Page 68 of Flawed Revenge

Since no one called her name, Kate remained where she was.

“Hush,” she murmured to her daughter, wishing she had Leo’s ability to talk without the sound carrying.

“Do you hear something, Mom?” Ariella whispered back.

“Yeah. So not a sound. Not a movement. And, Ariella, if I need to go out there, you don’t move at all. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Grabbing her daughter’s shoulders, she turned her so that their eyes met. Even though it was dark, it wasn't pitch black, and she could see the fear in her child’s eyes. Hated it. Wished she could erase it right down to the memories of fear.

“I mean it, Ariella. You are to stay here. Not to move, not to make a sound, until your dad or I, or someone else you know and trust tells you it’s safe. Even if you have to pee, you do it in your clothes. We can clean clothes, but some things we can't undo.”

“Are you going to leave me, Mom?”

“Not if I don’t have to. But I will do whatever I need to in order to keep you safe.” Including sacrificing herself. Kate would trade her life for her daughter’s in a heartbeat and never regret it. Ariella came first. Always. “I love you, sweetie-pie. You will always be my very favorite piece of pie.”

“Love you too, Mommy.”

Hugging her daughter hard, Kate then shifted their position slightly so Ariella was right in the very back corner of the old wardrobe. There had been some clothes hanging in there, and she arranged them to obscure her daughter. Unless you were specifically looking for the child, you’d never see that she was there.

At least that’s what she prayed.

The sound she’d heard stopped, and she hoped that meant whoever it was had moved on throughout the house. Hopefully, no one even knew she, Ariella, and Rose were no longer in their rooms. But just because she hadn't heard shouts and alarms and the sounds of people rushing about, it didn't mean they thought the three of them were still safely tucked away.

Then she heard the words she was dreading.

“Ma’am, we went to deliver food to our guests, and they’re gone,” a male voice spoke.

“Gone?” River Gardner echoed, sounding furious. “What do you mean, gone? I thought you had them locked in?”

“We did,” the man assured her.

“Obviously not well enough.”

“They haven’t left the property. The fences are all electrified, and the gate is manned, we’d know if they tried to get out.”

“Then they’re here somewhere, and I want them found. Now,” River ordered.

“Yes, ma’am. We’ll start looking for them, but after the incident, our team is halved, so it might take a while to search a property this big and find them.”

“Then you’d better stop wasting time and get started,” River growled.

“Of course, ma’am.”

Footsteps sounded, and Kate assumed it was the man moving away to gather the team and start hunting for her. She had no idea what incident he was referring to, but she liked hearing that the team was half of what it was supposed to be. That evened the odds out a little in her favor. Likely Leo and the guys had killed some of the men sent after them before they'd been captured, assuming they were in fact there somewhere.

If there weren't many security guards, and if the man who had been speaking to River had gone off to assemble them and start looking for her, Ariella, and Rose, then it meant River was currently unattended.

Could she kill the woman herself?

One glance at her daughter’s hidden form, knowing the added trauma her small, young, sick body had endured the last few days because of River Gardner, and the tests and experiments the older woman intended to run on her, and Kate knew she could do it.

With River dead, they’d all be free.

Leaning in, she pressed a kiss to her daughter’s forehead, knowing it could be the last time she ever kissed her, then she peeked out of the wardrobe, and when she saw the room was clear she eased open the door and climbed out. Slipping off her shoes because her bare feet would make less sound, Kate padded across the floor and peered out into the hall.

Several doors down, she saw River’s wheelchair turn a corner. There was no one else out there, so she stepped out into the hall and followed.