Destiny's Whisper (46 page)

“Couldn’t I make you another promise instead, like promise to win the lottery?”

“I don’t want any money. I want to see the judges putting a gold medal around your neck tomorrow night. Promise me it’ll happen?”

“Chloe.”

“Promise me, Sergei.” Chloe demanded, biting her lip to keep from crying.

“I promise.” Sergei’s words came from the deepest reaches of his heart, a promise he would fulfill or die trying to.

For several moments, Sergei sat silently listening to Chloe breath; his eyes closed as he tried to mentally share his strength with her. The sharp intake of her breath had his eyes springing open and his senses coming alert. “What is it, Chloe?”

“We’re stopping, Sergei, we’re…”

The phone went dead in the middle of Chloe’s sentence.

The sound of gravel crunching beneath Andrew’s feet as he came around to open the trunk and the blindingly bright beam of a flashlight as it shone directly into Chloe’s eyes had her closing her eyes in discomfort as he hauled her from the confined space. His fingers bit cruelly into her upper arm and he actually smiled when he heard her knee bang loudly against the fender when he pulled her off balance.

“Still the same clumsy bitch, I see,” Andrew stated meanly, glaring at her in disgust.

“Sergei doesn’t think I’m clumsy,” Chloe stated softly, in a small show of defiance, trying to control the old urge to simply disappear into herself, and hide behind the numbness that had kept her safe from Andrew before.

Andrew’s eyes glittered with menace, and even in the dark Chloe could see the deep red flush that covered his face as rage took over. Closing his fingers tighter, he bruised the soft skin of her upper arm beneath his clenching fingers and pulled her forward until she was nearly leaning against his chest, his face only inches from hers. “That Rocmanov bastard is only interested in what you’ve got between your legs! He doesn’t have any real intention of being a pair skater; he simply partnered up with you temporarily so he could avoid all the questions that kept popping up as to his sexual preferences. You look enough like a boy that he could at least tolerate fucking you occasionally,” Andrew spat hatefully, relishing the confused look that entered her eyes, enjoying the way she began to tremble in the dark, cold night.

“What are you saying?”

“You really are an idiot, aren’t you?” Andrew growled into her face, his eyes glowing maliciously, his body nearly vibrating with giddiness as he cheerfully announced, “Your little boyfriend’s a fag! You know: gay, queer, prefers boys?”

However Andrew had expected Chloe to react to his statement, it certainly wasn’t with laughter, and her very reaction had his anger rapidly moving toward rage.

“I hate to upset you, but, Sergei’s the most masculine man I’ve ever met! He’s no more gay than his father is.”

“He’s been faking it with you, he can hardly bare to touch you, he only fucks you because he hasn’t found a boys ass he likes at the moment,” Andrew claimed hatefully, a thin trail of spittle running down his chin.

In that moment, Chloe saw the dark and dangerous side of lunacy clearly in Andrew’s eyes and for a moment wavered how to respond. A small voice deep inside told her to be silent; to disappear where Andrew couldn’t touch her, where she was safe from all harm. Another side told her to stand up to her tormentor, to lift her chin and defiantly spit in his face, to stamp out every hateful, hurtful thing he had ever done to her and then leave him defeated, and broken, as he had left her. It was a fine line she walked, one that could leave her victorious or victimized. It was a defining moment in her life that would dictate the path she took from this point forward.

She decided living in constant fear wasn’t how she wanted to spend the rest of her life, and she was willing to risk her life to stand up to this person who had done his best to beat her down. It was now or never!

“I’ve got news for you Andrew, Sergei doesn’t have any trouble fucking me, whenever, or wherever, he wants to, and you know something, I love it! I love how he feels inside of me, how he makes me feel. You see, he has no trouble seeing me as a woman, an equal, a partner, unlike you, who only saw me as a way to get your father’s attention,” Chloe spoke slowly and succinctly, looking directly at her tormentor.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“But I do. It was all about attention. Even getting bad attention from your father was better than no attention at all. The only problem was you found you started enjoyed abusing me, started doing it just for the hell of it. What was it, a sexual high for you? Something to help you get your rocks off at night? Did you lie in bed thinking about how good it felt to have such control over me; to have the power to make me do anything you wanted? And the saddest part about it is I did try to make you happy, I gave you everything I had, but that wasn’t what you wanted or needed. This was about your father, and what you weren’t getting from him. I simply was the closest thing you could vent your anger and frustration toward!” Chloe calmly stated.

