Tag: romance

He should have stayed dead.

Dead was easy.

Dead was safe.

Dead was lonely.

And that was exactly why Drake had come back for his wife. He couldn’t stand living without her. He couldn’t stand keeping his distance, he couldn’t stand not touching her, not kissing her, not making love to her. He couldn’t stand by and watch from a distance while she died a slow death from grief.

He’d heard that people could die of a broken heart he just hadn’t really believed it until he’d seen with his own eyes it happening to Rachel.

So he had come back for her only Ian Black and his men had been watching the house, and he’d led Rachel right back into the dangerous situation they had both barely just survived.

Drake had always known that going undercover was dangerous. He had known that he might lose his life, he just hadn’t really believed that that side of his life would touch Rachel. He’d thought that the darkness couldn’t touch the light, but it had. And Rachel had paid such a high price.

Now she was paying again.

He had no idea how he was going to get them both out of this alive. Ian had five other men with him, six against him and an injured Rachel, he didn’t like those odds.

These men had to die.

If they didn’t he and Rachel would never be safe. They could run but sooner or later Ian would track him down.

One of the men in Rachel’s bedroom was unzipping his pants. Drake would not allow that man to rape his wife. He couldn’t survive that again. Watching them do that to her that night had been hell. Being held down while those animals defiled his wife. That wasn’t happening again.

Pulling out his cell phone he dialled 911, then scanned the attic where he’d hidden out when those men broke in here. He felt like a coward hiding while those men got to Rachel, but Ian believing that Rachel knew where he was was the only thing keeping her alive right now.

Divide and conquer that was the only chance they had of surviving till daybreak.

Drake grabbed one of the weights from his old set, someone, maybe Rachel, must have packed it away up here. Carrying it to the far end of the attic he dropped it, metal clanged loudly, and when he hurried back to stand above Rachel’s room he could hear Ian issuing orders to his men to find out who made the noise.

This was it.

Both he and Rachel would either be tortured and killed, or by some miracle they would watch the sunrise side by side.

He had called her Snow White.

No one but Drake called her that.

But Drake was dead.

Rachel was so confused. The man in her bedroom called her by the name only her husband had used but he wasn’t her husband. The man who had been in her bathroom earlier had felt like Drake but he hadn’t looked like Drake.

If this man wasn’t Drake how did he know Drake’s nickname for her?

Had Drake called her that that night?

Rachel didn’t think so but it was hard to remember.

“Open you eyes, Snow White,” the man snarled. He was close enough that she could feel his breath on his cheek. His breath was hot, and it smelled bad, she remembered that from that night.

She was afraid to comply but she was more afraid not to. She already knew what this man was capable of. She inched her eyes open and saw that there were at least half a dozen men in her room.

She couldn’t breathe.

Last time she had been saved, snatched away from death at the last minute. But who would save her this time? The man-whoever he was-that had been in her bathroom earlier appeared to be long gone.

She was on her own.

Rachel wished she had a plan.

Anything would do.

“Where is he?” the man beside her bed asked.

Where was who? She had no idea what he was talking about.

He pulled out a knife and held it up so it glimmered in the light. “Where is he?” the man repeated.

“Wh-who?” she asked.

“Your husband.”

What a stupid question. This man knew where Drake was he was the one who had killed him. “H-he’s d-d-dead.”

“Still sticking with that story, huh?” the smile he shot her was beyond menacing. It was pure, unadulterated evil. “We’ll see how long that lasts.” The man plunged his knife into her shoulder, then gestured to one of his men.

It wasn’t until the man came towards her and unzipped his pants that she realised she had never put any clothes on after the shower. She was naked, and injured, and completely at these men’s mercy.

Rachel hoped whatever they were going to do they would hurry up and get it over with. At least she had death to look forward to. In death she could find Drake.

She slipped away to a quiet, peaceful place in her mind where what was happening couldn’t touch her.

Rachel couldn’t take her eyes off him.

Who was he?

