I watched for her.

I knew it was pointless, that she wouldn’t be there around the next corner, yet I took each turn leading up to Thornton Manor with white knuckled care. My heart hammered in my chest. My lungs burned from lack of allowing myself to breath ... just in case. By the time I reached the cul-de-sac and cut the engine, I didn’t know whether to break my fist into the wheel or hyperventilate.

She wasn’t there. I knew she wouldn’t be, yet I had prayed the entire way that I would come across her walking down the street. Her absence was a dark hole that kept threatening to suck me in. It was pure determination that kept me from succumbing.

I climbed out and squinted up at the looming affair boring down at me with the arrogance I had come to expect. The gleaming windows glowered in distaste and finding me lacking. I hated it. Hated being there. I had hoped that once I had Gabby, I would never have to return. Yet, I found myself making my way up the steps.

Jameson took my coat with an inclination of his head and murmur of greeting.

“Is Mr. Thornton in?” I asked with a tug at the lapel of my blazer.

“Yes sir,” the butler declared at once. “He’s in the parlor.”

Thanking the man, I made my way down the familiar path, breath caught in my chest, strides quick. I reached the opening, my gaze searching, hoping for signs of Gabby, but only finding Cordelia.

She smiled when I stepped in.

“Kieran, hello.”

The part of me I’d had to tame before arriving reared its head, demanding I march over, grab her arms and shake her until she told me what happened to Gabby, but the rational part won. There was only one way to win this war.

“Where’s your father?”

There was something to say about a woman who could sound confused, but maintain an air of smug arrogance. Cordelia had it down to a science.

“Is something the matter?”

She stupidly turned her back on me, possibly under the assumption it was beneath me not to kill her as she made her way to the drink cart, her movements the fluid motion of liquid.

Tumblers clinked, cubes of ice struck glass and rattled. I waited patiently while she poured me a scotch. Then, as an afterthought, poured herself one as well. Both glasses were brought back.

I refused mine. I barely even glanced at it even when she held it out to me.

“Where’s Gabby?”

“Gabby?” She took a tiny sip, blue eyes studying me from over the rim. “Do you mean Gabrielle?”

“Don’t fuck with me, Cordelia,” I warned, careful to keep my voice even and my anger contained. “Where is she?”

One pale shoulder lifted. “Well, how would I know? We’re not exactly close. Have you checked the kitchen?” She gestured with the untouched glass, index finger extended in the direction of the door. “She’s no doubt huddled in a cupboard.”

“If you or your father have touched one hair on her head—”

“Kieran.” David appeared in the doorway, not even bothering to mask his lack of surprise by my sudden visit. “What brings you into my home?”

I didn’t miss the emphasis on my, nor did I care.

“He’s looking for ... Gabby,” Cordelia offered, hesitating on Gabby’s name as if amused by it.

“Are you?” The other man stepped deeper into the room. “Wasn’t she with you?”

It took everything I possessed to maintain my cool, my calm, my hold on the red veil urging me to just slaughter them both were they stood. I reminded myself who I was, who I needed to be if I was to bring Gabby home.

“You don’t want to play this game with me, David,” I warned him quietly. “I want Gabby back. I want her home unharmed, and I want her now.”

Without missing a beat, David accepted the drink Cordelia had offered me. The bits of ice clinked with the swirling motion of his wrist. His soulless blue eyes never wavered from mine.

“I’m afraid I have no idea what you’re talking about, son. If she’s run off—”

“She did not run off,” I interjected. “She was taken ... by you. I don’t know where you’ve taken her. I don’t know why, and frankly, I don’t care right now. Give her back and I may forget you were ever stupid enough to take what belongs to me.”

David broke the connection between us. His eyes lowered briefly to the glass and the amber liquid glistening inside. His mouth mashed together and twisted up on one side in an almost deliberation, or regret.

“I wish I could help you,” he began at last. “But I simply can’t.”

“I see.” I smoothed a palm down the front of my dress shirt to restrain myself from reaching out and tearing the man’s throat out. “I had hoped we could settle this privately, but I can see that you are determined to get on my bad side, which is unfortunate, especially for you.” I cast a flick of my gaze in Cordelia’s direction and enjoyed watching the dimming of her arrogance. “You might want to ask yourself just how far you’re willing to take this, if pissing me off is worth the all holy hell I will bring down on you. You might not like Gabby and this might be your attempt at revenge, but you’re not facing her. You’re facing me and I will not leave any survivors. Think on that a moment.”