“You blew it! You were always the better skater, the one my father watched when we were on the ice. He should have been watching me, but, no, it was always you. He was always watching you and then telling me how wonderful you were, without saying a God damn thing about my accomplishments!”

“That’s what pair skating is about, Andrew, the man showing off his partner. If you wanted to be in the spotlight, you picked the wrong venue, you should have gone into singles.”

“Sergei was a single, you fucking idiot! I didn’t stand a chance against him; anyone with half a brain knew that.” Andrew raged into her face and then released her as if her touch was suddenly poisonous.

“You’re right, I was an idiot. I was an idiot to let you continually abuse me the way you did. I should have said something to someone, but I didn’t, and I’ll have to live knowing I could have stopped the abuse before it got to the point where I found myself unconscious on the ice, but instead, allowed you to continue by being silent. But I’ve got news for you, Andrew, the next time you decide to lay your hands on me, you’d better make that first shot count, because I get the second shot, and I swear, I will take your fucking head off and not even flinch doing it!” Chloe vowed dangerously, her eyes holding his steady, her hands clenched into fists at her sides.

Andrew chuckled nervously. “You think you could take me?”

“I’m willing to die trying. You will never hurt me again, Andrew Manning,” Chloe stated with authority.

“We’ll see,” Andrew stated nonchalantly, his voice chill and deadly, as his hand, holding the flashlight, suddenly swung out and clipped her on the side of the head.

Chloe dropped to the graveled road surface like a dead rock, the name of her beloved Sergei whispering from her lips as she succumbed to the darkness that enfolded and surrounded her.

Above her, Andrew’s voice raged to the heavens and he swore he would see all who had slighted him, were made to pay.

The dark look on Aleksei’s face, as he exited the restaurant, flanked by two police officers, was enough to send Jordan’s worry mode into overload. Casting a worried look at Dee and Whittaker, it took every ounce of control Jordan had to keep from charging to Aleksei and demand to know what the hell was going on. As she watched, one of the police officers headed toward an awaiting ambulance, calling to the attendants and directing them inside the building, while the other one walked to join a group of what looked to be possibly plain-clothed policemen. It was at that point; Jordan’s calm control disappeared.

“What’s going on? Where are Dani and Chloe? Where are Sergei and Hunter?” Jordan fired the questions at her husband in one breath. In disbelief she watched as the paramedics rushed by her, pushing a gurney loaded with equipment and disappeared into the building. “Aleksei, who needs medical help?”

Aleksei pulled Jordan into his arms, sighing as he felt her arms slip around his body and squeeze him. Dropping a kiss to the top of her head, he rested his chin on the softness of her hair and tried to take a moment to relax.

Jordan didn’t have the patience. “Aleksei, talk to me,” she asked, her voice slightly muffled against the softness of his coat.

“Andrew took Chloe,” Aleksei began, holding Jordan tighter as he felt her begin to pull away. “Sergei’s fine, mad as hell, but unhurt. Hunter’s stitches popped open and his leg’s bleeding again,” Aleksei continued, only to be interrupted by his wife.

“Dani?” Jordan’s voice shook.

“Bruised, but okay. It looks as if Andrew punched her in the chin to get her out of the way so he could take Chloe.”

“The son of a bitch!” Whittaker growled, “I knew Manning Senior being here was a bad omen.”

“What?” Aleksei and Jordan both asked the question at the same time.

“You saw Manning Senior here?” Dee asked in disbelief.

“About five minutes before the fire alarm went off. He was with a group of, what looked to me to be a bunch of, barracudas,” Whit-taker offered.

