ROBERT HAWK

Two decades ago, Robert Hawk had sat at his desk and watched a grainy handheld video where monsters damaged his child. The memory of it had never left him. It was one of the reasons he never sexually touched his pets, and a large part of the reason that he had always, once Gwen returned from Mexico, kept close tabs on her.

Leaving her in Mexico had been a calculated decision. You pay kidnappers once, and you’ll have a kidnapping problem forever. He had done the right thing, though Gwen had never seemed to appreciate the sacrifice. Of course, there had been a risk to her life. He’d known that then, and balanced out that risk with the knowledge that he had, should the situation turn badly, a second child.

Now, he watched a new video, one of his second daughter running down the interior hall of the house. She exited out the back door without looking back. He rewound the footage and re-watched it. Clicked through the other camera feeds and found nothing. She had been smart. Hidden in the pockets and covered her tracks.

He closed the video and let out a hard sigh, swiveling in his chair and looking out the window at the view.

He had learned about Claudia two months before her birth. The pregnant piece of trash who had shown up at the casino hadn’t been thinking when she had blabbed the news to his secretary in a thinly veiled threat. And the timing, which coincided with Gwen’s mother’s illness… had been inconvenient.

But Robert Hawk always paid his debts, and he paid the pregnant slut’s—sending an attorney over with a hefty check and an ironclad agreement that insured that the bitch would keep her mouth shut and never share the paternity with anyone, including the child.

He’d hoped for a boy and been incensed by the news of another girl. Disappointments, they all were. Dario had been the closest thing he’d had to a son, and even he—in the end—had failed.

But that was another issue that would be solved on another day. For now, he had to decide what to do with Claudia.

In her continual and desperate quest for his approval, he had seen the pride shining in her eyes, the exuberance she’d shown when she believed she had killed little Bell Hartley.

But she hadn’t. She’d made a mistake. And in his world, mistakes carried deadly consequences, ones that Dario Capece and Bell Hartley would soon realize.

But first, Claudia needed to be dealt with. To forgive or to punish?

One option would leave him with a daughter. The other would allow Claudia to finally meet her sister, in death.

BELL

Everything was different in this place. I sat on the couch, my feet tucked underneath me, and half-heartedly watched a local real estate show. It was terrible. All of the women were either wearing way too much makeup, or hadn’t even bothered to brush their hair. One man was in cargo shorts and Crocs, another wore a suit and seemed fresh off the timeshare sales circuit. But still, it was better than the news.

Everything seemed muted. Even the heat seemed to leave me alone, the doors of the house open, sweat sticking the shirt to Laurent’s back. I watched television, stared out the window, and thought about Gwen.

The guilt was different from when I was raped. I realized now, as an adult, and with a realistic understanding of the situation, that I wasn’t at fault. This was a different beast entirely. The effects of my actions hadn’t been my parents fighting, or a police officer’s ridicule. A woman had died. A woman who, from every news report, had been an angel. Loved by everyone. Philanthropic. Kind. Genuine. Beautiful.

I had watched a dozen specials, all filled with glowing accounts of a woman who seemed to dwarf me in every category. I had watched a slideshow of images of her and Dario. Gwen, in a beaded wedding gown, in a ceremony that rivaled a royal wedding. Dario, gazing at her with adoration. The two of them, in glitz and glamour, at charity events, with celebrities, and at exotic locations. The photos had filled me with a mixture of jealousy and despair, my knowledge of their ‘relationship’ in sharp contrast to every photo I saw.

They looked like the perfect couple. Madly in love. Two puzzle pieces that fit. I had always been in awe of Dario’s magnitude and presence. Gwen seemed to have that same brilliance, a gem that could hold her own when placed beside him.

And me? I sank into a couch that smelled slightly of Febreze and thought of my 2.7 GPA. My job at The House. I’d thought that I was doing so well. My own place, though it had been packed with three other women. My blossoming bank account, which was approaching ten thousand dollars. My foolish pride in things that, compared to Gwen, were pathetic.

My guilt worsened, my jealousy against a dead woman, who had died in my place, was evidence of exactly how shallow and insecure I was.

It was too much to take. The guilt. The insecurity. The jealousy. I curled into the arm of the couch and stared at the screen and wished I had gotten to the suite just a little bit earlier. If I had, Gwen would still be alive. And I would have died. And Vegas would have moved on with little to no ripple effect.

