False Security (35 page)

“Killing Eric?” Paul cracked a
smile. “Yeah, it did. After what he did to Rachel, it felt great. If you had it
in you, you would have enjoyed it, too.”

Mark believed him.

“Now,” Paul continued, “I’m
going to see what I can do for Rachel. I’ll try to change her mind, but I don’t
know if it will do any good. I’ll come back for you tonight and somehow I’ll
get you out of here. I know you don’t want to leave without her, but neither of
us can force her to go. As soon as you’re out, go to whatever authorities you
can and get her out of here. But to do that, you have to leave her here. You
won’t be able to help her if you’re dead.”

Mark agreed, and he studied
Paul’s face. Through the hardness, his eyes were weary, even guilty. Mark had
felt so much anger toward Paul for allowing Rachel to live in such appalling
circumstances.

Rachel, however, did not blame
Paul, and Mark doubted that she ever once thought to. When they had been in
Rachel’s room, he could tell she loved this man. She had come alive, and even
glowed in his presence. If Rachel still loved Paul, then maybe Mark could
forgive him.

A thought entered his mind. “I
don’t understand something,” he said. “If you get me out of here, but you and
Rachel stay, won’t Donovan know that you let me go and kill you?”

Paul started for the door,
pausing before he left. “Like I said, you can’t help her if you’re dead, which
is what you will be if you stay here much longer.” He turned around and faced
Mark. “I’m counting on you to help her.”

A chill traveled through Mark’s
body. Paul was putting his life on the line for him and Rachel. The ultimate
sacrifice, and Paul was willing to make it for them.

After Paul exited the room, Mark
slumped down to the floor. He wanted to help Rachel. He wanted to get her out
of this nightmare forever, but who was he kidding? He was an average, ordinary
guy who only left the state of Kansas because he had been kidnapped. He had
never been in a fight, had never even fired a gun. He was exhausted,
overwhelmed and in a world he knew nothing about. He couldn’t be more ill
equipped to save her.

Rachel needed her Prince
Charming. He was nothing more than the court jester.

Mark wasn’t sure
how much time had passed when his door opened again. Expecting Paul to come in
with a master plan to help him escape, Mark stood up, only to see Donovan walk
through the door.

“I’m glad we have an opportunity
to talk,” Donovan said. He held a gun near his waist, and raised it to make
sure Mark saw it pointed at him.

Thick air filled Mark’s lungs
with every step Donovan took toward him. The walls closed in around him, though
he had never been claustrophobic in his life. He saw what Donovan did to
Rachel, and he claimed to love her. He also witnessed how callously he snapped
his fingers and extinguished Danielle’s life. What was the man willing to do to
Mark, someone who had dared to love Rachel?

Despite his panic at seeing
Donovan, Mark had to pretend he’d never seen Rachel and that Paul had never
spoken to him. Paul was their only chance of getting out, and saying the wrong
thing could prove fatal for both he and Paul. “Where’s Rachel?”

Donovan stopped walking in the
center of the room. “She’s here. She’s fine, now that she’s back home with me.”

Mark was incredulous. Rachel had
been beaten and drugged and he thought she was fine. “This isn’t her home,” he
said. “If it was, you wouldn’t have had to force her to return.”

“Rachel made a mistake and she’s
learned from it. She knows where she belongs and who she belongs with.”

Mark’s jaw tightened. “The only
mistake she made was not leaving sooner than she did.” He narrowed his eyes.
“She told me all about you. You’re under the delusion that it doesn’t matter
what you do to her or how far you push her, she’s always going to love you.
You’re wrong. She’s been running away from you for three years, and she never
wanted to come back. Rachel doesn’t love you.”

Donovan smirked and moved toward
Mark. “Rachel would never sleep with someone she doesn’t love.”

Mark recoiled and the blood
drained from his face. It wasn’t true. Rachel would not be intimate with this
monster, not now, not after all he had done. At least not willingly. If she had
indeed slept with him, it wouldn’t be because she loved him, but because she
had been forced to, or beaten into submission.

