Fatal Obsession (Black Widow Book 2) (6 page)

Before he could get an answer, a car swerved in front of him, blocking the road. Damien quickly braked, throwing his arm across Ellsa. The second the car came to a stop, two people jumped out. A white man and a black woman both dressed for combat with nine millimeter guns held to their sides. They weren’t FBI, he knew that for sure. They looked more like mercenaries and that shook him to the core. Never had he ever been this scared in his life and he knew why. All those skirmishes he’d gotten into over the years in the police force, none of those times did he have his family with him.

“Shit! DJ, get down!”

“It’s okay, Daddy. It’s just Uncle Mike and Aunt Elaine. Just don’t let them take us away again.”

Uncle Mike and Aunt Elaine?

Damien stared at the two armed persons as they approached the car. He wasn’t sure he would have a choice in the matter. Quickly, he pulled his phone out of his pants pocket and passed it behind to DJ. “Son, take this. Once you reach where they take you, call me. I’ll come get you. Don’t let anyone see this.”

DJ quickly snatched up the phone and stuffed it into his backpack. And just in time; Damien’s door swung open and he turned to the barrel of a gun, in the hand of the woman.

“You’re persistent. Not everyone would keep searching as long as you have,” she said with a hint of a smile on her lips.

“I don’t know who you are and I don’t want to know. All I want is my family.”

Her eyes softened and she quickly lowered the gun. “All we want is to protect them. Your search hasn’t made it easy.”

Damien turned to face the man who stood in front of the car, his gun still at his side but his face stern, then he turned back to the woman—Elaine. For some reason, he didn’t believe that was her real name.

“Elaine, who are you?”

She huffed, looking to the back seat. “Brainiac, what have we told you about revealing our identities?”

“He’s my daddy, doesn’t count. And she’s momma’s sister.” He added, answering Damien’s question to Elaine.

Damien shook his head, “Ellsa has only one sister.”

“Daddy, can I meet Aunt Ellie?” DJ asked excitedly.

“No,” Elaine answered before Damien could. “Consider me adopted. Now, step out of the car and let me do my job.” She shook the arm that held the weapon and he knew that was a subtle ‘hurry your ass up’.

Damien unbuckled his seatbelt and slowly stepped out. “I’ll see you soon, Buddy. I promise.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” Elaine whispered with a glare.

“I found them once, I’ll find them again. You’ll have to kill me to make me stop,” Damien whispered back with his own glare.

Elaine rolled her lips, staring at him intently as if she was silently debating something. Then she climbed into the car and shut the door. The man—Mike, rushed back into his car and moved it out of the SUV’s path.

Elaine spared him one last thoughtful glance and said, “See you soon,
dad
.” She drove off, leaving him standing in the middle of the road, the sound of sirens growing louder behind him. 

He had a son. That’s what she’d called begging him to protect. Their son, Damien James Chan. He didn’t care what Ellsa had done, all he wanted was his family and he was going to get it.

****

“You let them get away?” Dale yelled, pacing the room his team called the horror room; because they got their briefs here for the horrific cases they were to solve.

“I didn’t let them do anything. I didn’t have a choice in the matter.” Damien argued back.

Dale snorted with a sarcastic laugh, “No choice? You could have stopped them if you wanted to, you just didn’t.”

Damien nodded, “Oh yeah. You’re right. I most definitely could have stopped two armed mercenaries with no gun, a five-year-old boy and an unconscious woman as back up. My bad, cuz.”

Dale stepped up to him and Damien stood his full height, half an inch taller. There was a lot he was willing to take from his cousin, but he wasn’t going to take crap about putting his family’s safety first.

“You shouldn’t even have gotten as far as the main road. That wasn’t the plan,” Dale snarled.

He got him there, but Damien wasn’t about to grow a conscience. “She collapsed and the kid was worried. What was I supposed to do? Tell him sorry, your mom is evil and doesn’t deserve medical attention?”

“How the hell do you even know if that’s really her kid? She could have kidnapped him.”

“Yeah, he acted real kidnapped to me.”

Dale growled, stepping so close they were nose to nose.

“Look, you keep on coming up with stupid assumptions; I’ll give you fitting answers.” Damien took a step back, taking a deep breath to calm himself. “Look, instead of yelling, why don’t we find out who took her? They meant business carrying around so much fire power.”

He’d exaggerated a little on the number of weapons they had, but they didn’t look like the type to need much to kill someone. They spelt danger and if he had to say they were carrying a bomb in their trunk to get enough attention to find out who they were and who they were protecting Ellsa from, he was ready to swear to a nuclear bomb. But what use was that when he wouldn’t give them facial descriptions?

He was a conflicted man.

“Ellsa doesn’t have a son, especially one old enough to go to school. Ellie would have known about him.”

Damien shrugged, not bothering to answer because he too found that strange. Didn’t sisters share everything?

Why didn’t Ellsa confide in her sister about their weekend, their son and especially, her real line of work? Why didn’t she tell Ellie the fear she had for her life? Didn’t Ellsa care that Vladimir could have gone after her, mistaking her identity like he had?

