Blind Loyalty - M J Marlow (i am reading a book .txt) 📗

“No,” Joanna wailed. The pains struck again and she gasped and went white. She couldn’t fight him any longer. “Please make it stop,” She whimpered and saw his smile of triumph. “Please.” “That’s my sweet darling,” James laughed as he gave her the shot. He stroked her hair and she calmed. “Another hour and the drug would have been out of your system.” She looked up at him in shock. “You lasted longer than anyone else I have ever trained, my dear. You’re going to stop fighting me now, aren’t you?” Joanna lowered her head in defeat and he stroked her hair. “That’s my good girl. You may undress me now.” She was shaking as she did as she was told. When he was undressed, he pulled her to him and took her slowly and gently. By the time he took her she was certain she was lost to the nightmare he had designed for her. The mere thought of refusing him now brought the memory of the pain flooding back into her mind. She came awake after one particularly vivid nightmare and found herself alone. She went to take a shower to wash off the perspiration. “You need to get dressed, child,” her father’s voice sounded in her ear. She remained frozen. “Joanna. You have to move fast. He’s coming back.” Joanna got out of the shower and pulled on a robe, wondering why she was hallucinating her father’s voice now. She saw a flash at the window and went out onto the terrace. A dark figure in the room across from hers waved but she felt no hope surging through her. It was too late for her. She heard the door unlock and James called her name. He looked at her in annoyance as she came in off the terrace. He saw her pale face and the defeat in her eyes. “Did I say you could get dressed, my pet?’ “No, my lord.” “Then why are you dressed, my darling?” “My father told me to, my lord,” Joanna replied honestly. James hissed and shoved her down in a chair. He got a pair of tweezers out of the bathroom and pulled something out of her ear. He put it in his own. “Jeffries,” he said coldly as he yanked her out onto the terrace and put one arm across her throat and the other around her waist. “Come to congratulate us?” He laughed as Adam cursed. “Your daughter is my willing and obedient slave now; mine to cherish or destroy as I see fit. You come near her and you will find her lifeless body dumped on your family’s front lawn. Back off. I am not harming her.” “Every moment she is in your hands,” Adam hissed over the transmitter, “is harmful to her. She’s just a child, Leighton. Let her have the childhood you denied her.” He trained the sniper rifle on the man and aimed. “I’ll give you one chance to do the right thing.” “Or what, big man?” James laughed. “You’ll shoot me with that beautiful rifle you’re holding?” He could imagine the man cringing. “If anything happens to me, Jeffries,” he said as he pulled Joanna against his chest so that Adam could not get a clear shot, “my men have orders to ship your pretty daughter to a Middle Eastern potentate I know. I’ve been sending him herpictures. He is quite eager to add her to his harem.” He laughed in delight as he imagined the man backing down to save his child from such a fate. “Give up, Jeffries. You are never going to beat me!” He laughed and backed into the bedroom and Joanna went with him obediently. Her father was nearby, but that meant nothing. She belonged to James; she was his to do with as he pleased. James slapped her and shoved her down on the bed. When he took her it was hard and brutal. She knew it was because he knew her father was listening. He wanted Adam to suffer. He did not stop beating her until she was nearly senseless, even though she did not fight him. Then he clamped his hands on her throat and began to squeeze. “You are mine, Joanna,” he hissed as his grip tightened. “There is no one who will ever be able to take you from me! Isn’t that true?” “Yes, my lord,” Joanna said weakly, her head spinning from the pain of his blows. “I am yours now. I have no will but to please you.” “So if I tell you to throw yourself over the railing,” James smiled as he pulled her off the bed and set her on her feet, “you will do as I ask?” “Yes, my lord,” Joanna bowed her head as she fell to the floor, too weak to stand. She waited for James to order her hoping he would tell her to throw herself over the railing. She would be free then. But he pointed to the bed and she crawled back onto it and curled up in a ball. She cringed as something hit the doors. “Leighton!” Charles hissed as he burst into the room. James whirled on him and saw the gun in his former employee’s hand. “It’s time for you to pay for what you’ve done!” He saw Joanna and his look darkened. “You bastard!” James got up slowly and pulled on his pajama bottoms and robe. His hand went into the nightstand as he stood with it behind him. Joanna saw him pull out the gun and she knew she had to stop him. She struggled to sit up, her entire body protesting the movement and could not stop the moan of pain. James was distracted as Charles fired and the bullet missed. James yanked Joanna up off the bed and held her as a shield once more; but this time he had the gun resting against her cheek. “You stood back all these years, Charles,” James heckled the man, who was turning