Mark snapped when Donovan
reached him. Ignoring the gun, Mark tried to hit him, but Donovan evaded his
fist. The gun caught the side of Mark’s head and knocked him to the ground.
Mark rolled over on his side and tried to get up, but a loud ringing in his
ears kept him down. Vertigo washed over him, moving the room around him like
the ocean’s waves.

“Why would you do that?” Donovan
said. He kicked Mark in the stomach. “Why would you try to come after me when I
have a gun? Your friend died right in front of you, so you must know I’m more
than willing to kill you right here. You can’t possibly think you can hurt me.”
His foot flew into Mark’s stomach again.

Nausea overcame Mark as he
clutched his abdomen. Fighting for breath and consciousness, he rolled onto his
back to stem the assault, but Donovan kicked the side of his ribs several
times. When he stepped back, he straightened out his jacket and regained his
composure.

A fit of coughs racked his body
and Mark gritted his teeth against the pain. His head lolled to the side.
Risking another kick to the ribs or worse, Mark managed to speak through his
gasps for air. “Rachel doesn’t love you. She never loved you.”

“I understand your reluctance to
accept the situation,” Donovan said. “I can tell you love her and you desire
her love in return. Rachel is not only a beautiful woman, she’s astonishing.”

The ringing in his ears began to
subside. Mark caught his breath, but his side flared with pain when he dared to
pull air into his lungs. “Yes, she is,” Mark said, as he sat up.

“It’s impossible to know her and
not love her, so I suppose I shouldn’t blame you for falling in love with her.
Except that I do.” Donovan smirked and his eyebrows shot up. “Blame you, that
is. Your downfall in life is that you believe someone like her would fall in
love with someone like you.”

“I know she loves me.”

“No,” Donovan said. “She’s much
smarter than that. She wants someone who can take care of her, all of her
needs, her desires. You can’t seem to take care of yourself. At first, I
thought I would kill you right away, but maybe I should keep you around so you
can find out how things really are with Rachel.” He glanced around the empty
room. “This would be a good place for you to sit and think about how you
shouldn’t have fallen for Rachel, not when she’s mine.”

“She’s not yours,” Mark said.
“She’s not a piece of property. You can’t do whatever you want to her.”

“But she is mine,” Donovan said.
“She always has been, and always will be. She’s agreed to marry me, to have
children with me. We’ve already gotten started on that. Maybe you would be more
understanding if you saw it for yourself. I could put a camera in our room, so
you can watch how much she doesn’t give you a second thought when she’s in bed
with me. She sure didn’t think about you when she was touching me, calling my
name, begging for more.”

Mark looked away from Donovan.
Tears spilled out from his eyes and his stomach bottomed out.

“You can sit here and watch us
together, while you barely hold on to what’s left of your pathetic, worthless
life. While you’re struggling to take just one more breath, you can see how
much she loves me.” Donovan crouched beside Mark, and put his gun next to
Mark’s head. “You can watch, day after day, month after month, as her belly
grows with my child inside of her. How does that make you feel, Mark? To know
that as we speak, Rachel might already be pregnant?”

Mark closed his eyes, his
trembling lips unable to utter a single word. Donovan’s words were far more
torturous than the pain in his side, far worse than any physical pain Donovan
could inflict on him.

Donovan rose to his feet. “Of
course, I’d have to keep you alive for quite some time. A little food and water
here and there, just enough to keep you breathing while our lives unfold in
front of you. How long do you want to live for, Mark? How long do you want to
see Rachel love me? At what point will you break and beg for me to kill you?”

“You’re sick,” Mark said.
“Rachel will never love you, no matter how much you beat her into thinking she
does.”

“As much fun as it would be to
keep you around, it might be a bit arduous with you in constant denial. Maybe
we should just ask Rachel who she loves. She’ll let you know you’re wrong.”

Sleep cradled
Rachel in a warm blanket and enticed her to stay tucked beneath its comforting
covers. Her eyelids stayed shut most of the time, but she fought against
sleep’s beckoning darkness. She had already slept so much since coming back to
the estate, with only fleeting moments of consciousness, usually filled with
the sight of Tony.

