Authors: Kallypso Masters
Table Of Contents
Prologue
Savi Baker circled another job listing in the Classifieds as Christmas carols played in the background.
Office clerk
. After all her years of college and clinicals, she had finally achieved her dream of working as a social worker with young abuse victims. Work that had ended abruptly a week ago.
She still didn't know why she'd been fired. Her supervisor seemed equally confused, so it couldn't have been because her daughter, Mari, had been sick with the flu a couple weeks before that. Everyone at the clinic was supportive of her being a single mother, and her friend, Anita, had stayed with Mari during that time, so Savi had only been off work two days.
Her supervisor had encouraged Savi to submit an appeal to the state agency responsible for the termination, which she'd done immediately. Was she fired because of the complaint the clinic had received from the mother of one of Savi's new clients? The woman accused Savi of being indifferent to her daughter, but Savi thought she and her supervisor had succeeded in explaining to the mother that this wasn't the case at all. However, with the highly charged emotions in situations like this, Savi had to remain professional, objective, and somewhat aloof. In the end, the child's mother had hugged her, sobbing. The mother had said she understood and Savi had thought that was the end of it. Maybe not.
Oh, what difference did the reason make? She'd been fired. It could take months or even years to get reinstated; unraveling bureaucracy took time. She didn't have a huge savings—or time. Her immediate concern was finding a way to support her daughter and herself until she got another job in the mental-health field—if that was even possible—or until she got her old job back.
Savi opened her mini laptop to update her résumé and write a cover letter before Mari got home from practicing for the children's pageant at church. Two weeks 'til Christmas and no job. At least Savi had learned long ago to budget her spending, so there were some special gifts tucked away on the upper shelf in her closet that would help make this Christmas special. She just wouldn't be able to do as much of the baking and gift-giving she liked to do.
Absorbed in rewriting her résumé, she jumped when the doorbell interrupted her. She looked at the clock on her desk. Too early for Mari to be dropped off—unless something had happened. Barely able to breathe, Savi nearly ran to the front door and opened it, expecting to see one of the youth leaders from the church group.
Lyle.
She gasped, nearly choking as bile rose in her throat.
Stupid! Why hadn't she glanced through the peephole first?
She tried to close the door in his face, but he had wedged his foot into the doorway, preventing her.
"What kind of greeting is that for an old friend, Savannah?"
Not a friend. Enemy.
Savi placed her bare foot against the back of the door to keep him from opening it any further. She tried to fill her lungs with much-needed air.
Dangerous
. She needed to get rid of him. He could hurt Mari.
She fought to force the door closed, but gained no ground. "What do you want?"
"Let me inside and we'll talk."
"You're not coming in. Leave before I call the police!"
He narrowed his eyes into slits and fear crawled up Savi's spine for the first time in eight years.
Vile man.
Could she fight him off?
"Open this door, you dirty slut, or you and Marisol will regret this pathetic show of bravery."
Marisol
. He knew her name. Did he know where she was?
Oh, God
, she prayed.
Don't let Mari come home early.
Where was Father? Had he gone after Mari while Lyle was here with her?
"I'm not letting you inside my…"
Without warning, Lyle leaned back then rammed his body full force into the door, sending the edge of the wood into Savi's cheek. She hurtled backward until she lay sprawled on the floor, looking up at him. His navy-blue dress pants and wingtip shoes made her shudder as a distant memory tried to smother her efforts to regain her breath, but she tamped it back down. The angry man towered over her.
"Ah, just where a slut like you belongs, Savannah—at my feet." He reached for her. "Let me hear you scream, for old-time's sake, you filthy whore."
No!
Memories of the night he'd placed her father's brand on her could never be erased, no matter how many times she'd tried. Neither could any of the degrading things Lyle had subjected her to at her father's orders.
She got onto all fours and scrambled to get away, sliding on the waxed floor. Lyle's wingtip shoe gouged into her left side. The air whooshed from her lungs and she gasped, fighting for her next breath.
"Your father asked me to bring you and your brat to him. But we're going to enjoy a little playtime first. What your father doesn't know…"
Another blow struck her side near the same place and panic set in as her breathing became labored. Two more kicks followed in rapid succession.
The pain!
Breathe!
Maman, help me. Give me the strength to fight him off.
Savi pulled herself up using the hallway table and tried to breathe again. She turned to find Lyle smirking at her.
Bastard
. Picking up a brass candlestick from the table, she swung it at his head, striking a blow she hoped had left him more than just stunned. Not waiting for him to recover, she followed up by kicking him in the groin. He doubled over and fell to the floor. He lay moaning, holding his privates as blood trickled onto her floor, when she remembered how to cut off the blood flow to the brain. She'd learned the technique from a veteran female Marine who had studied with her in college.
Savi cringed as her finger touched his neck, hating to place her hands anywhere on him, but finally found the point she sought and pressed—hard. She counted. By thirty seconds, Lyle's body grew even more limp.
Escape! Now!
Running to the kitchen, she grabbed her purse and keys and stumbled out the back door. A black BMW sat parked behind her little blue Nissan. She glanced back at her bungalow. Her home, but no longer her safe place.
No sign of Lyle yet, but he wouldn't be unconscious forever. Breathing had become a struggle, but she refused to escape inside her head to that numb place where she could dull the pain. Mari needed her to stay in the moment.
