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  He told everyone he had blacked out, that he didn't remember pushing Laurel to safety. He had lied. He swore he saw his mother smile and mouth to him she loved him. She then nodded to Laurel as if giving him his answer as to which one he should help. He got to her just in time. Then his world truly went black.

  He had stopped in the exact spot, his tears masked by the rain. He fell to his knees and finally mourned the decision he had made. It would be the last time he ever visited this spot. After tonight, he would leave this place and never come back. He could hear the whispers now. That Petrova kid lost it, when that explosion rocked the site of the tragedy that had torn his ma away, he couldn't take it anymore. Left everything behind and fled. At least no one could tie him to what had happened here tonight.

  There were no tears left to shed. He wiped his face with his wet arm and stood up. Over the rain, he heard a throat clear. Slowly he turned and his best friend stood behind him.

  "Where the hell have you been? I told you I needed help. Your fucking truck was here when I pulled up but there was no sight of you." Angry replaced the sadness that had engulfed him only seconds ago.

  A laugh that he had only heard from one other person before, was replicated in front of him. "I was here. I was here long before you showed up." Dale stood motionless.

  "Why the fuck would you be here?" Rory was confused.

  "I had to stay somewhere after I called the cops and told them about your stash of drugs at the bar." Dale had no emotion as he told Rory he had set him up.

  "What the fuck are you talking about? I helped you. I helped you hide the shit before Yuri caught you, and this is how you repay me." Rory stepped towards him until a silver glint caught his eye.

  "You really think I would steal from our father? How stupid could you fucking be?" Rory didn't miss the words his had just spoken. Our father. "I can see you are having a hard time processing this, little brother. I said our father. We knew it was a risk asking you to take care of this place, but we had to know you were really part of the family. Your bitch of a mother took you away when you were a baby. She thought she could hide from us, but dad found her."

  Rory couldn't believe what he was hearing. There was no way he was related to these men. There was no way he had hung out with Dale all of these years and not known. Pieces began to put themselves into place. Dale showed up right after the carnival went down. He was a mystery. No family, but instantly latched onto Rory and what was left of his.

  "I put the drugs in the bar after giving you that half assed sob story. You always were such a pussy. Never knew when to man up and realize when you were being played. So, I set it up. Had you done the job like you were told, when you were told, none of this would be happening. That sniveling little bitch you have drooled over for as long as I can remember wouldn't be tied up with dad. I do have to say, though, she has the sweetest little cunt I have ever tasted." That was the last thing Dale said before Rory lunged

  He went for the knife he had spotted in Dale's hand. Dale was quicker though, and moved out of the way last minute, sending Rory face down in the mud.

  "Come on, little мальчик, you can do better than that." The laugh that used to solely belong to Yuri, rang out again. Rory lunged a second time, and caught Dale off guard. They wrestled in the mud, each landing hit after hit. The knife had flung from Dale's hand when Rory first attacked. There was no way he could find it and keep fending off Dale. He started to get the upper hand, when a scream echoed behind him and everything went black.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Laurel

  Her fucking head hurt and screaming was the only thing her body would allow her to do. She had never been drugged, but with the way she felt, she knew that there was no way she hadn’t been. Her head was pounding, she was on her knees, she was weak… and her hands were behind her back and tied to a metal fucking pole. He memories were spotty at best. She was sitting on the bed of the B&B talking to Dale. She could still taste the bacon and orange juice…

  “The fucking orange juice.” It didn’t take her long to realize what a mistake she had made by trusting someone she had just screwed over. The pounding behind her eyes was a constant reminder of the life she was missing out on. She chuckled as how everything turned out for her.

  “What are you laughing at?” a deep voice with a heavy accent boomed through the room. May not have actually boomed, but it was loud as fuck with her head ready to explode.

  “Can you keep it down? I am right here.” Having tested the bindings on her arms, she knew there was no way she was going to escape. If she could make him reconsider the pain induced noise, maybe she could think this through rationally.

  “Who are you to tell me what to do?” The chair screeched as it slid against the concrete floor while he stood up. “You are a no body to me. Collateral damage at the most.” He moved to kneel in front of her.

  She opened one eye, trying to control her vision, “I have no idea why I am here, other than pissing off a guy that obviously doesn’t want me… you know what? Make that two guys.”

  She laughed again against the better judgement of her throbbing headache.

  He grinned as he looked at her, “If you continue this way, you might just piss me off enough to break a promise I made to keep you safe. I don’t break a promise, but you are inching very close to the line that should go un crossed.” He grabbed her chin and shook her head.

  Laurel winced in pain where he grabbed her, “Ouch.” She tried to shake him off but he was stronger than her and had anticipated her move.

  “Don’t even think about it, princess. I wouldn’t want you to be the next funeral featured in the tabloids,” he said as he stared in to her eyes, “I know exactly who you are, Miss Blackwell.”

