Frayed: Trent & Daniella (Savage Trust Book 3) Page 7

  Studying her for signs of an intent to flee, Reed's finger tapped against the center of the island’s surface, his hand just a few inches from hers.

  “I will tell you before I pack our things and go,” she promised

  From where he watched twenty-five stories below, he could see she was already packed.

  “You’ll have time to convince me that staying is the safest course of action for Christine,” she added.

  Reed held out his hand, his posture suspicious.

  She lifted a finger, hesitating. “Not so fast. You will work so that I have safe options beyond staying here.”

  “Deal,” Reed agreed, his hand wrapping around hers for a brief shake. “But their network stretches halfway across the country, not to mention their East European contacts. Defeating them takes patience.”

  Daniella hugged herself, fear etching new lines across her face. “Poor Mr. Cobb. Do you think I—”

  “No,” Reed answered at the same time Trent mirrored the denial. “No visits, no calls. But I’ll get a team out there to fix the damage to his place and, if he wants protection, he’ll get it.”

  She managed a weak, but genuine smile. “Thank you.”

  Reed sighed. “Don’t thank me, Dani girl. I’m following my boss’s orders. Trent isn’t going to let anything happen to you. He has a lot of resources to throw at this.”

  Daniella stared hard and deep at Reed. He looked away, his expression crumbling.

  “Dani, you want Trent in your corner.” He shrugged after a few long seconds, his gaze landing on hers then darting away. “Me…I don’t have a very good record of keeping women I care about safe.”

  “So you try not to care about them?” she asked, reaching across the island to place her hand on top of his.

  Emotion burned in Trent’s chest at the contact between the two of them, but he didn’t dare name its source.

  “Something like that,” Reed cleared his throat and slid his hand out from under Daniella’s. “Let me show you how to reset the code.”

  Turning the sound off, Trent tapped at the keyboard and a slideshow started on the monitors directly in front of him. The images fading in and out of view were ones he had rescued right after Reed received his divorce decree.

  His mouth shrugged in a fast ebbing smile as he remembered his first attempt to save the photos.

  Reed had punched him.

  It wasn’t the first, nor the last, nor the hardest punch the man would ever throw at Trent. But the force and Reed’s expression as Trent tried to dig the photo boxes out of the garbage on trash day had been enough for Trent to beat a temporary retreat, find the garbage truck and bribe the driver to stop at Reed’s house last and not run the compactor.

  Their wedding photo appeared onscreen, Reed stiff in his tuxedo while Katherine was resplendent in the designer gown her parents had paid for. A bossy princess, Katherine was accustomed to getting what she wanted. Reed had somehow fallen madly in love with her despite the conflict between his working class roots and the woman’s overbearing sense of entitlement.

  Trent’s finger hovered over the ESCAPE key, ready to exit out of the slideshow of another man’s memories—another man’s life.

  He still had nightmares about the day that, ultimately, was the beginning of the end of Reed’s marriage.

  The damage to her body, the wait for emergency medical care and the infection that had followed left Katherine infertile.

  She placed the blame on Reed, not on herself for insisting on coming when he had told her over and over it wasn’t safe, not on her rich daddy for pressuring a friend who worked for a senator on the Armed Services Committee, not that family friend who was willing to trade her safety and the life of her unborn child for the chance to keep a campaign donor happy.

  No, she blamed her husband because he couldn’t bear the weight of a crumbling building on his back.

  Even with the bitter accusations Katherine flung, Reed had loved her.

  The idiot probably still loved her.

  With a rough swallow, Trent hit the ESCAPE key.

  The images disappeared from the monitor but lingered in his mind.

  The experience had changed him, just as it had changed Stark and Reed. All three men came to view that moment as their biggest failure. As far as Trent knew, Reed hadn’t been with another woman since.

  Collin had turned toward complete subordination of his occasional partners. He might as well have had “you can’t protect what you can’t control” tattooed on his dick.

