Surrender: Keeping Her in the Dark Vol. 4 (3 page)

“You handle Nick?” he asked. Again he took off his glasses.

“Yes.”

“You handle Nick and sex auctions are my thing?” he didn’t look happy.

“Don’t get upset,” I held my hands out but he stood up anyway.

“Oh, it’s too late for that, little one. I will address these subjects separately because they both upset me but in different ways.” He breathed hot air on his glasses and cleaned them with his shirt.

“First, having you handle Nick is out of the question. He wants you Norah! Has that fact escaped your attention?” he paused briefly. He wasn’t raising his voice but Liam had a way of speaking at a regular tone and still making my knees knock together.

“Any situation that requires you talking or being near Nick is absolutely out of the question! That is the end of that discussion.” He cleared his throat and stepped around the desk.

“Second, do not ever refer to a human auction as my thing! It isn’t my thing. Both auctions I have been involved in made my skin crawl. I loathe these people. They disgust me. I am only making a deal with the UNDC to get them off our backs!” He raised his voice in the end.

“Liam, I…” I started.

“Norah, this conversation is over. I have to leave in 4 days and will be gone for who knows how long. My Senior Assistant is about to go out on maternity leave, Will is still on fucking vacation, and I have to get all this work done before I can leave! Now please,” he grabbed my shoulders, “I have enough on my mind with my work, my problems with the UNDC, bringing down 2 major players in a human trafficking ring and my assistant having her baby before I get back! I don’t need to worry about my wife confronting her former kidnapper and getting hurt!”

I started to say something to make my point but the doorbell rang. He kissed my forehead and walked to the front door.

I could tell there was a tall blonde man with a young girl about my age and height with long blonde hair standing at the door. They spoke for a few seconds and then Liam invited them inside. As I started toward the parlor Liam turned toward me so I stopped. Liam entered the study with his two guests right behind him.

“Norah, this is Marcus Williams, we met at the party. He assisted me in my cover. And this is,” but before he could finish she spoke to me.

“Norah? Norah from Las Vegas?” she asked. I looked at her. Her eyes looked familiar.

“It’s me, Candy,” she pointed at herself. Her voice came back to me, her face came back to me, and then everything came back to me.

“Candy Kelly?” I gasped. She nodded. She looked older and had light brown bags under her eyes, but other than that she was the same. Her eyes were still beautifully blue and her hair was long and golden. Her curves and pale skin were the things that women sought after. She was wearing low cut jeans and white short sleeve button up shirt.

I stepped forward and we embraced.

“Oh my goodness!” I gasped again. “Kelly, I worried about you so much! I wondered what had happened to you, where you were and what they had done to you.” I started crying and could feel what I guessed was a frog in my throat. We pulled away and I touched her face.

“I never thought I would see you again. What in the world are you doing here?” she asked. Liam cleared his throat.

“I don’t mean to break this up,” he said. I stepped back from her and looked over at him and Marcus. They were both standing with open mouths watching us.

“May I ask how in the world you two know each other?” it was a reasonable question. I wiped my face and laughed a little. It wasn’t a funny situation but it was very ironic.

“Liam, you’re never going to believe this,” I said.

“Try me?” he didn’t look amused.

“Kelly and I were held together in Paris. We shared a cell. She had been there for two days when I was thrown in with her.” I cleared my throat and added the most ironic part.

“Kelly was in the same auction I was in in Paris.” I shook my head and looked at the floor.

“That is very unbelievable,” Liam said. Marcus just covered his mouth. I took her hand and we went to the sofa and sat down. The men followed us and sat across from us on the other sofa. I looked over at Liam and started explaining.

“When they first threw me in the cell with Kelly I wasn’t even sure what was going on. They had drugged me, examined me and just thrown me in this dark place. Not too many of them were speaking English so I was very confused.” I motioned to Kelly.

“We didn’t speak for about an hour.” I touched her hand. “Then she finally asked me if I was ok,” I chuckled and she smiled. “We were there for what seemed like forever, but I guess it was only a few weeks. We bonded and hoped whatever happened to us that we would be together.” I took a breath. “I thought I could get through anything if we were together.” I looked down at my hand in hers.

