Page 32 of Gideon

“Eric kept digging,” Dion said grimly. “Remember Jeremy Blakeny?” I frowned. How could I forget the asshole who had beaten and nearly starved that Little, Clare, nearly to death. I turned to stare at Dion.

“Isn’t he dead yet?”

Dion shook his head. “We had to back off because of killing the butler. Just letting things lie for a while. But one of Jeremy Blakeny’s shell companies lists him as a partner with Jonathan Rice. We think he’s in deep shit with the trafficking, and they’re doing a favor for Kirkman. After beating him out on the permits for Kingdom, the fact it’s you us just the icing on the cake.”

“Taking Blakeny’s cash means he’s had to lean heavily on the other two,” Max said. “Kirkman Senior wants Junior out of the way and quiet. I think this is a mixture of revenge and convenience. They get Abby for Kirkman, it’s payback for them, and it keeps Kirkman Senior sweet.”

“No, this is too far. Fucking kidnapping because they’re pissed we got a rezoning? That’s—”

I shut up the second Max’s phone beeped with a message. He glanced down, then paled. Then all of ours beeped with the same notification. I stared down at it in shock. It was from an unknown number of a grainy image, but it showed the two of us running from the house carrying Clare. They must have had a camera not connected to thesystem because it showed the moment the butler stepped out of the house and raised his gun.

And it showed Max turning and looking back to check. He’d taken off his damn mask because Clare had been terrified, and the camera caught him. The message from the unknown number just read,Eye for an eye.

This was what it was all about? Jeremy fucking Blakeny? It didn’t take long for Eric to find a connection between all three of them.

I stared at Max. Every instinct I had made me want to murder the fuckers. Rip them apart with my bare hands. They were the lowest of the low. Pond scum that needed to be wiped off the face of the earth.

And they had Abby. My Abby. My baby girl. And they had us. We couldn’t get Abby without sacrificing Max if the video was a threat. What the fuck was I going to do?

Chapter sixteen

Abigail

I’d woken to the smell of damp. I knew what damp smelled like. Cloying, wrong. I’d had a brief spell in a home run by Terence and Marjorie Brown. All new kids spent the first night in the cellar so they’d know what would happen if they messed up. As it turned out, I was only there ten days because some boy that had seemed to spend most of his time in the cellar had escaped.

Family Services had shut them down. It was one of the only times I’d been happy to go back to a group home so quickly. Even if it had been a different one.

But I wasn’t that little girl anymore. This Little girl was different. Strong. And I had a Daddy that I was falling in love with. And I knew he was coming for me. He had to. We still had some of our two weeks left and Daddy wasn’t thesort of man to give that up. He did what he said, and he had said two weeks. I tried not to think about what came after the two weeks yet, because I had to get through this. And I had the list. The Daddy list I’d been careful to hide, which didn’t seem so important anymore. Maybe, when I got back it was time to share?

And then my stomach dipped because the room smelled of mold.

No, mold wasn’t the reason. Evenmybrain told me that wasn’t the reason for the fear, and I tried to go through the logic to figure out the real reason. It wasn’t just because I was trapped in a place that smelled of mold, it was being trapped in the first place that made my stomach clench. I had this irrational feeling of pride because I’d thought it through.

What worried me now was the trapped part, because what if I was trapped past the two-week deadline? I tried to think what day it was. How long had I been knocked out?

And, I puzzled, had the two weeks started when he said, or had it started when he brought me home? We’d reached a week when I played with Roxy but I didn’t know how long I’d been asleep since then. If it was still Friday then I had at least a week, and somehow in my stupid head that cheered me up. It was ridiculous that the thought of still being with Daddy another week took precedence over being trapped in a cellar.

But then Callie from Family Services once called me accepting, and sweet. I think she thought it was a compliment. She’d said that to the lady with the yellow scarf. I didn’t remember her name. It had been a prospective adoptive parent. Not that I got many. And I’d not impressed the lady. I knew I’d meant to say that with her coloring, greenwould look good on her, but it somehow came out as grass was better in the spring when it was green because my brain had jumped forward again. It was why I always got marked down in math even though I got the correct answer. My brain skipped over a couple of steps and none of my teachers understood.

Neither did the yellow scarf lady, and I never saw her again. I think she took home a little girl called Molly. I hoped she was color blind so she wouldn’t be sent back.

I wanted to pee, and while I could sit up, even if there was a bathroom I couldn’t see it thanks to the jet-black darkness of the place, and my legs wouldn’t move. So I was tied down, which seemed silly, really.

I knew I should have been scared but I was convinced that after the universe had decided I didn’t deserve a mommy or a daddy when I was a child, I was going to get a grown-up Daddy now.

Or not exactly a grown-up one. Well, I knew what I meant. Basically Daddy—Gideon—owed me at least a week and he needed to come and get me so that could happen.

But I still needed to pee, and as if that thought had been heard, a door opened and light flooded the room. I jerked my head away because it stung my eyes.

He laughed.

And every thought I’d had about not being scared disappeared like poof. Because I recognized that laugh. It was Dave Kirkman.

I wanted to beg him not to hurt me but even my brain knew that would be pointless.Think.“Why am I here?” I was quite proud of myself for not asking where I was, because I knew he wasn’t going to tell me.

He grinned and so I tried another statement. “I need a bathroom.” Grunting he came in and untied my legs. I stood shakily.

He licked his lips lasciviously and threw a bunch of material at me. I fumbled to catch it. “You want the bathroom, put it on, pretty girl,” he rasped.

---