“Now, now, Beau, that’s not how you’re supposed to greet your elders, is it?” John O’Malley’s voice made the flames of my temper burn brighter as I silently put the call on speaker.
“What the fuck do you want?” I snarled, hand shaking with the urge to smash my phone into pieces on the ground just so I didn’t have to listen to him.
“I wanted to show you something — something fun.” He snickered a laugh as my phone beeped twice. “Now I gotta go;there’s shit that needs doin’ and some toys I’m waiting to arrive. But you enjoy that little movie, won’t you? It’s one of many I have staring your pretty little daughter.” He laughed harder. “You reckon I could get her to call me daddy soon enough? Her ma is my woman, after all.”
There was no hesitation in my mind about how John’s future would play out. He was dead. And regardless of how many years it took me, I would find a way to hurt him far more than he had ever hurt Sapphire, and I would enjoy it fiercely.
“I’m going to fucking kill you, old man.” I promised. “I’m going to wipe out your entire bloodline and-”
John interrupted me. “No you won’t, lad. That little Montana whore won’t let you.”
“She’d help.” I didn’t bother defending Sapphire properly – I knew she wasn’t a whore, and I also knew she didn’t give a fuck if John called her one.
She just wanted him tortured and dead. That was it. And that was what I would do my best to do.
Slowly. Painfully.
John only laughed louder. “Doubt that. But even if she did, it would be worth it to know how it broke her heart when she learned the truth about all the nasty things we’ve done to her.” He hung up without another word and I fought the urge to hurtle my phone against the side of the van and instead clicked on the link he’d sent me, only to find myself far worse as I did.
The video wasn’t long, only ten seconds. But it consisted of Sapphire, tied unconscious to a chair, in an unknown room, as a hooded figured nearby set up a bucket, cloth, and hose that I instantly figured out the use for. I’d never been waterboarded myself, but I knew it was horrible, and I also knew my Diamond had nightmares about it already.
I also knew she would survive it – she’d survived as a child. There was nothing she wouldn’t beat now.
“Trace where it’s coming from. It can’t be that far away if she’s already there.” My voice cracked as I handed Aiden my phone, refusing to do anything more.
As my knees shook and I almost collapsed onto the ground, the undeniable crushing sense of uselessness almost broke me. I wasn’t an affectionate man. People touching me had long been a trigger and truthfully, aside from Sapphire and Aiden, everyone else made me trigger happy when they lay their hands on my skin. Women especially. But when Ruby placed her hand on my cheek, her thumb gently wiping away the tears of fear and anger I hadn’t known I was shedding, I didn’t flinch or shove her away.
I didn’t do anything but let her comfort me and promise all sorts of things she could never see through.
“We’ll get her back.” She whispered as she stared at me, her big green eyes filled with nothing but promises I hoped were never proven wrong. “Sapphire’s gonna be fine; she’s a strong woman and you and I both know she won’t break.”
I let Ruby wrap her arms around me. I let her hug me – and not for the first time either.
And I didn’t hate it.
“She shouldn’t have to survive.” My voice was quiet against Ruby’s shoulder. “She should just be happy, and I can never seem to make her that way. She’s always in one danger or another.”
Ruby squeezed me tighter. “And one day she will. When this is all over, she will get a happy endin’. You’re goin’ to make sure of that. Right now, you just need to be confident and calm. We’re goin’ to find her, and everythin’ will be fine.”
As much as I would have loved to believe Ruby, I couldn’t. Purely because I had already failed. Like I had said, my daughter shouldn’t have had tosurviveher life. She shouldn’t have had to fight every fucking day just to breathe, and the fact she did meant I had failed. I had not done my duty as her father – as herfamily. I had let her down, time and time again, and now it was even worse because there was no returning from it.
As much as it pained me, I couldn’t raise the dead. I couldn’t bring back the men she loved, like Kody or Malone. Or even fucking Ford.
I couldn’t even save her, no matter how hard I wanted to.
Chapter Three, The Day Of The Crash
Hours. It had to have been hours. It can’t have been just moments that I spent staring at my daddy and wondering if I would ever burn the sight of his mutilated body out of my brain. I wouldn’t get it out of my brain because it was probably the most fucked up thing I had ever seen. It was beyond messed up. There was no way to describe such a sight without gagging and crying, and wanting to throw things, and scream an awful lot. Perhaps even worse.
There was no denying that it would leave a lasting mark on my soul and if I made it to old age, I would still sit there, recalling each vivid detail and just how much it hurt. Because itdidhurt – more than physical pain. It was like my grief had been locked away in a box, only appearing on a rainy day, but now that lock had shattered, the box popped open and there was no chance of it ever returning to what it had been before. It wastoo busy trying to fuck me over. Too busy forcing me to be in an agony I would never get away from.
The door to my dungeon opened once more, and though the drugs in my system and the pain burning in my lungs were doing their best to distract me and occupy my brain, I refused to let them win. Instead, I did my best to concentrate on the figure padding towards me, soft as anything, as though they were not a psycho with a person chained up.
As though they were just having a nice and normal day and they hadn’t waterboarded me until I’d passed out.
“Did you enjoy your dinner?” They asked as though I hadn’t left it all on the plate and spent however long they had been gone since I woke up, alternating between screaming, crying and throwing up a little.
Okay, a lot.
