Chapter 30 Someone Wanted Me Gone
Five days later, Knox drove me to the police station to give my statement. The morning was cold, the sky pale, and the world outside the window blurred past in muted colors. I watched it without really seeing it, my thoughts drifting back over the week.
The morning after the attack, before I had even processed what had happened, Amy showed up at my door. Knox opened the door and it was the first time they met.
I stepped into the hallway just in time to see her looking Knox up and down, taking in all six foot six of him, and saying, completely deadpan, “You really are huge.”
Knox blinked, caught off guard. “I suppose.”
“I have heard a lot about you,” she added, then walked past him into the house without waiting for an invitation.
Classic Amy.
She took one look at me and said, “You look like shit.”
I almost laughed. “Thanks.”
“What the hell happened,” she asked. “Who was that guy?”
“I don’t know.”
Amy’s jaw tightened. “I will find out,” she said simply.
She did not elaborate. She did not need to. Amy had ways of finding information most people couldn’t.
“I told Liam,” she added. “He is finishing his shift and he will come by.”
Knox stayed quiet, watching, observing everything.
Amy stayed for an hour before leaving.
Right after she left, Nathan arrived with Titan, along with a dog bed and food. Titan practically tackled Knox with excitement, all muscle and joy, and Knox scratched behind his ears with a softness I had never seen from him at work.
When I asked who took care of Titan when Knox traveled, he told me about Maria, his live-in housekeeper and cook.
She had been his late mother’s friend. She kept the penthouse running, cooked for him, made sure Titan was fed and walked.
Professional cleaners came twice a week, but Maria kept everything else in order.
Liam arrived later that afternoon. The moment he saw me, his expression hardened. He stepped closer, examining the bruises with careful restraint. Then he pulled me into a gentle hug.
“I am proud of you,” he said quietly. “You fought back. You saved yourself.”
“Thank you,” Knox said. “For teaching her. For looking out for my girl.”
There was tension there. Less than before, but still present.
Liam’s eyes flicked to me, then back to Knox.
“I owe her,” Liam said. “And I always help her. Always.”
I watched them both, anxious at first, but the tension eased.
By the time Liam left, I felt good. Like the pieces were shifting into place.
Knox stayed with me every night. He worked from my dining table with his laptop whenever he could, taking calls in the living room, answering emails while Titan snored at his feet.
When the first time Knox had to leave for the office for something urgent, he saw the way I hesitated, the way my fingers curled into his sleeve before I could stop myself.
He didn’t comment. He just left Titan with me.
Titan, despite his size and intimidating looks, turned into a complete softy the second Knox walked out the door.
He nudged my hand for pets, rolled onto his back for belly scratches, and followed me from room to room like a shadow.
When I sat on the couch to watch something mindless, he rested his huge head on the cushion beside me and stared up with warm, patient eyes.
A few hours later, when Knox returned, Titan was asleep on the couch with his head in my lap.
Knox stopped in the doorway, shook his head, sighed, and smiled a little. Amused. Resigned. Like he knew he had lost some silent battle.
By the fourth day, he even let me give Titan a treat. That felt like a major decision for him. He was strict about the dog. Only he, Maria, or Nathan were allowed to feed him anything. But he handed me a biscuit and said, “Go on. He has earned it.”
Titan nearly wagged himself off the floor.
Knox told me I didn’t have to work, that I should rest, but I wanted to. I knew some reports were time-sensitive. So I worked from the couch, wrapped in a blanket, doing what I could.
We learned more about each other during those days, outside the office, outside the roles we usually played. I had known Knox as a serious businessman, disciplined, controlled, intense. But now I saw the quieter parts of him.
The way he made coffee exactly the same way every morning.
The way he folded his shirts with military precision.
The way he listened when I talked, really listened, even when the topic was nothing important.
We talked about our families, but only lightly. I told him I wasn’t close to mine, that I had a half sister and a younger half brother, that my mother was gone. I didn’t go deeper and he didn’t ask.
He told me he had no one. His father left when he was five.
His mother died in a car crash during his first year in the NFL.
I could tell he didn’t want to talk about it, so we didn’t.
Instead, we talked about hobbies, shows, favorite foods.
When I made him watch a true crime documentary with me, he muttered that he didn’t understand how women watched those, that they were scarier than horror movies.
By day five, my bruises had turned green and yellow.