  Trent, the youngest of the three, had twisted Stark’s mantra into “you can’t love what you can control.”

  The women he had sex with weren’t allowed to touch him, weren’t allowed to gaze into his eyes. Their mouths might wrap around his cock, he might press his lips to their pussies, but he never kissed them. And he never, ever, ever, put his cock where it might make a baby.

  Mouth?

  Yes.

  Ass?

  Fuck yes!

  But, even wrapped in a condom, he never so much as dipped into the hot, wet hole of a woman’s pussy.

  Not until Daniella.

  12

  Daniella

  Daniella and Christine remained in the penthouse. Reed brought the promised clone of her phone early Monday and stayed an hour asking her questions about Lynn and any of the dead girl’s acquaintances.

  He nearly fell out of his chair when she told him she had all of her sister’s social media and email passwords. The Facebook profile was just a memorial now, but even that was enough to have Reed salivating because Daniella hadn’t deleted any of the private messages despite their disturbing nature. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to read more than a few of them, but she also hadn’t been able to force herself to delete them.

  When Reed left, she was a little more hopeful that she wouldn’t have to stay in the penthouse much longer and that she would never have to see his boss again.

  With the phone and a laptop Reed had loaned her, Daniella spent Monday and Tuesday working on putting her life back together. She cried on the phone with her boss at the school district after telling the woman she had to resign. She was hoarse by the time she contacted her insurance agent about the house.

  By Tuesday, she was mostly trying to decide where she should raise Christine once she was free to go. She looked at housing, job markets—and crime statistics.

  A phone call woke her at seven a.m. on Wednesday, her heart seizing as she read the caller ID.

  VA DSS Child Protective Services

  “Hello,” she answered cautiously. She had talked to Reed about notifying the agency, which had given her temporary custody of Christine while she worked to officially adopt the baby. He had said the company’s legal department would contact them for her and ensure there were no issues.

  “This is Child Protective Services calling for Daniella Marquardt,” a woman said.

  “This is she,” Daniella answered. “With whom am I speaking?”

  “Julie Thrall, I’m a colleague of your caseworker.”

  More panic crept in and she tightened her sweaty grip on the phone. “Why isn’t Mr. Corbin calling me himself?”

  “Because Mr. Corbin is at the burn unit with a brother and sister set on fire by their grandmother,” the woman snapped. “Speaking of fires, we have a report that you are no longer living at the address provided on your temporary custodial agreement.”

  “No…” Daniella’s heart began to pound against the back of her sternum, her face flushing hot and beads of perspiration forming along her top lip. “An attorney was supposed to contact the agency—”

  “No such contact occurred,” Thrall said, cutting her short. “We need to see the baby immediately and then schedule an appointment to inspect your current lodgings.”

  “Of course, I will get her dressed and be at the agency when it—”

  An exasperated sigh silenced Daniella.

  “A caseworker must see the child,” Thrall chid
ed. “Not a secretary or receptionist. Do you think we’re that dumb, Miss Marquardt?”

  “I don’t think you’re dumb at all!”

  Good Lord! Daniella thought. She had really lucked out getting Mr. Corbin as Christine’s caseworker. She couldn’t imagine having this sniping, rude woman making decisions about the baby.

  “If you can meet me at eight before I make my next health and welfare check on one of my kids,” Thrall powered on, “I won’t have to send the police out to take the baby from you.”

  She paused and then her tone turned menacing.

  “Is that going to be a problem, Miss Marquardt?”

  The question danced around inside Daniella’s head. She didn’t have a car, would have to get a driver and Christine would need changed.

  “Is it?” the woman asked again. “Perhaps you should just give me your location now and I’ll dispatch a unit.”

  “No, tell me the address,” Daniella blurted. “We will be there.”

  A trailer park? Daniella silently questioned as the Tap&Ride driver passed between the two crumbling brick pillars that marked the entrance.

