Page 80 of Release Me

Nyla Hawthorne.

That’s Nadia’s real name. The one Maxwell and Corrine chose for her. The one she trusted me enough to say out loud. The one I asked her for permission to share with the person I trust most with sensitive information—Russ Cooper, the head of security at Ludus. Nadia was hesitant at first, but when I explained that Russ was who I would be giving that information to, and provided a few details about his military intelligence background, she agreed.

Once I had her permission, I gave Russ a call. We had a short conversation about what I wanted him to dig up, and twelve hours later, he’s in my office with multiple files in hand, ready to lay everything out for me. I asked Nadia if she wanted to sit in on the meeting, but she refused, saying she preferred to stay focused on the life she has now, not the one she escaped from. Apparently, that includes keeping the name she chose for herself when she carved out her new beginning.

“Where do you want to start?” Russ asks, laying the thick files out in front of him on the conference table.

“Beau Montgomery.”

The name of the man who abused, exploited and victimized the love of my life tastes like acid on my tongue. I want to know everything about him including the exact location of the rock he’s currently hiding under.

“Okay.” Russ opens the folder directly in front of him, like he knew that was where we would begin. “Beau Montgomery, the only son of Roland and Belinda Montgomery. A born and bred sociopath with a history of drug and alcohol issues. His mother, Belinda, passed away in the same plane crash that killed Corrine and Maxwell. Email communications between Belinda and Corrine indicate that she intended to ask Maxwell for a job at Thornehill.”

“Why the secrecy? Their families were extremely close, right?” Nadia explained that her father and Roland grew up together, and their friendship was the only remaining link to his life in Texas.

Russ pulls a page from the folder and slides it across the table to me. “Bank statements indicate financial problems, probably due to Roland’s gambling habit. My guess is Roland was trying to keep it under wraps, hiding it from everyone, including his wife.”

I pick up the paper, a bank statement that’s over fifteen years old. I don’t even bother asking Russ how he got it. The people he knows and the access they have to things they shouldn’t even be aware of are why I keep him around and pay him so well. Why I prefer to have him at Ludus, the most vulnerable arm of my business because of its lack of legality, instead of anywhere else.

“Financial problems,” I repeat, scanning the bank statement that shows regular four and five figure withdrawals from the Montgomery’s joint banking account. The code next to each has them designated as ATM transactions at a casino. “They were broke.”

Russ nods. “And in danger of losing their house. Once Belinda found out, she started trying to contain the damage, emptying out Beau’s college fund to catch up house payments, and then, when that wasn’t enough, going to the Hawthornes for a job.”

For every fact Russ spews, he slides a paper or two across the table to back it up. His word is more than enough, but I appreciate the picture being painted by the documentation.

“Do we know how much Beau knew?”

“My guess is not a lot. He was too busy partying, drinking, taking every drug he could get his hand on and beating up his girlfriends whenever he got a chance.”

“Was he ever charged?”

“No. Apparently he had quite the talent for making the girls think they deserved it. Most of them never went to the police, and the few that did recanted their statements immediately.”

“So Nadia wasn’t his first…” My teeth clench around the word, and I have to force it out. “So Nadia wasn’t his first victim.”

Russ shifts in his seat as he pulls a thin file from the back of Beau’s folder. He hesitates to open it, which lets me know what’s in it is probably something I don’t want to see.

“She wasn’t,” he says, meeting my eyes. “But he was particularly brutal with her.”

My stomach turns. “When did it start?”

Nadia told me about the abuse, but she never gave me specifics. And I want the specifics because those details are what I’ll have in mind when I find him and take his fucking life.

“Best guess would be after she graduated from college. That’s when the hospital visits started.”

“Hospital visits?”

Russ nods. “They started out slow. She’d be seen at the ER every now and again for little things like repeated broken fingers that were easily explained away. Then Roland Montgomery died, and she was seen four times in one month for a broken arm, bruised ribs, multiple black eyes and a fracture to her sternum she attributed to a fall.”

I can’t sit any longer. Listening to Russ catalog Nadia’s injuries, knowing that the proof—hospital records, pictures, or maybe even both—are inside the folder in his hand. All of it makes me want to set fire to something, to leave this office and seek Nadia out so I can hold her in my arms and reassure myself that she’s here and she’s safe.

“There are photos,” he says, confirming my thoughts as he slides the folder across the table. “A nurse in the ER took them, she gave them to the police, but they never followed up.”

I snatch the folder up, but I don’t open it. “What the fuck do you mean they never followed up?”

“By that time, Beau’s escort operation was pretty large….”

“And large operations require police protection,” I finish for him, knowing that Beau must have used his connections with the local police to avoid charges. It’s not an uncommon practice. In fact, it’s one I’ve seen utilized by men in New Haven who are no better than Beau Montgomery, men I put out of business by creating Ludus.

---