AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Hope blinked. “France maybe? Don’t they not extradite?”
I shook my head. “They do. It’s only French citizens they won’t. Dad, they would send back. Roman Polanski has a French citizenship.”
Why did I know that? I was full of random information sometimes.
“Does Russia?” Hope asked me, and I shook my head. They didn’t. But Dad wouldn’t go there, right? I mean, I’d been kidnapped by some Russians. It would probably be a very bad idea for him to head there.
“I hate him.” Bridget sighed. “I know that’s a terrible thing, and all of our years of various schools taught us to not use it like we’re allergic to it. To be more articulate. You’d be more articulate, Layla. But I don’t want to do the ‘when Dad behaves this way, then I feel’ thing right now. Well, maybe I do. When Dad flees the country after getting my beloved sister kidnapped by Russian mobsters, that makes me feel like I knew I already felt, which is that I hate him.”
Hope and I both stared at her. That was actually quite a lot said for Bridget. “He was going to marry me off to Kit to seal a deal with the mob.” It wasn’t funny, but I started to giggle. “And I was dumped five minutes before I got kidnapped. It’s all…ridiculous.”
Bridget rubbed my back. “You know, if you’re going to have a nervous breakdown, this is a great place to have it, Lulu.”
I almost startled at the nickname. No one had called me that for so long. Our nanny when I was six had given it to me, and I’d loved it because it was something a mother might do. A gentle nickname. It had lasted for a little while with my sisters.
Hearing it was…nice.
I asked the question that plagued me whenever I thought about it. “Why didn’t they kill me? They’ve killed Kit and his family. Why not me? What were their plans for me?”
The group who held me was part of a larger, for lack of a better word, conglomerate. I wasn’t dead because Michael, who was really a lot more badass than I’d ever given him credit for, had saved me and killed that group.
“Because what they wanted for you was ransom. Dad wasn’t a betrayer, just a problem. The Allards were considered betrayers,” Bridget supplied. “Michael explained it to me.”
I groaned. My father might now be persona non grata, but I hated how much I owed him. My wedding. Now this. “How much did Dad give to get me back? Frankly, I can’t believe he did. He tried to slap me on the street.”
“He didn’t.” Hope yawned. My sisters had been here the whole time with me, never leaving. Was it a week now? They couldn’t be comfortable sleeping on beds in my room.
Her words penetrated my scattered brain. “What?”
“Dad could barely afford this place. He lost all his money. The company is crumbling. He paid for this, probably because I badgered him about it and it was easier to shut me up. This is about the end of his income, I imagine.”
None of this made sense. “If Dad didn’t pay them, then why didn’t they kill me? Or you know…sell me off or something. And if ransom was paid, why wasn’t I let go?”
I’d seen enough television specials and read enough books to know what happened to the kidnapped victim. Was I on my way out the door when Michael showed up just in time?
“Because Zeke paid.” Bridget eyed me as she said that. “He paid what they asked for. Then they wanted more. He was going to pay that, too, but Michael didn’t think we’d ever get you back, so they stormed the house, so to speak.”
Zeke paid. Suddenly, my stomach hurt. “He wouldn’t do that. I’m nothing to him. He made that clear. Actually no.” Speaking aloud helped me clear up my thoughts on this, even as I said them. They were muddled, and I didn’t know exactly what I wasdoing. “He might feel guilty. I was taken outside his house. Guilt might make him pay. Yes. Fuck. Now I owe him. How much did they get from him for me?”
Hope took my hand in hers and squeezed. “Layla, it’s okay.”
“No, it’s not.” How could they think that? “I humiliated myself in front of him in a way that was somehow even worse than running from my wedding and making a spectacle of myself. How am I ever going to pay him back?”
Bridget shook her head. “You won’t. Lulu, I watched the social media for the last weeks. Saw you two together. That is not a man for whom you were nothing. He’s in love with you.”
She didn’t understand. I’d explained it, but maybe not well enough. “Bridget…”
“I know what he said, and Hope and I have been waiting for the right time to tell you this. We didn’t want to make things worse, and we didn’t know what he’d done, exactly. Until you finally explained in a way that made sense, today. I didn’t really understand it myself, what you were saying versus what was happening. Listen to me, the man is in love with you. I get what he did. He really fucked up. I don’t know his story, and he’d better make up for hurting you, but Ezekiel Scott is a man half out of his mind for worry for the woman he is in love with.”
My head spun. “How do you know that? Is he…texting you?”
She shook her head. “No, he’s not texting me.”
I didn’t have my phone, but Bridget held up hers. “Look at these pictures of the two of you together.”
She’d absolutely not answered my question, but I looked anyway. There we were in Paris. On his motorcycle. Eating together. Laughing together. Smiling. In one, he kissed me. Fed me ice cream. I had my head on his shoulder in another. Yes, I’d lived these moments. Loved them. And I did see what I’d seen then, that he was falling in love with me. But he didn’t feel thatway. Made it clear. And asshat that he might be, Dad had said he had a history like this.
“Bridget.” I looked up from the photos. Looking at them brought me a mixture of happiness and pain. “How do you know?”
