pinches harder for a moment before letting go of me and walking away. “Tie the bitch up.”

  Leo is already approaching me with the same corded rope that I was tied up with yesterday. I feel my cheeks burning with the embarrassment of what just happened. I can tell he sees it in the look all over my face.

  He secures my ankles to the legs of the chair before tying my hands together behind it. When he’s finished, he gives one of my hands a little squeeze. I take as much comfort from his gesture as I can, knowing that I’m going to need it to make it through this day.

  The men get back to what they were doing, and a steady hum of background noise fills the room. I think I might be lucky, that Mark’s departure from me means he’s done with me for a while, but of course I’m wrong. He returns to me with a chair and places it directly in front of me before taking a seat.

  I look away from him only to have my face turned forward again by his strong hands. “You will look at me,” he instructs.

  “Okay.” My throat still hurts from his chokehold. I don’t really feel like speaking, but I’ve learned that Mark expects a response when he says something to me, so I’ll give him his goddamn response.

  “We’re going to play a little game today.”

  I don’t like the sound of where this is going already. “Okay,” I say warily.

  “I want to see how much your father told you about me. I want to know if he flaunts his greatest conquest to his family and friends. I want to see how prepared you really are for this predicament he’s left you in.”

  My nerves are getting to me, slowly picking away at the tough exterior I’m trying to portray right now. My body is yearning for Leo’s comforting touch again. I glance to the back of the room and quickly scan the men seated around the tables for where Leo
’s gone off to. I find him seated alone in the far corner, flipping a pocket knife open and closed repeatedly with an unaffected look on his face. He makes no acknowledgement that I’m looking at him. He doesn’t seem to have a care in the world.

  A quick slap connects with my face, and the quiet hum of the room ceases. “Look at me, bitch.”

  “Sorry,” I say automatically. I shut my eyes for a brief moment, wishing I was back home or at least back in my cell.

  “Do you know who I am?”

  “Mark Castili.”

  “No. Do you know who I am?”

  I pause a moment, evaluating my response carefully as I find myself afraid this is a trick question. “You’re the leader of one of the largest crime rings in the Southwest.”

  “Good girl.” He’s smiling at me, clearly pleased. It does nothing to ease my worry over this little game. “Do you know why your dad put me away?”

  The truth spits from my mouth like fire. “You murdered people. You put weapons and drugs on the streets and destroyed families. You broke the law.”

  “I was running a business,” he interjects. I can see it on his face that he’s irritated with me and my lack of understanding. “I was doing what I had to in order to preserve my family’s legacy. I did what was necessary to survive, to pay my bills, to take care of the men most loyal to me.” He gestures behind him to the men seated on the other side of the room.

  I don’t know what the hell he wants me to say, so I stick to the truth. “I never looked at it that way.”

  “Of course your father never told it to you that way. All he ever cared about was finding me. He wanted to take my family’s legacy and everything I’ve done and crush it within his palm, and he almost succeeded.”

  I don’t dare say a word. I’m an unwilling participant in his game, and I don’t know the rules or goals. I don’t know if there are rewards or punishments, and I’m not sure I want to find out.

  Mark readjusts himself in his chair. “Do you know what happened after he caught me? After I ended up in prison?”

  This I don’t know. Dad tried to shelter me from the media coverage as much as possible, from hiding me away from the news crews to disconnecting the TV and internet for a few months until the story died down.

  I pray that I’m not about to lose this game. “I don’t know what happened to you.”

  “Not to me,” Mark growls back. I can hear the escalation in his tone as he becomes progressively angrier. “To my family. Do you know what happened to my family when I was no longer there to protect them?”

  “You lost them?” My choice of words wasn’t meant to be perfect for vague interpretation, but it plays to my benefit.

  “Exactly. I lost my fucking family. My daughter–my beautiful, sweet Stella–was taken from this world.”

  For a brief moment I forget the monster that lurks inside the man in front of me and see him for what he truly is: a grieving father. “What happened to her?”

  Mark twists his hands around in his lap, his anger seeming to find its outlet there. “She was waiting at the end of the driveway outside our home for a ride. A truck driven by one of my enemies plowed into her, ramming her into a parked vehicle.” He pauses a moment before speaking again. “She was crushed between the car and the truck. Her neck snapped from the force of the impact. She died instantly.”

  I look down to my lap for a moment, conflicted by the feelings within me. “I’m sorry,” I offer, quickly returning my gaze to Mark’s face where he instructed me to keep it.

  “My wife Elise saw the whole thing out the kitchen window. I couldn’t even be there to comfort her. I couldn’t be there to grieve with her. I was separated from the only love I had left in this world, all thanks to your fucking father.” Behind his lips I can hear his teeth grinding. He’s more upset about discussing this than he’s even showing on the outside. “She didn’t even make it long enough for the funeral. She took her own life two days later, and in the end I buried them both. I buried my entire family.”

