Chapter 10
Chapter
Ten
September 6 th
6:18 A.M.
“Wakey, wakey.”
The words had Cade lifting his head. He’d already been awake when the door to the basement was opened, but he hadn't bothered looking to see who was coming.
After delivering a fairly easy beating yesterday, they’d chained him back up and left, returning what he estimated to be a couple of hours later with some food. Since he wasn't just a prisoner but one they had reason to keep alive, they couldn’t just lock him up and leave him. They had to make sure they fed and watered to keep him in good enough shape to keep interrogating him until he told them what they wanted to know.
The thing was, he didn't really have a whole lot of valuable intel.
He knew there had been four men who raped his mother and that Tarek Mahmoud, a world-renowned Egyptologist, had been one of them. Other than that, he knew nothing even close to being able to name the men and bring them down.
But he intended to find out.
Holding out and enduring these beatings for long enough was his best bet at getting whoever had hired these men to come after his family to pay him a visit.
The only piece of intel he had was the link to the stationary company, and that might not pan out to be anything at all. Still, it was something and he knew Prey would look into it and find out if it was anything that would lead them to one of the three remaining men they were looking for.
Now, as he watched two men clamber down the stairs with an urgency he hadn't seen in them before he wondered what was going on. Were they planning on moving him somewhere else? Had something happened?
With him switching places with Essie and Gabriella, his brothers were going to pretend to be holding off on their search for answers for a while. They needed these men to believe his family was going to honor the deal they’d made even if they had no intention of doing so. Quietly looking into the stationary company, hopefully wouldn't raise any heads, and as long as they thought his family had backed off because they didn't want to endanger him the longer it would keep him alive.
“You wanted to meet our boss, well, you got lucky,” one of the men said as he reached down to unlock the chains binding him to the ground.
That perked him up.
Not what he’d been expecting to hear.
He’d only been their prisoner for less than forty-eight hours, he would have thought it would be days at least before the boss would make an appearance.
“He was in the area and wanted to find out for himself what you know. I suggest you decide to be more cooperative,” the other man told him like that suggestion was going to bear any weight.
Even if he had the names of the other three men involved in his mom’s rape and subsequent arrest for treason and fake suicide, nothing these men could do to him would make him cough up that intel.
Nothing.
He’d been trained to withstand torture, and while these men knew how to deliver pain, they knew nothing about the real art of inflicting the kind of agony needed to get a man to start talking.
Once he was unchained from the floor, his wrists still bound and his ankles still bound, he was shoved into a chair and secured to it.
No sooner had they finished locking in chains than voices sounded just outside the door at the top of the stairs, and a moment after that he saw the other three of his captors appear along with a man dressed in an expensive black suit.
It only took one look at the man in the suit for him to recognize him.
“John Jones,” he said. While his face was a little thinner and his eyes brown not blue, his hair starting to go salt and pepper, this was the man who had worked with Becca in Cambodia. The man he’d been supposed to meet with when he got the text to say that Essie and Gabriella were about to be targeted. Of course, he’d known that the man was almost definitely involved in the abduction, they’d believed that even before the meeting that never happened, but he hadn't expected the man to be the boss who was orchestrating everything.
Only a little older than his own thirty-four years, maybe late thirties, no more than early forties, there was no way the man could have been involved in his mother’s rape. Back then, John Jones would have only been a teenager. He’d claimed that he was the son of one of the men, Cassandra’s half-brother, given his age, that was definitely a possibility.
They hadn't been able to learn a lot about the man which told them one thing.
John Jones didn't exist.
Not really.
Not in any real and meaningful sense of the word.
His cover had been passable, enough to get him the job working for Becca’s charity, which provided medical aid and education to people in remote villages across Asia. But even though his background had been sufficient to get him the job, it hadn't been enough to convince Becca or her team that he was truly an aid worker. She’d known something was off about him, she just hadn't known anything about the threat to Connor’s family.
Knowing this man, who may or may not be Cassandra’s half-brother had been hitting on Connor’s ex-girlfriend, who was now his current girlfriend again since they’d reconciled a couple of weeks ago, made him feel sick.
“I'm sorry for standing you up the other morning,” John—or at least the man going by the name of John—said, when he came down to stand before him.
“Sure you are,” Cade said, giving the man a scrutinizing once over. There was something familiar about him, but at the moment, he couldn’t place what it was. It was like he’d seen the man before but not him exactly. His father maybe? Had he met the man who raped his mother at some point in his life? Or had he seen the man because he was some public figure? The possibilities were endless, all they knew was that the rapists had all been in Egypt twenty-five years ago when Cassandra had been conceived via rape.
“As you can imagine, I was a little preoccupied,” John said, snickering at his own joke.
