Chapter 15
Killian
“D.” I got my brother’sattention as I held her loosely on my lap. “Run back to town and get dinner for us, will you? I will place an order for groceries tonight, and you can go pick them up in the morning before you head back to the city.”
“On it.” He pushed up off the couch and walked out the front door, leaving me alone with Zoey for the first time.
The back wall of the house that faced the lake was full of windows. At night, you could see nothing but the blackness beyond the speckling of lights from the other houses and docks along the lake.
“We’ll have to get the house cleaned up and aired out, but it will be comfortable once it’s done.”
“You’re not going to answer me, are you?” She tried to push her way off my lap, and I let her. She moved away to the other corner of the couch where Donovan had been sitting.
“I will tell you my name, but I will not tell you what’s going on yet. There’s too much involved and you are still in a lot of danger. The less you know right now, the better.”
She bit her lip. It was like cat and mouse with her. She swayed between feeling safe and feeling scared. I hated that. If I had time to do this another way, I could have, but I didn’t. She needed to get out fast and clean, and this was the cleanest way to see it done.
“My name is Killian. I did a lot of business with your uncle. He owes me a lot of money, but he has no money to pay it back. He’s broke, and he will lose his house because of it.”
“And you think taking me will help get you money that he doesn’t have?”
“No, Zoey. I took you as payment.”
#
Shock.
Betrayal.
Hurt.
Each emotion flittered across her face. And I hated watching it happen, but I had to. She needed to know that this was serious and not something she had any control over. The men that were really after her, that she had really been sold to, they wouldn’t care that she was in pain from a headache. They wouldn’t care to feed her or make sure she got a good night’s rest. Hell, they would likely do everything she feared I would do to her, though she couldn’t be further from the truth.
In time, she would see that by me taking her uncle’s offer or at least standing in the way of his selling her was saving her. I just had to give this all time to play out and protect her while the pieces fell into place.
“Have you been following me?” she whispered finally. “I’ve felt someone watching me, but I’ve never seen them. Was it you?”
“It was probably D. I’ll have to let him know that he’s slipping if you saw him.”
She shook her head. “I never saw him before the day you guys came into the restaurant. I just felt someone had been watching me for a while now. It was the sense of someone there. I thought I was going crazy.”
“Trust your instincts, Zoey. They will typically steer you in the right direction.”
