Lila

"No," Lila breathed. "I… I don't want to do that."

​​

"I'm afraid you don't have a choice, dear. It won't hurt, I promise." His voice was so like Dane's, Lila kept catching her breath if he spoke when she wasn't looking at him.

She trembled as he swung two silky ribbons and a thick blindfold from one hand. A shiver rippled through her and she couldn't quite breathe as she rubbed her wrists, though they weren't sore, as much as cold. But she imagined she already felt the bonds he wanted to put on her, that he swore he wouldn't leave on.

She didn't trust a word he said.

He hadn't done anything to her. Yet. So far, he'd been a complete gentleman, but just knowing who was touching her, what he might do if she didn't play this right… she was finally coming to realize where she was, how much danger she was in.

All of Dane's words, all his fear over the past few months… her teeth began to chatter.

"There's no need to be so afraid, Lila, I keep telling you, I just want to get to know you."

"You'll forgive me if I find that hard to believe," she said faintly, without tone.

He chuckled, but there was an edge to it. He leaned down in front of her where she sat on the bed, and reached to stroke the side of her face with his free hand. Adrenalin shot through her and she pulled away from his touch. His lips thinned, but he stood in front of her, his hands in his pockets.

"What are you going to do with me?" she asked, keeping her voice as low and as calm as she could, but her head was spinning.

"Do you know, I haven't completely decided yet?" he said, like the question fascinated him, but she could see the glint in his eye. He swung the bonds again. He was playing with her. Her heart raced, along with her breath.

She shifted herself to get her feet off the bed and closer to the floor in case she needed to move quickly. Dane had warned her against trying to outwit or outfight his father, but she couldn't just sit there and let him stare at her like that. Like a cat watching a mouse.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Doug Daniels said, his face stayed calm, his lips turned up in a casual smile, but his eyes…

"I'm not doing anything," she said breathlessly.

"I'm sure, given your reaction to being close to me, that my son has told you a great deal about what I'm capable of, Lila."

She blinked, then nodded.

His lips pulled up on one side in a grin that was such a mirror image of Dane's lopsided smile that she adored, that it stole her breath.

"Then he'll have told you I do my homework."

Lila nodded again.

"So, make no mistake, Lila, I know about what training you have—how skilled you are, and how skilled you aren't. I hope my son didn't downplay my own…abilities. And I hope you won't make a very stupid decision to try to, perhaps, throw me, like you did to Chris?"

Lila's eyes went wide, but of course he'd know about things like that if he had Trish on his payroll.

"Even if you were successful—which you wouldn't be—you'd never make it out of this building alive. Hell, I wouldn't bet on you making it down the hallway, frankly. I am not a stupid man, Delilah Farris. If you think my son is sharp, you'd do well to think twice about trying to outwit me, I assure you."

She swallowed hard, but didn't answer. He took a step closer. "Now, turn around and put your hands behind your back. This will only take a minute, and then I'll remove the bonds."

She stared at him.

"I promise," he said quietly.

*****

Dane

For once, Dane didn't push Chris. He had a clue that this was going to be news of the worst kind, and he was already so tense, he was concerned about how it might hit him, how it would affect his ability to see Lila in the few hours he had until he started working with the Police.

So, he took a deep breath and followed his brother until they got inside his office, and he turned to face him, ignorant of the men surrounding them.

"Who's dead?"

"No one. Yet. That we know of," Chris said, eyeing Tank who closed the door behind Dane.

Which is when he realized the men had surrounded him and he looked around, eyes narrowed. "What's going on?"

"Dane, I need you to tell me where Lila was."

Dane's jaw tensed. "We have been through this," he snapped. "You are not using this as an excuse to push your arguments. I'm not telling you where she is!" He glared at the other men too, though they looked far more off-balance. Something about the way Chris spoke jangled an alarm in his head, but he didn't have enough space to figure it out. "What's going on—you tell me right now, Chris, or I swear—"

"We need to know where she was—where you left her—because your dad found her and we need to figure out what kind of risk that poses."

Dane's head pulled back. "No, he didn't, I just saw her a few hours ago—" Something in his stomach began to church as Chris took another hard look at Tank, then turned to him, his face now obviously not as hard as Dane had thought, but… sad? "What the fuck are you talking about Chris?" he spat, stepping forward. Chris leaned back, but didn't give ground. And Dane felt the others move closer. His heart sped up.

"He found her, Dane. I don't know when—obviously after you saw her. But he sent this forty minutes ago." Chris handed Dane his phone.

Dane blinked. And blinked. His breath sucked in, but no oxygen came with it.

On the phone was a full-color photo of a room with a gray carpeted floor, a small bed with a nightstand in front of it and a window behind… it was an almost-exact match of his room as a child... except Lila lay on the bed with her arms pulled hard behind her, her eyes blindfolded and her mouth gagged.

There was a fierce buzzing in Dane's head.

It was a trick. It had to be a trick. He had to get to the burner phone and make sure she'd answered. He had to get to the apartment and make sure she was there. This was a trick. It was…

His heart pounded so hard he thought it might break, and the rush of it in his ears covered all other sounds. Chris's lips were moving, but Dane couldn't hear a word he said.

He kept staring at the photo, waiting to find the detail that showed him it was faked, or that they'd found a lookalike…

"…listen to me, Dane. He has her. He's sent details. He emailed this to the main email at the front desk. We have to find out where he got her from to figure out how he did it, so we can find her—can you hear me, Dane?"

Lila.

His father had his hands on Lila.

His father, the murderer of his sister, had his vicious, lethal hands on his wife.

Dane exploded.

.

END OF VOLUME 1 - Important Author Note below, please read!