“What in the world are you doing here Norah? How did you get away?” she asked. I looked back up at her. She had tears in her eyes. How could I explain this? How could I explain what I had been through, not knowing what she had been through?

“Liam bought me from the auction in Paris,” I took a breath not wanting to relive those days. But here she was right in my den. A life size reminder of what those days were like.

“He bought you in Paris? From our auction? This guy?” She looked over at him and then back at me. “What in the world are you still doing here?” she asked. I gave her a small smile. How could I make this not sound as weird as it was?

“Liam is my husband. We’re married.”

I went on to explain the entire situation to them. How he didn’t know what to do with me once he found out what he had really done. How we started to like each other and eventually fell in love. I told them how I left him and he came after me, which made Marcus cry.

“That is so romantic!” he gasped.

“Get ahold of yourself,” Liam said to him. “I didn’t ride up on a white horse or anything.”

I continued telling them how he left me in the United States because he didn’t want to take me away from my family or have this horrible situation hanging over us forever. I told them about our reunion in Texas, our two weddings in September and now this. Liam interrupted.

“Ok, this is all fine and good. But I am still floored at the fact that you two know each other?” he said. I looked over at him. “How is that possible? I mean, I know how it is possible but the chances are,” he paused and ran his hand over his face. “Those chances are remarkable,” he had lowered his voice like he was speaking to himself. “The statistics are,” he paused.

“The statistics are remarkable,” Marcus added.

“Yes, remarkable,” Liam said again.

“Hello? Do we want to sit here and do the math on how remarkable this is or can we actually have a conversation?” I snapped my fingers to try to get them out of their trances.

We talked a little about how they didn’t say anything to make Liam look bad to the police. Kelly said she didn’t know enough about him to implicate him at all. She had tried her best not look at him when he was examining her. Liam looked a little panicked when she said the word ‘examine’. She said she didn’t know what the other girl had said, but when they let them go she went straight to the airport and left town.

“They told me to stay in touch and made me give them contact information. I think they have someone watching me. But it could be just paranoia.”

“Why didn’t you leave? Don’t you want to go home?” I asked Kelly.

“I don’t have a home to go too. I’ve been a slave for 2 years. I don’t know where to go,” she said. I grabbed her hand again. She had tears in her eyes and shook her head like she didn’t want to talk about it so I didn’t ask.

“When you’re ready, Kelly. When you’re ready you can tell me,” I said. She nodded and took her hands away from me to wipe her face.

“I met Marcus in the lobby of the police station. Marcus explained that he had been working for Randall for a few years as well. He said he didn’t know where to go. Over lunch he told me that he,” she pointed at Liam, “was trying to save me. I got the impression you were different from our brief encounter in the backroom, so I believed him.” She chuckled but it wasn’t a funny laugh. “I guess I just needed to trust someone,” Marcus took her hand and kissed it.

“We checked into a hotel because neither of us knew what to do,” she finished.

“Excuse me,” Liam stood up and walked out of the room.

“Is he a good man, Norah, really? I mean, you married him?” Kelly still couldn’t believe it.

“He is, he really is. He wants to do the right thing, it’s just sometimes he doesn’t know how. I think he agrees now that he went about this the wrong way, but his intention was good.”

We sat in silence for a few minutes. I didn’t really know where to go from this point.

Liam was about to leave me to go on a covert mission. He didn’t call it that and didn’t like me calling it that, but I liked to annoy him.

Now these two were here and had made it plain they tried to help Liam but had nowhere to go. I tapped my fingers against the back of the sofa.

“Excuse me again, I told Rosa we would have two more for dinner and she said it would be ready in about 5 minutes. So if you would like to freshen up or whatever, there is a bathroom down the hall to the right.” Liam was standing at the door with his hands clasped.

Marcus and Kelly both stood up and headed down the hall. I went and gave Liam a kiss.

“I feel like I should do something,” he said.

