“We don’t need your psychobabble, Robert.” Treese spewed out the putdown. “Victoria messed up, and she should apologize to Dad and stop making a bigger mess out of everyone’s lives.”
Spring and Hank jumped to Victoria’s defense at the same time, leaning toward Treese as they started a shouting match.
Victoria’s stomach churned. This couldn’t be happening. They were turning against each other. Picking sides. At Dad’s birthday dinner.
Her family was self-destructing before her eyes.
And it was her fault.
She had to stop this. She would gladly apologize to her father.
But he wouldn’t be satisfied with that. He’d want her to reject Sydney, suddenly withdraw from her life when she most needed support and love.
But she had to do something. “I’ll get the cake.” She made the announcement in a loud voice as she rose from the chair.
Robert tossed her a glance but then entered the verbal fray, trying to calmly help the others deal with their conflict more peacefully. But they weren’t listening to him any more than Victoria.
She went to the kitchen anyway, guided by a blind, Pollyanna hope that cake and candles would somehow halt the disintegration of her family in the next room.
Her phone dinged from the pocket of her purse on the counter. A text message.
Desperation, like the captor’s overwhelming need for escape, drove her to go to her purse and pull out the phone.
A text from Sydney. Ironic timing. What did she?—
Victoria’s blood froze.
Lawrence kidnapped me. He says he’ll kill me unless you come. No cops or he’ll kill me. Please help. He’ll text you the address.
Lawrence Massey? Why would he kidnap Sydney?
Oh, no. Was it because Victoria and Cillian had confronted him? Had they caused this?
They must have. They’d pushed him into desperation so extreme that he felt the only way out was to kidnap Sydney. And to lure Victoria there to eliminate her, as well.
The horrible shouts pierced the wall, finding her in the kitchen. She couldn’t go in and tell them, tell her father she was going to help Sydney in direct defiance of his orders. Crossing him had started all of this.
And Torin was there. It would be like telling the police.
She might need to involve the police if it looked like this situation was as dire as it seemed. But she didn’t even have an address yet. She would start out and decide what to do once she received the text with the address.
Grabbing her purse, she paused, looking through the doorway as the angry barrage of accusations and insults from the other room pelted her like bullets aimed at her heart.
The pull to stay kept her feet rooted to the floor. To set things right, to restore peace to the family once again.
But the unbridled tempers flaring, shouting at their father, Treese yelling at the others—their father trying to regain control—the damage was too great to be undone.
She wouldn’t be able to fix this by letting another family die. She had to try to save Sydney and her baby.
She typed a reply. I’m coming. Tell me where to find you.
Slipping the phone into her purse, she hurried to the foyer and snatched her coat from the closet there.
The shouts were quieter in the foyer. She could almost imagine it had all been a nightmare.
She slipped her arms into the coat and went to the door as the angry voices caught her again.
No. The nightmare was very real.