red with rage. “Why should you care what happens to the girl now?” He pressed the gun closer and Joanna knew she was going to have a bruise. “Now, Charles,” he said companionably; “if you wanted her for yourself, why didn’t you say something?” He looked down at Joanna as she whimpered. “Once I have her trained, I will share her with you.” “Bastard!” Charles roared and came at him. James rested the muzzle against Joanna’s arm and fired. She screamed as the bullet ripped along her arm and hit a vase, shattering it. Charles froze. “You understand now?” James hissed as he tightened his hold on Joanna. “I will kill her before I let anyone take her from me.” He raised the gun. “Especially a disloyal, back-stabbing cretin like you.” He saw Charles’ expression. “Did you think I would not know you were the one who turned the proof of what I was doing over to my insufferably noble cousin, Charles? Genie was very willing to tell me everything before I had the men arrange her accident.” Everything happened fast then. Joanna heard him pull back on the trigger and she drove her elbow into his side as he fired. Charles fell back a step as the bullet struck him in the side instead of his chest and James laughed and dragged her towards the door. But Charles was not down yet. He attacked, his fist slamming into James’ face. The man lost hold of Joanna and she could only lie there as the two began to struggle over the gun in James’ hand. She watched as the gun fired and Charles was hit in the chest, but he kept going. He got James out onto the terrace and shoved him over it just as the doors burst open. Men in dark blue uniforms pulled him back before he went over with James; who plunged five stories to the ground below. “Mademoiselle Jeffries?” a kind voice called out to her as she started to black out from the pain and the shock. “It is over now. You are safe.” She saw a concerned face surrounded by dark hair as she fell into the darkness. When she woke up, she was in a hospital room and her father was sitting on the bed next to her. She felt as if she had been run through a wringer, she was so weak. “It’s all right, Joanna,” her father said as she threw her arms around him. “You’re safe now, child,” he said gruffly as he held his sobbing daughter tight. “He can’t hurt you anymore.” “Charles…” She couldn’t say any more for a moment. The image of him standing on the terrace the brief moment before the police had dragged him off made her shudder. The rage on his face as he threw James over the railing would stay with her a long time. He had finally done something to free her. “Is he…?” “He’s in a room here,” Adam told her gently. She did not need to know the man was dying. Not just yet. She nodded and quieted a moment but then he felt her stiffen and knew she had another concern. “He had his men kill Aidan,” Joanna sobbed. “Aidan is fine, Joanna,” Adam assured her. “He has a few burns, but he’s alive.” He saw the relief flood through her. “We’re going to have to stay in Paris for a while. The police need to question you.” He saw her nod. “Tell them the truth, child.” He looked over his shoulder as the door to the private suite in the French counterpart to the Aerie, the Haven, opened. “Joanna, this is Hawk Thorson, and our French friend, Henri Dubois. Their people were the ones who told me where to find you.” “Thank you, Mr. Thorson,” Joanna smiled up at the Viking standing nearby with a drink in his hand. “Monsieur Dubois,” she nodded to the short, dark Gaul. She frowned a moment. “We’ve met before, haven’t we, Mr. Thorson?” She searched her memory. “I remember you after Father got me away from Leighton in England.” “You remember?” Hawk was impressed. “You’d been drugged, Miss Leigh… I mean Miss Jeffries. I am impressed that you can remember anything.” “How long have I been here?” Joanna asked her father. He looked uncomfortable as she moved her arms and legs. “Days at least given the fact I can move without it hurting.” She looked at the bandage on her arm and shivered. “He shot me,” she said in a small voice. “You were brought here to us four days ago, Mademoiselle Joanna,” Dubois told her. “You spent nearly the entire time in withdrawal from the drug he was using to chain you.” He took out a vial of pills and handed it to her. “Take one every four hours,” he told her. “It is an antibiotic.” “I don’t remember that…” “We kept you heavily sedated,” Dubois told her, looking over at her father. “Your Papa was ready for a straightjacket by the time you finally broke free.” “My father,” Joanna smiled up at Adam. He squeezed her hand and returned her smile. Joanna took one of the pills and sat back to relax. Her father had saved her again and this time the man was not coming back. She thought of Charles and wished she could do something to help him. She knew he had only murdered James to make up for sitting back and watching her being abused and molested for the past fifteen years. Surely that would make his sentence a lesser one? She thought to ask her father if it would be so, but then she yawned. She was still so tired. She lay back and closed her eyes with a sigh and Adam sat down on the couch as Dubois checked her over. He nodded and Adam was relieved. He turned to Hawk. “Again I owe you, Hawk,” he said as he