“You should drop me off at the hospital and go back home, Joel,” I announced looking at his handsome profile as he listened to whomever he was talking to on his sleek black cell phone.
“I’ll be in touch. Find the girl. Now. I want her in our possession as soon as possible,” he commanded in an authoritative tone I’d not heard leave his nicely sculpted lips up to this point. Since we’d met, he’d been almost perfectly calm and collected. He ended the call, put the phone inside his blazer, and shifted his body to the side. “Now what is this nonsense?” he asked as though I hadn’t just told him to go back home.
“You don’t deserve any of this. It’s not too late to leave this place. Go back to your daughter and life in Greece. I’ll have the deposit wired back into your account.”
“And what of you? And your father and niece?” he asked, his handsome face unreadable.
I closed my eyes for a moment and made up my mind. “I’m going to go to Aiden and give him what he wants.” I shrugged fitfully. “Me. I’m what he’s after. If I’d just done as he’d said and not run, my dad wouldn’t be headed to the hospital in an ambulance and my…my niece wouldn’t have been kidnapped by a demon.”
“You’re going to put yourself in a room with a viper and expect not to get bitten?” His voice was low and simmering with unshed fury.
I shook my head. “No. I fully expect to be devoured whole, but at least my father and my niece will be safe again. I no longer care what happens to me. I’ve tried and tried to escape his evil. He always wins in the end.”
Joel’s lips flattened into a scowl. “You will do no such thing. I promised to protect you and your family, and I will. I admit to underestimating the speed with which the enemy would strike. That will not happen again. Knowing the enemy and what he wants is the first step toward conquering him.”
I huffed. “We already know what he wants!” I snapped. “Me! Remember? And he used my father as a battering ram to prove his point. And he has Eden!” I cried and hiccupped against the pain of knowing my sweet little love was in the clutches of true evil. All alone and scared out of her mind. She wouldn’t understand what was happening.
Joel shook his head. “No, he wants control. Over you. Over your fear. He rules his empire with it. He’s the worst kind of predator. Anyone who uses an innocent child will rot in Hell for his sins. I will handle this, Faith. I will get your niece back and keep you both safe.” He grabbed my hands. “You have to trust me.”
“Trusting a powerful man is what got me into this predicament in the first place,” I said as the tears drenched my cheeks.
“I am not him,” he hissed through his teeth, his nostrils flaring. “And I will prove it, by securing what it is you hold most dear.”
Hope soared through my chest, but I squashed it down. Hope had done nothing but destroy my life one horrible experience after another. Hope had led me here, to this moment, where I was speeding to the hospital with my father a broken, beaten mess, and Eden having been kidnapped by the enemy.
This was what my life amounted to. I could no longer hope for anything more.
Hope was futile.
The best I could do was pray. Pray for my father. And pray that Eden wasn’t being mistreated and that I could get to her before anything worse happened.
I felt numb from top to toe as the limo stopped. Joel led me out of the vehicle and through the hospital, taking charge like he owned the place. Maneuvering my dazed form from one place to another until he set me in a waiting room chair and crouched down directly in front of me so all I could see was him.
“Faith, you are here with three of my men as guards. I’m leaving them to protect you while I go take care of things. Promise me you won’t go anywhere without them?”
I looked into his beautiful eyes, and my lip quivered. “You’re a good man, Joel. I would have liked to have been your wife.” I had to give him something after all I’d already put him through since he’d laid eyes on me. His world had been turned upside down within a single day, and I was going to make it right again.
His facial expression turned to stone as the realization of me saying goodbye filtered through his expression.
He cupped my cheeks. “Just give me a chance. Don’t do anything but be here for your father. I will be back as soon as I can.” Then he kissed me…hard. His lips sealing to mine with reverence and purpose. I opened my mouth and allowed his tongue inside to tangle with my own. He took the kiss deep, taking from my mouth with a scalding veracity that I matched, for I knew it would be the last time our lips would ever touch again.