At least he was amusing someone.
Personally, Cade saw nothing at all amusing about his four-year-old daughter being abducted.
But since he knew that John was only trying to get a rise out of him, he didn't bother reacting to the comment. Merely continued to stare at the man trying to figure out who he really was.
“I must admit I was not surprised to find that you were willing to offer a trade. Yourself for the child. Although not just the child,” John said, tilting his head to the side and examining him like he was an interesting experiment he was longing to figure out. “I believe you were almost equally as invested in protecting the woman. My investigations into your family showed only that she was hired to be the nanny to your daughter. I was unaware that there was a more personal connection. Had I known this, I might have made some different decisions.”
Again, all John was trying to do was work him up and make him angry enough that he would spill information he otherwise wouldn't.
Lucky for him he didn't have any intel to spill.
Unlucky for John Jones.
“Was any of it true?” he asked, his voice perfectly calm and controlled. “Do you really believe you are Cassandra’s brother?”
Something crossed over John’s face. “I’m not sure. I do believe it is a possibility.”
Interesting. He’d thought it was all just a lie. But if this man was the one running things, who’d sent people after Susanna, then Becca, why had he bothered to go to Cambodia himself and pretend to be an aid worker?
What was he missing here?
“You have what you want now, so there’s no reason to keep going after my family,” he told the other man.
“Unfortunately, it’s not that easy and you know it. You understand that I cannot let you live now that you’ve seen me and know I'm involved.”
“Yet you let my daughter and her nanny go,” he reminded John. He didn't like pretending that Gabriella was nothing but the nanny, but for her safety it was the wisest choice.
“I don’t like hurting women and children,” John said a little too vehemently, giving away a little about who he was and what motivated him. Even though he knew Gabriella had indeed been hurt at his men’s hands, there was an element of truth in his statement.
“And yet, if you're the one behind the attacks against my family, you’ve targeted the women almost exclusively,” he reminded John.
Anger burned in the other man’s dark eyes. He didn't like being called out no matter how true what Cade had just said was.
“This doesn’t have to be terrible,” John said. “You can just tell me what you and your family have already learned so I know what damage control I need to do, and then we can just stick you away somewhere as insurance.”
Like that was going to happen.
For the first time in a long time, he had a spark of hope for more in his future, a second chance at happiness with a woman who adored his daughter and seemed to see something in him.
Now that he’d met John Jones, he was determined to figure out why the man looked familiar.
Game on.
September 6 th
12:40 P.M.
“Did you eat enough? Are you still hungry?” Gabriella asked Essie as the little girl climbed off her chair.
“Can I have a cookie?” Essie asked hopefully. With her big gray eyes opened wide in her typical begging expression, and her dark hair hanging loose around her shoulders, she looked so much like her daddy that it almost hurt to look at her.
They’d been home for two days, and Essie was doing as well as you could hope for. She’d already had an appointment with a child psychologist who specialized in helping children who had been through trauma. So far, she hadn't had any nightmares, but Gabriella wouldn't be surprised if they came for the child at some point. While she’d done her best to shield Essie as much as she could, they’d both still been abducted and held captive for four long days.
When Essie had asked to sleep in her daddy’s bed last night, Gabriella could see no reason to say no. When Essie had cried and begged her to sleep in the bed beside her, she could see no reason to say no.
So, they’d both slept in Cade’s big bed, surrounded by his scent, and she couldn’t help spending most of the night wondering what it would be like to be in this bed with him, his large body curled around hers. His presence would comfort her in a way nothing else could right now, and the longing for it was a physical ache in her chest she couldn’t seem to get rid of.
The best thing she could do for Essie was make things as normal as possible and support her in every way she needed.
Cookies for lunch weren't necessary, and they weren't something she would usually allow.
“No, you know the rules. If you're hungry there’s plenty of fruit,” she told the little girl, refusing to let herself glance around the room to see if the others were judging her decisions.
Maybe they thought she should spoil the little girl and give her everything she wanted, but if she did, she was training Essie that she could always have her own way. When would be the right time to stop? To go back to their simple rules?
“Hey,” she said, stopping Essie who had turned to head back to the couch to curl up with her iPad. “How about after I finish up here, we bake some cookies?”
Essie’s eyes lit up. “Yes! And can we make our own ice cream? There are tons of sprinkles in the pantry.”
“We can, but remember we won't be able to have it until tomorrow because it has to set in the freezer overnight.”
“Okay.”
“After we finish baking, we’ll get your craft stuff out and get creative, okay?” Gabriella felt guilty about being unable to dedicate every second of her time to the little girl, but this was important. Cade had given his life for them, and she was going to do everything she could to help his brothers find him and bring him home.
