Deadly Secrets (55 page)
She nodded. “Yep, and I played it for her, the phone against my big ol’ belly.” She stirred something on the stove. “I wanted her to know your voice. So that’s what I did. And she knew you the first time she heard your voice.”
He could only stare at her. She still surprised him. He’d often laughed at the baffled look on his father’s face through the years when dealing with their mother.
Now he had more sympathy with the man. He knew, without a doubt, that forty years from now Ella would still surprise him.
Grace moved her head in the crook of his neck.
“See how smart your momma is, Gracie? She’s brilliant, isn’t she? And she loves you very, very much.” He bounced and walked and patted his daughter’s back until Ella had turned things off on the stove so she could feed her. They’d seen a lactation specialist and had been lucky that little Gracie liked her mother and nursing so much, even as the whole experience wasn’t easy and completely foreign to him, as he’d been unable to help at all.
Ella turned from the stove. “I love you both very, very much.”
“But Daddy loves his girls more,” he said, kissing the top of Gracie’s head. “My girls.”
He hummed a few bars of the song and his daughter stilled against him. He grinned.
“No, Momma loves you guys more.” Ella washed her hands and used the hand sanitizer.
“But Daddy loves his girls the mostest of the mostest of the mostest.”
“Well, Momma loves y’all the mostest of the mostest of the mostest estest.” Ella reached for Gracie.
Quinlan laughed. This was the life. A life he was beyond blessed to have and thankful for every day. A life he’d give his own to defend.
He leaned over and kissed his wife while holding his daughter. “Perfect.”
Excerpt from
Hunted
Read on for an excerpt from the thrilling new book
by Jaycee Clark,
Hunted
, coming soon!
Prologue
Czech Republic, late summer
The body landed in a tangle of naked bloody limbs.
Mikhail Jezek watched. Dried, half-decayed leaves, dirt and other debris sticking to her body as the girl rolled over the ground. The summer night breathed hot and thick around them all.
He sniffed and looked to the other woman who stood before him. Her face was bruised and battered, her lips split and cracked—from the beatings and the fact he’d denied her food or drink for days. Her eyes, those icy eyes, were blank, almost accepting, almost broken. Almost. She’d been a hellcat when he’d first found her. He’d tried to train her, to instruct her, to
break
her, but he was finally forced to teach her the hard way. Some had to learn the hard way. Mikhail brushed his finger down her bare arm. She was naked, but no one in their group noticed. No one cared, and no one else would pass by. It was desolate here.
Goose bumps pricked her skin in his finger’s wake and he smiled.
He hadn’t wanted to put this one in the brothels, she was a rare beauty. True grace and a face that rivaled those caught on priceless canvas, but she thought he was horrible. She would learn what true horror could be.
Tonight was just that. A lesson.
He looked from her averted face back to the still figure on the ground beside the open grave one of his men had dug earlier. They’d all known this was coming and he chose to end it now. Mikhail nodded once to his men. They stepped back, one pulling a gun free from a shoulder holster hidden beneath the dark jacket before looking back to Mikhail.
Mikhail waited, studying the stupid girl’s prone body lying on the night-dewed grass. He’d given that one the name Ebony. Some of the girls came to them complete with identification, visas, passports, which were all quickly destroyed. Others, he or his contacts simply found and liked. Either way, the girls became his. Ebony was one of those who he’d seen, liked and took. He didn’t know her true identity and honestly didn’t care.
You should,
an inner voice warned him.
He ruthlessly ignored it and took a deep breath.
Stars glittered quietly from the dark sky. The headlights from his limo slashed across the quiet scene. The dark trees, still and silent, witnessed tonight’s events.
The other woman, Dusk, trembled before him. In darkness, things looked different. Not colored, but in a macabre, harshly contrasted black and white. Two of his men, Ebony, and the empty grave. Black on white, gray on shadows.
The leaves of the trees rustled near the wood’s edge. Creepy places, abandoned cemeteries, but it served its purpose. An old cemetery was a perfect place to dump a body. Rarely did anyone look for the dead if the place catered to that very need. His eyes stayed on the point of tonight’s venture.
Ebony, a lovely little Italian piece, had been beautiful once, but not now. Now she was bloody, dirty, no longer graceful, but broken. He’d broken her, let his men break her. Not merely reining her in, not only teaching her her place, but
breaking
her. If she’d come around, she would have brought him a pretty price. However, he’d learned long ago some losses simply must be cut and the profit forgotten.
