He opened his eyes and rolled onto his side so our gazes met. “And so is my wife-to-be.”

My skin prickled. He’d proposed in the heat of passion a few days ago, and I hadn’t answered. I wasn’t about to hold him to anything he shouted out during climax.

“You’re not saying anything,” he said.

Warmth crept up my neck and into my cheeks. “I’m not sure what to say.”

“‘Yes’ would be a good start.”

I smiled. “I want to say yes. But we haven’t known each other that long and—”

He covered my mouth with his fingers. “I was with Anna— Oh, God…Anna!” He sat up, pushing his damp hair off his forehead.

“What is it?”

“Anna. She’s here. They took her. She never went to Hawaii. I think the reason my father bought her ranch was… Oh my God.”

“Ryan. It’s okay. None of this is your fault.”

“If it hadn’t been for me… Shit, if it hadn’t been for me, Anna would still live on the little ranch next to ours. My mother wanted her away from me. That woman is pure evil!” He stood and paced around the bedroom, his feet imprinting the plush white carpeting.

I went to him, wanting to offer comfort but not knowing how. Anna was here? “You saw her?”

“Yeah. She was chained up with some other girls in the hallway of this place. A big building with rooms.”

“The dorms.”

“Yeah, like dorms. Wait…what?”

“They put me there my first night.”

He turned to me and gripped my shoulders. “What? Did they hurt you? Chain you?”

“No, no. I swear. Just put me in a room with a concrete floor to sleep off the drugs they gave me. Juliet was there.” Images flooded back to me, and tears welled in my eyes. “Two masked goons came in and raped her right in front of me.”

Ryan embraced me. Hard. “My God, I’m so sorry. But they didn’t touch you, did they? Swear to me that they didn’t.” His muscles were tense and rigid, as if they’d hardened into rock.

“No. They didn’t.” And the guilt I still felt from that was overwhelming.

“Ruby…don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not. I swear!”

“If you’re thinking you have to keep me out of trouble by lying—”

This time I placed my fingers over his mouth. “I’m not. It was terrible. I couldn’t help her. All I could do was watch. She didn’t even react.”

“I’m so sorry. We have to put a stop to this. We have to get Anna and Juliet and everyone else out of here.”

“Juliet is safe for now.”

“So are those two boys Talon insisted we rescue.”

“I can understand. I’m sure he saw himself in them.”

His features twisted into anguish. “But I couldn’t help Anna. She was locked up. I couldn’t get her away.”

“We’re going to get them all out. As soon as your father tells us what we’re dealing with. I swear it.” I touched his cheek.

He placed his warm hand over mine and lowered his head—

A cell phone rang.

He dropped his hand. “That’s me. Sorry.”

“Get it. It’s probably important.”

Ryan dug through the pockets of the black pants he’d been wearing and put the phone to his ear. “Tal, what’s going on?”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Ryan

“I talked to Joe,” Talon said over the phone. “He’s fit to be tied, but the good news is the Grand Junction PD has dropped their investigation of him for accessory to the murder of Larry Wade.”

“That’s good.” A load should have lifted off my shoulders, but so much weighed me down, I didn’t feel any lighter.

“So Dad chartered a plane. Joe and Marjorie arrive late tomorrow morning.”

Ire prickled my spine. “Marjorie is coming here? That’s insane.”

“That’s what I said, but Dad says he won’t talk unless we’re all here. He has assured us of her safety.”

“And you believe him?”

“No. I don’t believe a word that comes out of the bastard’s mouth. But we can’t keep this from our sister forever, and with the three of us here, no one will get near her.”

“Bringing her here is nuts.”

“Well…I think we can safely say Dad is nuts. As are both your mother and mine.”

“At least yours isn’t a psycho.” I sighed and closed my eyes. “I’m sorry, Tal. You’ve been through so much more than—”

“For fuck’s sake, Ryan, this doesn’t always have to be about me! I’m so sick of you tiptoeing around me. You’re entitled to your own pain. Own it, for God’s sake.”