  The park was run down, almost stereotypical in appearance as someplace a CPS caseworker would visit on a regular basis. There were no lawns between the mobile homes, just dusty brown spaces with random patches of yellowing grass and vehicles that looked like they should have been hauled off to the salvage yard years ago.

  “What number did you say?” the Tap&Ride driver asked, his hand leaving the wheel to stroke at an annoying soul patch as sparse as the clusters of grass.

  “Two-twenty,” she answered in a distracted manner as she studied the aluminum-clad structures they passed.

  Her stomach, already tied in knots, felt ready to dissolve and her face began to heat. Something was off. The park was a single lane, starting with one-oh-one on the left and two-oh-one on the right. They were halfway down its length. Two-twenty would be on the right at the very end.

  None of that was alarming. But there were a lot of motorcycles in the park. They weren’t worn out scooters or cheap rice burners. They were choppers—long imposing bikes with skull caps hanging off handlebars instead of proper helmets.

  “Stop!” she said.

  The driver responded by taking his foot off the gas.

  “Back up—”

  “We didn’t pass it,” he interrupted.

  “We need to leave now!” In her urgency, she leaned forward and clutched at his shoulder. “Put it in reverse and get us the hell out of here now!”

  From behind, she heard the rumble of motorcycles. They hadn’t pulled into the park after her. They were all coming from the trailers she had already passed.

  Ahead of the Tap&Ride car, a beat up brown sedan two decades old pulled out of the last drive on the right. A man with shaggy brown hair was behind the wheel, a young blonde next to him in the front passenger seat.

  Snatching her phone from her pocket, Daniella opened the note app with the address and the caseworker’s name, typed in HELP!!! then hit FORWARD, tapping Reed’s name. The address field populated and she hit SEND.

  “Ram them!” she ordered. “I’ll buy you a new car, just get us the hell out of here!”

  The driver snorted as the sedan pulled to an angled stop in front of them. He hit a button, all the car windows going down as his hands went up in surrender.

  “Hey guys, I don’t want no trouble. This is just a fare,” he announced loudly over the idling roar of the motorcycles. “The lady’s business ain't none of mine.”

  “No, sir. You don’t understand; they want the baby,” Daniella yelled as she shoved her phone between the back seat cushions. A prayer banged inside her chest that Reed would receive the message in time.

  She had to stall as long as she could while minimizing the risk to Christine.

  The man and woman got out of the sedan, the woman scratching incessantly at her forearms with long, black lacquered nails. She walked ahead of the man, stringy yellow hair sticking to the sides of her face and down her shoulders. A broomstick skirt as black as her nails swirled with her long steps as an oversized denim purse bounced against one hip.

  Popping her head through the window, she grinned when she saw Christine and started banging on the roof.

  “Jackpot!” She pulled away as the baby began to cry from the noise. Turning to the man, she pointed at him. “Pay up, motherfucker. I delivered exactly what you wanted!”

  The tone was different, the diction messy, but Daniella recognized the voice as belonging to Julie Thrall, the supposed CPS caseworker.

  Christ! How had they known her caseworker’s name?

  You told them, idiot.

  Oh, God, she had, hadn’t she? But they had her phone number.

  You didn’t change it after Lynn died.

  “Hey, my man,” the driver said, trying to sound cool and chummy as Julie’s companion approached. “Maybe we can work together. I get a lot of drunk fares—drunk bitches, some are hot as fuck.”

  “Pay up, Donnie!” Julie demanded, reaching for the pockets on the man’s black leather riding vest.

  He grabbed her by the wrist and gave a vicious twist, bringing her to her knees. “I need you sober until we get back to the stash house.”

  Dipping his free hand into his pocket, he fished out a single pill. “You’ll get your junk then. For now, be a good little slag and swallow this.”

  She stuck her tongue out, unfurling the long, slender tip to accept the pill. When she swallowed it down, a serene expression spread rapidly along her face and Donnie released her from the twisting grip.

