December 24^th

 

 

12:04 A.M.

 

“Why don’t you go home, get some rest? I’ll call you if we get something.”

Brian just stared at Brady like he couldn’t believe the man had just said that. Which he couldn’t. He wasn't going home until he was taking Hayley with him.

“He’s had Hayley for almost seven hours now,” he said, picking at the edges of the bandage taped over a gash on his arm that had been deep enough to need stitches. “What do you think he’s done to her already?”

“I don’t think that’s productive thinking,” Brady replied.

“Well then tell me what I should be thinking about? I was Hayley’s bodyguard. I knew that taking her out of the safehouse was a bad idea, but I let myself be talked into doing it anyway. I didn't notice the truck waiting to ambush us, I didn't stop them from taking her. We know what he wants to do to her, he wants to kill her, slowly, so that she suffers. That’s not us guessing, or profiling, or anything like that, it’s what we know he wants to do. He has her, alone, just him and his wife. He's hurting her. So what do you think he’s doing to her?”

“I think obsessing over this isn’t going to help,” Brady said adamantly.

Not to be dissuaded from this conversation, Brian continued, “How long do you think until he kills her? I know he wants to drag it out, make her suffer, but he also knows we’re onto him. I think he’ll kill her quicker than he initially intended to.”

“I agree with that assessment.”

Brian nodded. He didn't really care if Brady agreed with him or not, he was just talking through what he was thinking because it was keeping him marginally sane.

Seven hours.

That was a long time to know that the woman you loved was in the hands of someone who hated her and wanted to punish and murder her.

After Brady had pulled him from the wreck of his car before it exploded, he’d been taken to the hospital, despite his insistence that he didn't need a doctor. His injuries weren't particularly serious, cuts, bruises, and a broken nose, nothing that had required a stay in the hospital.

Brady had followed the ambulance to the hospital, and as soon as he was finished being examined in the ER, he’d asked to be brought to the station where Adam and Jessica were working. His family had rallied—as they always did when one of their own was in trouble—but he hadn't wanted to sit around one of their houses as they waited for news.

Being around his family and Hayley’s only added to his guilt.

How would he ever face them if they didn't get her back alive?

That was a very real possibility.

One that he had to start accepting and finding a way to come to terms with.

Jay Turner wanted Hayley.

Jay Turner had Hayley.

Jay Turner wasn't going to let this opportunity go to waste.

The cops hadn't been able to find Jay Turner.

The cops had no idea where Jay Turner had hidden himself away.

The cops had no way of finding Jay Turner.

Thus, the logical conclusion was that Jay Turner would kill Hayley before they could find him.

The sooner he learned to accept that the easier it would be. Only Brian knew that he would never be able to accept losing Hayley. She was a part of him now, she had been for a long time, he just hadn't seen it. The last twenty-four hours they’d spent together had been amazing. She had left a permanent mark on his soul that would never fade.

He loved Hayley.

After years of seeing her as just another little cousin, and then just an attractive friend, he now loved her so much that his heart was physically aching not having her here with him.

He didn't think he could live a lifetime with this pain.

“What are you thinking?” Brady asked.

His gaze snapped up to meet his friend’s. “Thinking about what it’s going to be like if we don’t get Hayley back.”

“We will get her back.”

“You can't know that. She could be dead already. What would you do if you lost Aurora?”

“Rip out the heart of the person who took her away from me,” Brady answered candidly, his dark eyes growing darker.

“Is that what you did to the men who tried to kill her?” He knew a little about the way Brady and Aurora had met, which was far from a conventional story.

“No, I beat them to a bloody pulp. And I would do the same to anyone who ever laid a hand on my wife or daughter.”

Somehow Brady’s calm but violent fury soothed him a little.

It gave him a purpose.

If he couldn’t get Hayley back, he would make sure the man who had taken her from him suffered just like he had made Hayley suffer.

“How are you doing, Brian?” Adam asked as he and Jessica walked into the room.

Ignoring that, it mattered little at the moment, all that mattered was finding Hayley. “Did you ever find this Sarah person that Kinsley mentioned?” It wasn't just Hayley’s life that hung in the balance now, but little Kinsley Turner’s as well. After abducting Hayley, Jay and Maria had gone straight to the group home where Maria had pulled a gun and used it to escape with her daughter.

“We found Sarah,” Jessica replied.

“And?”

“And Jay Turner hasn’t been hiding at her house,” Jessica told him.

“How can you be so sure?” So far that seemed to have been the only lead the cops had in finding this violent man. How could they dismiss it so easily as a possibility?