I watched as a man gestured to a marsh view, and listened as Laurent stomped through the house, the lamp beside me trembling from his heavy steps. I closed my eyes, hoping he wouldn’t talk to me, and thought about Gwen.

Night fell on day two. In the carport, seven men crowded around the table, their elbows bumping, beers littering the surface. They were playing a card game I’d never heard of. I’d started out there, eavesdropping on them while I pretended to clean my tennis shoe, but I couldn’t figure out the rules of the game and finally headed back in.

“Hey Bell!”  Laurent shouted at me, and I tilted my head far enough left to see him. I raised my eyebrows, and he waved at me. “Joe is out, we need you to play.” 

I stood up and trudged through the kitchen, stopping in the doorway and crossing my arms over my chest. “I don’t know how to play.”

“That’s okay.” He nodded to the chair beside him, a scrawny man easing out of it and moving around the table, a dour look on his face. Probably Joe, the loser. Looking at the puny chip stack he cradled, Laurent would probably be next. He patted the seat. “Sit. Just eye us for a bit.” 

I squeezed around the edge of the table and caught a few glances from the men around the table. They all looked like the sort that spent their days doing manual labor, their clothes faded, beards long, faces tan. A couple of them smiled in greeting, but most looked down at their cards as if they contained nuclear launch codes.

I sat down next to Laurent, who grabbed the bottom of my folding chair and dragged it across the concrete until it was flush with his. He lifted up the edge of his hand and showed me the five cards. 

I glanced over them, the values meaning nothing to me. From inside, my phone rang, and I straightened at the sound of it. I suffered two bumped knees and a stubbed toe by the time I made it to the living room. Grabbing my phone from the couch, I caught a glimpse of a Vegas number and answered it.

“Hey.” Dario sounded exhausted, the simple word coated in weight and dragging along the bottom of the phone line.

“Hey.” The word came out a little too breathless, something I blamed entirely on my sprint through the house, and not due to my heart, which was presently soaring through my ribcage. I’d missed him. His voice, his strength, his reassurance, and his kiss.

Dario stole the words from me, his voice gruff. “I’ve missed you.”

I blinked back tears. “Are you okay? I saw on the news that you were arrested.”

He sighed. “I’m fine. Don’t believe everything you see on the news. I’m doing my best to get this psychopath behind bars.”

“Did you?”

“Not yet.” He cleared his throat. “Where are you?”

I glanced back at the carport, and moved farther away from the group, opening the front door and easing out of it. “Same place I’ve been for two days. Laurent’s house. There are a bunch of his friends over, playing some card game.”

“Bourré, probably.” He pronounced it “boo-ray,” and I recognized the name.

“Yeah, that’s it.” I pulled the door shut and stepped onto the small front porch, one covered in a healthy layer of dirt. “I thought you couldn’t make phone calls from jail.”

His voice dropped a little, and I strained to hear the background on his call. “I’m not exactly a prisoner. The arrest was a show, one to lull Gwen’s father into a false sense of security. We’re hoping he’ll make a mistake. In the meantime, I’ve been handed over to the feds and out of the hands of the local cops—half of who are on Hawk’s payroll.”

My anxiety about his situation rose, and I felt helplessly out of touch. I leaned against the porch post and stared out into the woods.

“Any of Laurent’s friends hit on you?” The protective jealousy in his voice was so adolescent, so utterly normal, that I laughed, a bit of my tension releasing.

“No. Honestly, they seem a little afraid of me.”

“Good. I know every one of those assholes. They better be.” His voice changed, softening. “I called your parents.”

“You did?” I straightened, hating the fact that I couldn’t call them myself and let them know I was okay.

“Yes. I let them know you were safe and that you’d call them soon. I need you to last a few more days, Bell. No phone calls. No contact with anyone.”

I nodded, forgetting that he couldn’t see me, tears pricking at the edges of my eyes. He sounded so strong, so in control, so calm. It was such a different picture than the man who had fallen apart over Gwen’s body, his emotions fraying, composure gone. “How were they? Did they sound okay?”

“They were fine. And I have men next door, and they’ve created a security perimeter of cameras and motion sensors around their home. They’re safe.”

