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  “What?” He barked at her.

  Denby turned once more to the car. “Who are you?” What was this about? He didn’t care for her.

  Why track her down now?

  “I’m someone you do not want to thwart.”

  His eyes had a wild, intense gleam she only saw in the fanatical or junkies. “Thwart? Who do you think you are? Master of the universe?”

  His laugh was hard and arrogant. “Yes. I do and I am.”

  “Whatever.” It sounded like something one of those creepy Jacobson Committee members would say. She heard those pompous assholes on the television all the time with their proposed rules designed to crush women’s rights. Undoubtedly, because he was in their car, he had to be one of them. “Why are you tracking me down after all these years?”

  “Because you’re my daughter and I need to bring you to heel.”

  “You need to what?” Denby was agog at his words. It made her sound like a mongrel dog who had to be taught a lesson.

  “You see, it makes it very hard for me to carry on the Jacobson Committee work if my daughter is openly defiant. If my followers know that, as their leader I’m found wanting, then that lack of power annoys me.”

  A sudden surge of fear rushed up Denby’s spine at his words. Their leader? Followers? Defiant?

  Power? The car? “Who the fuck are you?”

  “Stop swearing!” he commanded.

  “Fuck off,” she retaliated just because she could.

  “I’m the last person you want to mess with because I promise I will crush you if you refuse to obey me.”

  His words shocked her and that in itself was strange because Denby had seen too much to be surprised anymore. But this? No normal person spoke as he did. His words replayed in her mind. …

  it makes it very hard for me to carry on the Jacobson Committee work if my daughter is openly defiant. She stared at the hard, angry features of the man before her. A terrible, sick thought came to her. “No…” It couldn’t be. Her father was an asshole but even he couldn’t be that evil. Like a film on rewind, her mind sped back over the horrible years of her childhood. She looked him in the eye.

  They were dark, cold eyes that held no interest or fatherly affection for her. “Who is Jacobson?”

  Even as she said the words, in her heart Denby knew the answer. I am the devil’s spawn.

  “Why?” Her father asked.

  “Because.” I need to have reality smack me in the face so I can deal with it and move on.

  “I don’t have time for this.” He made a grab for her arm.

  Denby stepped back before he could touch her. Coldness was coming in waves off him. “Answer me! Or are you scared of the truth coming out? Is it easier to hide behind dragon symbols and archaic laws?” I won’t be my father’s daughter in name or character.

  “You want the truth, you little bitch?”

  “Stick and stones old man.” Denby no longer felt any pain from him. She stood her ground, not flinching.

  “I am Jacob’s son.”

  “Jacob’s son.” She repeated the words. She didn’t need to be a rocket scientist to understand his meaning. Denby looked at him. He appeared pleased with himself. The twisted smile on his face made her stomach lurch. He wanted her to be shocked. There was no way Denby was going to show that. What he just told her sickened her but she wasn’t going to allow him to terrify her as he did other women. She swallowed the nausea she felt down. “You’re Jacobson.” Of all the times not to have a gun.

  “Yes. My father, your grandfather, was called Jacob. My bitch of a mother dumped me, her baby, when she was a teenager into a foster home. It took me a while but I tracked down who my parents were.”

  “And now, because you feel inadequate that your childhood wasn’t what you wanted, every woman has to pay for it?” Her childhood was hardly a walk in the park but Denby didn’t try to ruin other people’s lives.

  “Yes.” He smiled at her.

  That he found amusement in telling her, made Denby sick. He had ruined the world because of a vendetta against a scared teenage girl. “Normal, strong people would’ve built a bridge and gotten over it.”

  “I’m not like anyone else. I’m unique. I’m a leader among men who follow my every word.”

  Not only was it terrifying that he said it, but he believed it was true. “You’re an asshole.”

  He waved his hand dismissively. “Your opinion is irrelevant to me. However, as you’re my daughter—Jacobson’s daughter—I need to keep you in check so you don’t make me look bad. Your running around doing as you please is a problem I intend to solve right now.”

  “How? Going to marry me off to some man who’ll impregnate me so it makes you look normal to your followers? If so, I have to tell you, father, you’re playing with yourself.”

  He made a grab for her arm. “You will come with me.”

  Denby side stepped him. “Oh, fuck off.” There was no way she would go with him.

  He seemed unperturbed. “Gentlemen,” he called out. The front doors to the car opened. Two large men dressed in suits stepped out. “Please teach my daughter some manners.”

  Denby had no time to think or move as she was grabbed by the two men and slammed to the ground. She wanted to scream out in pain as one of them drove his knee into the small of her back to hold her down while the other pulled her feet up behind her. Denby swore and bucked up to get them off her but they were big, hard and merciless. She felt a rough rope cinch her feet tightly together as her hands were dragged behind her and she was hog-tied and helpless.

  “See what the consequences of not obeying your father are?”

  “Fuck off!” she roared as they picked her up. Her limbs were on fire due to the awkward angle and the tightness of the rope.

  Her father walked around the car and opened the trunk. “Dump her in here.”

