Stone resisted the urge to pace. He’d been raised the same way. And he’d waited till marriage, then Marie had an affair and left him. Same as Dad.
“One night …” The light in her eyes dimmed faded. “After a big show where I’d been scouted and chosen by a top Paris label to be their new face and work exclusively with a French designer, they threw this huge, blow-out party. Everyone was there. Big models and Hollywood stars. It was … extreme. Leon Mueller was there?—I’d had a crush on him since his first movie. That night …” She tucked her hair behind her ear. “I … I thought I’d arrived. That I was enlightened, liberated, celebrated.” Her eyes pooled with tears. “He roofied my drink and that night, I lost more than my arrogance.” She gave him a thin, broken smile. “A week later, he emails me pictures of us … naked.”
Pain pinched his neck. “Sounds familiar.”
She chewed her lip again. “It’s their M.O.” Her face writhed as she tried to restrain the tears. “He threatened to go public, destroy not just me but my family?—my father had just been made senior pastor at their church, and my brother was just trying to survive his freshman prom.”
Stone refused to look away or feel sorry.
“Leon told me they’d delete the photos if I’d go out with a client. Just dinner, they said. So I went. Only he didn’t give me the pictures. Said I had to do one more favor.” She sniffled as she talked, her words thickened by the grief of what she’d been through. “Each time, there was one more and … more. Each time, unbeknownst to me, they were taking more pictures. Eventually, I caught on, knew that everything I did was being photographed or filmed. It was a way to control me and blackmail the men I met. I tried to stop, get out, but they’d beaten me. When that seemed to not have any effect, they started hurting others to force me.”
He buried his face in his hands. Wrestled with what had happened to her. But there still came that truth … “So, when we met at the Adagio … you were sent to?—”
“No.” She growled answer. “I was there to have lunch with a friend, not to … work.”
Unable to sit still any longer, Stone went to the window. Folded his arms and stared out at the mountains. If he believed her story, it meant they were both blackmailed. It forced the guilt off her shoulders and back onto his. He’d known better …
“I made a mistake when we met and forgot that they somehow always watch, looking for the next target. I thought?—wanted to believe I knew enough to hide you and how I felt from them. I don’t know how long they knew, but … they did.” She sounded frustrated. “Remember that time we showed up at the same event, the golf charity one?”
Though Stone looked at the mountain ridgeline in the distance, he recalled the green dress she’d worn. The way she’d had her hair partially braided and in an updo. He also recalled how she’d treated him. He cast her a look over his shoulder. “You were rude to me.” Which had surprised and annoyed him, because he’d liked her interest in him. And she’d looked amazing.
“Shortly before I spotted you, I also saw Finch??—one of Ladomer’s lackeys. That’s when I realized they’d known about you??—us?—all along.” She shuddered. “It terrified me. I was so afraid if I showed any interest in you, they’d go after you. I’d been on their chain long enough to know what they were capable of.”
Hands tucked under his arms so he didn’t ball his fists, he shifted back to the window. Didn’t want her to see his anger over the scumbags ruining lives and interpret that toward herself. That night had been when he’d figured out how much he’d liked her??—when he’d started entertaining dating. A risky prospect as governor. It’d put her under scrutiny. Make her a target.
“I told them no, Stone.” He heard a commotion and saw in the reflection that she was on her feet, hobbling toward him. “I told Leon and Ladomer that I refused to work you.”
He roughed a hand over his mouth. “Yet you did.” Though he didn’t turn, he caught the firelight that glowed over her face as she looked down.
“I realize to you, it’s that simple, but it was the most difficult decision I’ve ever made. And it wasn’t made lightly, but …” She shuddered a breath. “They’d threatened to go after my brother again. Not kill him?—but drag him into that life. The thought of him being sold to men who got their jollies off young boys …”
The thought nauseated Stone.
She fell quiet for several long seconds. “I had found one good thing, one thing that made me smile and willing to face each day, and they turned it against me. If I didn’t keep the appointments with clients, if I didn’t make them happy …”
A buzzing started at the back of his brain.
“I had figured out how to survive, but I wasn’t going to let them ruin my brother’s life, too.”
“But you let them ruin my life.”
She hobbled closer and caught his arm. “I tried … tried to protect you by varying where we went, what time, how I got there, but they still found out. I told them I wouldn’t hurt you, wouldn’t do that, and that’s when they showed me a live feed of Aston with one of the lackeys right behind him. They were there, right there, poised to grab him.”
Stomach churning, Stone rolled around her and grabbed the door handle. Stepped out. Felt the smack of cold air that did nothing to dispel the hot anger roiling through him. Rage drove him away from the lodge. Away from the fury of wanting to kill someone.
Chapter
Thirteen
Baltimore, Maryland
“Have you found her?”
Finch tensed. “Not yet.” He couldn’t let that be his only answer or they’d find his body floating in the Potomac. “We’re closing in. Traffic cams show them leaving the beltway, headed west.”
Ladomer glowered. “Get. Her. Back. And whoever took her? Make them pay in a long, excruciating way. Bleed him for every cent he’s cost me.”
“We’ve got the stills from the footage, and I’m working on his identity. But sir?” Finch knew the boss didn’t like to talk about it. “He’s targeting your chain.”