“Because Sarah was a fifteen-year-old girl who lived across the street from the Turner’s. We confirmed with her and her mother that she sometimes babysat Kinsley. Sarah lives in the house with her mother, stepfather, three siblings, and another three half-siblings. There is no way Jay Turner could have been hiding out there and no one know about it. Just to be sure, we spoke with Kinsley and asked her if that was the Sarah she was talking about, and she said it was. We also searched Sarah’s house, Jay wasn't there. Wherever he’s hiding it isn’t there,” Jessica summarized.

“So, if he isn’t hiding at Sarah’s house, then where is he?” Brian asked, frustrated. This was why he could never be a cop. He didn't have the patience to go through piece after piece of useless evidence trying to find the one little thing that would make the whole case click into place.

“Adam and I have gone through every person we could think of. Both of Jay’s parents are deceased, no grandparents, an uncle who lives in France, his brother died in a drunk driving accident nearly four years ago, and we spoke with his sister who says she hasn’t spoken to her brother since she turned eighteen and got out of their house.”

“How can you be so sure of that?”

“We checked out the sister’s place, and we’ve had cops on it ever since, no signs of Jay,” Jessica explained.

“What about Maria’s family?”

“Biological father split before she was born, stepfather is in the end stages of liver disease from a lifetime of alcoholism. Her mother is deceased, no siblings, and no other family. Wherever Jay Turner is hiding it isn’t with a relative.”

“You’ve been quiet,” Brady said to Adam, who had taken a seat at the table in one of the conference rooms at the police precinct and not said a word since.

“I was thinking,” Adam said slowly.

“About?” Brian asked.

“Well, we know that Maria Turner is involved. We’re not sure to what extent, but we know at least she was involved in Hayley’s abduction as well as Kinsley’s. For all we know, she was also involved in Leah’s death,” Adam said. “We’ve been focusing most of our efforts on Jay and people connected to him, but so far that hasn’t led us to anything useful. Once we found out that Maria was an active part of the ruse to get Hayley out of the safehouse, Jessica and I started looking into her past more closely.”

“What did you find?” Brian was beginning to feel like they were never going to find Hayley. Just sitting around here wasn't doing anything. He would rather be out in his car just driving around looking for her. This was torture, and he wasn't sure he could endure it for much longer.

“Maria’s mother was also abused by her alcoholic husband. At one point, Maria was briefly removed from her home, she was five years old at the time. When Jay tried to abduct Arianna, she said she smelled grandmother smells on him. Assuming that she’s right and we are looking for an older woman, Jessica and I looked into the social worker who removed Maria from her home. The woman is now in her seventies, her name is Katherine Horton, she’s retired, she’s a widow, we’re just trying to track down her address.”

Hope flickered inside him.

Could this be it?

Could this be where Jay Turner was holed up with his wife, daughter, and Hayley?

Brian prayed that it was.

 

* * * * *

 

1:52 A.M.

 

Hayley wished he would just come back and do it already.

Sitting here waiting had to be worse than whatever Jay Turner had planned for her.

Right?

Only Hayley wasn't so sure she was right.

He’d beaten her in the back of the truck while Maria went to kidnap Kinsley, but since they’d arrived at this house, he hadn't come back to see her, just dumped her in a room with Kinsley, locked the door, and left.

Hayley suspected she knew what he was doing.

Jay was with Maria.

No doubt beating her.

For some reason she couldn’t fathom, Maria liked being beaten basically into unconsciousness by her husband. Whatever psychological problems Maria had didn't excuse her behavior. She had been complicit in the abuse her daughters had suffered. She had been complicit in Leah’s death—for all she knew Maria had been an active participant as well. She had been complicit in the plan to lure her out of the safehouse. Plus, she had abducted her own daughter.

Maria was just as guilty as her husband, and she would make sure that neither of them ever got Kinsley back. Well, she would if she could. But right now, she was Jay and Maria’s prisoner, and they already had Kinsley. Once they killed her, they would flee with their daughter, and there would be nothing she could do about it.

“Hayley?” Kinsley said, wriggling so she was looking up at her.

The two of them were sitting on the floor of a bedroom in someone’s house—not the Turner house but wherever Jay had been hiding out—one of her wrists was tied with rope to the metal frame of the bed, and her other arm was curled around Kinsley, holding the child close. “Yeah, honey?”

“I’m scared.”

“I know, sweetie, so am I. Do you still have Brownie?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Then you just hold him really tight, okay?”

“Okay.”

She would do whatever she could to try to keep the child safe, but right now she didn't really like her chances. She’d hit her head in the car crash when Jay and Maria had rammed their car with a truck. She still had a headache, and the world was still a little blurry, so she was pretty sure she had a concussion. She had bumps and bruises over most of her body, both from the crash and from Jay punching and kicking her while they waited for Maria to kidnap Kinsley.

Hayley knew he had only unleashed a tiny fraction of his rage toward her.