Cordelia may have been manipulative, backstabbing, spoiled, and mean, but at the core, she was a businesswoman, a shrewd one. She would have already done the math in her head, the costs and downfalls of pitting her company against me. She knew I could ruin her, ruin her life’s work, the empire she’d built from the very ground. She knew I could take it all away with just the snap of my fingers.

“I don’t know where she is!” she spat in a snarling hiss, lips curled back over bared teeth. Her knuckles blazed white around the drink she was barely restraining herself from throwing at my head. “I couldn’t give a shit.”

“That’s enough, Cordy,” David intervened smoothly. “There is nothing he can do.”

Brave words from a man I could see sweating slightly beneath his carefully placed façade.

“On the contrary, I can do plenty. I have—”

Marcella took that moment to sway into the room. Her movements were just a little too careful, as if she was trying her best not to trip. I had never noticed that before. In my mind, she’d always been so graceful. Now, all I saw were the flaws in the Thornton portrait. I saw the cracks and chips along the edges, the fine slivers up the glass. They were so broken and none of them knew it, except for Gabby.

“Kieran!” A delighted smile swept across her beautifully made up features. “We weren’t expecting you ... were we?” She cocked a questioning glance in David’s direction.

“Not at all,” David replied curtly. “Kieran isn’t here as a guest and he’s about to leave.”

“Leave?” Marcella blinked big, doe eyes. “Already? But you’ve only just arrived.”

I never took my eyes off David. “Don’t worry, Marcella.” I dared a smile her way. “You will be hearing from me again very soon. I have a reporter friend I’m dying to get in touch with. I have a story for her that I’m sure will make her whole year. Would you like to know what that story is?”

Despite whatever fog she was under, Marcella recognized the signs of danger, at least enough to study her husband’s face for the proper response. Her smile was gone, replaced by uncertainty and just enough fear to make my day.

“David?” she hedged.

“He’s lying.”

“Am I?” I straightened. “Tell me, Mrs. Thornton, were you aware your husband gets off on torturing, raping, and mutilating young girls?”

It was Cordelia who sucked in a breath. Marcella only stared, wide eyed and open mouthed. Her gaze jumped from me to her husband, not out of shock, I noted. There was panic there, a realization that the secret was out, that someone else knew. I was surprised by that. I never pegged David as the sort who would confide such a thing to his wife and yet...

“Prove it,” David said instead. “You have nothing, and it’s your word against mine.”

I momentarily ignored the barb.

“There’s also the identity of Gabby’s father ... her real father,” I corrected when Marcella opened her mouth. “Yes, I know about that. I know about the affair. I know the name of the man who did help conceive her.”

“That isn’t possible!” Marcella croaked. “Even I don’t—”

“Quiet!” David growled. “He’s bluffing. He’s trying to get you to give him what he’s looking for.”

I rounded my focus back to him. “The only thing I’m looking for is Gabby. I only want her. I don’t care what you people do with your lives, just give her back to me and this will end.”

“Gabrielle?” Marcella blinked at David. “What’s wrong with Gabrielle? Where is she?”

The concern in her eyes, in the tremor in her voice took me off guard. I wasn’t sure what I’d expected from the woman who’d turned a blind eye on the things her husband was doing to her daughter, but worry wasn’t one of them.

“She’s fine,” David bit out through clenched teeth. “Kieran is confused.”

I didn’t bulk. “He’s been hurting her. I don’t know how, but she’s terrified of him.”

“Hurting her?” Marcella—the need to appear sober forgotten—staggered closer. “What have you done to—?”

“I have never touched her,” David snapped.

“And that,” I added with deadly calm, “is the only reason you’re still standing.”

“Where is Gabrielle!” Marcella cried, cutting us both off.

The muscle in David’s jaw flexed rapidly. His eyes promised me a slow and agonizing death.

“I don’t know what he’s talking about.”

So close.

