“Got a call from Detroit,” Jay Mann announced as he joined the fray, voice rising above the various arguments going on around them. As usual, his black curly hair appeared disheveled, and he hadn’t taken the time to shave in recent days, his scraggly beard evidence of the long hours he spent online searching for Tak. “Jet will be on the tarmac when we get to Glacier Park. It’s at least a sixty-minute drive in this weather. We should get moving.”
The arrival of the remaining members of the team exceeded maximum capacity, and the arguments about who should go to Detroit spilled out into the hallway.
Apparently, the entire JTT was gunning for Tom Hood. Or—and this was far more likely—they were tired of sitting around. Men like these weren’t accustomed to waiting for shit to happen. They went in search of it. Injured or not.
Holed up in the lodge they’d been using as their base since mid-October, the members of her father’s special operations unit had been licking their wounds and waiting for Adam to step up and lead the team. It hadn’t happened, and the chaos going on around them was the result.
“Out!” Adam shouted, the volume of the one word and the threat behind it all that was required to garner the attention of every single person in the room, including the dog.
Gray tried to take advantage of the sudden quiet. “I’m—”
“Jesus Christ, Gray! Let me put some fucking pants on.” Her brother looked to be at the end of his patience, and a Grayson running low on patience was one of two things, a disaster waiting to happen or— “Davis, get the boardroom set up for a briefing. Jay, put the intel we have up on the SmartBoard. Chase, talk some sense into your girlfriend. The rest of you get out so I can get dressed. I’ll be downstairs in twenty minutes.”
CHAPTERTWO
“Tell me you love me, Mommy.”
Eve Langley’s adoptive brother stood over her. Hips thrust forward. Head thrown back. His bloody palm stroking the flesh protruding from the opening in the front of his blue-and-white-striped pajama bottoms.
She wished she could look away. Close her eyes. Turn her head. Anything to shield herself from the sight. She couldn’t. Averting her gaze would only make things worse.
He wanted her to watch.
“Tell me you love me!”
She refused his desperate plea.
“Please!” He grabbed his scrotum with his free hand and twisted viciously, jerking as semen spewed onto her sundress.
The sight of it, the smell of it, made her sick, and her gag reflex engaged. Empty stomach heaving, she turned her head, pressed her forehead to the wall, and retched.
His sobbing started immediately.
Eve didn’t need to look his way to know Bryan Matthew had positioned himself on the floor, his bare back wedged into the corner of her twelve-by-twelve prison. She knew he’d have his knees pulled to his chest, his head in his hands. It had been par for the course for the last…
Oh God! How many days has it been? Five? Six? Seven?
She didn’t know anymore.
“I’m bad. I’m bad. I’m bad.” A dull thud accompanied each declaration, the back of his skull hitting the thick cushioning behind his head.
The walls of her cell were hard-core psych ward. The proverbial white padded room. Everything about the place screamed Martha Stewart level of attention to insane asylum details. From the white metal frame of the single bed to the stainless-steel toilet—every fixture and piece of furniture had been bolted to the floor.
Her prison was indestructible and inescapable.
Handcuffed to the wall, she couldn’t even reach the exit. Not that it would have made a difference. The door had been equipped with an electronic lock that clicked when released—the sound a dead giveaway Bryan was about to pay her a visit.
At first, she had begged, pleaded, bargained for him to release her. Now she knew the truth. She wasn’t leaving this room alive. Fear slithered down her spine, and her stomach twisted. Refusing to join him in his tears, she swiped at the moisture collecting on her lashes.
“I’m sorry, Eve.” As the weeping coming from the corner subsided, the snuffling commenced. A clear indication Bryan had moved into the remorse stage of his bizarre cycle. “You forgive me, don’t you, Jellybean?”
She cringed at the use of the nickname he’d given her when she’d come to live with the Matthews. Killed in a car accident after leaving Los Angeles airport, Eve’s parents never made it home to celebrate her tenth birthday.
By dinnertime that fateful evening, she’d stood in the manor’s most lavish guest room with Judge Roland Matthew welcoming her to their small family of three.
She’d never felt so lost, scared, and alone.
Until now.
