Forsaken Duty (Red Team #9)(18)

“Mommy?” Troy whispered as he jogged up the stairs beside her. “Mr. Tremaine’s a nice man. He was playing with me this afternoon.”

“I’d like you to stay away from him. We don’t know his intentions. I’m not ready to trust him.”

She thought about her escape plan, the one she’d put in place after Augie was taken. Bonnie, her former companion and the boys’ nanny, had helped her set it up through her friend Santo. When Wendell fired Bonnie, she’d left Addy a note that the escape route was still safe, if she ever wanted to use it.

Should she go now? She shut her eyes, remembering she’d had the same misgivings about leaving before…and then it was too late. Augie had been taken.



Three Years Ago

Saddle Notch Ridge, Wyoming



I can help you. Hope started with those simple words that Bonnie had written on a note and handed to Addy on her breakfast tray, hidden beneath her coffee cup. Come outside so we can talk. Addy looked at the nanny. She’d been with Addy since the day Augie was born. Unfailingly kind and always sympathetic, Bonnie had been a lifeline. Addy jumped at the thought of getting out of her hell, until reality sank back in. She’d tried to run before. It hadn’t ended well.

Before Addy could ask questions, Bonnie cut her off. “I’m going to take the boys for a walk. They’d love you to join us.”

Addy met Bonnie’s intense look. A little flutter of hope blossomed in her chest.

“Just go dress.”

Addy showered, lingering a little too long in the hot water. It made her bruises ache a little less. Maybe it also washed off a little of the ugliness of her marriage. It took her an hour to shower, dry her hair, put her makeup on, then slip into a proper outfit. She couldn’t just throw on some slouchy comfort clothes. Cecil didn’t like them. He wanted her to dress as befitted his wife. All couture, all the time.

Even when it hurt, as it did now.

She slipped on a pair of Burberry ankle boots, then rushed outside, hoping Bonnie was still waiting. She was. Sitting on a bench while the boys played a game of chase around the large playground Cecil had put in for them.

Occasionally, visitors brought their children, but that was rare. Her boys were growing up with only themselves as companions. Echoes of Addy’s own lonely childhood slipped in through the cracks in her wall. She’d rarely had playmates either. Only Owen, when he would visit Wendell.

Anger washed the warmth of that memory away, as it always did. She’d believed the lie her father, Wendell, and Owen had convinced her of, that her future was bright and full of delightful dreams.

That had never been her fate.

Bonnie came over. Her kind eyes read too much in Addy’s. Addy had to look away. “I have money I’ve been saving. I want to give it to you.”

“No,” Addy said. “They would know.”

Bonnie shook her head. “I’ve been setting it aside from each paycheck. I don’t need it. I receive food and boarding here. I have little need. And I still have my official savings that they could track.”

Addy looked around, wondering if this conversation was being listened to, even though they were outdoors…which made her wonder how much of what was said indoors had been heard. “They listen to us inside, don’t they?”

“I think so. Maybe they watch us, too. We have to be very, very careful.”

Addy closed her eyes. She’d been in this hell for seven years. How had the time gone so fast? When this nightmare started, she’d woken up to find herself in a hospital, her mind twisted with memories and visions that haunted her still. Her stepmother told her the truth then. About Owen. How he’d rigged her death, killing an innocent girl so he could steal Addy away. Roberta had told her she’d been married to protect her from Owen. She reminded Addy that she and her dad had never liked Owen, had always feared it would come to some terrible end. Like it had.

Addy had had a hard time putting the pieces together. She’d stayed in the hospital for weeks. A shrink was brought in to work with her. She’d never seen the side of Owen her parents and the doctors talked about, but she must have been blind, because she was living proof of what they were saying.

The depression she went into was severe. And then came the day that her husband came to take her home.

The first time she met Cecil, she felt sick. He was older than her, by maybe thirty years. And though his voice was soft, his eyes were hard. She couldn’t remember marrying him. She wanted out of the marriage, but her father said doing so would harm his career. She would be taken care of in a style befitting a princess. Like she cared for that. Like she cared for anything since Owen had turned on her so terribly.

She didn’t see Wendell in those days. Her dad said he was not happy with her marriage and was crushed by Owen’s actions. He said Wendell would come around eventually, but it took him years to do that.

That first year was a fog, most of it spent under Cecil’s harsh focus and brutal intimacy, until her pregnancy was far enough along for all to see. After that, he was never around. She’d gotten more than a year of peace following Augie’s birth. She began to heal a little, find a new norm. Her parents visited. Cecil came home when Augie was a year old. That was when her hell really began. There were times she’d attempted to get out, but they all worsened her situation.

What made her think this attempt would be any different? “It won’t work,” she told Bonnie.