There was a lot more to come.

Maybe it was a good thing that he hadn't come back into the room yet.

Especially since Maria seemed to enjoy what her husband was doing to her. If she liked it, she could have it, the longer Jay left her alone the more time it gave Brian, Adam, and Jessica to find her.

Finding a way to escape wasn't an option. Even if she wasn't restrained, Hayley wasn't sure she would have the strength to search the room for a weapon or try to break the window and climb out. They were on the second floor, and she wouldn’t have been able to coordinate herself well enough to climb down, and she’d have to get Kinsley down as well. The only option would be to jump, which would only cause her more injuries, and it wasn't like she could throw a five-year-old out the window, nor could she leave her behind.

So, for now, they were stuck here, waiting, and to try to calm her nerves she may as well try to focus on something else.

“Kinsley, the night that Leah died, in your picture Leah was on the ground, your daddy was on the roof, you were in your bedroom, looking out the window. Where was your mommy?”

“She was outside,” Kinsley replied.

“Before or after Leah went out the window and up onto the roof?”

“When Daddy went out the window after Leah, he told Mommy to go outside.”

Interesting. Jay might not have necessarily planned on killing Leah when he followed her out onto the roof. If he’d told his wife to go outside, then he thought there was a chance that Leah might have gotten away and wanted to make sure Maria didn't let that happen.

So, Maria really was involved in the abuse of her children.

She had picked which side she was on, and it wasn't out of fear it was because she liked what Jay was doing to her. Hayley could tell when she looked into the woman’s eyes. She could hear it in her voice and feel it in the air when the three of them had been in the back of the truck together. She had felt Maria Turner’s jealousy. She’d seen the look on the woman’s face when Jay had bent her over his knee and spanked her.

“Hayley?”

“Yes, honey?”

“Did my daddy hurt you?”

There was no point in lying to the child, even at five Kinsley knew what kind of man her father was. “Yes, he did.”

“Is he going to hurt you again?”

“Probably.”

“I want to leave,” Kinsley said, her voice wobbling. So far, the little girl had done a marvelous job of holding it together, but she was just a child, and Hayley herself was finding it hard enough to stay strong, expecting Kinsley to was out of the question. Maybe she should tell the little girl to go out the window. It was a risky trek for such a small child, but realistically probably no riskier than her remaining here. The best they could hope for was that Jay and Maria had a lot of missed time to make up for and that they would spend another few hours together, which would buy enough time for Brian and the others to find them.

She couldn’t let herself believe that she wouldn’t be found.

She couldn’t.

Because if she did, then she would lose all hope.

And if she lost all hope then she would fall apart.

She had to stay strong.

She had survived so much already, and she would survive this too. After all, she had the best motivation in the world to return home.

Brian.

The two of them had only just become a couple, she couldn’t die now.

An ominous feeling filled the room, and a moment later the door opened, and Jay and Maria appeared.

Kinsley whimpered and pressed closer. The extra pressure on her battered body hurt, but Hayley didn't push the child away, instead, she drew her closer as though the little girl’s sweet innocence could somehow protect her.

“It’s time,” Jay sneered. He carried in his hands a plank of wood and a couple of bricks. Maria also carried a few bricks. From the way the woman held herself Hayley knew she’d been right and that her husband had given her another brutal beating.

She didn't bother pointing out that he had Kinsley back now so there wasn't really any point in killing her because she knew it made no difference to him. Jay didn't care about his daughter beyond using her as a punching bag, and to him the point was that she had taken Kinsley to begin with.

Setting the plank of wood and the bricks beside the bed, Jay stood over her. His blue eyes were cold, icy cold, and she shivered as he fixed them on her in an unbreakable stare.

“Kinsley, go to your mother,” Jay ordered.

The child hesitated, clinging tightly, her little cheeks wet with tears. But she obviously knew what disobedience would lead to and reluctantly stood and crossed the room to stand with Maria.

Jay leaned down and cut the rope securing her wrist to the bed, then roughly grabbed her by the arms and lifted her up, dropping her onto the mattress. Before she had a chance to try to move away, he had taken one of her arms and secured it to the bedpost. He repeated this with her other limbs. Pain radiated through her as her extended limbs put pressure on her injuries. She sucked in a breath and fought back the tears, she didn't want to add to Jay Turner’s pleasure by crying.

“Think you’re a tough girl, huh?” Jay pressed his thumb against the gash on her head, causing her to wince. “Leah used to think she was a tough girl too, but her mother and I taught her a lesson. I think this will work quite well for you.” He picked up the plank of wood and set it on her chest. Then he picked up one of the bricks and held it over the wood. “It can take days to suffocate as I slowly increase the weight on your chest,” he said with a smile.

Fear raced around her body.

It quickly progressed to terror.