“I have pictures, David. I have documented proof of everything you have ever done, every girl you ever hurt, every illegal act you’ve ever committed. I have it all and I am going to start sending each piece to the media on the hour, every hour until I have Gabby back.” I waited a full heart beat to let that sink in before continuing. “I don’t imagine your partners and the members of the board are going to look too kindly on you once that dirty laundry hits the air, nor will the women who read your magazine.” I rounded my attention to Cordelia, who had gone very still and white a few feet away. “I don’t think anyone will want anything to do with someone who knew what her father was doing and did nothing to stop him.”

“But ... I didn’t...”

“You did.” My lips trembled in revulsion. “You knew exactly what he’d been doing to Gabby, to your sister. You never once did anything to protect her. Instead, you made her life hell.”

Her head was slowly rocking from side to side, but I had already turned to Marcella.

“And what will the women in your circle say once they learn what you allowed your husband to do to those women, to your own daughter? They will crucify you ... if the media doesn’t first.”

All thoughts of Gabby’s welfare seemed to vanish from Marcella’s drug riddled mind. I had hoped she would scream that she didn’t give a shit about that, all she wanted was her little girl back, but despite her earlier bout of motherly affection, Marcella cried something about not being able to handle this and fled the room. Sobs muffled by her hands followed after her down the hall.

Then it was just the three of us once more, only Cordelia no longer appeared haughty, or collected. The way she kept swaying slightly, it was a wonder she was still upright.

But I only cared about the man looming before me, enormous in his rage. It billowed around him in fiery tendrils of hate.

“How dare you!” his ferocious snarl barely made it through the vicious clamp of his teeth.

“I want Gabby,” I told him simply. “Return her unharmed and no one will hear of any of this. You have my word. All I want is her.” I checked my watch. “You have one hour.”

“Do you really think you can threaten me, boy? I have faced bigger men then you. I will not be intimidated.”

I wondered if I shouldn’t just leave. I’d given my warning. I had no reason to stay. But I couldn’t help myself.

“No, you’ve never met anyone like me.” My fingers looped the button on my blazer through the hole. “One hour, then I start taking your world apart brick by brick.”

I left father and daughter staring after me and made my way into the hall, but not before I heard Cordelia’s shrill exclamation bursting into the air behind me.

“What have you done?’

David’s answer was lost in the distance as I made my way to the front.

Jameson greeted me at the door, my coat in hand. I studied the old man and wondered just how much he knew, how much he’d seen. The staff were usually privy to everything that happened in a household, an audience to every joy and misfortune. But if David was as careful about his people talking as my mother had been, he would have signed a strict confidentiality agreement as iron clad as the president’s.

Nevertheless, it couldn’t hurt to try.

“Jameson?”

The man immediately straightened. “Yes sir?”

I accepted my coat and slipped it on.

“You haven’t seen Gabrielle, have you?”

“Gabrielle, sir?” the man mimicked with just enough confusion to make me think he really was confused by the name.

“The youngest Thornton,” I supplied.

“Oh! Of course, sir. No, I haven’t.”

I tugged the lapel of my coat down, never taking my eyes off the man.

“How long have you been employed here, Jameson?”

Worn fingers clasped together in front of him, squaring his shoulders. “I was employed by Mr. Thornton’s father.”

“So, a while then,” I mused, but didn’t wait for confirmation. “And you don’t know Gabrielle’s name? What do you normally call her?”

I knew I had him when his lips pulled together in a tight line. Whatever his name was for Gabby, he wouldn’t say it out loud, nor did I want him to. They had an hour before I fully decided all their fates and I didn’t want to rush my plans by killing him first.

“Enjoy the rest of your day, Jameson.”

Leaving the man and the manor behind, I climbed back into my car and maneuvered my way through the narrow path, struggling against the flood of memories that followed my taillights, images of the first time I held Gabby, the first time I kissed her and claimed her. It all circled around the cabin, momentarily distracting me from my roiling fury.

I didn’t have time to let my mind wander. I didn’t have the luxury of getting distracted. Gabby needed me, needed me to stay focused and bring her home.

I took a deep breath and tightened my grip on the wheel.

In an hour, I would have her back. Then I would dedicate the rest of my life to making sure her demons never darkened her doorway again.

Just one hour.