Once Essie was settled, she turned back to where the others were seated around the table. It looked like they’d been using Cade’s house as a base while she and Essie were missing, and everyone continued to congregate there. She’d be lying if she said that she wasn't grateful. The last thing she wanted was to be alone, and she’d made no argument when both Jake and Jax had insisted on staying overnight to watch over them.
If she couldn’t have Cade with her then his brothers were the next best thing.
“Maybe I should have let her have the cookie,” she said softly, awaiting the judgment she was sure was coming. Just because they were all okay with her having guardianship of their niece didn't mean they would approve of her rules or parenting techniques.
“If she hadn't been abducted, would you have let her have a cookie for lunch?” Connor asked.
“No. Treat foods are only for dessert and sometimes an afternoon snack if we’ve baked something,” she replied. All the rules she had for being Essie’s nanny she’d run by Cade, wanting to make sure they were on the same page. Just because she spent more time with his daughter than he did didn't mean he wasn't still the father and the one in charge.
“Then you made the right decision,” Cole said simply.
“Honey, we all know what an amazing job you do with Essie, nothing has changed,” Cooper assured her.
Giving him a nod because she didn't want him, or any of them, to think she wasn't so appreciative of their support, she turned to face the newcomer. It was a sketch artist, a friend of Eagle Oswald, who Prey’s founder and CEO had sent out specifically to work with her and Essie.
This morning she’d stayed in a different room while Essie worked with the artist so that no one could claim that they’d shared ideas or influenced each other in any way. Being away from the little girl, even though she was just in the next room, had left her so jittery and anxious that she’d thought she was going to lose her mind.
Now that Essie was finished it was her turn. This wasn't something she was looking forward to doing even as she wanted to get it done so that they were one step closer to finding Cade and bringing him home.
Having to think of the faces of the men who had hurt her had nausea churning in her stomach and she knew the fact that she was still unable to eat much of anything hadn't gone unnoticed by any of Cade’s brothers or their girlfriends.
After explaining the process to her, she spent the next couple of hours forcing herself to confront memories she’d rather pretend didn't exist as she studied the faces of the men who had abducted her and gave every piece of detail to the sketch artist that she could. The woman made adjustments on her computer for each new description Gabriella gave, only stopping when the picture looked as close to each man she remembered as possible.
All five of their abductors were done and she had run out of time.
It was time to confess what had happened in the room the first morning after they were taken. As badly as she didn't want them to know what had happened to her, they at least had to know that there had been an extra man that morning. One she hadn't seen again.
“There was one more,” she admitted, ignoring all the eyes on her. “I only saw him once. The morning after we were kidnapped.”
Sensing all the questions the guys wanted to toss at her, thankfully, they held back as the sketch artist brought up another face, and once again, they adjusted it until it was as close as they could get to the real thing.
“That’s him,” Gabriella said with shudder. There was something about that man in particular that had freaked her out. Something darker and more sinister than the others, although they were all terrifying.
“Essie didn't mention him,” Jake said.
“She wasn't in the room at the time, so she didn't see him,” she explained.
When the sketch artist turned her laptop around so that everyone else could see the image she’d just helped create they all gasped, but it was Becca who spoke first.
“That’s John. He looks a little thinner, and John had blue eyes, and darker hair, no graying at his temples, but that’s definitely John.”
“John?” Gabriella asked. None of the men had given her their name, so to her, they were all just one group of despicable human beings who had tortured her and threatened Essie.
“The man who called the other night, who wanted to meet with Becca, and claimed to be Cassandra’s half-brother,” Jax explained.
While she knew the basics of what was going on with the Charleston Holloway family, they never hid any of it from her, she didn't always push for details because the whole thing had terrified her. As badly as she wanted them all to get the answers they needed, she’d been so afraid of losing any of them.
“That’s who Cade was supposed to meet with when you and Essie were grabbed,” Cole added. “John insisted on meeting with Becca, but we weren't going to allow that when we didn't know enough about him, so Cade went in her place only he never showed up.”
“Because he was too busy organizing to have me and Essie taken,” Gabriella said softly.
“We knew he had to be involved somehow because he was in Cambodia with Becca,” Connor said, wrapping an arm around his girlfriend’s shoulder and tugging her against his side as they both likely realized just how much danger Becca had been in and hadn't even known it.
“But we didn't know that he was in this deep,” Cooper said. “He had to be the one in charge, the one who orchestrated all of this because he wasn't involved in the actual abduction but turned up there.”
“He was,” Gabriella assured them, remembering his presence and the air of authority he gave out.
This revelation only left them with more questions than answers. Who was John? Was he really Cassandra’s half-brother? How was he connected to Cade’s mom’s rape and murder? And where did he have Cade right now?