  There was nowhere to go and only one exit to this room. She was alone with a lunatic that not only knew her name, but he looked an awful lot like Rory… and Dale. She was losing her mind. There had to be something else in her system. Everywhere she looked she saw Rory. She needed to focus on something other than the pain. Screaming was only making it worse and she was sure she didn’t want to irritate this other guy in the meantime of coming to her senses or waking up from this horrible dream.

  Maybe that was all that this was; a really fucked up dream. She started taking deep breaths. She closed her eyes, ruling out sight and trying to focus on her sense of touch. Both, she realized, was out of the question. So she listened. Her hands wrapped around the cold pipe as she listened through the melodic drumming in her head.

  Rain; it was still raining. That placed her only hours outside of when she passed out. Footsteps; she was sure they were coming from the accent toting asshole that was keeping her here. She couldn’t hear anything past the rain. This fucking storm was not only preventing a massacre, but ensuring her captivity as well. No one would look for her in this storm, and the only people that know she was here was Rory, Dale, and Miss Terri.

  That bitch wouldn’t help her; she was obviously on Dale’s side. She needed to figure out where she was if she was going to survive. The rain hit the roof, trickling down a pipe to her right. She took a deep breath; the smell of rust and oil was no question the strongest scent in the room.

  She was being held in an old building that was more than rotting away.

  “Wake up, woman,” the accent startled her as his foot connected with her thigh.

  Laurel collapsed on to her side as he continued to kick her until she opened her eyes.

  Her screams echoed throughout the concrete floor and metal walls. She wanted to fight back, but it was useless.

  “What do you want from me?” It was her turn to yell and scream. He wanted to kick and she wanted to scream, “Untie me you son of a bitch and then let’s see what you are made of.”

  At least he stopped kicking and moved back to his chair.

  Beep. Beep. Beep.

  She knew that sound. He was receiving a message and she was thankful for the separation from him. Glancing to him, he w
ore a cocky grin, one that couldn’t be faked. Whatever he was just told, made him happy enough to express it.

  “Girl, you are going to be very happy to see the gifts I have for you,” he said as he placed the phone next to a revolver. She hadn’t realized there was a gun in the room, not that it was going to change anything. She was starting to concede to not making it out of this room in one piece.

  She had no idea what was going on, but it wasn’t going to be good. The concrete floor was cool against her cheek as she thought through the possibilities. As her imagination took her through the third scenario, the door slammed open. The storm was not letting up anytime soon as she tried to shield herself from the blowing rain making its way in to the room.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” She knew that voice and it pissed her the fuck off, “Look at that, she’s awake.”

  “Fuck you, Dale,” she had a slew of other things she had planned to say, but his sarcastic greeting didn’t deserve more that the three words that left her mouth.

  He ran his hand through his drenched hair, wringing it out as he moved from the open door to her place on the floor. She wanted to fight, but she was fully aware that there was no possible way she was going to survive if she did in this position.

  “Hey, beautiful. I brought you a little gift,” he said as he reached for her hair, peeling it from her forehead. She grunted, turning away from him and his touch. She was disgusted with herself for allowing him to get as close to her as she already had. He drugged her and did, god knows what, with her once she was out. The tears threatened to spill; not from fear, but from the horror of the situation she was stuck in. She gave herself to Rory.

  “You may not like me right now, but you did a few hours ago after Rory fucked you and left you like the garbage you are.”

  He stood in front of her and looked to Yuri, “Where do you want him?”

  The broken English was hard enough to understand; she didn’t need half of the conversation in Russian. For everything Dale said in English, Yuri answered in Russian. She wanted to know what the other half of the conversation was and regretted not taking the language course when she filmed a movie on Moscow a few years back.

  Her head only hurt more as she tried to figure it out. There was one word that she knew immediately, мальчик. She looked to Dale, then Yuri. Back and forth, she knew exactly what that word meant; son.

  The same dark hair, eyes and strong jawline. She tried to convince herself she was wrong. There was more to this coincidence than she was aware of.

  “What are you looking at?” she didn’t notice Dale staring at her as she took in his stature to compare it to Yuri.

  Laurel shook her head and closed her eyes, “Does Rory know?”

  His demeanor changed as he took a seat at the table, “He does now.”

  There wasn’t enough time for her to continue her thought when Yuri interrupted, “Where is that boy?”

  Dale wiped the rain from his forehead that had fallen from his hair, “I should do something about that. The good news is, he did what we had asked.” He stood from his chair and made his way to the open door. He didn’t even have to leave the room to reach out and drag Rory’s limp and lifeless body from the mud just outside the door. She wanted to run to him, hold him, comfort him, but Yuri and Dale made sure she couldn’t.

  Breaths were shallow as she watched Dale drag Rory across the room dropping his body next to Laurel.

  “Thought you might want to say goodbye to your boyfriend. Oh, wait… He broke up with you after convincing you there was a forever.”

  Laurel fumed as Dale continued to talk. She heard every other word as he tried to discredit their relationship. As much as she tried to control her emotions, she had lost the fight against sorrow. He let her go. He pushed her away from him. He threw her out of his bed.

