Chapter 24: Hidden Heir: Chapter 24

The look of pain on Leon’s face when I confessed what the Irish tried to make me do, felt like part of a really bad joke. How could he feel any kind of horror at that when he and his family are responsible for sending god knows how many people into the same situation?

My heart is a warzone. On the one side, I think I love him. The way he treats me and cares for me is beyond anything I’ve experienced before. But on the other is the truth of his business and the cold cruelty he helps inflict on others. They battle each other, creating a constant ache in my chest while I pound my fists on the door and yell for my freedom.

He doesn’t grant it, and after prolonged silence on the other side I can only assume he’s left me here.

That fucker.

Little does he know that locking me up will not have any real effect. Selina gave me keys to the rooms not too long ago after I grew worried about Tiffany accidentally locking herself in somewhere.

Selina. Does she know what Leon does?

Of course she does. Everyone here must know. I was the only one in the dark.

I have to get out of here. I can’t have my daughter near dangerous people like this. All it takes is one bad day, one argument, and it could be us in one of those containers.

Locating the keys is a challenge given the mess of the room. I don’t even care about packing right now. I just have to get out of here.

I find the keys under the bed. They must have fallen out of my purse when it slid off the bed. Through tears, I fumble through them in search of the one for the bedrooms. After a few seconds, I locate it, and with trembling fingers, I thrust the key into the lock but it refuses to go in all the way. With a grunt of frustration, I pull the key out then thrust it back in but again, I’m met with resistance.

“What the fuck,” I hiss, retrieving the key and examining it. Did Selina lie to me or is there something stuck in the lock? Perhaps I have the wrong key.

Dropping to my knees I peer into the lock. I’m met with shadow and it quickly becomes apparent that Leon left the key in the other side of the door. Cursing to myself, I climb to my feet and frantically scan for something I can use to dislodge the other key. I use one of the wire hangers, wrestling and bending it out of shape. I feed it into the keyhole. After several moments of frustrating precision, there’s finally a satisfying thump on the other side of the door.

The key is gone.

I scramble back onto my feet and thrust my own key into the lock. It glides in smoothly. The lock turns, and I wrench open the door, half expecting to see Leon still standing there, but the hallway is empty. Not a soul to be seen, not even Rik.

There’s no time to waste. Leaving Tiffany alone in this house for another second terrifies me, and I can barely keep track of my thoughts while running down the hallway to her room. Stumbling inside, Ant lurches up from where he was dozing on the couch. I look over at her bed and Tiffany greets me with a wide smile.

“Brooke?” Ant yawns and rubs his eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“Get up,” I hiss. “Get the fuck up.”

“Hey!” He leans forward. “What’s going on?”

“Where’s Selina?” I hurry toward Tiffany, forcing a smile through my tears. “Hi baby.”

“She uh…” Ant rubs at his face. “She had to check on something for that old man, I think.”

“Kreik?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, fine. Come on, we need to go.” As I scoop Tiffany into my arms she stares at me, then her lower lip very slowly starts to tremble.

“Go where?” Ant asks, finally standing.

I press my lips to Tiffany’s forehead, then cuddle her close as I look at my brother. “Anywhere but here. It’s not safe, do you understand? We’re not safe here after all and we need to go.”

“Oh thank god,” Ant mutters, sounding relieved. “This place is fucked up.”

I don’t notice the strange, calculating look in his eye as he moves past me because I’m distracted by Tiff. She’s two seconds away from crying because I’m crying, and I need to make sure she stays quiet as we leave.

“Hey, sweetie, hey.”

“Mommy, what’s wrong?” she asks.

It breaks my heart to see her upset. How much damage am I doing to her by constantly crying and rushing her from place to place? I was supposed to be a better mom than this. Keeping her safe is all I want to do.

“Listen. Mommy’s a little sad because she lost a game, but I think you can help me win the next one, okay?”

“Game? What game?” Ant snorts as Tiffany nods and perks up slightly.