She was already injured, she doubted that she could last for days with a brick crushing her chest.

She wasn't going to last until Brian found her.

One day with him wasn't enough. She wanted more. She had wanted to spend an entire lifetime with the man she loved, and yet she’d been given a measly twenty-four hours.

It wasn't fair.

With an evil grin, Jay placed the brick onto the board, and immediately her breathing was hampered.

Hayley wished she had listened to Brian and stayed at the safehouse where the two of them could have been curled up in each other’s arms or making love right this second, instead, she was about to suffer a horribly slow death.

 

* * * * *

 

3:37 A.M.

 

Finally, things were working out just the way he wanted.

Jay was buzzed and not just from the eight cans of beer he’d downed in the last hour.

Although that definitely played a part in his good mood, he thought as he tossed his head back and swallowed the last of can number nine in one gulp. He threw the can onto the couch behind him and then gestured at Maria.

She didn't need to be told what to do, she was well trained and immediately stopped what she was doing, collected the empty can, and took it with her into the kitchen to throw into the recycling. Then she returned promptly with another nice cold can of beer from the fridge.

Pleased with how his day was going, he cracked open the new can and started drinking.

Everything was nice and quiet.

Peaceful.

Hayley Hood was quiet in her room, too busy trying to breathe with three bricks on her chest to worry about making a sound. Maria was sitting on the floor with Kinsley, building with a box of Legos he’d found in the spare bedroom’s closet.

Everything was as it should be.

Soon Hayley would be dead—a slow, excruciating, terrifying death that befitted what she’d done—then he, his wife, and his kid could move on. He was already thinking about where they would go and what they would do. He had a friend from school who ran a garage in a small town about two hours from here. Maybe he could go there and get a job. He knew a little about mechanics, enough to get by. Maria could school Kinsley at home, they couldn’t risk enrolling her in the local school as they’d be on the run, and that would alert the cops as to where they were.

He was going to be keeping his foot on Kinsley. There was no way he was allowing her to turn out like her disobedient, outspoken older sister. Maybe he and Maria would even try for another kid. Hopefully a boy this time. Boys grew into men, strong, tough men, he thought he’d like to have a son, someone to carry on the family name.

Content, Jay stretched back on the couch. This was the life. Lounging around, drinking beer while his wife attended to their child and his every need. The move was going to do them all good. Maybe they’d buy a farm, he liked the idea of a large property, of privacy and seclusion, where there would be no nosy neighbors who didn't understand butting in and sticking their noses where they didn't belong. No one would think to look for them in a small, quiet, sleepy town, and he would be free to do whatever he wanted with his family.

Yes, this was the life.

“Maria,” he said.

She looked over but didn't speak, she knew better than to open her mouth without being given express permission to do so.

“I think the kid should go to bed now. Put her in the room across the hall from Hayley’s. Once you’ve put her to sleep, wait for me in the master bedroom,” Jay rattled off orders. He didn't need to elaborate on how he expected to find his wife waiting for him, she really was well trained.

It wasn't as easy as you might think to train a woman.

Even one as willing to learn as Maria was.

He’d never thought he’d meet a woman like her. It was like she had sensed the evil and violence that lurked inside him and that was exactly what had drawn her to him.

She wasn't like his mother or sister who had feared his father. She thrived from every slap he gave her, lived for every beating, and enjoyed every time he used her so roughly she was left bleeding and barely able to stand.

She was one of a kind.

He knew that she had grown up in a home with abuse, just like he had, although her stepfather had never laid a hand on her, but he didn't know how that had created the woman she had become.

Nor did he care.

All he cared about was that he had the perfect wife.

He’d go take a nice, hot shower, then tend to the two gunshot wounds he’d gotten in the last few days. Then he would check in on Hayley, maybe add another brick to the three already slowly crushing her chest, before going to the bedroom and letting Maria tend to his every whim.

Maria had picked up Kinsley and was just passing by him to walk down the hall to the staircase that led to the bedrooms when the front door was suddenly rammed open.

Without thinking about what he was doing, Jay just reacted. He grabbed Kinsley from her mother’s arms and held her in front of him. Pinned to his chest, her small body was a barrier between himself and whoever had just broken in.

“Hands where we can see them,” a voice yelled as three people rushed into the room. “Down on your knees, let the child go, hands in the air.”

Jay ignored those orders.

No one told him what to do, especially not some woman cop.

He remembered two of the three people in the room. Detective Jessica Spears and Detective Adam Abram had been the cops there with Hayley Hood the day they had taken his kid. If he had his gun on him, he would have shot the two cops and the other man—who he thought was the one who had tried to stop him in the street last night after he’d crashed the stolen truck into Hayley’s car. The man had nearly interrupted the abduction, probably would have if he hadn't been planning on setting the car on fire with the bodyguard still inside. If he had his gun, he definitely would have shot all three of them and not regretted it one iota.

