The Marriage Auction: Book One(70)

That’s when Joel entered the room and grabbed hold of me, keeping me upright. His timing couldn’t have been better as I was on the cusp of losing my ability to stand as everything I’d just seen came flooding into a horrifying reality.

“Breathe, Faith. In through the nose, out through the mouth.” He mimicked what he wanted me to do, and I copied him on autopilot. “That’s good.”

“Joel,” I gasped as tears filled my eyes and fell over my cheeks.

“It’s going to be okay,” he swore.

“There’s blood on the door.” I gulped. Stars blinked in my peripheral vision as trepidation pulsed like hot lava through my veins.

Joel glanced over his shoulder and nodded curtly. “Stay here. I’ll check it out. My men are on their way as are the police. ”

“Where’s Dad? Eden?” I choked out while this morning’s breakfast churned in my gut, threatening to leave my system at any moment.

“We’ll find them.” His words were resolute and held no bullshit.

God, please don’t let them be dead. It’s all my fault. If I’d just given myself up to him, none of this would have happened.

Bone-splitting dread filled me to bursting as I watched Joel maneuver through the mess and around the tipped-over nightstands and broken lamps and picture frames. The sound of broken glass was unusually loud crunching under the soles of his expensive shoes.

I should have never come back to Vegas. I should have never believed I could find a way out from under Aiden’s control.

Joel reached the door and pushed it open slowly. Which was also when I heard a pained moan coming from the bathroom.

I jumped into action, flying up and onto the teetering mattress and then sliding down the side. I raced past the nightstand and mess below to the bathroom where Joel now knelt over my father’s prone form.

There was blood smeared and pooled all around my father’s mostly naked body. A towel was wrapped around his waist as though he’d been taking a shower.

“Dad!”

My father pushed up weakly, and Joel helped him turn over and sit up. There was a huge gash in the center of his forehead and blood congealed all around it, having dried after pouring down his face and chest.

“Dad!” I cupped his cheeks, and he blinked several times.

“Faith?” he croaked.

His nose was smashed and swollen to double its size, blood trickling out each nostril. He spat and heaved to the side. Blood sprayed out over the white walls and tile, along with a tooth that shot out. It pinged against the wall and fell to the floor in a grisly display that would appear in my future nightmares.

I gagged and covered my mouth instinctively in order not to throw up.

“Eden…they took her. I heard them.” He slumped against Joel who kept him upright. “I was in the shower when I…I heard the shouting. She cried, cara mia. Over and over. My grandbaby was screaming for her papa!” He sobbed in his misery, blood dribbling out his mouth from an unseen wound.

I clung to my father’s hand, hoping and praying he’d be okay once we got him help.

“I fought one of them in the room, cut my hand on the broken glass from the vanity they’d trashed.” He lifted the hand that was still oozing blood. I reached for the towel over the sink and wrapped it around his wound quickly, stanching the flow.

The huge mirror above the sink had a plate-sized crater right in the center, the glass splintering out like a spiderweb from the hole in the middle.

“Then another rushed me, and I fell against the door. Which is when he grabbed me from behind and smashed my head into the mirror.” He looked at the broken glass. “Then it was lights out. I tried, Faith. I tried to fight,” he howled, his body shaking with the effort as shock started to hit his system.

“Was it Aiden? Did you see him take Eden?”

He shook his head as police sirens could be heard approaching.

“It was his goons,” he wheezed as his head wobbled and his eyes rolled in the back of his head. Then he passed out.

“Dad!” I cried, holding his cheeks as a team of paramedics entered the room seemingly out of nowhere, though I was beyond grateful at the sight of their presence.

Joel took charge, allowing the medics to tend to my father as he pulled me up and away from them while they worked.

I shook like a leaf in the middle of a windstorm as they loaded the most important man in my entire life onto a stretcher. His skin tone was pale, and once they lifted him up, there was so much blood congealed on the floor around him I didn’t know how he could have had any left in his body. The paramedics were fast and efficient, getting him through the mess in what felt like seconds.

Before long they had him loaded into the ambulance, and the doors were slamming closed.

“Come on. We’ll follow them to the hospital,” Joel announced and pulled me toward his limo.



The ride to the hospital was a blur of flickering lights laced with agony over my father’s well-being and not knowing where Eden was. Except, I did know where she’d be. In the arms of the enemy. The devil himself. The exact place I’d spent almost the last four years killing myself to avoid. And I’d led him right to her. By coming back to Las Vegas, I’d put a big shiny bullseye right on my family. I’d known it was a risk coming here for The Marriage Auction. I’d known all along he’d use them to get to me, but this was so much worse than I’d ever imagined. I’d truly thought I could get in and out without so much as a peep from Aiden.