Some were fading, some still dark. The first morning after the attack, I nearly screamed when I saw myself in the bathroom mirror.
Both eyes were bruised underneath, my cheek swollen, a bruise on my jaw, more on my arms, my ribs, my hips. My whole body felt stiff and sore.
The nightmares came every night, but less often. At first they hit me over and over, dragging me under again and again. By the last two nights, it was only once.
Knox held me through every one. He never complained. He never hesitated. He woke the second I did, whispering reassurances until the shaking stopped.
The car slowed, turning into a parking lot.
“We are here,” Knox said quietly.
I blinked, pulled out of the memories, and looked up at the police station.
The police station smelled like stale coffee and disinfectant.
Knox walked beside me, close enough that his arm brushed mine with every step, a reminder that I was not alone.
Detective Alan Jackson met us in the hallway. He was in his forties, tall, tired-looking, with the kind of expression that said he had seen too much and slept too little.
“Ms. Richards,” he said. “Thank you for coming in.”
I nodded.
His eyes shifted to Knox, assessing him, trying to place him.
“This is Mr. Sinclair,” I said. “The attack happened on his property.”
Detective Jackson gave a short nod and gestured for us to follow him down the hall.
We stepped into a small interview room. Knox pulled out a chair for me before taking the one beside mine. His knee brushed mine under the table.
I already knew more than I should have.
A few days ago Amy had told me everything she found before the detective even called.
Detective Jackson opened a folder and slid a photo across the table.
A mugshot.
Mario García.
Even expecting it, the sight of his face still hit me like a punch. My stomach tightened, my fingers went cold, and for a moment the room narrowed around the edges.
The past and present collided in a single heartbeat.
Mario García.
The second trafficker from my past life.
The man I had been sold to.
The man whose voice still lived in the darkest corners of my memory.
I inhaled sharply.
Knox immediately took my hand, thinking my reaction was because I was seeing my attacker for the first time.
I let him hold it, grounding myself in something real. Something now.
Detective Jackson watched me carefully. “This is the man who attempted to abduct you. Mario García. He is currently in custody.”
I nodded once.
He continued. “We received an anonymous tip early yesterday morning. It led us to his residence. We found burner phones, cash, and evidence linking him to a sex trafficking ring. He was running a brothel with women who were not there by choice. We are in the process of freeing them.”
“There is a shelter,” I said. “For trafficked women. They will take them in if they have nowhere to go.”
The detective nodded. “I know the one. We already contacted them.”
Knox’s voice cut in. “How did his car get into the parking garage?”
Detective Jackson exhaled. “The license plates were stolen. One of the employees reported his car stolen the night before. The plates were removed and placed on a silver Honda Accord. The gate camera only checks plates, not the vehicle itself. So the system let him in.”
Knox’s jaw tightened. “I will speak to my security team. This should never have been possible.”
Detective Jackson hesitated. “There is something else.”
I looked up.
“This was targeted,” he said.
I already knew.
He continued anyway.
“From one of the burner phones we recovered, we found messages. Photos of you. Notes about your schedule. When you finished work. Where you parked. The instructions were clear.”
Knox’s hand tightened around mine.
“If the abduction had succeeded,” the detective said, “he would have been paid five hundred thousand dollars in bitcoin.”
“Who hired him,” I asked.
“We do not know yet,” the detective said. “The other party used a burner phone as well. It will take time to trace.”
Anger simmered low and sharp in my chest.
I didn’t need a name or proof.
Apple. Of course it was her. This was exactly her style.
“What was he supposed to do with me?”
Detective Jackson went quiet. He looked down at the file, then back at me.
“In the end,” he said slowly, “he was supposed to get rid of you.”
I understood the part he didn’t say. Before that, I would have been taken to the brothel. Like in my past life.
Knox’s voice cut in. “Is she still in danger?”
Detective Jackson did not soften it. “Until we identify who hired him, we have to assume there is still a threat.”
Knox’s grip on my hand tightened.
I squeezed back. Not from fear. From anger.
The detective went over procedures, next steps, what would happen with the case, what they needed from me.
I answered everything, but my mind was already elsewhere.
When the meeting ended, Knox stood first, helping me up gently. His hand stayed at my back as we walked out of the room. His whole body was tense, coiled, barely contained.
The cold air outside hit my face.
I inhaled slowly.
Apple would pay for this.
For all of it.