Forsaken Duty (Red Team #9)(29)

“No.” She started toward the helicopter. Her dad, the boys, Roberta, and Bonnie followed her.

“Addy, stop,” her dad said. She didn’t. She couldn’t. If the boys didn’t leave right then, there’d be no other chance. She should go too. It would leave her staff to face Cecil’s anger, but there was no choice—her life was in danger; theirs weren’t.

“Are we riding in Grandpa’s helicopter?” Augie asked.

“Yes.” Addy set the bags down and opened the door.

Her dad shut it. “No.” He pulled her around to face him, grabbing her bruised arm. She winced. So did her dad.

“I can’t do this anymore,” she told him, tears flooding her eyes.

“Oh, you can. You married him,” Roberta said.

“And I can divorce him.” Addy looked at her father. “Please, Daddy. You have to get us out of here.” She knew better than to beg, but she did it anyway. She had a flash that this was one of those watershed moments. Everything before…then everything after.

“Get who out of here?” came a smooth, terrible voice.

Addy slowly turned to face her husband. What was he doing back here?

“Hello, my dear.” Cecil kissed her cold cheek.

She pulled the boys behind her, keeping them between her and the helicopter. She had to get them aboard. “The boys are going to visit Grandma and Grandpa.”

“Are they? We haven’t talked about that.”

“Yes. It was a surprise invitation. I think it’s a great idea.”

“Do you? Well, let’s go in the house and talk about it.”

“They were just leaving.”

“Oh, but you just got here.” He kissed Roberta’s cheek. “Thank you for the call. I’m always happy when you visit.” He reached out a hand to shake with Addy’s dad.

Addy blinked. Thank you for the call. Roberta had sold her out. Again. And now Cecil was making it seem as if everything was normal—except for his crazy wife.

Cecil wrapped his hand around her arm and pulled her away from the helicopter. His fingertips dug in, pinching her already bruised flesh against bone. She looked back at her kids, then her dad, silently pleading with him to take them.

He didn’t.



Addy turned into her pillows and cried. Why did the one memory she wanted to keep—her last sight of Augie—have to be tainted with the brutality that came next?

She rolled onto her side. Out of habit, she looked over to her door, checking for the faint blue light that filtered through the outer bank of windows from the conservatory between this wing and the other. No light came in the thin line under the door.

Owen was there again, as he had been night after night since he got there.

She slipped on her silken robe and stepped into the hall from the door in her dressing room. He was lying on the cold marble floor, stretched across her door. She went over to him and slipped down the opposite wall. Her feet were cold. She wrapped her arms around her knees and watched him.

Was he or wasn’t he King?

It didn’t take long for him to startle awake. He saw her then lay back down, his head on an accent pillow he’d taken from one of the chairs downstairs.

“Why do you sleep there?” Addy asked, keeping her voice to a whisper, since Troy’s room was just down the hall and his door was open.

“I have to.”

“Why? You have a room downstairs.”

“I don’t feel that you’re safe here. And someone sneaking onto the property could get to you before I could from that room.”

Would King sleep on a floor for a woman he used to love? Did King love anyone besides himself? No, an Omni king would not give up his creature comforts for any reason.

“Go back to bed, Laidy. You need to heal.”

She didn’t move. Nor did he. Minutes passed. She was wondering if he’d fallen back asleep, when his voice startled her.

“I wrote to you.”

“When? When you thought I was dead? Or did you know I really wasn’t?”

“I didn’t know you were alive.”

“Then why write to me?”

“Because we swore we would. It was the only promise I could keep of the ones I made you. I thought somehow, wherever you were, you might look down on me and see that my heart was still true.”

Tears flooded Addy’s eyes. She blinked them away.

“Where are they, these letters?”

“Hidden away someplace safe.”

“I want to see them.” She doubted he could produce them, but damn, he knew just exactly what her heart wanted to hear.

“I’ll give them to you one day.”

A wave of homesickness washed over her. How she longed for the halcyon days of her life before. A tear slipped down her cheek as she stared at Owen. He’d been her sunshine. Life was always better in his glow. And here they were now, in a cold, gray hallway. Neither of them was shining very much.

He sat up and leaned against her door, watching her. She swiped at her tears. What was done was done. She had to move forward, one foot in front of the other until this dark time was far, far behind her.

She got up and went over to reach a hand down to Owen. He took it without hesitation. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“Taking you to find a bed.”