  “I get to see into a lot of homes,” the driver went on, his voice turning to a desperate whine. “Getting bags and shit. Premium stereo systems, big screen TVs.”

  “Get out,” Donnie ordered without looking at him. “Leave the key.”

  “Sure, sure man.” The driver scrambled out, sprawling onto the gravel road in his haste. “You can trust me, whatever you need.”

  He clutched at the bottom edge of Donnie’s riding vest. “Deliveries…I can do that.”

  Donnie stared silently at where the driver clutched the leather. Slowly, the man drew his hands away, palms and fingers bouncing with terror. With a jerk of his head, Donnie summoned one of the bikers behind the Tap&Ride car to come forward.

  “Toss this piece of shit in a cage,” he growled. “He can be the warm up act before Friday’s first fight.”

  With a dizzying wave of nausea crashing over her, Daniella watched as the man was dragged away screaming for help. The bikers did nothing to silence him. They weren’t afraid of anyone coming to the driver’s rescue or so much as calling the cops.

  The trailer park was their territory and she had stumbled blind and reckless into it.

  Donnie jerked her door open then dragged Julie, still on her knees, over. With his hands in her stringy, greasy hair, he gave Julie’s head a hard shake as he glared with contempt at Daniella.

  “Thrall means slave. Bet you feel like a dumb bitch.”

  Daniella didn’t respond, just blinked rapidly, the blinks stopping when he slapped Julie across the face.

  “Get to work,” he ordered. “Search her, find her phone and give it to me.”

  The woman started pawing at Daniella, going through her pockets, shoving her hands down her blouse and groping at her thighs, making her lift her ass then dumping her purse and the diaper bag on the backseat floor in search of the phone.

  “I was in such a rush I forgot.” Daniella swallowed as a panicky fear tried to force the truth up. She just prayed Reed had the message and didn’t try to call her, exposing the lie in the process.

  Beyond the car, Donnie unzipped his pants and pissed a long, disinterested stream as another man got behind the wheel. Finished, Donnie jerked Julie onto her feet and shoved her toward the car’s rear bumper.

  “Sit on the other side of the kid.”

  “I did good, Donnie,” she said, opening the back passenger door a
nd crawling in. “I got her out here just like you asked.”

  Leaning over Christine, the woman tilted her head, her face twisting into a snobby, upper class expression.

  “Cary Academy Theater Club, 2014,” she wolf-smiled then twirled a lock of stringy hair. “Homecoming queen, too.”

  With that, she settled against the seat cushion and stared up at the car’s roof, her face going slack as Donnie pulled a cheap, nondescript phone out of his back pocket and thumbed in a number. He cocked his head, listening for something. After a few seconds, Daniella realized he must be calling her phone—but it wasn’t ringing, not in the car at least.

  Did that mean her phone wasn’t working out here and the message to Reed never made it?

  “Guess you were telling the truth,” he said, tossing his phone into the front passenger seat. His fingers pushed into the same pocket from which he had pulled the pill Julie took. He fished another capsule out, bigger and different in color. He wrapped an iron hand around Daniella’s jaw. She struggled, head twisting, lips clamping shut as she tried to grab his wrists.

  Donnie just grinned, confident in his strength.

  The last two things she remembered were dirty fingers in her mouth as he shoved the pill deep down her throat and then his hollow laugh.

  “Hope you don’t mind dry swallowing, bitch.”

  13

  Daniella

  Daniella woke with a scrambling need to vomit. She lurched forward, arms outstretched and vision blurry. Her palms hit a grimy shag carpeting a second before her stomach exploded.

  “I’m not cleaning that up,” Julie growled from nearby.

  “Stoker, man—should I give her another pill?” Donnie asked.

  No, no, no! She screamed inside her head while a dry heave twisted through her body, her head jerking around in search of Christine. Eyes refusing to focus, she located the baby still in her car seat, seeing only a little flesh colored blob with a tuft of baby hair strapped into the purple carseat.