Page 2 of Emi's Hero

They also understood that their jobs weren’t all it could cost them. Some of the people who had displeased Fallon the most had disappeared. Emi suspected they hadn’t made it past the wall of the compound.

Fallon didn’t let go of what he considered his property. If he did allow a staff member to leave, that person could spread the word that he was holding people hostage on his estate.

Like he’d held her hostage since he’d stolen her away from her college friends that fateful day eight years ago.

Emi wondered if her folks had given up on her. When they’d been informed of their daughter’s disappearance, had they flown out to Hawaii to help find her?

They hadn’t had a lot of money. Emi had worked part-time while going to college and full-time in the summers. Some of her friends’ parents had a more secure financial situation and could afford to send their daughters to Hawaii on Spring Break. Emi had earned the money she’d needed to pay for her flight and her portion of the room and rental car.

Emi had worked at the diner up to the last minute before she had turned in her apron and rushed out the door to catch her flight. She’d been too tired to party their first night in Hawaii. The flight had been long, and her friends had talked all the way, excited and ready to make the best of their last spring break before graduation.

She hadn’t been in Honolulu but a few hours when she’d left her group of friends at a bar to walk back to the hotel. So often since that night, she’d wished she’d stayed with her friends, no matter how tired she’d been.

Second-guessing her choice did nothing to improve her situation. She had to do whatever it took to survive and protect Sara.

Fallon gripped Emi’s arm and marched her through the yacht, his fingers digging into her flesh. She’d have bruises to add to the collection across her body.

He rarely hit her face, not that it mattered. She never came into contact with anyone who didn’t work for Fallon. His employees didn’t stick up for her when Fallon beat her. Some of them had bruises much like hers.

The man had a violent temper, and even the smallest infractions set him off.

Forty-six seconds and a red bikini would be his latest trigger.

Emi had learned not to fight back. It only made him more violent. The only time she’d fought back, Fallon had almost killed her. He’d left her on the floor to die, refusing to take her to a hospital.

Emi had wished she was dead. But her heart had kept beating, she’d still breathed, and her wounds and broken ribs had healed.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the telltale flush of ruddy red staining Fallon’s neck and cheeks. Her heart plummeted into her belly.

He was mad. Really mad.

Why had she dressed in the one-piece? What had possessed her to rip the strap off the red bikini top?

He brought her to the back deck and slung her around like a ragdoll. “When I tell you to do something, I expect it to be done. Every order must be carried out precisely.”

Emi bowed her head, refusing to look into his eyes, at the hatred and maniacal gleam that always preceded a beating. “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again,” she murmured.

“But it does. Again and again,” he said his voice low and dangerous. “What’s it going to take to make you compliant?”

“I promise,” she said. “It won’t happen again.”

“You’re insolent, disrespectful and you spend too much time with that brat of yours. I should never have let you keep it.”

It?

Fallon didn’t even consider Sara a human. She was a beautiful child. He was the biological father. The man was anything but a father to his own little girl. He scared her.

Although Sara was only three, she’d come to Emi’s defense on more than one occasion when Fallon had tried to hurt her.

Emi had been afraid the monster would hurt Sara for trying to help her mother. She did her best to keep her daughter away from Fallon.

It.

Emi shook her head slowly, counting to ten to keep from saying her daughter was more of a human than Fallon ever would be. He was a sperm donor. Nothing more.

“Yeah. You’re too involved with the kid. I should’ve had them carry the kid out with the bloody sheets. I still think I might do it.”

Despite her determination to maintain a poker face, Emi’s head jerked up, her eyes widening. “She’s a child. Not anit,” she said, her voice low and fierce. “She’s done nothing to hurt you.”

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