The two times Tony came into her
room, stoic-faced and armed with a syringe, he didn’t speak a single word to
her, as if she was a complete stranger. The shots he gave her were in different
locations on her arm, and she thought she would soon look like a pincushion.

She didn’t battle Tony when it
came to the shots. Donovan wanted her to be sedated most of the time. It was
his way to retain control over her until he could trust her again, and she
complied the best she could with his wishes. She had a long way to go until
they got back to where they were before she left.

The door to her room swung open,
and Mark came through the door, followed by Donovan. Her eyelids struggled to
stay open, and she forced herself to slide out of bed. She struggled to take
full breaths, and her eyes seemed out of focus. Despite her body crying out,
begging for more sleep, she remained standing.

Mark walked to the center of her
room, and Donovan went straight to her. He removed his jacket and laid it on
her bed. He then turned his attention to her, and kissed her with more passion
than ever before. It was no doubt an attempt to demonstrate to Mark his vast
power and control over her.

Though Rachel had no desire to
hurt Mark any more than she already had, she didn’t dare break away from
Donovan. She ignored Mark’s presence and gave every part of herself to Donovan
in that kiss, so he wouldn’t know how much Mark affected her.

It wasn’t until his mouth
pressed down on hers that she realized Donovan had something in his hand,
something he transferred to her before releasing her from the kiss. From the
cold shape of the object in her hand, she knew without looking it was a gun.

Donovan moved away from her and
leaned against the wall. He crossed his arms and said, “Mr. Jacobson seems to
have a problem understanding you are no longer part of his life. I would like
you to clarify that for him.”

Rachel lowered her eyes to the
gun. Her old gun, the third one she had owned. The last time she saw it was
when she left it on her bed before fleeing the estate three years ago. Her hand
operated the slide without thinking about her actions and she caressed the
familiar contours of the gun, her fingertips cold and numb against the steel.

Her mind traveled back to the
day when Donovan gave her the gun, and a smile tweaked the corners of her mouth
as the past intertwined with the present. Memories of better times flooded her
mind, and she remembered Donovan watching with excitement while she untied the
ribbon and tore apart the wrapping paper.

When she saw the gun, she had
placed the package down on her dresser and wrapped her arms around him. She
forgot about the gun and concentrated on him. That night he fell asleep beside
her, though he woke long before morning and left to return to his own room. She
had enjoyed those few hours of him holding her, like she had always wanted.

Now, her smile vanished as she
relived the empty feeling of him leaving her that night. She no longer wanted
to touch the gun, afraid of the other memories it would bring.

Brought back to the present, her
immediate predicament confronted her. Two different worlds had collided, and
she needed to eliminate one of them.

She glanced at Donovan. Her life
revolved around him for so long that his presence dominated her. As long as he
lived, she would belong to him. The scars on her back proved that to her.

The gun she held could end that
possession, but she knew she could not end his life. Nor did she want to. Being
with him hadn’t always been a bad thing. He could be gentle, wonderful, loving.
She could learn to love him again, as she had before. She could change herself
to be more acceptable for him, so he wouldn’t want to hurt her again.

Sensing Mark’s stare, Rachel
shifted her gaze to him. Pain drenched his face and his eyes pleaded with her.
She hated that he was here at the estate. What had she done? Why had she
included him in her life when she knew that it could only end like this? The
love she had for him, what they had together, was real, just as he said
earlier.

But that was in a different
time, a different place. She was home now, the only place she ever truly
belonged. She had left once and Donovan found her. Jonathan and Danielle, the
two people who did everything in their power to help her, had both died because
of her. Mark was next on that list. This was her home, and it was where she
needed to stay so she couldn’t destroy anyone else’s life.

As she stared at all the
might-have-beens in Mark’s eyes, she knew there was only one answer to solve
the dilemma in front of her.

Before she lost the courage,
Rachel raised the unusually heavy gun and pointed it in Mark’s direction. The
walls pulsed in her vision, blurred with tears at what she had to do. The
carpet floated beneath her bare feet, and her finger twitched against the
trigger. “I’m sorry, Mark,” she whispered. “I really do love you.”

Don’t think, just act.

Rachel turned the barrel of the
gun toward herself.