“Jay Turner, put your daughter down and get onto the floor on your knees, hands above your head,” the male cop ordered.

He just chuckled.

He wasn't going to do that.

He might not have his gun on him—having left it upstairs in the master bedroom—but he had an adorable little human shield that he knew none of the three people who had just broken in here would dare risk harming.

“I don’t think so, Detective,” he said with a smile.

“More officers will be arriving shortly. You’re not walking away from here so you may as well surrender, save yourself additional charges,” Detective Spears told him.

What a joke.

He had killed his daughter, he had attempted to kill Hayley Hood on multiple occasions, he had assaulted a bodyguard or cop or whoever the man was at the group home, he had tried to kill the bodyguard in the car last night, he had abducted his daughter, he had beaten his wife on several occasions, and he had Hayley Hood upstairs tied to a bed with bricks on her chest. There was no way he could cause himself more problems by refusing to surrender. By the time they added up all his charges he was probably never seeing the outside of a prison cell for the rest of his life, so he had nothing to lose.

“How did you find me?”

“A social worker got involved with your family after your father smashed your older sister’s face into a mirror. Once your sister was removed from the home that left you as the next in line to take the brunt of your father’s anger. You couldn’t blame him for what he did, you're just like him, but you blamed your mother, your sister, and the social worker. Is Bridie Kocsh still alive?” Detective Spears asked.

He was getting annoyed.

He didn't like the attitude of the cops.

They thought they had gotten the best of him just because they had figured out where he was hiding.

So what?

That didn't make them better than him, and it didn't mean they were going to best him.

“Maria, down on your knees,” Detective Spears ordered.

No way was that happening.

No one but him told his wife what to do.

“Maria, don’t move,” he commanded.

They were going to get his wife cuffed and out of here, and then it was just him and Kinsley. Then they would try to badger him into letting go of the only thing keeping him from being shot right now. They would try to distract him with talk about his past, trying to analyze it and find a way to explain why he had turned out to be the man he was.

But he didn't care about that.

He was who he was, he made no apologies for it.

And he wasn't going to let them use it as a weapon to keep his attention on them while they got their cop buddies to sneak into the house and take him out from behind.

Maria was too well trained to obey the command of anyone but him, and she still stood beside him, right where she’d been when the intruders had arrived.

A plan was already forming in his head.

A way where he got out of here and succeeded in ending Hayley Hood’s life. If he played things right, he might also walk away with his wife and kid.

All he had to do was get upstairs to his gun. Then he’d run into Hayley’s room, shoot her, then as the cops took Maria and Kinsley outside he could shoot them, then go out the window and flee.

He had to hurry though.

He had no doubt that the cops were telling the truth when they’d said that more of them were coming.

Without wasting another second, Jay threw Kinsley at Maria and ran.

 

* * * * *

 

3:58 A.M.

 

If they weren't right this time, he didn't think he could take it.

Brian was pretty much at the end of his rope.

One tiny little push and he was going to go tumbling over the edge and fall apart.

Hayley had been with that man for nearly twelve hours now. That was more than enough time for him to have killed her, and it was more than enough time for him to have tortured her.

That was almost more terrifying than the thought of Hayley being dead.

A quick death was one thing, he would never get over losing her, and neither would the rest of her family, but at least she wouldn’t have suffered. But to think of her alone, scared, in pain, being tortured, that was too much. He couldn’t cope with that. He couldn’t. He needed her to be okay.

Brady, Adam, and Jessica had ordered him to stay in the car while they went inside to see if Jay Turner was hiding out with Hayley, his wife, and his daughter at the house of a woman named Bridie Kocsh. Bridie had been a social worker who had worked with Jay’s family when he was a child. So far, he had complied, mainly because his body was physically fatigued. After not sleeping the night before, then the car accident, and worrying over Hayley, he was tapped out. And sore, his body ached, and the bumps, bruises, cuts, and broken nose were starting to make themselves known.

He just wanted Hayley back.

Now.

But they’d been wrong once already tonight.

They'd thought that Jay Turner might be staying at the home of a different retired social worker, but when they’d turned up the woman had been at home with her three sons and their families who were visiting from out of state. Since they thought that the anger he had directed toward Hayley had to come from a deeper seated place than just her doing her job and removing Kinsley from the home they decided to see if there was a social worker in his own past.

There was.

And now they were here.

Where he had been left waiting.

Shoving open the car door, Brian got out and began to pace up and down the sidewalk.

What was going on in there?

What was taking so long?

Was Jay Turner armed? Was that why Adam and Jessica hadn't arrested him already? There were three of them to Jay’s one. They had the numbers, surely it wouldn’t be much longer.

