Total pages in book: 143
Estimated words: 132834 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 664(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132834 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 664(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
“What did you do?” Hope asked, her voice anguished. “You were only nineteen and alone in Mexico. Did they hurt you?”
Finn ignored her last question, but I saw the look in Griffen’s eyes. He’d worked with hostages and kidnap victims with Sinclair Security. He knew what happened when people were taken for ransom. He didn’t have to ask Finn if they’d hurt him because he knew. My stomach turned over.
Nineteen-year-old Finn had been arrogant, entitled, and cocky. A raging dickhead most of the time. I’d hated him. But I couldn’t stand the thought of that snotty boy locked in a dark room. Tied up. Waiting to die. My heart broke for him. No one should be that alone. That scared.
“I called Chef Guérard,” Finn said in answer to Hope’s question. “He bought me a plane ticket to France. He got me a job, helped me find a place to stay.”
“How did you get away?” Griffen asked quietly.
“I got lucky,” Finn said flatly. “They were going to shoot me, but they had an idea of how to get some money out of me. I don’t know what it was. I don’t want to know. They left me tied up and went off to figure out if there was any profit in keeping me alive. I think they were going to move me.”
He shifted, glancing at me, then away when he saw the look on my face. I couldn’t hide the ache in my heart.
He went on, “My Spanish sucked, so I didn’t understand most of what was going on. But they were pissed off, and they didn’t tie my hands as well as usual. Probably figured it wouldn’t matter since I’d be dead soon and there was nowhere to go. They got drunk, and I had time to get my hands loose and force the window open. Then I walked through the desert until I found the road and a ride back to the city.”
Griffen stared at him, gears turning behind his eyes. His phone chimed, but he ignored it. Finally he asked, “Why didn’t you say anything?”
My question exactly. Why hadn’t he said anything? Why hadn’t he told us?
Such a stupid question. What was he supposed to do, just pop it into the conversation? Hey, nice to see you again after all this time. By the way, I left home because I was kidnapped and my dad wouldn’t pay the ransom, and I had assumed that all of you were in on it, but I came back anyway.
A flash of pain hit me as another realization sank in. How could I not know this? I told him all about Oliver. In some ways, he knew more about me than my closest friends. And I knew nothing about him. And I’d just learned that half of what I thought I knew was a lie. He’d never been in the army. Where had he learned to cook? Someone had said he went to culinary school. Was that a lie too?
It wasn’t like Finn and I had engaged in hours of long, deep conversation since we’d both been back. We’d glared at each other more than anything. Argued way too often.
Even now, when we were on very personal terms in one sense, we still hadn’t talked much. About meals and the kitchens and Heartstone, yes, we talked plenty. But about ourselves, our lives . . . Not at all.
And I hadn’t noticed. I hadn’t asked.
It was stupid to feel so hurt. If I wanted to know, I could have asked. It wasn’t like Finn himself had lied to me. He just hadn’t told us—me—the truth. And I never bothered to ask. Shame flooded through me, so dark and deep my chest ached with it. I never asked. I could hear Prentice Sawyer as clearly as if I’d been in the room.
“I don’t give a fuck what you do with him. He’s worth nothing to me.”
He’d said that about his son. I thought of Nicky. I’d die for him in an instant. I’d do anything to protect him from harm, and Finn’s father had left him in the hands of his kidnappers? Men who planned to kill him? I didn’t have to ask if Prentice had known what would happen to Finn if he didn’t pay. Prentice had known. And he hadn’t cared.
I couldn’t imagine it. I grew up in this house, thought I knew what a bastard Prentice Sawyer was, and still, I couldn’t imagine it. I never knew my father’s love. He died when I was too young to remember him. But my mother had loved me enough for two parents, and I grew up knowing that in our brief time together, my father had adored me.
Prentice had left his child to die. Tears welled in my eyes, streaking down my face. I saw Hope wiping her cheek. Griffen’s eyes were dry, but dark with pain. Royal’s head hung down, hiding his expression. Finn stared out the window to the barren gardens outside, his face blank.