Stupid bitch. She’d tried to escape.
Her dark matted hair twisted around her neck and face, blood trickled in rivulets from various cuts and wounds inflicted on her. Her arm lay at an odd angle from her body where it had been broken hours before.
Still she had whispered of vengeance, screamed it until her throat had been raw and hoarse.
Mikhail took a deep breath in through his nose. The woman before him still didn’t look at Ebony. He grabbed her face, digging his fingers into her chin and forcing her to watch.
“This is what I do to those who try to escape me,” he said softly.
She shut her eyes, the bruises and swollen skin marring the beauty of those thick-lashed, icy blue eyes.
He
tsked
and tightened his hold on her chin until she opened her eyes. “You. Will. Watch.”
Her eyes weren’t blank now, but shadowed with fear . . .
Good, she should fear him.
He nodded to one of the guards, who pointed the gun at Ebony’s still figure on the ground and pulled the trigger. Once. Twice. Then his man moved the gun a fraction lower and fired off two more rounds into Ebony’s heart. The woman he held flinched with each bullet. He waited until those wide, tear-filled eyes rose from the girl’s body on the ground to him.
He smiled, shoved her forward and waited, made her watch while his men rolled Ebony’s body into the grave. He shoved her harder and she went down on her knees beside the grave, a small whimper moaning through the night, her fingers flexing in the loose dirt.
He pulled his own gun free—a wonderful CZ75. He leaned down and whispered in her ear. “Would you like to join Ebony?”
Her body trembled, her breath wheezed out.
He waited.
Her chest shook as she inhaled. She appeared as broken as the one they’d just disposed of, but he knew better.
Her hands were fisted in her lap, the knuckles marred and dirty on those long lean thighs.
Still a bit of anger left in her, was there?
He put the barrel of the gun at the base of her skull and waited.
She flinched and her trembles increased.
He could all but smell her fear. He smiled. “Would you like to join Ebony, Dusk?”
Still she only trembled, her head bowing.
He waited.
“P-p-pl-please,” she whispered, so quietly he barely heard her.
“What was that? I didn’t quiet catch it. Did you say something?”
“P-please,” she said a bit louder.
“Please
what
, Dusk?”
Her body shook on another breath. “Please d-don-don’t kill me.”
He pressed the gun harder against the base of her skull, and she threw her hands out with a small cry to keep from falling into the grave.
A sob choked into the air, as the yawning grave waited . . .
Slowly, he pulled the gun away.
She didn’t move.
He leaned down and whispered in her ear. “You see, I can be lenient.” He held his hand out, noting she winced as she stood, but then she would wince after the beating he’d given her.
As she stood, she swayed, but he tightened his hand on her arm, watching her eyes.
He waited until she looked at him, then he nodded back to the grave. “This is what happens to those who don’t listen, Dusk, to those who scorn what I provide them, to those who try to escape.”
She glanced to the side, down into the grave, the dark shadow open wide as if waiting to be fed again, and shuddered.
“You won’t ever try anything so foolish, will you?” he asked her softly.
For a moment, she didn’t move, didn’t speak. Then those eyes rose back to him and he saw the acceptance in them. Slowly she licked her lips, then shook her head. “N-no. No, I promise, I won’t ever do that. I won’t ever escape.”
He smiled. She was right. She wouldn’t escape him. No one ever escaped him.
About the Author
Jaycee never really grew up—she still enjoys playing with imaginary people on a daily basis. Sometimes those people are nice, sometimes they're not, but in the end the girl gets the guy, so all is well. Jaycee earned her degree in Elementary Education from Eastern New Mexico University. She lives in Texas with her family, who puts up with her when her characters demand more of her time and appreciates her weirdness—or so they claim. There are also the cats and the corgis, who, in truth, rule the family. When she’s not chained to her keyboard, she’s doubling as a parent, a teacher, a maid, a chef, a chauffeur, a therapist, and promoting her education in human development while finishing her masters in plant elimination.
You can learn more about Jaycee by visiting her website at
www.jayceeclark.com
or emailing her at
[email protected]
. Her newsletter and blog subscriptions can be found on her website, along with links to follow her on Twitter, Facebook, and various other sites.
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