They’re safe. It was meant to be a reassuring comment, but did the exact opposite. My chest tightened, a wave of nausea moving through me, and I found my way to the step and sat down. I hadn’t even thought about my parent’s safety, the possibility of Hawk finding and hurting them in an effort to get to me. They were at risk, and all because I couldn’t keep my hands to myself and my heart focused on a normal guy. I should have ignored my lack of feelings and kept seeing Ian. He had been safe. No wife. No empire. No crazy father-in-law who may or may not torture cocktail waitresses on the weekend.

But Ian… Ian had never had a chance, not against the hold that Dario had had on me, from the very beginning. And that reality had brought on all of this. Gwen’s death. My own risk. And now… my parents were in danger. Were Rick and Lance, also? What about Meredith? My roommates?

I tried to breathe, worked to find something to focus on. I remembered an exercise my school therapist had taught me after my rape and attempted to find five things to see.

My shoe, still stained from the dirt. One.

A wet leaf, stuck to the porch. Two.

The row of trucks, on the edge of the house. Three.

Laurent’s boots, stacked by the door. Four.

My hand, trembling on my jeans. Five.

I tucked my fingers into a fist and held it against my stomach. I thought about my dad, and how slowly he climbed the front steps into the house. His awkward stretch to reach the hunting rifle he has hanging over the back door. I pinched my eyes closed and struggled to return to the exercise. Five things to see.

Four things you can touch.

I uncoiled my fist and reached out, running a hand over the damp wood on the porch, the surface bumpy, the paint more worn off than present. One.

“Bell?”

I ignored him and propped the phone against my shoulder, moving a hand to the knee of my sweatpants, ones I washed and dried this morning. The material was thick and soft, and I rubbed my fingertips along the cheap side seam. Two.

I placed my hand on my neck, pulling the neck of my T-shirt down and putting my hand over my heart, the skin warm, my heartbeat quick. I took a deep breath and exhaled. Three.

“Bell!”

“Just a minute.” I mumbled the words and looked over the porch, not wanting to stand, finding a twig that had fallen on the bottom step, a few feet away. I strained forward to reach it, and closed my hand around it, the strong stick reassuring in my grip. Four. Four things to touch.

Three things you can hear. I closed my eyes. Focused on the soft sounds from inside, the low murmur of voices.

Someone laughed.

A car door quietly shut.

Crickets, loud and persistent, buzzed.

The constant sounds were relaxing, and I rested my head against the post, my hand tightening and loosening on the stick, and focused on the chirp of the crickets for several long seconds. Three things you can hear.

Two things you can smell. Lime. There was a faint scent of it in the air, and I remembered watching Laurent spread a line of it along the perimeter of the yard to keep snakes away.

I blocked out the scent and tried to find another, something more than the humid blanket that defines this place. There. A wisp of something. Something familiar. Expensive. Refined. Wild. Something that smelled of power and sexuality. Something that had made me swoon and buckle and yield and fall in love.

I snapped my eyes open and saw him there. I didn’t move, didn’t breathe, didn’t do anything to disrupt the moment, certain that it was a mirage, my panic creating something that didn’t exist.

He crouched before me, his eyes tender, and reached forward, cupping my neck, his thumb gently tracing along my skin. “It’s okay.”

I dropped the stick and grabbed his shirt. My cell hit the porch, and I clawed up his chest, staring at him. “How are you—?”

He pressed his lips to my forehead, then my cheek, sitting down on the step and pulling me into his lap. I curled against his chest like a child and a sob broke from my chest. Tears ran down my cheeks and his arms wrapped around me, hugging me tightly, his body warm and powerful.

“It’s okay. It’s okay—” His voice cracked, and he pulled away enough to see my face. The guilt in his eyes, the weight of it on his handsome features … it broke my heart. I tried to smile, and his face only grew more concerned. “I’m so sorry, Bell. I’m so sorry.”

I sat up, closer to him, and felt his hands tighten. I gripped the back of his neck and pulled his mouth to mine. Our kiss crashed like a kite into a storm. A battle of lips and tongue, need and sorrow. His hand twisted in my hair, pulled me tighter, and our mouths became a frantic mess of small quick contact, and deeper, rough tastes. He broke away and whispered I love you in the moment before he reclaimed my mouth. He dominated and healed, reassured me and begged. In that kiss, a part of us broke apart and then fused back together.

Two things to smell. One thing to taste.