Page 64 of Captured
My lovely, sweet, and vulnerable Emily remained quiet after my proclamation as I drove through the compound to the outer reaches of my property. I glanced at her every so often and her expression never changed. I’d anticipated defiance or flat-out anger from what I’d said, but she was demure, almost as if she’d grown content with my plans for her future.
I knew better.
She was doing nothing more than biding her time, her eyes scanning the property and if I had to guess, I’d say she had a photographic memory. Well, she would soon learn that there was no escape. There were two ways off the island and I controlled both.
A boat, for which there was one way in and one way out.
A plane, for which I held the keys.
Even the plane I’d commissioned had extra security, armed with weapons. In my case, not only did I have countless enemies, families of those I’d been hired to kill, mafia organizations who abhorred the Saint name, and even corporate moguls and weapons experts who hated the fact our corporation held a majority interest in worldwide sales. What she didn’t know, and I had no plans of telling her, was that the idiots stupid enough to try to come on shore so far had been those pledging their lives to some of the most dangerous cartels in the world.
They truly believed they could simply boat near my island and swim onshore to learn secrets from the wealthy yet unidentified man who owned the island. So far, there’d only been one bombing attempt…
Of course my satellites and automatic weapons systems had detected the intruder miles away, tracking the pilot on radar until his approach was confirmed, my weapons locked and loaded. I couldn’t count how many mutilated bodies my soldiers had been required to drag further out to sea to allow the sharks to finish. The last thing I wanted was for the massive creatures to take up residence on the shores of my beautiful home.
That wouldn’t bode well for guests longing to bask in the shallow tides.
Not that I’d had a single guest up to this point. Even my own family hadn’t been told of my whereabouts. That had been on purpose.
My father’s last hunt before we’d cut off his limbs one at a time had been for the three of us to attempt to track down the other.
Only instead of being armed with paint guns and other innocuous fake weapons meant for a skilled game of subterfuge and cat and mouse, we’d been forced to carry knives and guns, spears and axes. It had been ridiculous, but he’d known that our indoctrination into becoming just like him would eventually take over, forcing us into protection and kill mode.
The only reason the game had been stopped was because of a horrific hurricane that had strengthened over the course of several hours.
However, once a predator, always a predator and I didn’t need Creed and Easton’s brand of crazy on my island. Especially now. Especially when I had my most precious possession in my home and in my life.
No one would dare touch her or they’d face the kind of carnage they would never recover from. Forget sharks. There would barely be enough of their bodies left to be considered chum. As I snickered, I sensed she’d tensed. I slowed the Jeep to a rolling stop, pointing over her shoulder to the foliage only feet away from the passenger door.
“That, my love, is a jungle.”
“So what?”
“So the entire six-acre area is booby-trapped.”
At least that got her attention. Emily slowly turned her head, staring at me as if I was the most reprehensible bastard she’d ever met. Little did she know what her father was capable of.
“Meaning what?” Her words were stilted.
“Meaning there are holes dug deep into the terrain. Some are filled with venomous snakes. Others have sharp spears pointed at the sky and yet others are merely empty waiting for food for the various wild animals living on the island.”
“If you’re trying to scare me, it’s not working.”
“I’m not trying to scare you, my little sparrow. I’m trying to enlighten you that you are safe here. No longer can your father or the people who attempted to hire me get to you. I will die to keep you safe.” And to find out what the fuck was going on.
Her face was suddenly pinched. Then she burst out laughing. “You are kidding me, right?”
The rush of my usual anger was fortunately short lived. “Meaning?”
“Do you find what you’re telling me endearing? Do you honestly think I’d going to forgive you, even fall in love with you because you have all kinds of ways for me to die just because you want to protect me? If that’s what you think, you really are out of your mind.”
Her boldness was amazing and delightful. But getting old. “I’m doing nothing more than sharing with you the reality of the situation in hopes that you’ll take comfort in being safer than you’ve ever been in your life.”
“Safe? I don’t feel safe with you, Talon, or whatever your real name is. I don’t even feel frightened of you any longer because I realize you’re completely insane. Whatever your father did to you and your brothers must have been horrific and I certainly hope the bastard is rotting in hell, but I have a news flash for you. I feel nothing inside. Dead. You are dead to me.”
She slowly turned her head away, returning to the quietness of before.
Sighing, I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel and headed toward my favorite spot on the island. Maybe a picnic by the ocean waters would help. As I drove through the twists and turns of the road I’d had built as it led down from the protected perch where I lived to the single spot on the island that allowed for a walk on the sandy shores, she kept her hands fisted in her lap.