“I’m sorry to hear that.”
I tried to keep another sob from busting free, but it got loose.
“You heard from your daughter?”
I couldn’t help but beg it.
Sure if he verified it that would be validation enough that my sister was alive.
He sighed. Hesitated. I could tell that he was warring.
“Please, I need to find my sister.”
He blew out a sigh. “Yes. I’ve heard from her. Several times.”
“Oh god,” I whimpered with the relief.
He cleared the thickness from his throat and began to explain, “She left home at eighteen with stars in her eyes. Wanting to be famous. She got caught up in the lifestyle. We lost her to drugs, and then finally we just stopped hearing from her altogether.” He sniffled but tried to hide it. “I’d thought we’d lost her forever until she recently made contact to let us know she’s still alive. That she’s in a safehouse.”
A frown pulled to my brow. “A safehouse?”
I could feel his reluctance. “I shouldn’t be telling you any of this. Hell, my daughter wasn’t supposed to tell me.”
“Please…what do you know? Do you know something about my sister?”
He pushed out a slow sigh before he finally relented. “My daughter had been being held against her will. She owed the wrong people money. Before she knew it, she’d become their property.” He choked on that. Not wanting to lay it out but his meaning clear. “She was rescued from it a few months ago and taken to a safe place until she could testify.”
My heart started beating faster.
“From a house in Los Angeles?” I rattled the address.
“Yes. That was it.”
“Is my sister with her? Her name is Liliana Marin. Oh god, please tell me she’s safe.”
He wavered and stalled, and I was crying out again, “Please.”
God, my heart was gonna falter.
“She is,” he finally said, so low like he was terrified someone nefarious was listening in.
I reeled.
“Oh my god.”
Relief hit me so hard, my entire body quaked.
“Where is she?” I begged.
He hesitated again, and I knew immediately he had information he hadn’t given to Mr. Jacobs. That he was doing everything he could to protect his daughter, too.
“Please, you don’t understand. I think my sister is in immediate danger. I’ve gotten threats.”
He blew out a sigh. “I’m not supposed to—”
“Please. The authorities have received new information, but we can’t help them unless we know where they are.”
A sigh pushed through the line.
“All I can give you is a P.O. box at a facility. You can send her something there. Ask her to contact you.”
I gushed out a rush of relief. “Thank you.”
He gave it to me for a place somewhere in Kentucky.
“You don’t know how grateful I am.”
“I just want them safe,” he said, his voice a dulled, roughened blade.
“I know. I think we’re close to that.”
The second we hung up, I jumped up to my desk, flipped the lid to my laptop, and entered the address for the box.
“Oh my god.”
It popped up the name of the renter.
I searched his name, my heart in my throat.
And he had a house.
A house in Lexington.
Everything sped and flashed.
My relief and desperation.
My sister. My sister.
I dialed the number as I was flying out the door. “Mr. Jacobs. I found her.”
Thirty-Six
Richard Six Years Ago
Lily: Shawn really wants to see me?
Richard: Yeah.
Lily: Violet’s already asleep. Should I wake her to come with me?
His gaze traveled around the raging party, and his guts clenched at the thought of his wife being in the middle of this. Of what she would think. A tickle of awareness pushed into his mind. A warning he didn’t heed.
He tapped out a response.
Richard: Nah. Not her scene. Come alone.
Lily: Okay, be there in a few.
He tossed his phone to his lap, stretched back, shot Shawn a grin. “She’s on her way, asshole. You’re welcome. You’d better treat her right this time. She’s a good girl.”
Shawn cackled a laugh. “You know I will, brother. You know I will.”
* * *
“What are you doing?” Richard shouted.
Lily wept, cried where they’d stripped her on the bed. He roared, fought and flailed to get to her while three men pinned his arms behind his back and held him back by the shoulders, forcing him to watch.
Bile rushed.
The high gone as he watched men sink to their lowest low.
As they ravaged her.
One after another.
As she screamed.
As she cried.
Tears streaked nonstop down Richard’s face and snot ran from his nose. “Stop. Fuck. Stop. Please.”
They shoved him at her when they were finished. “Your turn, pussy.”
He fell to his knees, crawled to her, gathered her broken body in his arms. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Oh my god, Lily,” he wailed, choking on the sobs that ripped from his bleeding lungs.
Lily shrieked the second he touched her. A guttural, unhinged fear. She scrambled back into the corner and curled into a shivering, shaking ball.
“Lily.”
“Don’t touch me,” she whimpered. “Don’t touch me. You monster. Don’t touch me.”
Thirty-Seven
Richard
Fuck.
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”
I punched the steering wheel like it might be able to dispel some of the rage and disgust pummeling my insides from where I’d pulled off the side of the road. Trying to find a way to get air into my lungs.
Not a chance of that.
Not when every organ in my body had caved. Crushed under the magnitude of the sickened outrage that Violet had looked at me with. Under the weight of the betrayal that she’d finally realized the full immensity of.
Only she’d had it all fuckin’ wrong.
I knew what it looked like.
Of course, I knew.
Those pictures that had been all over that table.
How the fuck had that private investigator gotten ahold of them?
Hadn’t needed a close-up to know they were copies of the same ones that Karl Fitzgerald had tried to use on me to get me to do his bidding.
Ones that had remained secret all this time. Pictures of me and Lily.
What were missing were the ones of me and Gianna. Ones of me and Danica.
Those were the ones Cory
