Authors: Ella Grace
She shook her head. That wasn’t it…that wasn’t why she did the job. Why she put her everything into her work. It was just who she was. She believed in doing the right thing and had enough confidence in herself to get the job done. That was it, nothing more.
“That’s not what I do.”
“You’re lying to yourself, Sabrina. And someday you’re going to get your wish. You’re going to get killed.”
Chapter Eleven
Chicago
Silva’s Estate
Robert Silva puffed on his cigar as he watched live feed of Lauren Kendall waiting for him on his yacht. She’d been there a few days but still had a air of defiance about her. Those slender shoulders were too proud, the gleam in her eyes too haughty. That would change, and soon.
It would be a few more days before he could attend to her…the wait would do her good. Nothing like a little terror-filled anticipation to sweeten a woman up. By the time he arrived, she would have lost much of her arrogance. He’d have fun destroying the little that was left.
A knock on his office door at this time of night was unusual. When he called out “Enter” he was surprised to see his wife Erica.
“Robert? May I speak with you? Please?”
He took one last look at his newest pet and then turned off the monitor. “Yes? What is it?”
Her eyes glued to the floor, she spoke in a soft, respectful tone as she had been taught. “I wanted to ask a favor.”
They had been married almost twenty years. In that time, he could count on one hand the favors she had asked of him. He didn’t particularly like that she was asking one now. Still, he was curious. “What is it you want?”
“To go with you when you return to Florida.”
“Why?”
“Perhaps I could be of assistance to you there.”
He almost laughed. The only assistance a woman could give a man wasn’t something he wanted from her anymore. He’d done his duty…given her children because it was expected. Anything else he could get elsewhere. He kept her as his wife because that was what he had been taught, just as his father had stayed married to his mother and his grandfather to his grandmother. The women bore the children, oversaw the servants, handled the minutia of everyday life. And he, just as his father and grandfather before him, handled the business. Their roles were clearly defined, the lines never to be blurred.
“What kind of assistance do you think I require?”
“I don’t know. I just thought—”
“Do I look like a man who requires assistance?”
“Oh no. Of course not. I just thought—”
“Perhaps you think too much. Perhaps you don’t have enough to occupy you now that our oldest daughter has married.”
“Not at all, Robert. The children keep me busy.”
“How old is Elena?”
She looked at him then, her light blue eyes wide with worry and a satisfactory amount of fear. “She’ll be two next month.”
Robert stood. Perhaps his duty had not ended. “Take off your clothes.”
She knew better than to question his orders. Within seconds she was naked. Even through five pregnancies, her body had held up well. Maybe a little more flab around the stomach area and her hips looked a little wider than when they’d married. He’d give her one more brat, then get her fixed for good—no more childbearing. After that, extensive plastic surgery to take care of the flaws. He was Robert Silva—he demanded and deserved perfection in every aspect of his life.
“On your hands and knees.”
“Robert…please.”
“Are you denying me?”
“No, of course not. I just wanted—”
“And you think your wants matter to me?”
The woman he could’ve sworn had rubber for a backbone straightened her spine and said, “I’m your wife.”
His voice went soft as a whisper. “Are you challenging my authority?”
As if she realized she’d gone too far, she shook her head quickly and went to her hands and knees as he commanded.
Robert checked his watch, then removed his belt and unzipped his pants. He had an important conference call in twenty minutes. Plenty of time to take care of his husbandly duty and get in some much needed discipline, too. By the time he was finished, he was quite sure that traveling anywhere with him would be the last thing on her mind.
Midnight
The family meeting Sabrina called that night wasn’t remotely one she looked forward to but it had to be done. If they were going to be working this case, then her family needed to know everything. How she became acquainted with Holden Marsh had to be revealed and discussed.
Staying as sketchy as she could on the less savory details, Sabrina explained about Cruz’s death. About Ryan Walker’s betrayal. About Ian’s rescue of her.
The room was silent as they absorbed the information she gave. She sat on the edge of her chair watching the expressions of those she loved. She had a feeling that glossing over the less savory details hadn’t worked. Savvy and Sammie looked horrified. Zach and Quinn, angry and grim.
And Ian, who stood on the other side of the room, held a granite-like expression of quiet fury.
She and Ian hadn’t talked since he’d walked out the door a few hours ago. His parting words had stunned her. She refused to believe there was the slightest sliver of truth to his accusation.
She took a swallow of water to wet down her parched mouth. No one had made the slightest comment yet and despite herself, she was getting nervous. She cleared her throat. “So, anyway, Marsh has asked for our help and I’d like the entire agency to be involved.”
Savvy was the first to speak, her voice thick with simmering emotions. “Why didn’t you tell us, Bri?”
“Because I knew it would upset you. You didn’t need that worry, Savvy. When all this happened, you’d just had that scare with the baby. And Sammie had just gone through her ordeal. I figured you both would try to find this man…this Silva. I couldn’t risk that.”
“You put your family in jeopardy by not telling us, Sabrina,” Zach said.
The cut went deep to her heart. “Telling you guys would’ve added more worry and that wasn’t something anyone needed.”
“Keeping everyone in the dark is never a good idea,” Quinn said.
Okay, she could see Quinn’s point since everything that had happened to him and Sammie had been because he’d been left in the dark. But this had no real correlation to what had happened to him. Sabrina had kept secrets to protect her family. Not hurt them.
She sent pleading looks to her sisters. Of all the people in the world, she needed their support and love. If she lost it, she didn’t know what she would do.