  I don’t even know what to say. It’s tragic and awful, the worst possible pain I can imagine going through, but their deaths weren’t directly caused by my dad. Mark’s placing blame where he shouldn’t. He’s finding a scapegoat to put this on to make himself feel better.

  My face whitens. Leo’s words reverberate in my mind. This is about revenge.

  He’s going to kill me.

  “Of course your father never told you any of this,” Mark continues. “You see now why I have to do this. I can’t let such actions go unpunished. I must get justice for my family.”

  I can’t sit in silence. He’s looking at me, expecting me to say something, so I do. “I’m truly sorry for your loss. I’m so sorry.”

  “You’re such a sweet girl,” he says, inspecting me and smiling at me. He runs his hand through the strands of my hair, and I can’t help quivering slightly at his touch. “It’s a shame your father had to ruin your life for you.”

  “I don’t want to die,” I say nervously, my honesty from earlier still pouring out of me.

  “Who said I was going to kill you?” Mark whispers with a malevolent smile. “I have even better plans for you, my dear, you just wait and see.”

  I don’t know whether to be thrilled or terrified at this revelation. What can be better for him than my death?

  Mark pats my knee, my body automatically flinching at his touch. “You’ve done well, Morgan.” He stands up in a towering stance over me. “We need food and water. Someone get the girl some sustenance,” he calls out behind him.

  I find myself strangely grateful to the man, though the moment is short-lived. He touches my hair again, running his fingers through it as he peeks down the cleavage showing from my shirt where he touched me before.

  As hungry as I am, I’ve suddenly lost my appetite.

  6

  Hopeless

  The last few hours have been the calmest and least painful of my stay here so far, though the awkwardness and embarrassment I’ve experienced have hit their highest levels. I was allowed to eat peanut butter on crackers and drink one bottle of water, except that my hands were still tied behind the chair the entire time.

  I was introduced to another of Mark’s men, a middle-aged man they call Quinn, who took great pleasure in feeding me bites of cracker with peanut butter spread across them. He was clearly aroused by this opportunity to hand-feed a bound eighteen-year-old girl, though it only make the thought of food even more revolting to me.

  I had to go through with it, though. My body was broken and weak. I got some rest last night, but I needed nourishment to replenish my mental and physical energy.

  So I let him do it. I let the tall, crazy-haired man get off on feeding me crackers and tipping a water bottle to my lips, sometimes teasing me with it and pulling it away just as I pursed my lips open to drink from it. I was so relieved to finish the bottle and eat all the crackers, mostly because there was no longer a reason for Quinn to be within breathing distance of me.

  I couldn’t help noticing something strange during the whole ordeal. In the moments I had when Quinn prepared the next bite for me, I’d glance back at Leo still sitting by himself in the corner of the room. A range of emotions played out on his face the entire time Quinn fed me: concern, indifference, anger, frustration. In the end, I amounted it to what I could only think was jealousy.

  He was upset that someone else was sharing such an intimate experience with me, even if the intimacy was only one-sided.

  Leo calmed down significantly after Quinn left the room for “a break.” I think the whole room knew exactly where he was going. The thought of it continues to make me ill.

  Not long after that, Leo left the room with Mark, and I haven’t seen either of them since. I’ve tried to remain still and silent, observing what I can from the other men as they talk and move about the room and in and out of the hallway.

  I gather that they are taking shifts guarding the building, so in reality I have no idea h
ow many men are truly here because I don’t know how big the building is or how many people Mark has guarding the place at one time. More than a few new faces have walked through the door in the time I’ve been sitting here, each one getting a good look at me when they walk in as if they’ve never seen a woman before.

  I hate being on display for them as they practically salivate over my body, but it allows me valuable time to observe their communications. In the opportunities I’ve had to listen in on their conversations, I’ve tried to focus on each of their words, hoping to pick up anything that could give me a clue about where we are or even what state we’re in.

  The door opens, and I’m both relieved and terrified to see Leo and Mark enter the room. Mark’s face is serious, his movements with purpose. He’s back to being the man on a mission, not the emotional and honest grieving father and husband who made a short appearance earlier. I worry what’s about to happen to me next.

  “It’s time to give daddy a call for an update,” Mark says cheerfully in a glance toward me as he picks up his cell phone. Once the call is connected, he places the phone down on the table on speakerphone. The room silences around us except for the rapid beating of my heart within my chest. I swear they must be able to hear it all the way across the room.

  “Mark,” my dad’s voice says over the call. In that one simple word I can tell he’s exhausted. I also hear something else, and it absolutely crushes me.

  He sounds hopeless. Completely and utterly hopeless.

  “So wonderful to speak to you again, old friend,” Mark replies in a jovial tone. “What news of the six million dollars you owe me?”

  There’s a long pause on the other end of the line. “I don’t have it yet. I’m working on getting it together as fast as I can.”

  The desperation in Dad’s voice is evident. He’s not even trying to hide it, that’s how bad the situation really is. This tells me two important things: he doesn’t have the money to give Mark, and he doesn’t have a clue where I am or how to find me.