Chapter 18
Chapter
Eighteen
August 1 st
12:41 P.M.
This couldn’t be happening.
He couldn’t have lost her.
With the tub of melted ice cream still in his hand, Cole ran back to his place, scanning the apartment to see where he’d left his phone.
Right.
There it was.
On the table.
Unable to put the ice cream down—maybe ever again if he didn't get her back but at least for the moment—he took it with him and snatched up his cell with his free hand.
Dialing the first number in the list of recent calls, his brother Connor answered a moment later.
“What did you do?” Cole growled without preamble.
“Good afternoon to you, too,” Connor snapped back.
Not in the mood for anything other than answers, part of his brain knew he was being unreasonable the other part was too far gone with terror to do anything about it. “Susanna is gone, why didn't you tell me she left her apartment?”
Even though his gut told him otherwise, he wanted to pretend that Susanna had left of her own free will. For at least another couple of seconds, he could cling to that delusion and ignore his every instinct that was screaming at him that something was wrong. That something had happened to her.
“Susanna isn’t gone.” Connor said it so calmly, so matter-of-factly, that Cole just broke.
“She’s gone,” he roared. “I went to talk to her because I messed up big time and there was no answer. Her door was unlocked, and the place is empty.”
“She can't be,” Connor said, although he sounded less sure this time. “I've got the camera set to alert me if she leaves. Maybe it was a glitch in the system.”
The suggestion sounded lame, even to Connor if his tone was anything to go by.
If one of his brothers had seen her leave, they would have let him know so he could be on alert just in case.
“Did you check with the others?” Connor asked. “Maybe the fault was just on my end.”
He hadn't but he would.
Even though he already knew the answer.
“Something happened to her,” he said, softly this time, the fear too strong for him to fight.
“Signs of a struggle?”
“No. The place looked like she was ready for her patient to show up only he never did. A plate of cookies was untouched, and the coffeemaker and kettle were both full.”
“He showed,” Connor contradicted. “I got the alert about one minute to ten when a man showed up at her door. Didn't catch a look at his face, but I confirmed he was roughly the size and shape of her patient and assumed she’d call if anything was off.”
They shouldn’t have allowed her to go back to work.
He shouldn’t have allowed her to go back to work.
It was too big a security risk, and now because he hadn't pushed to shut the whole thing down, because he’d given her that stupid ultimatum, she was missing. If they hadn't fought yesterday, he would have insisted on being in her apartment, even if it was in another room, while she had patients over.
“What if it wasn't him?” Cole asked, feeling dangerously close to throwing up.
“You think Vitoli or one of the others involved kidnapped her?”
“I think she’s gone and not of her own free will. Who was she supposed to be seeing this morning? Wasn't the guy in his eighties or something?”
“Yeah, eighty-six. Name’s Albie Roberts.”
“No way an old man got her out of that apartment.”
“How could anyone get her out without us seeing?” Connor asked.
“You didn't shut the camera down or anything?”
“Dude.” Connor huffed, sounding indignant. “You know none of us would do that. We all like Susanna, you're the only one who’s ever had a problem with her. And why would we do that even if we didn't like her? If nothing else, we want answers from the people after her because they’re only after her because of us.”
“Then I don’t understand how no one saw her leaving.” Suddenly bone weary, Cole sunk into one of the chairs at his table.
“I don’t either. The camera isn’t anything fancy, just one of those ones that picks up motion and sends an alert, just like you’d use as a doorbell or something.”
“Could it have been hacked?”
“I guess anything is possible. Let me bring up the feed.” After a moment, Connor sucked in a breath, the sound sending arrows of terror straight through Cole’s heart.
“What?” he asked, dreading the answer.
“Footage is frozen.”
“How can you tell?”
“Because it must have frozen right as whoever took Susanna was opening her front door, the door is partially open, not enough you’d be able to tell unless you were looking for a problem.”
“Has to be Vitoli, right? He’s involved in what happened to Mom and is obsessed with Susanna.”
“Could be one of the others. We know it wasn't him who trashed your apartments after the shooting.”
“I need Albie Roberts’ address. The only person she would have opened her door for was him. She was expecting him, felt safe enough with the camera, and likely didn't confirm the identity of the man knocking at her door if he came right on time. If someone had taken his place, she probably didn't know until she already had the door open. By then it could have been too late.”
“I’ll text you his address and meet you there. Then I’ll text one of the others, get them to organize a forensics team to sweep her place, we might get lucky. We got this, little bro, we’ll find your girl and get her back, but only on one condition,” Connor said gently.
Knowing they’d do anything to get her back regardless of the condition, he still asked, “What?”
“Stop messing things up with her, do whatever it takes to earn her forgiveness, and then make her yours. Stop playing games, stop letting fear rule, and finally do what we’ve all been waiting for these last three years.”
That was exactly what he planned to do.
However long it took.
However hard he had to fight.
He would prove to Susanna that she could trust him, that he could be in it for the long haul, and be a partner worthy of her.
But first, he had to get her back.