Was Hayley in there or had Jay left her someplace else?

Or dumped her dead body in a shallow grave, or at the side of a road, or in a dumpster somewhere?

There was a light on in an upstairs window.

Hayley.

For some reason, Brian knew she was in there.

He couldn’t explain it, he just knew, he felt it, felt her. Just like he felt that she needed him. He had to go to her. Now. Waiting for Adam, Jessica, and Brady to finish doing whatever they were doing wasn't an option.

There was a trellis running up the side of the house underneath the window with the light on, he was pretty sure that he could make it up there relatively easily.

Spurred on by fear, he clambered up the wall as quickly as he could. It didn't take long, and when he reached the window, he shoved it open and climbed through. Then he froze.

He’d been right.

Hayley was inside the room.

She was tied, spread-eagled, to the bed. There was a plank of wood on her chest. On the plank of wood sat three bricks.

Hayley’s face was ashen.

There were small dots of foam at the sides of her mouth.

Her eyes were closed.

Her breathing was labored, harsh gasps, wheezing in and out of her mouth as her lungs were compressed limiting the amount of air that could enter.

She was dying.

Slowly and painfully.

His ability to move returned and Brian ran to the bed, grabbing the bricks and dropping them onto the carpet. With the pressure off her chest, Hayley’s breathing improved, but only slightly. Brian pressed his fingertips to her neck and felt her pulse fluttering weakly. At least she was still breathing. He’d gotten to her in time, but had he waited until the others had Jay Turner in handcuffs it might have been too late.

Pulling a small Swiss army knife from his pocket, Brian sawed quickly through the ropes binding Hayley to the bed. The second he had her free, he sat on the mattress and pulled her into his arms.

“Hayley?” he whispered, stroking her hair and rocking her gently from side to side. “Can you hear me?”

She didn't reply.

Just lay limply in his grasp.

“Come on, sweetheart,” he begged. He needed her to wake up. He needed her to be okay. Losing her would crush him just as certainly as those bricks had been crushing Hayley’s chest.

Tears brimmed in his eyes.

He loved this woman so completely. It might have taken him a while to realize what she meant to him, but now he knew. He loved her with the kind of love that could last an entire lifetime.

Losing Hayley wouldn’t just be losing her but losing everything they could have had together. It would be losing a wife, children, grandchildren, years of happiness and laughter. It would be losing his life as well as hers.

A tear splashed down and dropped onto Hayley’s pale cheek.

She stirred. Moved ever so slightly, a small, pained moan escaping her dry, chapped lips.

To Brian it was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard because it was a sign of life.

“Hayley.” He brushed her hair back off her face, then took her face between his hands, his thumbs brushing lightly backward and forward across her cheekbones.

“Brian,” she murmured, so softly he could hardly hear her. Then her eyelashes fluttered, and her eyes cracked open. “You came.”

“You knew I would,” he rebuked. “Nothing on this earth could keep me away from you. Nothing.”

She gave a small smile, then her eyelids slid down, and she rested heavily against him.

“Just keep your breathing slow and steady,” he told her. Hayley needed an ambulance, but they were stuck in here until Jay Turner was in custody. “Slow and steady,” he repeated.

Hayley nodded, then just lay in his arms and rested.

He just held her, rocked her, stroked her hair, and tried to believe that she was okay, that she had survived, that they could still have the future they had talked about when they'd laid in each other’s arms the other night.

Brian didn't know how long they sat there, but all of a sudden, the quiet night was pierced by the sound of a gun being fired.

It could have been Jessica, Adam, or Brady firing at Jay Turner, or it could have been Jay firing at them. Not willing to risk Hayley’s safety, Brian stood with Hayley in his arms, knelt down, and pushed her under the bed.

“Don’t come out. No matter what,” he ordered.

Scared blue eyes looked back at him, but she nodded.

He went and hid behind the door. He’d barely gotten there when it swung open, and a man came storming in.

It wasn't one of his friends, it was Jay Turner, and he gasped when he saw the bed was empty. Obviously noticing the open window, he ran to it. Brian weighed up his options. He saw a gun in Jay’s hands, and he was unarmed and injured. Jay had been shot twice over the last few days, but from the looks of things the wounds were superficial, he didn't move like he was in any pain.

The odds might be stacked against him, but if he did nothing, Jay was going to find Hayley.

There was some sort of commotion going on downstairs, so he wasn't sure how long it would be before someone came up to help.

His hand curled around the knife he’d used to cut Hayley free. If he could strike before Jay noticed him, he could kill the man. It was a quicker death than he deserved—a quicker death than the man had tried to give Hayley—but at least he’d be dead, and there would be some sort of justice in the world.

