Protecting Rose (24 page)

“Stone, my god. What happened?” Rick ran to Nate and attempted to staunch the blood flow at his shoulder. But Nate brushed him away like a man possessed. Weakened from blood loss and shock, his despair was a tangible beast that was quickly eating him alive.

He had promised to keep her safe. He had promised her he would be back for her. He had failed her. He... had...failed. Nate struggled to get to his feet, filled with a desperate need to go in after her.

Anguish and fury washed over him as everything began to grow dark around him.

He pitched forward, unconscious.

Cassandra Marie Townsend. Now she knew, for all the good it would do her.

She lay curled up on her bed where they had left her, where she’d cried herself to sleep the night before. Her heart was broken into a thousand pieces...shattered beyond repair now that Nate was dead. She’d seen his bloodied body when they had dragged her from the house before setting it on fire, tossing her in the trunk where they’d left her bound and gagged for hours in the dark. Until delivering her back to her enemy. She glanced down at her wrists and rubbed at the new rope burns that lapped over her fading bruises.

Anger and fear rose up, choking her. When she’d seen her childhood home, all her memories had flowed back as though they had never left. She glanced around the room she’d once loved, before it had become her prison. Everything was the same as it had been on the day she’d escaped over a year ago, but she knew there would be no escape this time. There was no one to save her. Nate was the only person who had cared about her since she’d lost her parents, and now he was gone.

Her heart ached. Nate had been lying on the ground. Blood stained his shirt, a knife in his chest. A sob racked her body as what seemed to be an endless supply of tears streamed down her face. Only the thought of Brett lying dead next to him gave her a sliver of comfort. Nate had killed him just as he’d promised. Brett would never be able to hurt her again.

“Oh, Nate,” she moaned and buried her face in her hands.

She stiffened when footsteps approach and wiped the tears from her face. She would not let them see her fear. Rose glanced around for a weapon but saw nothing that she could use. If she was going to die, she was determined to take the monster with her. It was the least she could do for her parents...for Nate.

The door opened and her nightmare stepped into the room, a smug smile covering his arrogant face. An intense rage coursed through her, and any fear she felt was momentarily shoved aside. With a shriek, she launched herself at him, taking everyone by surprise.

With a courage fueled by fury, she landed on him and knocked him to the ground. Rose raked her fingers down his face, leaving deep, ugly scratches. She curled her hands into fists and hit him, every ounce of her rage behind the force of her blows, before they were able to pull her away.

She struggled, until arms trapped her against a solid chest and she was unable to move. Her arms twisted painfully behind her back until she thought they would break.

He slowly picked himself up and spit blood to the floor before stalking over to her. She stared up into his hard cold eyes with a sense of satisfaction at the damaged she’d managed to inflict.

“Hello, Uncle.” Her voice dripped with sarcasm. Before he was able to utter a word, she spit in his face.

Her uncle had murdered her parents, and she knew he would kill her as soon as he got what he wanted. He was a cold-blooded killer. A monster who would stop at nothing to get what he wanted.

After the death of her parents, her uncle had become her guardian. At first he had seemed kind, but eventually she came to understand how he’d isolated her. It took years before she was able to work through her grief and fully understand that he only cared about her money and the power it could buy.

But it wasn’t until she overheard his plan regarding her ‘suicide’ that she realized how truly evil he was. He had painted a picture of her to the outside world that she was an emotionally distraught and suicidal young woman. He was a powerful man and they would believe his lies. No one would question her death. They would all believe that she’d taken her own life.

Cassandra had become determined to escape the fortress she’d once called home. Then one night, she’d hacked into his computer and discovered his part in her parents’ deaths. She also learned he had used her money to buy political influence and had become a powerful and dangerous man. She had no doubt he controlled many on the police force as well and had been afraid to go to them for help. Instead, she ran and managed to stay hidden for over a year before Brett tracked her down.

She had hoped to remain hidden until her twenty-fifth birthday when she could take control of her millions. Only then would she have had the resources to protect herself.

She didn’t see the blow coming, but she sure felt it when he backhanded her. His ring cut into her cheek. Then he brought his palm back down, causing her head to snap in the other direction. If not for the ape that held her as she was battered, she would have fallen to the floor from the blows.

Larsen smirked. “Welcome home, Cassandra.”

He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the blood away from his nose. “You’ve given me quite a chase over the last year.”

Her breathing was labored as she attempted to regain some control over her terror. Her head still spun from the blows. “It’s too late,” she snarled. “I’m twenty-five now. You may kill me, but you’ll never see a penny of my inheritance.”

He laughed. “That’s where you’re wrong, my dear. It would have been easier if you hadn’t overheard my little plan regarding your tragic suicide. You would have just gone to sleep one night and never woken up. Poor dear, everyone knows you haven’t been the same since your parents died.”

“You bastard, you murdered my parents,” she spat.

“Well, yes. Of course,” he said dismissively. “You see, your parents were getting ready to write me out of their Will and remove me as your guardian. They had become aware of some of my more...let’s say, less than reputable enterprises.”

Larsen grabbed her cruelly by the chin and forced her to look at him. “I couldn’t let that happen.” He squeezed her face hard enough to leave bruises before pushing her head away with a cruel laugh.

“They would have had to die eventually, although it was a little sooner than I’d planned.” He gave her a cold smile. “Brett dealt with them. It was unfortunate you weren’t with them on the sidewalk. Things would have been so much simpler that way. You all would have died, and your estate would have passed to me.”

He shrugged. “I can’t take the chance you left a Will leaving the estate to charity, or something equally outrageous.” He nodded to one of his men, who took a needle and glass vial from his coat pocket. “Now we have to do it the hard way, I’m afraid.”

“Count yourself lucky that I allowed you to live this long, Cassandra,” he said. “You would have been dead years ago if I hadn’t been worried about arousing suspicions so soon after your parents’...accident.”

Her heart raced rapidly and she lost her breath when the man with the glass vial headed toward her. Were they going to overdose her on some kind of drug? Was this it then, the end? She struggled against the ape holding her.

Larsen continued talking as they injected something into her arm.

“You see, Cassandra, now that you’ve turned twenty-five, everything has passed to you.” He smirked. “I’ve had a new Will drawn up, just waiting for your signature. All the t’s crossed and the i’s dotted. That way, when you do commit suicide...I win,” he said with a shrug.

“I’ll never sign anything.” Her words slurred and her mind grew fuzzy.

“Oh, I think you will, my dear. After a couple weeks of this stuff, you’ll do just about anything I ask for another taste. You’ll beg me to let you sign. And then, after that, well, your grief over your parents will finally just become too much for you.”

He waived toward her closet. “In the meantime, your old clothes are still here, so make yourself at home. You’re going to be here a while.”

Rose could see his mouth move. He was talking to her. She struggled against the drug’s effects. But it swept like a tidal wave through her body, until his words no longer made sense and her mind and body became flushed with a peaceful contentment that even pushed out her grief over Nate’s death. Her mind became fuzzy. Maybe this was not a bad place to be. She closed her eyes and gave herself up to the magic.