Ending the call, he reluctantly set the container of ice cream down on his kitchen counter, washed his hands, and dressed. The text with the address came through just as he was shoving his feet into shoes. After grabbing his weapon he headed out, taking the stairs to the parking garage rather than the lift because he needed to blow off a little steam and get himself under control.
Susanna needed him.
Now more than ever.
He had to hold it together.
Repeating that mantra, he jumped into his car and pumped the address into his GPS system. Repeating it, he followed the directions to Albie Roberts’ house. Repeating it, he pulled up outside it right as Connor was climbing out of his own vehicle.
“Want to wait outside?” Connor asked as he approached.
“Like hell. This is the only possible lead we have.” Susanna being taken was his fault, he was the one who had walked away yesterday, not her. It wasn't wishful thinking, or blind hope, it was pure fact. If he hadn't left things the way he had yesterday, he would have been with Susanna this morning and would have pre-empted any kidnapping attempt.
These were his wrongs to right.
Hiding in fear wasn't going to get Susanna back, only fighting for her would.
Right now, this was how she needed him to fight. There was no possibility of him earning her trust if he couldn’t bring her home alive.
“All right, we go in together,” Connor agreed.
Like they had many times before they split up, Connor took the front door and Cole slipped around the side of the house to take the back. Only unlike any other time they’d worked together as a team, this was the first time the stakes had been so high for him personally. Even what happened in Egypt last month hadn't felt this intense. Then they’d been fighting for the woman Cooper had fallen head over heels for and all of them would have walked through the fires of Hell themselves to save Willow.
But this was Susanna.
His sprinkles.
When he heard Connor knock on the front door, he tensed, more than ready to spring into action.
“Mr. Roberts? Are you in there?” Connor’s voice called out.
They both waited a full sixty seconds for a response, and when they didn't get one, they both acted. Cole kicked down the back door at the same moment he heard Connor do the same to the front one.
As soon as he stepped inside, he knew.
The metallic stench of blood told him before he saw it.
Albie Roberts was dead.
Murdered.
Someone had somehow known that the old man was supposed to be meeting with Susanna that morning and killed him so they could take his place.
And that person now had a helpless Susanna in their clutches.
August 1 st
7:02 P.M.
It was cold down there.
Freezing.
The thin blanket she’d been given didn't even come close to cutting through the chill in the air, and after hours, Susanna couldn’t stop shivering.
Maybe it wasn't all from the cold. Maybe fear and regret also played a part. The combination of the three threatened to suck all the energy right out of her body, leaving her nothing but an empty shell.
It was tempting to let them.
If she could just allow her mind to disassociate, she wouldn't have to suffer through whatever horrific plans Vinny had for her.
So easy.
All she had to do was simply … drift away.
There had been a lot of times in the past when she’d wanted to do just that. To stop living so she didn't have to suffer anymore. To give up and give in to her father’s demands in what she knew logically was a vain hope that he would one day stop hating her.
The truth was, her father didn't hate her, he was just a sadistic psychopath incapable of normal human emotion. He could play a good game and fool most people, but there was a darkness there that she knew those closest to him saw.
Any time she’d thought about how easy it would be to stop existing, something had always been there forcing her to hold on. At the time, she hadn't known what it was. For most of her life, Susanna had felt truly alone, her trust issues were always a barrier between her and the people around her. Even those people she truly respected, liked, and considered her friends.
Now she suspected she knew what had always kept her tethered to life even in her darkest moments.
It was some sense of what awaited her if she could hold on long enough.
It was Cole.
Angry as she was with him for treating her like trash all these years, then suddenly changing and becoming a nice guy, only to yank away the carrot he’d dangled in front of her affection-starved soul, she believed at heart he was a good man. She’d seen the way he was with his siblings and little niece, he loved them fiercely and protected them with all he had. She thought maybe he could do the same with her if they could ever sort out their issues.
Susanna knew she had a long way to go in sorting out her own.
But if there was one thing sitting in the dim little room for hours, shivering and scared, had convinced her of it was that the life Vinny wanted for her wasn't that much different than the one she’d been imposing on herself all these years.
They were both lonely prisons.
What was the point of living if this was all she was going to allow herself?
No one close to her, people on the periphery of her life, even those she knew could be real and good friends. No light, no joy, just a little home that she hid in because the fear of ever letting anyone in and being betrayed again paralyzed her.
It was no way to live.
Something had to change.
She had to change.
Otherwise, she may as well give up right here and now and let Vinny do whatever he wanted with her.
The sound of movement on the other side of the door to her cell had her straightening. The blanket she’d wrapped around herself as she huddled on the bed fell off her shoulders, and she clutched her hands together.
This was it.
If she wanted to fight for her life and a chance at a future, this was where it all started.
It was time to decide what her future looked like.
Did she want to be a victim forever? Continue to let her father dictate her life, isolate her, and cause her pain? Or was she ready to overcome the horrors of her childhood and teach herself how to trust?
It was up to her to decide.
Fighting didn't mean winning, it didn't mean she would ever escape Vinny’s clutches, but it at least meant that if she was going to die, she could do so respecting herself.
Because deep down that was the root of her problem.
Others had devalued her so many times that she had lost her ability to respect herself.
No more.
