Bound by Revenge (Guardian Series) (22 page)

“He left school with some girl named Deanna. I didn’t know her but she said she knew Tom from a party they went to last year.”

“Did she say where they were going?” Sam asked, forming each word carefully with her lips once she saw Trevor’s stare lingered on her mouth.

“No. He just told me to go home without him. That she’d get him home.”

It wasn’t a lot of information but it was more than they had when they started. Trevor had no idea what he let Tom walk away with. There was no way he could.

Sam and Abby stood up and walked towards the door, there was nothing else they could get out of the boy.

“Don’t go.” Trevor practically begged Sam to stay.

“Bye.” Sam patted him on the head and treated him like the child she really saw in him.

Before Abby pulled away from the curb, Sam peeked at the house. Trevor still hadn’t moved from the position he took when the girls walked out. He was standing right inside the screen door. His nose lightly touched the door and his palms pressed firmly against the glass as he watched them leave. 

Chapter
Fifteen

“How could you do this to me?” Tom asked, not even attempting to hide the spite in his voice.

“Don’t you dare judge me. You have no right.” Deanna was tired of being blamed for things that weren’t her fault. “None of this would have happened if your family didn’t insist on protecting murderers.”

“Are you insane? Because that might help explain a little bit. My family has nothing to do with murderers.” Deanna could tell that Tom believed what he said. Not that it helped. This was a pretty powerful means to an end. No good father would leave his child in the hands of his enemies. So they were guaranteed to get a shot at the guardians when they came to collect their own.

“For now you’re safe anyway. We just need to wait for the guardians to come get you.”

“Little sister, you’re being too kind to our captive again.” Deanna jumped at the sound of Aron’s voice.

“Go into the house. Marius wants to talk to you about tonight. I’ll watch Tom, don’t worry.” Aron rubbed the palms of his hands together and eyed Tom with tightly bound excitement.

Deanna’s face contorted in shock and horror as she realized she lost control of the situation. If she was in the main house, she wouldn’t be able to protect Tom from her brother.

As she hesitated, Aron’s body tensed for a fight. Unwilling to let Deanna get hurt, despite her part in this terrible ordeal, Tom interrupted.

“Just go. I’ll be fine. They won’t hurt me if they expect to get something from my family. I can handle myself.” Deanna respected his bravery, foolish as is was, given he was sitting tied up in the home of his enemy.

But knowing she didn’t really have a choice, she headed for the door and looked back at Tom, as if to apologize for the actions of her brother.

Once she was gone, Aron wandered into the kitchen, returning after a few minutes with his hands full. Laying everything out on the coffee table, he spread out his selections carefully. He made sure Tom could see each object clearly.

He walked behind Tom’s chair, untied his hands just long enough to bring his wrists in front and bind them to the arms of the chair.

“What should I choose?” Aron asked, more of a hypothetical question considering the situation. “The knives are the obvious choice. But that’s a little too predictable don’t you think?” He picked up a paring knife, examined it in the light, before putting in back down and picking up the cleaver. “This one could do a little damage. It’s a cliché, though. I really want to be more creative than that.”

Tom held his breath as he watched the psycho in front of him choose his favorite means of torture. Suddenly he regretted letting Deanna leave him alone. It turns out it’s difficult to protect oneself while bound to a chair. But Tom was an Andrean. He was tough to the core, he would never beg for mercy. So he sat there, showing no signs of fear as Aron continued his quest for the perfect tool.

“I know. I’ll start with this one.” Aron finally selected the meat tenderizer. “What do you know about the family business?” Aron held his face just an inch away from Tom’s.

“I work there part time, afterschool. Mostly running errands, making copies, stuff like that. What does that have to do with anything?” Tom was really starting to get pissed at this asshole.

Aron pulled back and took a second to think about his answer before he brought the metal spikes down on Tom’s fingers. Aron’s shoulders slumped in disappointed at Tom’s reaction.

Tom didn’t scream, cry, or beg him to stop. Instead, he clenched his teeth together. The only visual sign of trauma, aside from the mangled bloody hand, was a trail of sweat rolling down Tom’s face.

“Hmm, I must’ve chosen the wrong one. I’ll just have to pick another.” Aron eyed Tom, and waited for some reaction. Nothing.

“What do you know about the guardians?” Aron asked casually as he perused his weapons.

“I. Don’t. Know. What. You’re. Talking. About.” Tom spoke slowly through his steel trap jaw. Stopping between each word to make sure Aron understood.

“Fine, we don’t need to be fancy here.” He picked up the Swiss army knife and flipped it open. He held the handle in his fist with the blade facing straight down above Tom’s good hand.

Right before he brought it down, a single shot stopped him dead in his tracks. Literally. Looking down at his chest, the blood poured from the wound. It didn’t close up as it would have if made with human weapons. He took one final gasp of air and fell to the ground at Tom’s feet.

Tom looked around, frantically trying to place the origin of the shot in case he was going to be the next victim.

Deanna stood in the doorway. She held a small silver gun with both hands. Her tears rolled down her face.

“I couldn’t let him hurt you. I’m so sorry.” She said. Her arms were shaking. Tom felt lucky she’d been able to control herself long enough to make the shot safely, without missing and hitting him with a stray bullet.

