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“I need your help,” Mairi whispered. “Can you help me to stop...dreaming? Because the dreams...they’re not real. And I just want to stop dreaming.”
Vilma began hoarsely, “When I found out what Damen Leventis did to her, all I wanted was to protect Mairi...to make her strong. I thought giving her Drake Morrison to protect her was right. I thought with Drake, she would learn to be strong and learn what we couldn’t teach her. I wanted her so strong that no one would ever have the power to hurt her.” She shook her head wearily. “But she ran away from us, Norah. She ran away.”
Norah inhaled painfully at her sister’s words. In her mind, she remembered the blood on the ground that the guards had shown them – blood that their little Mairi had shed in order to escape the dogs. In order to escape them.
They had forced Mairi to bleed, to run away like a common criminal, to hide from them just so she could be with Damen Leventis, a man who had never stopped hurting her.
Norah gripped her sister’s hand tightly. “I don’t know any more than you do, but maybe this time we can...we can trust her. If she wants to be with Damen Leventis, then we can just be there for her, the way she’s always trusted us.”
Vilma slowly nodded. “We may be able to pull some strings and get information about what’s caused Damen Leventis’ rights to be taken away and make it a matter of legal dispute. But if we do this, Esther Leventis and perhaps the Kokinos clan will be our enemies as well.”
“Let her do her worst.” Norah’s voice, normally gentle, became hard and uncompromising. “This time, we will truly stand by Mairi’s side and we will do our best not to let her down.”
Chapter 3
6 Days Ago
Drake Morrison pressed Delete after reading the file the head of his security team emailed him. Afterwards, he calmly proceeded with destroying all the information he had filed about Mairi Tanner. But when he came to the new data he had received regarding Damen Leventis and all his interests, Drake hesitated. He recalled the earlier conversation he had with his security head on the phone.
‘How grave was her injury?’ Drake asked. He had a difficult time not reacting to the photo he held in his hand. Being ex-army had made him immune to the sight of blood a long time ago. But the fact that the photo showed evidence of Mairi suffering, of Mairi bleeding – the fact that he had forced a young woman to such desperate straits was what was making his stomach turn over.
“The nearest hospital was just a block away, but she didn’t admit herself there. She went straight to Damen Leventis’ hospital. She also appeared not to have any money with her as she paid the cab driver with her bracelet.”
Drake breathed harshly. “Did she get treated right away there?”
“No. She insisted on seeing Damen first. She went hysterical when the staff didn’t allow her into his room. Damen’s sister arrived about thirty minutes later and that was when she was finally able to get in.”
Slowly, Drake swung his chair around so he could hold the photo over the wastebasket. He lit up one corner using his lighter. As the tip of the photo began to burn, the flame engulfing the entire photo in seconds, Drake slowly allowed the ashes to fall.
It reminded him of the time he still had nightmares of, a day when ashes rained all around. He remembered her. A short-haired brunette whose eyes were always compassionate, even when they had witnessed inhumane acts over and over during the war. Even when Drake had been forced to abandon her, she had not stopped looking at him like he was her hero.
Go, Drake. I can’t keep up and I won’t be able to save the hostage.
I can’t fucking leave you—-
Yes. You can. You have to. Now go! It’s either me or the hostage, and you know I’d rather kill myself if an innocent dies because of me. So please go.
I’ll come back for you.
I know you will.
And he had gone back for her, but by then he was too late. She had disappeared.
In a moment of uncontrollable rage, Drake kicked the waste basket away as he got to his feet. He punched the wall in sheer fury, and the cement cracked under his fist. He was no hero, never was, and never would be. His failure to rescue her had been proof of that, and all these years the only thing he had been able to do was find ways to convince himself that Paige could have survived. That Paige was alive.
Now he understood why he had been so damn determined to woo Yanna Everleigh away, even if it had been obvious she was in love with her Dutch billionaire boss. If Yanna had fallen for him, her secret bodyguard, then maybe Paige could have suffered from Stockholm Syndrome and fallen for her own captor. If she had, life would have been good for her. She was the kind that any man could fall in love with.
