Loving a Bully

Found You

The screens on all the monitors went black.

Christopher’s gaze cut to the man who turned it off.

“Put it back on,” he ground out through his teeth.

Alec straightened up from the controls and shook his head. “Let’s just stop here, sir. You’ve already seen it anyway. Seeing it again will only—.”

“Put it back on.”

“I seriously think—.”

Christopher didn’t let him finish.

“Put the f*****g monitor back on,” he ordered in a low, angry tone that bode violence if his orders were not followed.

Alec pursed his lips. His expression was grim. All of the men in the room had grim faces after they had finished watching the CCTV footages on the monitors, after seeing such brutality play out.

The man sitting in the chair at the bank of the monitors swallowed visibly at the tension that permeated the room. His eyes shifted nervously from Christopher to Alec. When Alec nodded stiffly, he immediately turned to the controls and hit some buttons, turning all the monitors on again.

Christopher stood still and forced himself to watch.

One monitor showed a footage two nights ago of a dark street where a woman with strawberry blonde hair could be seen being transferred from another car to a van parked at the side of the road. The two men holding her arms looked like they were half-carrying her limp body and when they passed under the street light, Christopher saw her face clearly.

Bottom lip split. Swollen eyes. Bruises on her cheek and jaw and dried blood on the side of her face and the edge of her chin.

And the sight almost made him lose his mind right there and then.

On another monitor, the same two men were dragging the same woman into the building of a small private airport in Canada. When the woman struggled, the man leading them turned and hit her viciously on the face, making her head snap to the side. Then they dragged her inside and into the runway where a private jet was waiting for them.

The other monitors bore the same brutality that these men did to the woman. How they dragged her from one place to another. How, whenever she tried to resist, she’d get beaten. How she got weaker and weaker until they had to carry her from the car and into the house she had escaped from eight years ago.

Christopher had seen a lot of acts of violence but he’d never seen anything like this. He’d never seen a woman being treated like an animal like this. Never treated a woman like this. Made sure all the men who worked for him know that he’d strangle the f*****g life out of them with his bare hands if they treat women like this.

A monitor cut out on a close-up video of the woman’s damaged face and her dull, defeated gray eyes and Alec bent down on the controls to turn everything off again.

“I never would have thought he’d lay a hand on April Locke,” Alec was muttering. “I’ve seen her back in high school and I had never thought a stuck-up b***h like her would suffer such violence from her beloved father.”

Christopher too had never imagined that Edward Locke would do this to his own daughter.

“The way he hit her,” Alec pointed at the monitors, “the way she looked like she expected every blow, f**k, don’t you think she’s f*****g used to it?”

She was. Her face was blank as a doll whenever he hit her.

Fuck.

Christopher’s gaze didn’t leave the monitor when he asked, “Her father?”

“Back home. Looking for her. They haven’t found out yet.”

Good.

Alec hesitated before he got closer. “Skull,” he muttered low, calling him by his nickname in consideration of their friendship. “I know you’re angry. I know you want to tear that f*****g bastard apart. But you’re aware that what we did, this could end up in war. Don’t you?”

Oh yes.

He was aware.

Christopher just didn’t give a f**k.

**********

“Where is she?” Christopher had asked Alec as soon as he got into his car outside the airport, having just arrived from Chicago.

His right-hand couldn’t meet his eyes. Giving the signal to the man in front to drive, Alec leaned back on the soft leather and let out an angry sigh.

“Alec?” Christopher prompted. This was unlike his friend. Alec, like him, was sensible and level-headed one, slow to anger. But something was definitely got him riled tonight.

Alec turned his head around, finally meeting his gaze and held it. “First of all, I need you to promise me something,” he began.

Christopher’s eyes narrowed at him. “Promise you what?”

“Promise me that you will not lose it.”

His gut tightened.

That didn’t sound good.

Fucking hell, that didn’t sound good.

“What happened?” he asked quietly.

“Promise me first.”

He didn’t let him finish. “I’m not f*****g playing around, Alec. Tell me. Did something happen to her?”

“She’s alright,” Alec assured him. “But our people, they said that her father...” he hesitated for a brief moment before saying, “her father was really pissed at her.”

The knots in Christopher’s gut tightened even more.

“And?” he prompted again when Alec didn’t continue.

“They beat her,” Alec let out an exhale, his hands clenching into fists on his knees. “They beat her, Skull. We saw everything on the footages.”

Christopher felt it like a punch in the stomach.

