Ryland (9 page)

She got everything loaded into her car
and took the cart back up. She looked in her purse and saw the phone that
Ryland had given her that morning. She reached in and then looked back at the
store, trying to act like she’d forgotten something. She went back inside and
walked to the other end of the store to stand in front of the meat counter.

Smiling at the butcher, she asked for
two pounds of ham. She hated ham, but there was a mirror over him, and she
watched as the man she thought was following her moved to the end of the aisle
then back again when he saw her. Afraid now, she pulled out the phone and
pressed the first name she saw.

“Hello Mrs. P. It’s me, Sindy. You asked
me to pick up some ham and a bottle of wine, but I’ve forgotten the brand.”

“This is Alistair Golden. Is this Sindy Wilson?”

She laughed and said yes it was a lovely
day.

“Good girl. Do you need for me to come
and get you?”

“Oh yes, that would be great. I was just
about to go home and fix me some leftovers. How about we go to the pizza place
next door to Market’s? I’ll treat.”

“I’m on my way there now. I’ll meet you
inside. Don’t come out once you get in there. I know the owner and I’ll give
him a call.”

She nodded, but realized he couldn’t see
her and told him she would.

“Hang up now, but don’t run out of the
store. Take your time. That way I can get inside before you do.”

She lingered over the wine, not really
seeing anything but the colors. Picking one at random, she moved to the front
with her luncheon meat and her wine. She started toward her car, but thought
better of it and took the bag to the pizza place next door. She moved inside
and was being seated when a large, burly man came toward her. She nearly
screamed when he touched her arm.

“Alistair is out back. See that table
over there?”

She nodded. “

Go and sit there. The man who’s
following you, what’s he look like?”

She described him as best she could and
then sat down. As the woman across from her reached for her hand, Sindy heard
the door open.

“No, don’t look. Just look at me or the
menu. You can hand me those packages if you’d like.” She handed her the bag and
smiled. “I’ve not had an all the way pizza in months. This was such a lovely
idea. We’ll have to do this more often.”

Sindy nodded and when the waitress came
to them the woman ordered for them both. She smiled at her when their waters
were brought to them. She started to tell the woman she had to meet a man named
Alistair when Ryland and two more men sat at another table.

“He’s not in here yet. He was on the
phone when I came in.” She nodded at Ryland when he spoke. “Sindy, this is my
mom, Sandra Golden. When you pretended Alistair was a woman, we had to
improvise. She wanted to help.”

“He might hurt her.” Sindy looked at
Mrs. Golden. “He will hurt you if he knows what is going on.”

Two more men joined Ryland and the
others. She realized that they were all related and that she knew them. The
streak from the hospital. These were his brothers. She started to stand when
the door opened again and she sat down.

The tension was tight and when their
pizza came and, while Sindy only picked at her piece, Mrs. Golden ate three
slices. She grinned at her when she started to speak.

“Would you be a dear, Sindy, and help an
old woman to the bathroom? I’m not feeble, but I do…well, I don’t want my skirt
to be caught in my hose.”

They walked past the table where the man
was and he didn’t look up. They were in the bathroom when Mrs. Golden pulled
out her cell phone and handed it to her.

“Is that the man from the store?”

She looked at Mrs. Golden, who nodded
encouragement to her as she spoke to Ryland on the phone.

“I need to be sure before we do
anything.”

“It’s him. Do you know him?” Ryland told
her no. “He might be carrying a gun. I don’t want to get anyone hurt if he’s
the real thing.”

“You stay in there with Mom and we’ll
make sure whether he’s the real thing or not.”

She handed the phone back to her. “Mrs.
Golden, what if he only wants my phone number or something stupid like that? What
if he’s nothing more than a man who wants to go out?” Sindy leaned against the
counter. “He might not be anything.”

“Its Sandra, honey, and if he’s wanting
a pretty girl’s number there are any number of ways of getting it other than
scaring the snot out of her. You let my boys handle it. They’ll get him
straightened out if that’s all he wants.”

There was a knock at the door and she
stiffened. When the big man opened it and told them it was safe, she and Sandra
came out. There was no sign of the man. She looked at Ryland.

“He was supposed to bring you to the lab
so that you’d call Bronwyn and have her come and get you.” She looked around
then back at Ryland when he continued. “He’s not going to be coming back. And
I’m afraid you’ll have to come with us as well. They’ll not give up.”

She sat down again. This was suddenly
too much. They were going to use her as bait to lure Bronwyn to them had it not
been for this man. She looked up at him. “I’m afraid.” He nodded and dropped to
his knees in front of her. “They would have hurt her again, wouldn’t they?”

“Yes. If they would have gotten you,
they would have. But they didn’t. You were brave and smart. If you wouldn’t
have called, you’d be…” He didn’t finish. He didn’t have to. She knew. She
would have been dead.

“His name is Cunningham. I’m not sure if
I ever heard her call him anything but that. He works for a company called
Better Future. They advertise that they make healthier foods for today’s
consumer. Whatever the hell that means.”

Ryland nodded, looked at the men behind
him, and repeated the information.