“I just wish you had trusted us, Bri,” Sammie said.
“It had nothing to do with trust.”
Zach shook his head. “Whatever your reason, Sabrina. It was wrong to hold it back. Your sisters deserved better. Your family deserved better.”
Sabrina took a shaky breath, opened her mouth, ready to apologize again.
“Okay, that’s enough,” Ian growled. “Do you even know what kind of pressure she’s been under? Maybe it was wrong not to tell you, but everything she did was to protect you, not hurt you.”
“That’s why you haven’t left Midnight,” Sammie said “Why you’re constantly driving through town. You thought he might come here.”
“I didn’t believe there was any way they could find me.”
“And yet this Holden Marsh did,” Zach said. “Do you believe him?”
“I talked to a couple of my contacts at the DEA,” Ian said. “He is who he says he is. Whether he’s telling the truth about Lauren is another issue.”
“Why didn’t you tell us, Ian?” Savannah said. “You’re as culpable as Bri.”
Ian arched a brow. “Culpable? So we’re criminals here?”
Sabrina released a frustrated breath. This was getting so messed up and not anything like she intended. “Don’t blame Ian…it’s not his fault. He wanted me to tell you. This is all on me.” She took a shaky breath. “I understand if you don’t want to help. I can—”
“Not help?”
Before she could react, both Savvy and Sammie came to sit on either side of her, each wrapping an arm around her.
“Good Lord, Bri, you’re our sister,” Savvy said. “We love you. Of course we’re going to help you.”
Sammie squeezed her shoulder. “Just because we’re angry doesn’t mean we’d let you do this on your own. We’re family. We stick together, no matter what.”
Appreciating their love and quick forgiveness, she glanced over at Quinn and Zach.
Zach said. “Of course we’re with you.”
Quinn nodded. “Whatever you need, Sabrina.”
Relief almost made her dizzy. Telling her family had been what she had dreaded the most. Now they could move forward. “We need to call Brody and Logan in.”
“We’ll have trouble keeping Logan from doing this on his own,” Sammie said. “He’s not been the same since Lauren left. And I know he hasn’t stopped looking for her.”
Zach waved away their concerns. “You leave Logan to me. Once he understands we’re all in this to rescue her, he’ll cooperate.”
“So what’s the plan?” Savvy asked. “I can’t do anything physical yet, but I want to help.”
“You’ll help plenty, Savvy. We’ll need all the information you can find on Robert Silva. And if you can find out more on Holden Marsh without sending out flags, see what you can dig up.”
“What about the rest of us?” Sammie asked. “How are we going to get this done?”
“Marsh is coming back tomorrow morning. Let’s get Logan and Brody here and we’ll talk about what we need to do.”
Silva’s Yacht
As prisons went, this was surely one of the most luxurious imaginable. An elegant two hundred foot yacht with a staff of five whose only responsibilities it seemed was keeping her well fed, entertained, and oh yeah, prisoner.
So what if she lounged around the pool all day or was treated to the most current movies or books in the evening. So what if the food was prepared by some fancy chef with a foreign accent. And so what that though her guards’ eyes gleamed with lust and violence, no one had touched her since they’d dumped her here. She knew what was coming when Silva arrived.
The guards were superfluous. She was in the middle of the damn ocean. Just where the hell did they think she would go?
Sometimes, when she wasn’t living in fear or running for her life, she wondered what might have been. She’d had a family once—one that had loved her, but she’d always been a rebel at heart. Always thought she knew best. Always wanted more.
Leaving home at eighteen, sure that with her looks and talent, she could be a Hollywood superstar, had been the first of many bad decisions. When the money she’d saved ran out, she had waited tables, certain that she would be discovered. The only discovering that had been done had been on her part. She’d discovered that in Hollywood good looks and talent were a dime a dozen. Too stupidly stubborn to go home, she’d stuck it out and then it had been too late.
The call had come in the middle of the night. Her parents had been killed in a hit and run accident. And she, Lauren Kendall, rebel without a single cause, had learned about loss. Regret. And a whole shitload of guilt that never ceased.
One would think she would have learned her lesson, but instead of straightening out her less than spectacular character, she allowed herself to dig deeper into the mire. She wished she could blame it on someone else but was too honest with herself to even try. Every bad decision she had made in her life was her own damn fault…no one else’s.
Hooking up with Armando Cruz had been the pinnacle of those bad decisions. She’d fallen for his silky tongue, his good looks and yes, his money. Let’s not forget the money.
She had been his girlfriend, then his mistress. It wasn’t until close to the end of their relationship that she realized she was just his whore. She had witnessed atrocities that would haunt her until death. Instead of finding a way to escape, she had stayed, determined to get as much money from him as possible before she left. If she had walked out the door and just disappeared, how much easier would her life have been?
The day Robert Silva had come to call on his old friend Armando had been the beginning of a new, gruesome hell. Her life, already covered with a thousand pounds of shit, got a million times worse. She hadn’t known it at the time. Armando had introduced her to Silva and then told her to leave. She had gladly complied. The dead look in Silva’s eyes had scared the crap out of her. She hadn’t known that she had caught his interest.
Then, in the way a man loans a car or a boat to a friend, Cruz had loaned her to Silva. A loan of property for a short time, to be used and abused as each saw fit. A birthday gift to a friend…but just for a few days.
What had been done to her still woke her up sometimes, screaming with agony and debasement while bile surged up her throat.