  Denby was thrown, face first, like a bag of garbage into the trunk of the car. She had landed hard, her nose smacking into floor. She felt the blood dripping down. The lid slammed shut and she was trapped. She rolled onto her side and looked wildly around her, the fear of suffocation racing through her. It was dark and cramped. While she could just see the lever, which was installed on all new cars to pop the trunk, there was no way she could reach it tied up as she was. When the car started, Denby knew she had no hope of escaping. She was their prisoner and her father was making sure she knew it.

  After a bone shaking, body bruising trip where she was thrown aimlessly around the small compartment, the car stopped. She was dragged out. Denby saw the planes and knew she was at an airport. She yelled and screamed. People looked at her bloody face, bound body and disheveled appearance but no one reacted. She wondered how much her father paid them or how much they feared him. She was carried by the two men to a nearby, private plane, up the stairs and dumped inside on the floor. Denby landed hard but made no sound of the pain which tore through her. There was no way she would let them know what she felt. They stood beside her and waited for their leader to appear.

  “You’re a mess.” Her father stepped over her and sat down on an expensively upholstered seat.

  She didn’t doubt it. Denby could taste the blood on her lips and her hair was in her eyes. She was still trussed up, hands and legs together behind her back.

  Her father buckled his belt and crossed his legs. “If you can behave you can have a seat.”

  “Did I tell you to fuck off before? If so, it still goes,” she responded in her best smart ass voice.

  Her words were greeted with a hard kick to her ribs by one of the men. Denby refused to cry out.

  Her father picked up a newspaper. “You’ll learn, my dear daughter, hatred for me is what I thrive on.”

  Chapter Three

  In Brisbane she had been imprisoned in his home for a week until she promised to behave. So she did. Promises to him meant nothing to Denby. She would have promised the devil, or in this case her father, for freedom. For a week after that promise she pr
etended to be good to lull her father, and those who were brought in to watch her, into a false sense of security. The first moment she got, Denby escaped. It wasn’t hard. She mentioned to one burly captor she had her periods and exaggerated the blood, pain and mess until he didn’t want to hear anymore and left her to lock herself in the bathroom to deal with it. As a teenager, Denby regularly climbed out of windows. The drop from this one was a couple of yards onto concrete below. She didn’t doubt it would hurt like hell but she also knew her fate would be worse if she stayed. Hearing her father talk of marrying her off made her sick to her stomach. She was a ‘thing’ and an inconvenience to him that had to be dealt with so he didn’t look bad.

  Three days later, Denby was at the bus station, propping up the battered ankle she had smashed in the fall from the window. It was swathed in a thick, crepe, elasticized bandage she had bought at a pharmacy. She had contemplated going to a doctor or the hospital but she didn’t want her father tracking her down due to any records kept. Denby could only guess at the reach the Jacobson Committee had. Before the bus station, she had holed up for three days in a local pub. The room cost twelve dollars and fifty cents a night, the bathrooms were shared and the cockroaches were free. That was okay. She didn’t plan on sleeping. Her plan was to lay low and then get out of town.

  In order to do that she had hocked the last thing she had of value. Denby had kept it hidden in a small compartment she had hacked out under the inner sole of her right boot. It was a solid gold child’s bracelet. It was one of the two things she had that belonged to her mother. She had found it when she was a teenager searching through her father’s office, looking for answers. He hadn’t been home at the time and she had taken the chance to see what she could find. Denby knew nothing about her father. That didn’t worry her. He was a bitter man, a viscous man. If he had dropped dead in front of her Denby would have stepped over him and not looked back. But her mother? That was different. She needed to know who she was, where she had gone and why. It plagued her. Even as a teenager, Denby had a fair idea her father’s extreme behavior had driven her mother off. She didn’t blame her for leaving. She did wish her mother had taken her with her but maybe, due to her father, that wasn’t possible. What evil drove someone to abandon their child?

  So Denby snooped around and found the bracelet. It had been inside a buff colored enveloped with a photo that was folded into quarters. When she flattened the picture out, she knew, without being told, she was looking into her mother’s eyes. They were her eyes also. She stared for a long time at the woman in the photo. She could barely remember her mother but Denby knew, looking into those eyes, her mother wasn’t happy. But she was beautiful and she existed and that gave her hope she had family out there somewhere and that she could find her mother.

  The gold bracelet fascinated Denby. She wondered if it had been her mother’s. “Or maybe mine.” There were no baby photos of Denby or indeed any of her growing up. Her father made no effort to take them. Because of that, she had no hesitation in taking the photo and the bracelet off her father. “To hell with him,” she murmured, folding up the photo and stuffing it and the bracelet in her bra.

  The decision to sell the bracelet hadn’t been a hard one and that had surprised Denby. She thought selling one of the few pieces of who her mother was would have closed the door to her existence a little further. However, in her heart, she knew her mother had to have made hard choices to survive. Living with her father was enough to tell her that. Selling a piece of gold to have her freedom from his evil, crushing influence? Priceless. The pawnbroker had been impressed by the bracelet.

  “This is nice.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why are you selling it?

  “What’s it to you?”

  “Is it hot?”

  “Do you care?”

  “No. What’s your name?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “Hiding out?”