“There’s something else you should know
about Bronwyn. She is a lot stronger than you think. She can do anything to a
person’s mind, including manipulate it to her way of thinking.”

~~~

Bronwyn saw Ryland there again when she
woke. She sat up slowly and he smiled at her. She didn’t trust that smile any
more than she did him. He handed her a glass of juice.

“It’s freshly squeezed. I wish I could
tell you I did it, but my mom did. She said it was her pleasure to do so.”

She sipped the orange juice and felt it
race through her body.

“I want to speak to you about Sindy.”

“She’s none of your concern.” She looked
at him suspiciously. “What have you done? If you’ve hurt her or given her to
one of your brothers, I’ll kill you.”

“We’re going to have to work on your
inability to say what you think. You should try to just come out and say it.”

She flushed.

“She’s here. As of two days ago.”

“That’s not possible. She would never
come to your home, no matter what you did to her.” She started to get up when
he stood too. “I would like to speak to her alone. She’s my friend and I want
to make sure you didn’t hurt her.”

He sat on the edge of the bed and pushed
her to the middle. When he lay down next to her, she tried to get to the other
side, but he pulled her to him. The harder she tried to get away, the more she
hurt herself. Finally, she just lifted her hands to toss him off her.

“Before you do that, you should hear
what happened to her.” She stilled. “I went to see her at the hospital. I
wanted to tell her you were with me and that you were fine. Hurt, but mending.
I also gave her a modified cell phone so she could call if she needed anything.
A little over six hours later, she called Alistair.”

“You lead them to her.” He shook his
head. “Then how did they find her so soon after you went to talk to her?”

“They’d been following her for days. The
man that had been tagging her at the store then at the pizza shop told us that
he was supposed to snatch her from her home, but she’d gone to the store, then
to the pizza shop first. He said that they had planned to use her to get you to
come to them.” Bronwyn laid her head down on his chest so that he couldn’t see
her tears. “He also told us that when they got you, they were going to have an
auction to see who got to fuck Sindy first and then kill her. She doesn’t know
that part.”

“You brought her here.” He nodded. “Does
she know where she is? I mean, did you knock her out and bring her here?” She
felt him stiffen beneath her and started to pull away again, to ready herself
for whatever he had planned. But he rolled her to her back and laid over her.
Her hands were lifted above her head and he held her there.

“I’m not a monster. I know you have no
reason to believe me, but I’m not. I won’t hurt you or her. I want you.” He
rocked into her and she felt his cock. “But I won’t take what’s not freely
offered to me.”

“You’ll say that now, but men are all
the same. They take everything.” She was waiting for him to snap at her,
anything, but he only stared down at her. She looked away and he turned her
back to look at him.

“Who else besides Cunningham and
Crawford did this to you?” His voice was low and not the least bit hard like
she’d come to expect. “This is more than what they did to you at the lab. This
is more than what happened to you during the razing. Someone got you to trust
them then they betrayed you. That’s it, isn’t it?”

She tried to turn away again. He was too
close, his words too true. She looked at him then, tears falling from her eyes.
She wanted him to leave her alone. She wanted everyone to just simply leave her
alone.

“My mother sold me to them. When I was
six. She used me up until then. I would go to her dealer with her and wait
while she fucked him in front of me for the payment. Then he wanted more than
her; he wanted someone fresh, someone that wasn’t so strung out that they’d
forget to eat for days on end and look like she’d not had a bath in weeks.” She
laughed bitterly. “She told him that instead of her giving me to him that I
could do tricks. That’s what she called them, tricks. She told him that I was
talented in that I could make people believe anything I wanted them to
believe.”

“What did she have you do?”

She laughed again, pissed that even
after all this time, it still hurt her. “She had me make his dealers believe
that they’d been paid. He would take me to the pick-ups and I would sit and
color all the while making them, the sellers, think that the scraps of paper
they were getting in the cases were real money and that he was paying them. I
tried to tell them that it wouldn’t work. Someone was going to figure out that
they’d been lied to and trace it back to them.” She looked away from him again
and he let her. “They came back a few weeks later. My mother and Santos were living it up with the cash they’d made from my ability. When the guy came to kill
them…when he came to get what was his…”

“She gave you to them.”

She nodded.

“How long were you with them before you
killed them, Bronwyn?”

“Not even a day. I was taken to this
huge house and… They had killed them anyway. My mother and Santos, her dealer/lover. I knew if before I left. When they told me that she’d be back for me
once she had the money to buy me back then I’d be free to go. In the meantime I
was going to do the same for them that I’d done for my mother. I’d had enough.
I killed them all. I hadn’t meant to, but I didn’t have any control; well,
that’s not true. I had some, but I didn’t hold it back. I was found covered in
blood the next day and put into a foster home.”

Chapter 8

He held her until she fell asleep. Then
Ryland got up and went to find his mom. He wasn’t a momma’s boy, but he knew
there were times when he needed her. He found her in the kitchen making dinner.

She set a plate of cookies in front of
him and he picked up one and ate it while he tried to think how to start. She
sat down across from him and handed him a glass of tea. He looked at her for
several seconds before he reached over and took her hand into his. “How did I
miss how wonderful you are?” She blushed and started to rise, but he asked her
to sit. “I don’t know how to be her mate without her wanting to leave me or
kill me.”

“You’re not afraid of her, are you?” She
laughed when he nodded. “Smart boy. She is a little intense, but I don’t think
she’ll want to kill you so much after she gets to know you a little more.”

“How long do you suppose that will
take?” She seemed to be thinking on that pretty hard. “I don’t know if I want to
know now or not.”

She got up and went to the sink. “Do you
know that when your dad started making more money than we needed to spend in
one week on bills, he offered to get me help? House help, he called it.”

He didn’t remember that, but he did just
realize that his mom had never had help with the house and all of them. Ryland
leaned back in his chair and looked at her. She really was a remarkable woman
and he told her so.

“No. I was just…frugal, you could say. Plus,
I was always afraid that the money would stop and I’d have to fire the poor
person who had come to work for us. I knew that I couldn’t put someone out of
work because I was too lazy to do my own dishes.”