He didn’t look familiar and yet she knew him. She knew she did.

He was saying something. Rachel could see his mouth moving but she couldn’t hear the words, she couldn’t hear anything.

Obviously frustrated, if the way his eyebrows were knit together were anything to go by, he grabbed her arm and began to drag her towards the door. He grabbed a towel on the way and wrapped it around her, then found her robe on the floor and thrust it to her.

She didn’t know why he was in such a hurry.

Then she heard voices.

Lots of voices.

She finally snapped out of it.

Someone other than this man was here in her home.

Her eyes flew to his and without him even needing to say anything she read in those deep blue depths the answers she needed.

The people who killed her husband and made her lose her daughter were here.

The man manoeuvred her into her bedroom and shoved her towards the bed. “Pretend you’re asleep, don’t tell them I’m here,” he hissed at her then disappeared.

In a daze she stumbled down onto the bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. If it was the men who had killed her husband here then she knew what was coming.

Pain.

Fear.

Probably death.

Rachel scrunched her eyes closed and wished that that was all it took to make this all go away. Why had she survived that day if she was only going to be tortured all over again and killed?

The door handle rattled, then it swung open. Heavy footsteps clomped towards the bed.

Then they stopped.

That was even more terrifying.

After a long moment of silence the covers were ripped out of her hands so roughly that they ripped her fingernails off.

“Long time no see, Snow White,” the voice of her nightmares sneered.

She had no idea who he was.

He wanted to sit her down and explain everything but they didn’t have time.

Someone had just broken into Rachel’s house. They must have been following him, or staking out her house knowing that he would eventually turn up here.

He should have stayed away.

Oh, well it was too late for that now.

How were they going to get out of this?

Rachel was still standing staring at him, water streaming down her naked body. She’d lost weight, and she looked like all she did was walk around in a haze. She wasn’t going to be any help.

Maybe he should hide, or sneak out, leave her here to deal with the men on her own, if they didn’t think she knew anything then they might leave her alone.

Who was he kidding?

They would torture her until she gave them something. They’d probably trash the house too, especially if they had been watching waiting for him to show up. If he tried to run there were probably men surrounding the house anyway.

He couldn’t do it anyway.

He couldn’t run and leave Rachel here to face the wrath of these sadistic men alone.

Being a dead man was a whole lot harder than it seemed.

“Magic Mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?”

The voice startled Rachel out of her reverie and her head whipped sideways to see a man standing in her bathroom.

A man.

In her bathroom.

That should shock her, terrify her, concern her in some way but it didn’t. She was too numb. If he had come here to kill her then he would be doing her a favour. Her husband had been murdered and she had miscarried their unborn daughter and nearly died.

Nearly.

If he was here to finish the job she would thank him and walk gladly into death’s dark clutches.

He didn’t move and neither did she.

Then his words sunk in.

Magic Mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?

That was what Drake always used to say to her because he thought she looked like Snow White.

Rachel gasped and her gaze darted to the man’s face. He looked familiar, he felt familiar, was he one of the men from the lake?

Six months ago she and her undercover cop husband had been awakened in the middle of the night by a gang of men in their bedroom. The men had tied them up, thrown them in a car, and driven them out to a secluded frozen lake where they had stripped them both naked and tortured them for hours.

Someone had saved her life that night.

Come back for her when she and her husband had been left for dead.

Was it this man?

Rachel turned off the water and stepped out of the shower, not bothering to grab a towel to cover her naked body. “Who are you?” she asked. She was sure she knew him she just couldn’t figure out how.

The man reached out and touched her cheek. His touch, she was sure she had felt it before, but his face while it was familiar she was sure she had never seen it before.

“Please, tell me who you are,” she implored. This man might be a friend of Drake’s, he could be the only link left she had to the man she loved.

Before he could answer she was startled by the crystalline sound of the back window shattering.

Someone else was in her house.

The men from the lake?

Had they followed this man here? Did they think he had saved her life once before and now they were going to kill them both?