“Have you seen them since we left the restaurant?” Aleksei asked, too calmly, if his dark look and flat voice were any indication.

“Not Manning Senior himself, but over there are a couple of the guys he was with when he walked in the restaurant,” Whittaker offered, pointed toward two older gentlemen wearing designer suits and looking like, as Whittaker so aptly put it, barracudas.

Aleksei slipped from Jordan arms, her warning to remain calm barely heard, as he made his way toward the pair who would hopefully lead him to the man solely responsible for his son assaulting Dani and even having had access to Chloe. With more control than he knew he possessed, he introduced himself to the two men and inquired where he might find Manning Senior. Without hesitating, the two directed Aleksei toward a black limousine parked only a few yards away. With a brief thank you, Aleksei began the short trek across the parking lot to confront Manning Senior.

At the same time Aleksei was heading toward the limousine that held Manning Senior within its confines, Sergei was exiting the restaurant, followed closely by a limping Hunter and Dani strapped to a gurney. Jordan saw the trio come out of the building and ran forward to meet them. Sergei saw his mother’s approaching form, tried to manage a smile, but failed miserably and then caught the sight of his father as he made his way through the parking lot. Sergei’s eyes went black as his gaze recognized the black limo his father moved toward and he mumbled something to Hunter and took off at a run to join his father.

Jordan heard Dani call her brother’s name, saw Sergei take off like a bullet across the parking lot toward his father, despite Hunter’s attempt to stop him, and knew things were going to get a lot worse before they got better. When Jordan finally got a good look at her daughter, she, herself, had to fight the urge to follow Sergei and exact her own retribution, in the name of her daughter, from the Senior Manning.

“Mama,” Dani’s voice was small and filled with pain and fear, as she reached for her mother’s hand.

“It’s okay, baby. Everything’s okay,” Jordan offered softly, taking her daughter’s hand and gently squeezing it reassuringly.

“No, it’s not. Andrew’s got Chloe,” Dani countered, tears filling her eyes and then tracing silvery paths down her pale, silken cheeks.

“They’ll find her. She’ll be okay. I promise,” Jordan responded, carefully brushing away the tears from her face, a frown marring her beautiful features as the stark lights of the parking lot displayed the ever-growing bruise that spread from her chin to nearly her cheek bones and then downward toward her neck.

As a group, they reached the ambulance and Hunter and Jordan stepped aside as the paramedics slid the gurney bearing Dani inside and locked the wheels into place so it wouldn’t roll.

Jordan chewed the inside of her cheek, watching as the paramedics prepared Dani for the ride that would take her to the hospital. Casting a glance toward Hunter, she pondered the worried frown that creased his brow as he watched the paramedic’s ministrations over Dani. This wasn’t mere curiosity; it was pure, unadulterated, concern. The same look she’d see Sergei cast over Chloe, the same look she’d seen her husband cast over all of them, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to know that a full grown, extremely handsome, man was looking at her daughter in a way that silently spoke volumes. How had everything gone so topsy-turvy so quickly?

“She’s going to be okay, you know?” Jordan finally asked Hunter, repeating the statement twice before he finally acknowledged she’d spoken.

“Yeah.”

“How about you? Aleksei told me your stitches popped.”

“I’m fine,” he answered briefly, his eyes never leaving the sight of Dani strapped on the gurney as paramedics worked over her. He still felt as if his heart was beating loud enough to be heard miles away, and he wondered if he’d ever be able to draw a full breath again. He wondered if the image of Dani lying unconscious on the floor would ever leave his memory.

“Are you sure?” Jordan asked softly, one hand reaching out to offer a supportive caress, her deep green gaze delving into the reaches of his soul.

He managed a somewhat shaky smile and finally murmured, “I’m fine.”

He hoped if he said it enough times, he’d begin to believe his own words.

Manning Senior’s chauffeur was just opening the door for his employer when Aleksei reached the limo, and forcefully helped the older man alight from the vehicle.