“I’ve gotta get rid of the body. They can’t know that I did this.” Deanna said, her voice shrill as the terror starting to leech into her throat.

“Calm down. If you untie me, I’ll help you.” Tom tried to reason with her before she did something stupid, like going to find Marius for help.

“You’ll escape and they’ll kill me.” She was so frantic now that Tom thought there’d be no hope. If Marius walked back in, they’d both be dead.

Finally Tom convinced her there was no other option and Deanna untied him, first releasing his hands then his legs.

Tom stood up carefully. His blood dripped off his fingertips and onto the hardwood floor. He directing Deanna to grab Aron’s feet as he lifted the body off the ground holding it under the arms.

“Where do we put him?” Tom asked in an attempt to keep her focused. He needed to get the job done quickly before anyone came in to check on them.

“We don’t have a lot of time. I think we can put him down in the basement. No one will look for him for a while. I’ll just say he got pissed and stormed off. He does that. They’d believe it.” Tears poured down her cheeks in a steady stream and as she spoke she realized that she’d chosen Tom over her family.

Tom did all the heavy lifting. He dragged Aron’s body down the steep concrete stairs. Two minutes later they were standing in the living room again with Aron safely tucked away in the basement corner. Deanna stared at the puddle of her brother’s blood in front of the wooden chair. The shock settled in and she couldn’t bring herself to move.

Luckily Tom stepped in again and pulled the hand towel off the drawer handle in front of the sink and soaked up the mess. He looked around one more time to make sure there was no other evidence of Aron’s murder. Satisfied, he sat back in the chair.

“You need to tie me back up. I hear someone coming.” His order was strong enough to jog Deanna back to action and she rebound him to the chair, just as Aron had left him.

She waited for what seemed like a year for the front door to open, making way for her lies.

When the door finally creaked open, Deanna expected to see Marius standing in front of her. Instead, Morgan’s small frame cast a shadow, blocking the light from outside.

“I need Aron to take our prisoner to C & R.” Her voice was steady. She didn’t accusing Deanna of anything as she laid out her plan.

Deanna’s tension eased. She figured that Morgan had no idea what happened.

“He stormed out when I came back in and told him to stop torturing the boy. I figured the guardians would only bargain for his safe return if they thought we’d give him back unharmed.” She couldn’t believe how easily the words flew from her mouth. She almost believed it herself.

“Imbecile.” Morgan murmured under her breath. “You’re going to have to do it then. Take Marius with you, just in case the boy gets any ideas.”

Morgan hadn’t trusted Aron, from the second they met. He was a loose cannon. His temper flared at the simplest thing. And this last tantrum of his could cause them quite a bit of trouble. If he dared to get in the way of her plans, she’d flay his muscles off his body before she finally put him out of his misery.

Morgan had put a lot of thought into this plan of hers. The girl, Deanna, was proving herself extraordinarily useful. And she seemed to think logically when the others didn’t. Revenge seekers were great tools but it took a lot of energy to control their behavior. The boys were too angry to think clearly so she was glad to have this young ally to help set them straight.

Morgan watched the black van pull down the driveway, with Tom safely in the padlocked back. She needed them out of the way for the next stage in her plan.

She was going to take out the guardian’s leader. An army without a general was always easier to destroy. They had the tendency to self destruct with the tiniest bit of pressure. 

Chapter
Sixteen

Sam walked back into her office at Andrean Enterprises. She tried not to think about what could be happening to Tom but she couldn’t control the images that rolled through her mind. She knew that he was in the hands of the leanthans. She just hoped that they knew better than to risk a human life just to get the guardian’s attention.

Abby was terrified. It had taken Sam the whole ride home to convince her that Tom would be safe and that he was only being used as a ploy to draw their group into battle.

Still reluctant to believe her, Sam resorted to telling Abby about the vision she had had, just days before. Had they caused any serious harm to Tom, she wouldn’t have seen him in the warehouse. But he was there. He was a hostage, sure, but he didn’t appear to be injured.

When they got back to the office, Abby headed off to tell her family what they found out from Trevor. Sam headed straight to her office to wait for Vance.

Vance didn’t make her wait long. He walked in and pulled the door behind him as soon as he heard that she’d returned.

“They’ve got him.” Sam said, her eyes pleaded with Vance for comfort. “They sent a girl in to pick him up from school. Tom’s friend just let them walk away like there was nothing wrong at all.” Sam’s voice lost all the composure she’d maintained while comforting Abby. Now it was her turn to receive a little compassion.

“We knew it’d come to this.” The words Vance spoke were true, yet they came across as heartless and cold. “We spent too much time thinking about ourselves. We forgot to consider the collateral damage.”

“That’s what you consider him. He’s a human being. He’s not collateral damage. Don’t you have any compassion?” Sam choked back her tears as he glared at him with a rage she never knew existed.

Vance’s muscles tensed as the plotted out conversation unfolded. Sam’s eyes were tear-filled; it wasn’t sadness that reflected back at him. It was anger and disappointment, the very seeds of hatred that would be so difficult to undo.