He crept from his hiding place, knife poised, but just as he stepped up behind the other man, Jay spun around.

“You,” Jay spat out. “You took her from me.”

Jay lifted his weapon but instead of firing it, he slammed it into Brian’s temple. The force of the blow sent him sprawling onto the floor.

“You’ll pay for messing with what’s mine,” Jay snarled, lifting the weapon once again, but this time aiming it directly at his head.

Brian wasn't afraid to die, the only thing he was afraid of was that Jay would find Hayley and kill her before the others could get up here.

He couldn’t let that happen, but he didn't know how to stop it.

Then all of a sudden, a hand flew out from underneath the bed, wrapped around Jay’s ankle, and yanked, sending the man falling.

Brian still held the knife, poised between them, and Jay landed on it as he fell, the blade slicing clean through his heart.

It took only a minute for the man to bleed out.

By then footsteps were pounding on the stairs.

Brian didn't care about them, and he didn't care that Jay was dying. He just shoved the man’s body off him and scrambled to the bed, reaching under to pull Hayley out.

She’d just saved his life.

“Brian?” Adam sounded surprised as he came bursting through the door. “What are you doing here?”

He didn't have time to explain that right now, so Brian just said, “He’s dead. Hayley needs an ambulance. Now.”

Adam didn't ask any more questions, just yanked out his phone, and Brian brought Hayley with him as he shuffled backward on his bottom to rest against the wall. Cradling Hayley in his lap, they clung to each other, her still breathing heavily and erratically, but breathing.

They were both alive.

And that was all that mattered.

 

* * * * *

 

4:30 P.M.

 

“I don’t think we should be here.”

“We have to be,” Hayley said. “If anyone ever deserved a merry Christmas it’s Samara. She’s our friend, and Michael asked us to come over and help surprise her, we have to be here.”

“I think the fact that you spent the majority of the day in the hospital after nearly being suffocated to death exempts you,” Brian said.

Hayley smiled at him. She knew he was worried about her. The last twenty-four hours had been as bad for him as they’d been for her. She couldn’t imagine the fear he’d felt knowing she was with someone who wanted to kill her. She knew how she would have felt if their positions had been reversed. She would have felt like someone had wrapped a rope around her heart and was squeezing it until the life was crushed out of it.

But they were alive.

Both of them.

Back in the house when Brian had come rushing in to save her, she’d been sure that Jay was going to shoot him and then kill her too. She had been more afraid about Jay hurting Brian than herself, he’d already beaten and tried to kill her, but she couldn’t let him do that to Brian, she couldn’t let him take the man she loved away from her.

Finding reserves of strength she hadn't known she had left, she’d managed to unbalance Jay, sending him falling straight onto Brian’s knife.

Not before Brian had been hurt though.

“Hey, you had to be treated at the hospital too,” she reminded Brian.

“For a few bumps and bruises,” he countered.

“And a concussion.”

“You have a concussion too,” he shot back. “And some cracked ribs, which mean you should be at home, in bed, resting.”

“Well, you have a broken nose. Broken bones trump cracked bones.” Brian opened his mouth to come back with another retort, then they both looked at each other and laughed. “Are we really arguing over who is hurt worse?”

“I think we are.” Brian wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. “I’m just worried about you. I nearly lost you.”

Hayley felt the shudder that rippled through his body.

She could feel the fear that hadn't quite dissipated yet. She wished she could wipe away the last day and make it so it never happened, but she couldn’t, and neither of them would ever forget this day.

Every time she closed her eyes or her mind wandered, she found herself back in that bedroom, tied to the bed, the bricks on her chest slowly crushing her to death. Her breath would start to hitch, just as it had back in the bedroom. She could hear it wheezing in and out of her lungs as she struggled to get in enough oxygen, fighting for every breath she took.

She could feel her pulse pounding.

Feel that same terror that had filled her.

Hayley didn't think that horror would ever leave her.

“Hey.” Brian trailed his fingers up and down her arm. “You’re hyperventilating. Try to calm down. Breathe slowly with me.”

Letting Brian’s calm voice guide her, she latched onto it and slowly her breathing began to ease.

“You okay?” he asked when she could breathe normally again.

“I was just thinking about today, in Jay’s house,” she said softly.

“Try not to think about it.” Brian kissed the top of her head.

“I can't stop.”

“I know, me either, but today is Christmas Eve. Jay Turner is dead, Maria Turner is in prison, Kinsley is back at the group home, and we’re both alive. Everything worked out okay. It’s just going to take time for us to process it all, for us to work our way through it. But we’ll be okay, know why?”

“Why?”