“I know.” I gave him another kiss. “You like to play the bad guy, but you can’t help yourself,” I kissed him again.

During dinner we continued talking about how ironic the chances of Liam purchasing a girl who had been held with me were and how different our lives had been since we had last seen each other.

Kelly had been through hell. She didn’t go into a lot of detail. I could tell it was a difficult conversation for her. But she made it clear she had been through hell. She had been owned by several men.

The man that bought her from the auction was an Arab. He had several wives and she worried the whole time she was with him he was going to force her to marry him. He never did. He just liked kinky sex and to beat her. She was with him for about a year. Then he sold her to a man who lived in Australia, although he wasn’t Australian. He put her through the most hell. She couldn’t even talk about what he had done with her. He sold her to one of the men he shared her with after 4 months. Then it was on to an African man and then she ended up with Randall.

She said Randall never touched her, he was too busy with the younger girl.

I looked at Liam when she mentioned the third girl. Liam had never seen her but I knew she was pressing on his mind.

Liam didn’t participate much in the conversation. I could tell he wasn’t comfortable. Finally, he made it known.

“I don’t mean to be rude, but I imagine we can find something else to talk about during dinner.” He went back to his dinner. The three of us sat quietly.

“So after you fell in love with each other your life has been pretty normal until now, huh?” Kelly was asking. I snorted. I couldn’t control it.

“We’ve had some drama,” Liam said.

“Really? More drama than slave auctions and kidnappings?” she asked.

“Oh, I forgot to mention how his ex-friend Nick Meyers kidnapped me and then Liam found me and saved me from him too,” I added as I blinked my eyes at Liam. He didn’t smile. Just saying that man’s name made his blood boil.

“Nick Meyers?” asked Kelly.

“I really don’t like to talk about it,” Liam said bluntly.

“He and Liam use to be friends. But something happened, I really don’t know what, anyway they hate each other now. Nick was hoping Liam would share me with him, and when he said no, Nick wasn’t happy. It’s a big thing and it still isn’t over,” I paused when I saw the look on Liam’s face.

“What?” I asked. “I thought you meant you didn’t like to talk about it, but it was ok if I did.”

“I think Nick might have had the party busted,” she took a deep breath and moved to the edge of her seat.

“He did,” Liam looked over at her. “When I was being questioned they asked me about him and told me he had alerted them about the party. They have suspicions about him too, and Norah is right, our problem with him isn’t over.” He looked back down at his plate and continued to eat. I took it as a sign that the Nick conversation was over. Kelly didn’t.

“He came to the house the day before the party. He’s really tall, right? Blonde? Good Looking? Acts like he’s charming but is a major ass?” I answered affirmatively to all of those things.

“Ok, well. He looked us over but decided he wanted to buy Holly. Randall told him he had to come back and buy her at the auction, but he refused. He asked Randall how much he paid for her and he gave him a piece of paper. He must have offered him a lot of money over what Randall paid so he sold her that night.”

Liam dropped his fork and crossed his fingers inside each other.

“Nick bought the third girl?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“The third girl who happens to be underage?” he clarified.

“Yes, although I don’t think she is really under age,” Kelly said.

“She is,” Marcus chimed in. “She’s only 16 years old.” Kelly looked over at Marcus and then back at Liam.

“She wants to make you think she is 16 years old, but she isn’t. I was locked in a room with her. She told us she is really 21, she just looks really young. I guess her very first master told her she should lie about her age to be more appealing.”

Liam was silent. He looked down at his plate and didn’t say a word. I think Kelly finally got the vibe that he didn’t want to talk about Nick. She stopped talking. Marcus just kept eating. After a few minutes Liam excused himself and walked out.

“I hope I didn’t upset him,” she said.

“Oh, it’s ok. He stays upset. Nick is a very sore spot with us and this just opens the wound.”

They gave me the information about where they were staying and then they left. I went upstairs to try to calm down my husband.

Chapter Two

Liam

I heard her open the bedroom door and walk quietly across the floor. She walked to my side of the bed and knelt down in front of me. She ran her hands over my thighs and gave me a pouty look.