  Laurel decided then that Rory hasn’t heard everything she had to say to him and she was going to keep them both alive long enough for him to hear it.

  She studied Rory’s face. There was a large bump surfacing on his head; blood was dripping from a wound that she hasn’t yet seen. Although he didn’t choose her the same way she had chosen him, she wanted to see the best in him. She didn’t want him to suffer. He chose her twenty years ago and she still wanted him to be happy.

  There was no forever. He had made his choice and she was going to let him live without her. She had to stop Dale from doing whatever it was he had planned.

  “Dale, there is nothing left.”

  He stopped fiddling with his phone and turned back to her, “What the fuck does that mean?”

  She was defeated, but the fight within her had to be stronger than she was. It was going to be a simple game of mind fuckery.

  “I don’t think you understand. He used me for nothing other than a one night stand,” she sighed through the memory of the night they spent together. His hands on her body, his eyes begging her to never leave, his words caressing the wounds of an empty lifetime. She knew that shit wasn’t a fucking lie. Before she left him for Dale, he promised her forever without saying a word.

  He lied to her. He never wanted her to leave and she was too afraid of losing him to hear what he was really saying. Rory never would have discarded her like the piece of trash she felt like when he said that she should go. That phone call he had taken from the hallway meant something. It changed everything. Yuri? The smug asshole sitting at the table watching with speculative eyes; he wasn’t hiding anything. He not only knew Rory, but he was related to him.

  “Wow. I am surprised that I had never seen it before,” Laurel looked between Dale and Yuri as she tried to give Rory more time to wake up. If Dale could keep his hands off of Rory, he might save himself. If he really hated her, she owed him at least his life the same way he saved hers all of those years ago.

  Yuri and Dale had my attention now. “When did he find out?”

  “You have no idea what your boy has been up to or what he knows,” Dale whispered so close that she could feel his breath against her cheek. Laurel was laughing uncontrollably as he tried to intimidate her.

  “You see, there is a fine line between feeling like there is a chance and realizing there is nothing left to wish for. I left him here and I never came back. There wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t want to come back to see him, hear his voice, or make sure he got out of this town. I left because my mother ran from the death of my father, but my life was never complete because I had no idea whether or not he was happy. I loved him more than I have ever loved anyone else including my family. Now, I see it. He was abandoned by me and yet he had family all along. A brother and a… father.”

  Dale seethed through clenched teeth as he balled his fists preparing to fight. She was willing to die for Rory. He deserved at least that from her and her inability to return sooner.

  With the attention of both set of eyes in the room on her, she knew she had finally struck a nerve.

  “Kill me. If you want to hurt hum, truly hurt him, do it. Kill me.”

  She looked over to where Rory laid as he watched her. She stared in to the deep depths of his souls as he said everything she needed to know. He mouthed the words she had waited so long to hear, I love you.

  She felt Dale’s hands wrap around her neck. The darkness was overcoming her as she fought for strangled air. Her eyes closed and her final tears fell from her eyes as she accepts her fate, and surrenders her life to Rory.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Rory

  He had laid there gathering his strength but he couldn’t wait any longer. He jumped up and felt the room spinning, but he couldn’t wait for it to stop. He rushed forward and tackled Yuri to the ground. They had been so focused on choking the life out of the one person he loved, they never saw him coming. He landed on top of Yuri and prayed the room would right itself. Before it could, a sharp pain went through the back of his head and things went dark.

  “Move.”

  “Tie- “

  “No, plea
se stop.”

  “Ow, Cyka!”

  Voices faded in and out as he attempted to focus. He kept his head lowered and tried to move his wrist, they were bound, but not as tight as he imagined they were meant to be. He could hear Yuri, his father, yelling in half Russian, half English. The sound of Laurel’s sobs were what grabbed his attention over everything else. He lifted his head and saw her tied to a chair beside him. Yuri and Dale were arguing in the corner. He twisted and turned his wrist trying to loosen the ties that bound his wrists.

  “Laurel, listen,” he whispered, trying not to alert Dale or Yuri to the fact he was awake.

  “Oh Rory, I am so sorry,” she sobbed, “I didn’t know who they were, I promise.”

  “I know. Trust me, no one could have guessed any of this, but right now we have to get out of here.” He paused and she nodded that she understood him. “There is a knife in my boot, but I need to get loose. Can you get your wrist loose?” She sniffled and shook her head no. This set him back, but he was good in situations like this. He continued to work his wrists. “Laurel, I’m going to need you to distract them. Can you do that?” She nodded her response and he thought he saw her mouth the word sorry.

  Before either of them could set their plan into motion, there was a crash from outside.

  “Dale, make yourself useful and go look,” Yuri barked. Dale dutifully went and did the bidding of his father. Their father.

  Rory struggled to decide if he was going to stay silent or let the fact he was awake be known. “Yuri, please. Let me go. You have both of your sons back. I won’t say anything, I swear. I’ll leave, get on a plan and go back to my life. I will never come back.” Laurel was holding up her end, so he kept trying to get out of the restraints.