Lost In The Light (The ‘Lost’ Series #2)

CHAPTER 1

ELI

“She’s asleep,” Jordan whispered to me where I lay holding Addy in my arms on her bed.

I sighed in relief. It had been a couple of hours since we left our office building. A couple of hours since Asher and I discovered just how much of a monster our father had truly been.

I hadn’t really absorbed the fact yet, too worried about Addy. She had sobbed, hidden against Asher the entire drive back to our place, and there was nothing we could do to soothe her. What the fuck were we supposed to say? Our own father – her father! Her blood! - He’d been at that sick party, and he’d terrorized her and dragged her off into a private room. It wasn’t hard to work out what came next, even if Addy hadn’t yet remembered. How could we make that better for her? What could we possibly say? It made me feel nauseous.

It wasn’t that I had ever thought our father to be a good man. I knew he wasn’t. He was brutal and could be violent, especially when we were kids. He ran his family like he ran his business – without mercy. I had never been disillusioned enough to think he loved me, but I never thought him capable of this! He was cold, ruthless, power hungry, and so fucking selfish, but I never thought he was that evil. How many innocents had he hurt in his lifetime? Did he hold people captive like the senator had Addy?

“Stay with her!” I gasped as I slid from the bed as carefully as I could, but quickly too. My stomach was churning and I only just made it into Addy’s bathroom and to the toilet before I vomited violently. I retched over and over until my stomach was completely empty, but still I felt violently ill.

“Eli?” I looked back and found Adam stood in the doorway. He and Jordan knew what had happened. Asher had quickly filled them in as I got Addy settled in her room when we got home.

“I’m good,” I lied as I got to my feet and flushed. “I didn’t wake her, did I?”

“She’s still out. Just take a few breaths and calm down. We’ve all got her,” he soothed, and it wasn’t until he said it that I realized how hard I was panting.

“I’m just so angry,” I told him quietly as I moved to the basin to wash my hands. I had never felt rage like I did in that moment. If my father still lay at his home, dying, I’d have taken pleasure in suffocating him.

“I know, brother. I’m angry too, and that bastard wasn’t my blood.” Adam stepped forward and put his hand on my shoulder as he spoke.

“How could he?” I growled. “He had to know! How could he not! She looks so much like him and like me. He had to know!”

“I don’t think we’ll ever know that now. He’s gone. Maybe Addy will get more memories of that day back, but I hope not. If he…” Adam paused and took a deep breath. “She shouldn’t have to relive that again.”

“No, she shouldn’t.”

“Why don’t you go and change? Freshen up? Jord and I will stay with her,” he suggested as he squeezed my shoulder comfortingly.

“I don’t know.” I was reluctant to leave Addy. By the time we’d gotten her back home she had stopped crying, but when I spoke to her, it was like she wasn’t even there. She didn’t speak, didn’t move. When Asher handed her to me and told me she needed to rest, she had just grabbed a handful of my jacket lapel and closed her eyes. I was relieved she was finally asleep. I just prayed it wasn’t filled with nightmares.

“She’ll be asleep for a while. She was exhausted,” Adam assured me. “I think maybe you should check on Ash too. He’s locked in his office and when I tried to talk to him, he wouldn’t even let me in.”

That was bad. Asher never pulled away from Adam. It was the opposite – when Ash needed help or advise, Adam was the first person he turned to. I hated that I couldn’t be that person for him, but I knew Adam was stronger than me.

“I’ll check on him,” I agreed. “Will you text me if she wakes up?”

“Of course.” With Adam’s agreement, I checked on Addy once more, relieved to see her looking peacefully asleep, then left for my room.

A few minutes later I rushed back out, having brushed my teeth, washed my face, and changed into comfy jeans and a t-shirt. I was clutching my cell in my hand, ensuring I didn’t miss Adam texting or calling me to return to Addy, but I knew she was in good hands. Jordan and Adam cared deeply about her and I knew they wouldn’t leave her side. She was safe. So I turned my attention and worry to my brother.

Asher had barely spoken the whole way home either, just clutching Addy and staring out of the window blankly. I knew he must be feeling as shocked, outraged, and ill about the whole thing as me. I didn’t want him doing what he always did though – bottling it up inside and hiding his emotions to spare us all. This was too much to bottle up inside.

“Ash?” I called through the closed office door as soon as I got to it. I tried the handle anyway, but Adam was right. It was locked. “Ash, open the door please.”

“I’m busy,” he called back, and that worried me even more. He was never too busy for me. He had told me that a million times.

“I’m not leaving. I’ll just wait here until you’re not busy,” I called back stubbornly.

I heard him cursing as he came towards the door, then he unlocked it, but didn’t open it. By the time I stepped inside the bright open space of his office, he was back behind his desk.