“I just meant—”

“You just meant that anything that has happened to you can’t possibly be as bad as what happened to me. Maybe it isn’t. Maybe it is. But what happened happened. I’ve had to own it. It’s time for you to own your own pain. Finding out you have a different mother than the rest of us couldn’t have been easy. None of us think it was. So stop feeling guilty for wanting to own your pain. It doesn’t lessen mine for you to keep belittling yours. I’m your brother, for God’s sake. I feel it with you.”

I had no words. Talon was so wise. He always had been, despite trying to push everyone away for so long. Joe was strength and Talon was wisdom. Where did that leave me? For now, I’d give my brother what he seemed to need and want. “All right, Tal. I get it.”

“Good. Because I have more news, and it’s not good.”

Chills raked over me as I prepared for the worst. “What is it?”

“Raj is missing.”

* * *

“Hey, he came highly recommended.” I gripped the edge of the table where I sat with my father and my brother over breakfast. Ruby was having breakfast with Juliet and the boys on the deck. Talon and I were eating with our father in the formal dining room, where no one on the deck could see us or hear us.

My father shook his head.

“I hear what you’re not saying,” I said. “You think we made a mistake hiring him. Well, you weren’t around to advise us, Dad. You were supposedly ashes in the earth.”

“I’m not in any position to give either of you advice.”

“You can say that again,” I said.

Talon was eerily quiet.

“What is it?” I asked him.

“Something was never right about him,” Talon said. “Someone on that yacht tampered with my oxygen tank or regulator.”

“We don’t know that for sure. It could have been a malfunction.” Though I couldn’t fault my brother’s observation. I addressed my father. “What were we supposed to do? Leave him when we got to this place? He was all we had.”

“No one’s criticizing,” Talon said.

“Bullshit.” I pointed to our father. “He is.”

“I’m not.”

“Tell me why you took Anna. I saw her there. Did you know that? She was chained up in a hallway like a prisoner, and I couldn’t help her. How do you think that makes me feel?”

“I know how it makes you feel. You watch something horrible happening, and you’re powerless to stop it. I’ve felt it every single day since high school.”

“How could you have funded these people?” Talon asked.

What was more important was what Talon hadn’t asked yet. The question we both wanted the answer to. Why had he allowed Wendy to have Talon abducted? Surely he could have stopped it.

“I made some mistakes,” he said. “Some grave mistakes.”

“Sell it somewhere else,” I replied. “I, for one, am not buying it.”

“Look,” he said, “I’m not flying your brother and sister here so you can believe me, much less forgive me. But I’m going to tell you the truth. You all deserve that much. Besides, there’s something else you need to know.”

“What’s that?”

He cleared his throat. “I’m dying.”

Chapter Thirty

Ruby

Juliet and I sat on the deck with Marabel and the two little boys Talon and Ryan had rescued. They had showered and were dressed in T-shirts and sweatpants that were a little too big on their skinny frames. Marabel had fed them a light meal. Too much too soon, and they’d get sick. They hadn’t told us their names yet, but the puppies were bringing out a few smiles in them. They were handsome boys, both blond with green eyes. Probably brothers. The younger boy spoke a little. I hadn’t heard the older one utter a sound yet.

I tried not to worry, even though Ryan had told me that the private detective they had arrived with had disappeared. I wasn’t sure how anyone could disappear from this strange Steel compound. We were fenced in by twenty-foot concrete walls. He’d be found soon.

Juliet was improving. In twenty-four hours, she had regained some color to her cheeks and was shivering a little less. Her appetite had improved as well. She’d eaten two whole eggs this morning, though she still skipped the orange juice.

We expected Joe and Marj anytime now. They were coming straight here, so Marjorie wouldn’t be subjected to the dorms or any other heinous things.

The older boy was petting the puppy Juliet had named Bo. He was a little less rambunctious than Ernie and Beauty, and he allowed the boy to hold him and stroke him without wriggling away.

I’d heard of pet therapy, and now I was a true believer. Bo was helping this boy. I walked over to where he sat on the deck with the puppy.

“He’s cute, isn’t he?”

The boy didn’t answer.

“Can you tell me your name?”

Nothing.