I glare at Ant to silence him, then smile back at Tiffany. “We’re playing a huge game of hide and seek.”

“Oh!” Tiffany beams suddenly. “I love hide and seek!”

“I know you do. We’re a team so I need you to be really quiet while we look for a place to hide, okay? We’re going to hide from everyone else and then Leon will come and find us.”

“Okay!”

“But remember, everyone else is on Leon’s team, and we don’t want them to find us so we have to be extra super sneaky, got it?”

“Got it, Mommy,” Tiffany whispers. “Super-duper sneaky.”

“That’s right. Okay, come on sweetie.” Scooping her back into my arms, I turn to Ant, his eyes wide. “What?”

“Shit, you’re serious,” he says. “What the hell happened?”

“You gotta stop swearing around my kid,” I mutter though I’m just as guilty. I lead the way out of the room.

“You do it,” Ant remarks like some petulant child.

“Whatever. Look, all you need to know is that we have to leave,” I say, panting as we rush down the hallway toward the stairs leading to the kitchen. “I’ll explain later.”

“Is it Leon?” He presses. “Is he really an asshole after all?”

At the bottom of the stairs, I turn and glare at him. “Just keep moving, alright?”

Ant finally falls silent and together, with Tiffany determined to win the game, we hurry through the kitchen and out onto the patio.

“We’re hiding outside?” Tiffany asks, clinging to my shoulders. “But it’s dark.”

“I know, baby. But this is a really important game and I really want to win, okay?” I say breathlessly. “When we win, we get to eat cake and ice cream, and those little jellies you love so much.”

“Ooh!” Tiffany yells, then quickly hushes herself. “You’re right, we have to hide Mommy. Come on, run faster!”

I run as fast as I can, jostling her in my arms as we sprint together across the garden. I try to keep it exciting for Tiffany but it soon becomes a terrifying journey as we dodge patrols walking around the garden. We creep over gravel paths and slip between trees until we reach the stone wall at the back of the garden.

“I can’t climb that fucking thing,” Ant gasps, panting as he looks up at it.

“We don’t have a choice,” I snap, thrusting Tiff into his arms. “Just trust me, okay?”

With my hands empty, I’m free to climb the trellis lining the wall. Using a protruding tree branch for leverage, I hoist myself over the top and stare down the other side. It’s a long way down, but it’s my only chance.

“Ant, get Tiffany started on the trellis.” As he lifts her onto it, I reach down for her and meet her eyes. They slowly begin to fill with tears. The magic of the game is wearing off.

“Mommy,” she whimpers uncertainly as Ant begins to climb the trellis.

“It’s okay, I’m right here. It’s just like being in the park with the jungle gym. Come on, we’re going to win and it will be amazing!” I cheer her on. As soon as she’s within arm’s reach, I haul her up against my body and cradle her close, leaving Ant to work out the next part for himself. I kiss Tiffany’s damp cheeks and pet her hair, soothing her until Ant is up on the wall beside me.

“You first,” I say. “And if you don’t catch her, I will kill you.”

Ant rolls his eyes then hops down. My heart is racing from adrenaline but it begins to pound like a fist at the prospect of lowering Tiffany down to Ant.

What a time to realize that I don’t trust him.

But I have no choice. He holds his arms open expectantly and I kiss Tiffany hard on the forehead. “Okay, you have to climb down now and jump into Uncle Ant’s arms, okay?”

“No, Mommy. I don’t want to.”

“It’s just like jumping off of Hannah’s swing, remember? With the sand pit at the bottom?”

She looks at me, clearly unwilling, but there’s no time to waste. I begin to lower her down. She claws at my hand and begins to cry. Letting her go consumes me in cold terror for the second she’s falling through the air. When she lands in Ant’s outstretched arms, my heart nearly escapes from my mouth.

“Fuck,” I hiss sharply, sniffling as I climb down the wall and drop down onto the other side. “Ant, you need to find us a car.”