“How is she?” he asked as he glanced up from the screen of his laptop to me.

“Sleeping. Jordan and Adam said they’d stay with her,” I replied. “What are you doing?”

“Sending everything I have on those two assholes Addy said were at the party with our…” Ash paused and I saw his jaw tense.

“Yeah. I don’t think I can call him our father again either,” I sighed as I dropped down into the chair opposite Asher.

“I called my contact at the FBI, gave him the names, but he asked for anything else I have.”

“Who was it? I didn’t actually see them.”

“Williams and Dartford. Addy said she thought only one of them hurt her, but she didn’t say which. Regardless, they were both there and likely have some poor innocent, chained up in their homes somewhere,” Asher growled.

“Doesn’t Williams have a family? Two daughters, right? They came to the house once,” I recalled. Both men had been to our family home several times while we were growing up. Our father didn’t have friends, but those two were the closest he had to that type of relationship. They were both heads of their own companies too, but I couldn’t remember what they did. I did know that my father had worked closely with them both though.

“Yeah. Dartford is divorced but he has a kid too,” Asher told me. “Fucking monsters!” He slammed his hand down on his desk so hard the whole thing shook.

“Did you tell the FBI about da….about him ?” I asked, correcting my urge to say ‘dad’ at the last second.

“I told him everything. I’m not protecting that sick fuck. I don’t care what it does to the business or any of that bullshit. I’m just pissed he won’t be here to face the consequences of what he did.”

“Do…” God, I didn’t know if I could even voice the question without throwing up again. My stomach was already turning violently. “Do you think he was like Hilton? Do you think he held girls like Addy? Is there a hidden annex in his house?”

“I’ve been trying not to think about it, but it’s definitely a possibility. He could also have had another place somewhere. I’ll have Kane look into it eventually, but right now we need to focus on keeping Addy safe.”

“She’s not safe now?”

“Those bastards saw her in the office today, and it was pretty obvious she recognized them. Monsters like that, they don’t want their depravities revealed, and I have no doubt they’ll go to some extreme measures to stop Addy from being able to do that.”

“Fuck,” I gasped as it hit me just how much danger Addy could be in. “She can’t handle this. She already has way too much to deal with.”

“I’m doing all I can to keep it from her shoulders. Kane has increased security and my guy at the FBI is already working on warrants for the arrest of Williams and Dartford. Hopefully, they’ll be taken in before they can do anything that will endanger her.”

“This is all so fucked up, Asher!” I cried as I looked to him with glassy eyes. “He had to know who she was, didn’t he? How could he look at her and not know she’s related to us? To him? He knew who she was.”

“I think so,” Ash sighed as he got to his feet, and rounded the desk. He fell to his knees before me and pressed a hand over my shoulder. “Remember when he told us about Addy? He said he should have helped her. I think he was talking about that day. I believe he wanted to clear his guilty conscience before he died.”

“As if anything or anyone could forgive that !” I snapped as I lowered my head and buried it in my hands. “His own daughter, Ash. His own fucking kid!”

“Eli, look at me,” Ash demanded and I did, but I could barely see him through the tears in my eyes. “He’s gone. We can’t make him pay for what he did. It’s too late. All we can do is pass what we know to the cops to try and stop all of the other sick fucks out there, and take care of Addy. She needs us right now, and we will not fail her like everyone else in her life has. We’re going to keep her safe and have her back always, whatever comes, right?”

“Right,” I sniffled with a nod. “You’re right.” I swiped at my tears and took a deep breath. I needed to be strong like my brother. Addy needed me. I couldn’t fall apart.

“I want you to let me deal with all of this, okay? Kane will check out the mausoleum and let the FBI know if there’s anything there,” he went on. I shuddered at the thought of there being some hidden prison and torture chamber in the home Asher and I had grown up in, which we had coined ‘ the mausoleum’ when we were kids. “I’ll arrange all of the security with Kane too. I want you to focus on Addy, okay? She needs you and you’re better at being there for her than I am.”

“That’s not true. She needs us both,” I argued.

“I’ll be here too, of course, but you’re better at comforting her and knowing what she needs. I want you to concentrate on that. We’re taking some more time away from the office for now. I have some things to work on, and I don’t want to be far from Addy with this threat looming.”

“Me either,” I agreed. “But don’t push me out, Ash, okay? I need to know what you find out. I can handle it.”

“I know you can,” he sighed as he lifted to his feet. I stood with him and couldn’t stop myself from wrapping my arms around him. I needed his strength in that moment. I was relieved when he wrapped his arms around me too. “We’re all going to be okay. I promise you that, little brother,” he told me.

Those words were exactly what I needed to hear. If Asher told me everything would be okay, I knew it would be, because my brother would never let it be any other way. He’d been making everything okay for me throughout my entire life, and he had never let me down once.