It all changed here and now.
The door opened and Vinny Vitoli stepped through. He looked so much worse than the last time she’d seen him. Her memories of the night he’d assaulted her were hazy at best, thanks to the head injury, and she hadn't caught a glimpse of him the day he’d shot at them, or when he’d shot up Cole’s car.
Now that they were face to face, she could see the evidence of how badly he had devolved. His eyes were red and puffy, pupils were blown, he’d lost a lot of weight, and his hair was dirty and unkept, hanging around his face in a scraggly mess.
This was not the man she’d first met all those years ago.
This man was a stranger.
A scary stranger.
But one she had to find a way to reason with.
“What are you doing, Vinny?” she asked, pushing wearily to her feet. The last thing she wanted was to be trying to talk sanity into a man who had clearly gone off the rails, but it wasn't like she had any other options.
His brow furrowed like her question somehow confused him. “I'm taking care of you.”
“Taking care of me?” she repeated because she had no idea how he had come to that conclusion. What delusion was she dealing with?
“It’s my job now.”
“Your job? Why is it your job to take care of me, Vinny? Because I helped you in the past? I can help you again,” she implored, stepping toward him.
“You have helped me.” The same puzzled expression remained on his face, and she wished she could get inside his head just for a second to see exactly what she was dealing with.
“I’m glad, Vinny. Because that’s all I want to do. Help you.” It took effort, but Susanna was pleased she was able to keep her tone calm and soothing despite her racing heart and clammy hands.
"And you do.” He grinned widely at her, then set the tray he was carrying down on the table.
The door was still open, and it took everything Susanna had not to make a run for it. However, he was between her and the door, and her chances of getting around him weren't high. Just because he had lost weight didn't mean he wasn't still bigger and stronger than her, plus he’d been a trained bodyguard. For now, her best bet was to try to win his trust and use it to get herself out alive rather than risk him accidentally killing or incapacitating her.
“I'm glad, Vinny, I’m glad. I saw the pictures,” she started hesitantly, aware that one wrong step, a single wrong word, could have him turn on her in a second. “The ones at your house. What would Susanna do? Is that how I’ve been helping you?”
His beam grew wider as he began to set out the table as though they were about to have a date. There were nice napkins, bowls of what looked like soup along with a basket of bread, glasses and a bottle of sparkling water, a vase of flowers, and a couple of candles.
“That’s right. You always help me. That’s what I think, that’s how I make decisions. What would Susanna do? That’s how I decide. What's right and what's wrong. It’s you. You make everything better.”
This delusion had developed since she’d ended things with him as his counselor. Back then, he hadn't thought she was the best thing ever. In fact, he’d often been argumentative with her. Something had changed in the last few years, and she had no idea why.
“You were following me around, Vinny,” she continued. “Why didn't you ever come and say hello?”
The furrow was back. “I wasn't ready. Wasn't ready. Had to be ready.”
“And now you’re ready?”
He started to shake his head, but then turned it to a nod. “I didn't think I was ready, but they said I was. Said it was time. That I had to go to you. Had to go to you then. Had to be then. Has to be now.”
If she was going to survive this, she had to do it with as much intel as she could to give to Cole. The people hunting his family were more dangerous than the crazy man standing before her.
“Who is they, Vinny? Can you tell me their names?”
“No, not allowed. Not allowed to say their names. If I say their names they’ll hurt you.” He sounded horrified by the prospect regardless of the fact that even if he’d been ordered to, he was the one who had raped her, he was the one who had shot her, and he was the one who had shot at Cole.
“That’s not true, Vinny. If I have their names, I can make sure they go to prison so they can't hurt anyone else. They're the ones who hurt the woman, aren't they? The woman in the picture.”
His head bounced up and down so vigorously it looked like it was going to snap his neck. “They don’t want anyone to know.”
“Don’t want anyone to know about what?”
“The baby. Can't know about the baby. The baby is proof. Proof of what they did.”
Cole’s mom had been dead for almost twenty years, there was no baby. Unless … could the rape of Carla Charleston have resulted in a pregnancy? The rape would have occurred around twenty-five years ago which would mean … Cassandra was the product of the rape. Cassandra’s blood was the key to unlocking the entire conspiracy that surrounded Carla and her second husband’s arrests and deaths.
“Not like our baby, though,” Vinny continued, his gaze now locked on her stomach.
“Our baby?”
He stepped closer, placing his hand on her stomach and she fought not to be sick. “I’ll protect you and our baby. That’s why I brought you here. They’ll hurt you. They don’t want anyone to know, they’ll hurt whoever they must to make sure no one knows. But I’ll keep you safe.”
“Vinny, I'm not?—”
“You are,” he said fiercely, cutting her off. “I did to you what they did to her. They made a baby, and we made a baby. But don’t worry, Susanna, you're safe here. You're safe. I’ll keep you safe. I have to keep you safe.”
As he crushed her against his chest, holding her so tight she winced, a single tear leaked out. How was she supposed to talk an irrational man into any rational decision-making? She was trapped with a man who thought raping her would make her pregnant, while Cole had no idea just how deep the threat against his family ran.