Mari needed her. Period.
She filled her lungs with as much air as she could stand and held her breath.
Oh dear lord
. Why couldn't she breathe? She pressed her hand to her chest and tucked her elbow against her left side, near where Lyle had kicked her repeatedly. Was something broken?
How had her father and his partner found her after all these years? She'd changed her name, her looks, everything she could in order to keep from being found. No way would she ever let them anywhere near her daughter to do any of the things they'd done to her when she had been under her father's control. In some ways, while Lyle had only been her handler, he was more sadistic than her father. Lyle had been the one to place her father's shameful mark on her. He'd enjoyed hearing her scream and often inflicted even more pain than what her father had ordered.
She opened the car door, got behind the steering wheel, and turned the key in the ignition. She couldn't zone out now. She needed to get to San Miguel's…to Mari.
Then what?
The image of Damián Orlando in her office, comforting Teresa, his niece and her former client, and of him later, standing over the inert body of the girl's rapist father last month alternated before her eyes.
No
. She could never go to him. He was dangerous in a totally different way from Lyle and her father—but still oh so dangerous.
Chapter One
Damián wasn't home. What now?
She'd arrived in Denver a couple of hours ago and had come straight to the address Anita had retrieved from Teresa's file at the clinic. Savi had already driven across the state of California by the time Anita—the woman who worked as the clinic's receptionist and was more like a mother figure to Savi than anything else—returned her call for help. Savi had known Damián lived somewhere in Denver and had instinctively headed in that direction after picking up Mari at the church. The further away she could take herself and her daughter from Lyle and her father, the better.
Looking into a patient's confidential file was unethical, not to mention illegal. Anita was aware of that, too, but had taken the risk based on the stories Savi had told her about some of the brutalities her father and Lyle had inflicted on her over the years. Even that limited knowledge made Anita understand the need to keep Savi and Mari out of harm's way, regardless of whether it meant her friend would lose her job, too.
Savi hoped that wouldn't happen. She owed Anita everything, from that day so long ago where the older woman had taken a scared and pregnant runaway into her home. Savi didn't want her friend to become more collateral damage in her father's need to control his daughter—and now his granddaughter.
Looking into the backseat, she saw Mari still slept soundly. When Damián hadn't answered his door, she'd taken Mari to get something to eat at a fast-food place down the street, and then returned to knock at his door again. Still no answer. She'd decided to wait for him in the parking lot, knowing of no other place to look for him.
After an hour or so, she began to worry that perhaps he'd returned to California for a visit or gone somewhere else for the weekend. Didn't everyone in Colorado ski? What if he didn't come home at all tonight? She couldn't risk getting a motel room and using a credit card. Most decent ones wouldn't take cash without a credit card to back it up. She didn't want Mari to sleep in the cold car or in some "no tell" motel where predators might be a more imminent threat.
What if Damián brought a woman home? Awkward, to say the least. Yet, she and Mari had nowhere else to go. Fear clawed at her, but she pushed it away. She needed to stay strong for Mari.
Off and on for the past hour, she'd run the engine a few minutes to keep the car's temperature comfortable. Mari had fallen asleep soon after dinner. Her beautiful baby had asked a thousand questions on the almost two-day drive here, but seemed content when Savi told her they were going to visit the nice man they'd met at church after choir practice a while back. Savi couldn't believe Mari even remembered him, but she'd asked immediately, "Damián?"
Please, God, don't let this be an emotional disaster for either of them.
Neither could afford to complicate their lives with impossible emotional attachments. And anything having to do with a man would be impossible.
So, then, why was she here on Damián's doorstep?
Simply put, there was no one else she could turn to. Everyone in California could be controlled or easily coerced by her father, except for Father Martine and Anita. Her priest already had put himself in danger, too, by giving her cash to travel on. Both of them had promised not to reveal anything to Lyle if he tracked her to either of them.
The roar of a motorcycle entering the parking lot drew her attention, her mind returning to a time when she'd ridden on the back of a Harley, her chest and thighs pressed against Damián's body and her arms wrapped around his waist. Her face grew warm.
She watched as the man in the leather pants and the Harley Davidson-emblazoned vest pulled into a numbered spot near the stairway. His lean, muscular body looked lethal. He set the kickstand, turned and removed the key, and swung his leg over the back of the bike, then unhooked the chin strap on his helmet.
Damián.
Before he'd even pulled the helmet off, she'd recognized him. Her heart thudded, surprising her. His queue exposed below the helmet at the nape of his neck tipped her off, then he turned sideways and she saw the familiar mustache and goatee. He didn't look in her direction, but made his way to the stairway. His shoulders slumped a bit as Savi watched him make his way up the steel staircase to the second floor of the old motel building. Was he limping? She hoped he wouldn't be too tired to help deal with two unexpected and desperate guests tonight, because she was about to invade his world with a vengeance.
Again.
He'd helped immobilize Teresa's father last month when the bastard had returned to try and hurt his daughter again. Teresa, Damián's sixteen-year-old niece, had been raped nearly five weeks ago by the bastard. Savi had been making progress as Teresa's therapist…until she'd been fired. Teresa was lucky to have a champion like Damián. Now Mari and Savi needed him.