He pulled in breath, trying to focus, trying to breathe through the painful tightening in his chest.

“How bad?” he choked out.

A muscle in Alec’s cheek jumped.

Then, in barely controlled anger, he said, “So bad her face is covered with her own blood.”

A blind rage like a fire slowly swept over Christopher.

“But she’s alright,” Alec assured him again. “I swear to you she’s alright. I’ve got people inside the house and they informed me that she’s sleeping in her bedroom.”

Christopher took several deep breaths and looked out the window. They were nearing his home. The home that was separated by just a mile of thick trees from the Locke estate. He remembered the night April had disappeared. It had been all over the news and her father had promised a very large sum if she was found. No one did. Not even him who exerted a f**k of a lot of time, a lot of money and a lot of his resources despite his grandfather’s wishes.

It should have been him. It should have been him who found her.

Yet he f*****g failed her.

Shit.

Shit.

In that moment of absolute anger and despair, Christopher focused all of his attention on saving April. Because God knew that she needed him sane and in control.

“I need to see her.”

Alec’s eyes sliced to him. “When?”

“Tonight.”

“Tonight?” Alec asked in disbelief. “Her father would never let you—.”

“I don’t need her father’s f*****g permission.” Christopher was so furious, his voice shook with it. “I’m taking her with me.”

“What? Skull—.”

“Don’t f*****g argue with me, Alec. Just do what I say.”

Alec’s mouth got hard. He didn’t like this. He didn’t like his boss being reckless and wasn’t comfortable with Christopher making decisions that would put himself in an unsafe situation. Alec was protective of him and it wasn’t just because it was part of his job description. But knowing that he couldn’t change his mind, he let out an angry exhale through the nose and nodded curtly.

As soon as they arrived at Christopher’s home, Alec gathered some of their men and quickly planned an extraction. Alec would have wanted Christopher to stay out of the operation but he wasn’t going to be left behind. They broke into the Locke mansion at the dead of the night. Edward Locke had left hours ago for a meeting downtown. Christopher would have loved to have a conversation with him if he hadn’t. While their men took care of the bodyguards patrolling the house, Christopher, followed closely by Alec, went straight to April’s bedroom and kicked the door open.

Even though Alec had briefed him of her condition, he still wasn’t prepared for this.

It was dark in the room but the light that streamed into it from the hall made it bright enough for him to see her face clearly. She was lying on her back, a blanket to her chest but her face, f**k, her face. Just from one look and he knew she’d been beaten so severely, he couldn’t understand how she had survived.

“You said she was alright,” he whispered to Alec.

A moment of silence, then Alec whispered back, “I meant to say she was still alive.”

Christopher moved to the bed, close enough to touch her.

Her face was blotched with purple bruises and her bottom lip was cut and swollen. Even without looking, he knew that he’d find similar marks everywhere on her body. And it took all of his strength not to double over and let it all out in a roar of anguish.

But she was alive.

Christopher had to repeat those words over and over again in his mind in an effort to calm down. He lifted his hand and gently caressed her hair.

She was back in his life again and she was still breathing.

Every fiber of his body was screaming to release a bellow of pent-up rage.

Every taut fiber of his being ached with the need to find Edward Locke and put a bullet through his black heart.

He almost complete lost it and gave in.

But then his hand grazed her skin and he pulled in a sharp breath.

“She’s burning with fever,” he gritted out to Alec.

Alec’s eyes glittered. “We need to leave, sir. Now.”

Christopher wouldn’t let him touch her. Gently, he lifted April into his arms and held her close. She was light. Too f*****g light. Protectiveness burned through him as he carried her out of the house and into the car.

**********

“Sir?” Alec prompted when Christopher stayed silent.

Christopher turned his gaze from the blank monitors to a tight-faced Alec.

Christopher would die first before he’d let anyone hurt April ever again. Now that he found her, he was going to keep her by his side and never let go.

He f*****g wasn’t going to let her leave him anymore.

“Let the bastard declare war,” he bit out. Anger still vibrated through him, his body humming with pent-up frustration. “Let him. And when he does, I’ll be the one to kill him.”

The room went wired with his declaration.

Every man’s jaw was clenched and he could tell they too were struggling to control their anger.

Alec’s lips pulled tight. His eyes were staring straight ahead at the blank monitors.

“So be it,” he finally murmured.

A ring broke the tense silence that followed in the room and one of their men answered his cell phone.

“Sir?” he called out.

“What?” Christopher looked at him.

“She’s awake.”