  “Are you doing all the right things you’re supposed to?”

  “I like you. Too few ballsy women around now.”

  “Just give me the money.”

  The man paid her more than she expected but then gold prices were high at the moment. The thought that it might have been melted down made her hesitate for a moment but the need for escape money was more important and she felt sure if her mother knew, she would have agreed. All she needed now was a fast bus out of town.

  * * * * *

  At the local bus station, Denby winced as she stood up once more and tried to put her full weight on her injured foot to test it. “Fuck!” she gasped out low and fast, the air rushing out of her lungs as the pain tore into her bone. She fell back down on the seat. She suspected the bone was cracked. “Great, just what I need.” Fast getaways were hard on dodgy limbs. Denby mentally slapped herself. I can do this. I have to do thi s. I have no choice. Staying anywhere near her father was not an option. The man was sick and liable to do anything to make her conform to his particular kind of madness.

  “Hello.”

  Denby jumped up in surprise, turning on her ankle and swearing profusely. When she could see through the blinding white light of pain casting a haze over her, she leaned against the chair and looked at the man before her. Tall. Dark. Handsome. Bound to be a pain in the ass. From her experience, attractive men always were. They thought they were god’s gift to women and after what Denby had just been through she wasn’t about to encourage any man. Who could trust them? “What do you want?”

  He arched one brow up. “Can’t I say hello?”

  No. “Why?” No one did anything without a reason. She sank back down in her seat.

  “Broken ankle?”

  “No, crepe bandages are all the rage this season. Didn’t you see that in the news?”

  He smiled and sat down beside her. “Waiting for a bus?”

  “Well, let’s see, this is a bus station, so yeah, you’re very astute.” Pain was bringing out the smart ass in her.

  “And you’re very angry.”

  “Correct.” She was and beyond reason to be snapping at innocent people but being out of control annoyed her.

  “Why?” He persisted pleasantly.

  “None of your business.” And, even if she could explain it, who would believe her? My father is a madman who is screwing up the world and wants to hold me captive because I’m an inconvenience. And you are?

  “My name is Sirius Tate.”

  “I’m very happy for you,” Denby responded, all the time thinking the name didn’t fit the man but what else was new? Nothing or no one seemed to fit into anything anymore. In her mind a ‘Sirius’

  suggested someone old fashioned and a bible-thumper, proclaiming his views and daring anyone to fight him. This man, with his lean, good looks, was more like a male model or movie star. And why was he talking to her when there were lots of other women around who didn’t look like they’d been dragged backwards through a hay baler? She felt terrible. She looked terrible. Her clothes were wrinkled and her hair was a rat’s nest of knots She was naturally suspicious by nature but even more so now.

  He laughed in delight as if unperturbed by her attitude. “And you are?”

  “Independent and wearing steel caps so don’t piss me off.” Well, one steel cap but it only takes one good kick.

  “Ah, you hate men.”

  He said it as if he was indicating he had pegged her as a certain type of woman. “No, I just hate men in suits.”

  “I’m not in a suit.”

  “True.” He wasn’t. He was in denim jeans and a dark green t-shirt that brought out the hazel of his eyes. “I guess you look normal enough. Where are you going?” He didn’t look like someone who would travel by bus but then looks were deceptive. He could be a broke yet incredibly attractive vagabond as opposed to her broke and with knotty red hair and clothes that she really needed to change. But then jumping out windows precluded luggage. The clothes she had picked up at the good will store were pretty threadbare but doa
ble. Not that it mattered. She was going to be on the road. From experience, Denby knew road trips were rarely glamorous. As yet she hadn’t picked a destination. It was a toss-up between the mining towns of Mount Isa and Charleville. Both were out west and more than likely looking for transient workers, busted ankle and all.

  “I came down here to meet a friend’s bus but I don’t think she made the trip.”

  “Stood up?” Hard to believe any woman would be dumb enough to let this one off the hook. He smiled at her and Denby’s heart did flip flops. Lordy girl, you don’t have time for anything to be flipping or flopping nor do you need a man. You have to get out of town now.

  “I met you. That’s a bonus.”

  “Ah, charm,” she drawled cynically. To Denby, there were two schools of men. One who thought they were god’s gift to women and she should be grateful. And the other? They assumed because of her red hair she was fiery, temperamental, passionate and therefore into a wild fling. She wasn’t.

  Denby didn’t suffer fools gladly nor did she sleep around. Sex meant trusting someone. She hadn’t got that far in her life yet.

  “Too fake?”

  “Yeah. Better to flat out say what you’re thinking without the frosting.”

  “Okay, I find you interesting and I want to know your name.”

  “Turned on by ratty looking redheads are you?” Denby knew she was overly paranoid. Not all men were bastards. Not all were Committee members. It was just working out who was.

  “I also like attitude.”

  She had that to burn. She looked him up and down, assessing his potential to be a pain in the ass.

  Nothing jumped out at her so she decided to take a chance. Later, it would make her madder than hell that she did. “Denby Dumaresq.”

  “Interesting name.”

  “My mother’s surname. My father’s a prick.”

  “You know all men aren’t pricks by extension.”