Derek: Have you been in contact with Anna?
Me: Not since last week at the therapy session, why?
Derek: She has been missing since last night. Tina said she has been trying to reach her and she hasn’t responded.
Me: Check with Snake. He’s been guarding her.
Derek: He is missing too.
Sneak preview of
Revenge
(Saved By Love #4)
*the action of hurting or harming someone in return for an injury or wrong suffered at their hands.
Chapter One
Taken:
*capture or gain possession of by force or military means. *dispossess someone of something; steal or illicitly remove.
~Anna~
Maria Ana Branson is whom I used to be until the day my stepfather sold me to Sully Vrennikov, the boss of a human trafficking organization. Now, I am Ana Smith and I am sure he did not expect me to survive my ordeal, or that I would come back to be his worst nightmare.
Revenge is a bitter pill to swallow, especially when you are about to extract your pound of flesh from your own family. I only have myself to blame for letting my guard down around him. I should have known better.
I was twelve when my father, Charlie Branson, died in an oil rig explosion and fifteen when my mother remarried Thomas Jones. Thomas was sweet at first, very loving but after the first year, he became a hypochondriac. He always claimed to be injured or sick, so he didn’t have to work or spend time with us. I’m pretty sure he paid a few doctors plenty of money to give him his autoimmune diagnoses.
When my mother passed away after a long battle with cancer, she didn’t leave any loose ends for my stepfather to deal with. She hired a live-in nanny and tutors to help me finish school. I had a lot of friends that kept me away from home most of the time and prized horses that occupied the rest of it.
My mother, God rest her soul, would be turning over in her grave if she knew the man she married eight years ago would turn on her only child, but sometimes money causes people to do evil things. His reaction to the reading of her will should have been my first warning sign. The look on his face as it was announced that everything was being left to me, Charlie Branson’s only heir, was straight up terror. He obviously didn’t see that one coming and has been plotting since that day seven years ago. My mother wasn’t trying to be cruel, but family money is just that, family money. My great, great-grandfather on my father’s side was in the oil business and invested well. Well enough to set up ten generations for life. If even a small percentage of her inheritance were to have been left to Thomas Jones, he probably wouldn’t have come after me. She did, however, allow him to stay in our home and have a monthly allowance until he turned eighty. After that, she arranged for him to be placed in an assisted living care facility to finish out his days in comfort. In the letter she left me and also in conversations we had during her final days, she wished for me to marry and start a family. She didn’t want me to have to take care of an old man that turned out to be a clinger; her words exactly.
At eighteen I started college at Pepperdine University. At twenty-one, I met and fell in love with David Sanders, also a student at Pepperdine. At twenty-three I found myself in a basement cell naked, beaten and humiliated.
Six weeks prior
“Come on Babe, where’s your sense of adventure. No one is here at this hour so we’ll just sneak in, find the info for your story and sneak out.”
David, my fiancé and number one fan, loves the stories I write for The Post. I usually cover corrupt politicians, but I came across a story of possible human trafficking and have been like a dog with a bone ever since. I met with a family a few weeks ago that claimed their daughter had been taken for the purpose of selling her to the Russian mafia. I have to admit their story did sound a little far fetched, and they didn’t have solid proof, so the police listed her as a missing person/runaway and the case went cold. When I interviewed the police, they informed me that Amber Johnson was probably a runaway and her family wasn’t willing to admit that their daughter would leave them in that way.
“That is not the kind of daughter she was,” the mother cried to me. “She just turned eighteen and was registered at ITT Tech. She wouldn’t just leave.”
Now I have made it my personal business to help locate Amber and bring her home, hence the creepy warehouse after dark.
“David, I don’t feel safe going into an abandoned warehouse at night. Who knows what could be in there, homeless people, drug dealers, murder’s.”
“Babe, how are you ever going to work your way up the ladder if you’re not willing to take a few risks. You’re a journalist for God’s sakes. You have to take a few risks to get the best story.”
“Okay, but I’m only stepping inside the door, and if anything feels wrong or looks suspicious, I’m leaving with or without you.”
The warehouse was dark and creepy. There were three bay doors on this side of the building with one heavy metal door. It looked as if it used to be a distribution center or shipping warehouse that had long since been abandoned. I received an anonymous tip two days ago that if I wanted to find Amber Johnson to check here, 517 Industrial Way. I should have called the police, but the email warned that if I did, Amber would be lost forever. When I responded to the email, it came back