“Because we have each other. Every time I picture you tied to that bed, I just look at you, and I see that you’re okay, and eventually that’ll sink in. Every time you get scared and can't stop thinking about it, you just look at me, and you know what, I’ll be here. I'm not going anywhere, not now, not ever. I got a little taste of what my life would be like without you, and I hated it. From here on out, it’s you and me, together, always. I don’t want to live without you. Any time you’re struggling you just remember that.”

Hayley smiled at him and snuggled closer, tucking her head onto Brian’s shoulder. “Okay. Thank you.”

“Don’t ever thank me for loving you. I should be thanking you for not giving up on me. It took me a while to get to the same place you were in, and if you’d given up and moved on then we wouldn’t be together right now.”

“I could never have given up on you,” she said, taking Brian’s hands and entwining their fingers. “I love you.”

“And I love you. Which is why I think we should ask Brady to drive us home. We can sit in bed, watch Christmas movies, drink hot chocolate, eat some of Savannah Crane’s Christmas cookies, and you can get the sleep you need.”

As lovely as that sounded, there would be time to do it later. Right now, this was where she wanted to be. She and Brian might have had a bad twenty-four hours, but Samara Patrick had had a horrendous year, and she needed this. “This is Samara’s chance to have what we have, our families and all our friends are here, this is something I want to do. Something I need to do.” Hayley needed something to do to take her out of her head for a while, and this was the perfect thing.

“All right,” Brian conceded. “I guess we can find something non-strenuous to do.”

“Thanks for understanding.”

Hand in hand, they climbed out of the back of Brady’s car and headed into Samara Patrick’s house. The place and the yard were buzzing as fifty-odd people worked to turn the house into a winter wonderland before Samara came home with Michael. Hayley hoped it was enough to help the couple reunite. Despite the rocky road they’d had, Hayley knew they were great together and could find a way to move forward and be happy.

“Two more worker bees,” Brian said to Samara’s brother Fin as they stepped inside. “Where do you need us?”

“Since you two look like you could fall over any second, why don’t you go unpack the boxes with the Christmas tree decorations and lay them out on the table,” Fin told them.

Heading into the living room, she and Brian sat side by side on the couch and began to unwrap decorations. There were four big boxes of them. Hayley wasn't sure where they all came from, she knew that Samara didn't celebrate Christmas—or at least she hadn't before—but maybe after seeing this magical wonderland her house was turning into she would change her mind.

“Oh, look at this adorable little Santa and Mrs. Claus,” she said as she opened the first box and picked up one of the decorations sitting on top, unwrapping the tissue paper it was wrapped in. “They’re kissing. How cute is that?”

“It’s pretty cute,” Brian agreed.

“And a reindeer, look it lights up,” she said as she opened the next one and pressed the little button on its stomach that made its little nose glow red.

“Also cute.”

“Aww, this angel has little feathers for wings.” Hayley unwrapped the next decoration.

“Are you going to get excited about every single decoration you unwrap?” Brian asked, amused.

“Probably.” Hayley grinned. “This is the third tree I've decorated this year. The one in my house, then the one in the safehouse, and now this one.”

“Maybe next year we’ll be decorating a tree of our own. Together,” Brian said.

Those nervous butterflies she was getting used to started fluttering in her stomach. “You mean a tree that’s both of ours?”

“Yes.”

“Because it’s in a house that we live in together?”

“Yes.”

“Are you asking me to move in with you?” Brian had talked about it in the car on the way to Jay’s house, but they’d been interrupted before he could outright ask her.

A corner of Brian’s mouth quirked up in a half smile. “I obviously need to work on making myself clearer, but yes, that’s what I'm asking.”

This was a dream come true for her. She wanted to say yes, but was this too soon? Was it the right thing to do? Should she be making big life-altering decisions on the back of such a traumatic experience?

Although she had trained herself out of it over the last twenty years, letting her head and not her emotions guide her, Hayley knew this was one time she had to let her heart make the decision.

“Yes.”

“Yes?” Brian arched a brow.

“Yes.” She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him without any regard for the fact that her whole family—her parents and little sister as well as Brian’s parents—were all here and watching.

A cheer went up around the room, and she broke the kiss, laughing even as her cheeks turned bright red.

“Okay, okay, show over,” Brian said.

“I really love you,” she told Brian as everyone went back to what they'd been doing.

“I really love you too, and if we didn't have concussions and a patchwork of bruises over our bodies, I'd show you how much when we get home.”

“I think we can find something we can do,” she said, giving Brian another quick kiss. “But now we have to get these decorations ready to put on the tree.”

“You are such a tease,” Brian muttered, fighting a grin as he returned to unpacking the decorations.

Hayley laughed. This was just the kind of day she loved the most, her family together, Christmas just hours away, and the man she loved sitting beside her. She might be tired, sore, and still a little breathless, but this was definitely turning out to be one of the best Christmases she’d ever had.