“How the hell am I supposed to do that?”

“I don’t know,” I snap, snatching my daughter out of his arms. “Probably the same way you found a car when you drove all your shit to my apartment!”

Ant rolls his eyes and sighs as if I’ve just asked him to cut off his own limb. He then hurries away and melts into the darkness of the street. Tiff begins to wail and I know there’s nothing I can do to calm her down. She knows the game wasn’t real, and it’s pure luck that she believed me the entire time. I cradle her close, rocking back and forth while trying to soothe her with humming and kisses. She cries quietly against my neck.

It seems like Ant has been gone for a ridiculously long time. Minutes tick by at a snail’s pace, my heart pounding so hard that my vision blurs from the rampant blood flow. Just as panic begins to take over, a set of headlights flash, and Ant pulls up beside me in a stolen car.

“Good enough?”

“Hold her,” I say, thrusting Tiff into Ant’s arms as he drops onto the chair in my living room.

“But I’m tired,” he whines.

“I don’t care!” I snap. “Hold her while I pack some things!”

“Alright,” he mutters, cuddling Tiffany to his chest. She’s much more docile as the drive back to my apartment lulled her to sleep, and I’m desperate to keep her that way while I pack.

“Don’t fuck this up, Ant.”

Ant rolls his eyes and mutters something I can’t quite hear under his breath but I don’t have time to care. What I didn’t grab when I packed to go to Leon’s place is now what I have to shove into a plastic bag. There’s not much but it will have to do until I get as far away from here as possible. Away from Leon, away from the Irish, hell, maybe even away from Ant.

Just Tiffany and me, no one else.

I snatch up one of my old phones from my room. Since Leon admitted to cloning mine, I won’t need it anymore. With two bags in hand, I head back into the living room.

“Alright, let’s get the fuck out of…” I trail off, a sickening wave of despair washing over me as I lock eyes with Paul Conti, the Irish mafia asshole that attacked me in my shop. My blood runs cold and defeated tears well in my eyes.

Ant and Tiffany are nowhere to be seen.

“Brooke.” Paul smiles coldly. “About time you came back.”

“What are you doing here?” I ask hoarsely. My mind struggles to work out how he even knew where I was, never mind where Ant and Tiffany have vanished to.

“Isn’t it obvious?” He claps his hands and rubs them together. “We have some unfinished business. And by unfinished, you’ll understand when I tell you that the cost has changed. In fact, it’s increased so much that no amount of fucking that wet snatch between your legs can pay it off. Do you understand?”

The bags slip from my fingers as Paul launches himself at me. I’m not fast enough, and he grabs me by the throat before shoving me up against the wall. As he punches the brick near my head with his other hand, I hear bones break but it doesn’t seem to faze him. I scream, drawing myself as far away from him as I can while clutching at his arm.

“You made a fucking fool of me, running off to the Russians like that!” Paul snarls, tightening his grip until I can’t even gasp. “I’m going to enjoy making you suffer for it.”

Suddenly, a loud crash sounds, and Paul drags me from the wall. I cry out, twisting and trying to escape his hold, but the ice-cold press of a gun to my temple halts my struggles immediately. The door to my apartment crashes open and in runs Leon.

“Brooke! You—what the fuck?” He skids to a halt, the worry on his face solidifying into cold hate. “Who the fuck are you?”

“Leonity,” Paul snarls, pinning me to his chest with his arm around my neck and the gun pressed to my skull. “I wondered how long it would take you to show up here.”

“You have five seconds to let go of her if you want a quick death,” Leon snarls, drawing himself up to his full height. “Or I will make you suffer for the rest of a painfully prolonged existence.”

“Oh, I think you misunderstand what’s happening here,” Paul chuckles humorlessly. “You see, I was expecting you.”

Leon’s brow lifts slightly as he locks his eyes on me and something desperate passes between us.

The last thing I see before Paul strikes me on the back of the head is Leon being tackled to the ground by three men who charge in from the hallway.