A lot didn’t add up about Ellsa’s life.

Dale stepped back, visibly taking a deep breath. “How do we find them, we have no leads.”

I do
. Damien knew he should say something about handing DJ his phone, but not just yet. He checked his wristwatch. It had been five hours already and DJ hadn’t called yet. He spied Dale’s phone in the middle of the roundtable. Were they flying, was that why? Where were they going? Desperation burned his insides like an ulcer. He couldn’t lose her again; he couldn’t lose his newly discovered son. Maybe he should call. He looked at the phone again. Was it even on? He’d been watching it since Dale put it down. He needed to get to it without rousing attention. But Dale didn’t trust him right now just to hand it over without suspecting he was calling Ellsa. And if he knew Damien didn’t have his phone, he might just figure it out and decide to trace it. He should have thought of a better plan, at least turned the GPS off, but there wasn’t much time to think with one facing down two guns.

He needed to get out of the federal building, with Dale and his phone.

“Hey man, can we leave now?”

Dale gave him an incredulous look. “What?”

Damien shrugged, acting nonchalant even though he felt far from it. “We aren’t going to find them just standing around here. Those guys looked like they meant business. And it’s the middle of the night and you have a family to get to.”

The family part did it. Dale cursed, grabbing his phone and stomping out without so much as a goodnight to the rest of the team. Damien waved to them with a short smile as he walked away. “It was nice meeting you all. See you tomorrow.”

They stared at him suspiciously, especially the red head—he hadn’t caught all their names yet—but he knew he’d made the right decision-keeping most of the information to himself.

Chapter Four

“Hi Ned,” she said, pushing her way into his home.

“What are you doing here, Ellsa?”

She smiled at him, glad that for once someone recognized her. “I came to say hi and see how you are doing.”

Ned kept the door open until she sat down, giving no indication that she was going to leave anytime soon. “What do you want, Ellsa?”

“Are you still in love with my sister?” He looked away. Ellsa bit down, “That must mean yes. Why?”

“Because compared to you, she’s a breath of fresh air. I would have done anything for her, just to have her. And I would have done anything to get rid of you.”

His words burned her, like hot coal against her skin. She stood up and headed for the door. She stopped when she got to him. “It was nice seeing you again.”

Not turning to look at her, “The feeling isn’t mutual. Just leave.”

Ellsa walked past him, when he didn’t turn around to watch her, she pulled a syringe out of her jacket pocket and stuck it in his back.

Ned fell onto the floor, stiff.

She knelt down and turned him on his back. She held his hand up and watched it fall on the floor with a thud. She smiled as she watched his fear filled eyes watching her. “What’s your opinion on fire?”

She turned on the gas, hung around for a minute, then lit a small fire near him, giving her enough time to leave the building before the apartment blew up.

****

“No!”

She sat up, her panic climbing when all she could see was darkness. But she heard voices. Loud, shouting voices. At first she thought it was just the remnants of her nightmare ringing in her ears. But… her nightmare wasn’t about a child. There was no child. So where was the loud boy voice coming from and who was he?

She rubbed her throbbing temples. It hurt so bad, like someone had taken a hammer to her head. And when she closed her eyes she could see loud swirling colors that made her dizzy. But at least the ringing in her ears was fading. What the hell was wrong with her?

Slowly she lowered herself back onto the bed, sighing with gratitude at the soft cloud her aching head landed on. She closed her eyes, crossed her arms over them and tried to keep her mind clear. But the shouting outside her door made that impossible, especially now that a female and a heavier male voice had joined the fray. Were they neighbors?

She slowly moved her arms away and opened her eyes.
Neighbors?
Was she in an apartment—her apartment? And where exactly was that apartment?

She searched her mind for answers, but she just drew blanks. Oh God! She panicked, forgetting the headache and quickly jumping out of bed.
Where is the damn light switch?
She cursed, silently moving her hands against the wall until she got to the door. She looked down at the light coming from under the door, blood pounding harder in her head. Should she? What if something dangerous was on the other side?

But how will I get any answers if I don’t open it?

She took a deep breath, but that only made her head feel heavier and her hand shake harder. Cradling her head with one hand, she held the doorknob with the other and slowly turned it and stepped out—into a well-lit corridor.

This was no apartment building. She was in a house. There was another door opposite hers, then at the end of the hallway, almost ten feet away, two more. The rooms must be spacious. Since the corridor leading to her left was a dead end, she turned to her right, grateful for the soft grey carpet beneath her feet. She didn’t want to make any noise and draw attention to herself. She got to a flight of stairs and slowly took them one at a time down to the main floor hoping they wouldn’t creak. The carpeting ended at the last step and her feet got a little shock from the cold marble of the foyer. Right in front of her, just a few feet away was a large dark door. A way out, her chance to escape—but to escape what? She wasn’t even sure she was in danger. Instead, she turned to her left and slowly walked to the entryway of what she believed to be a living room, where all the shouting was coming from. Three adults stood in the middle of the room shouting to each other; the child was seated on a single chair and pouting fiercely, that is until he saw her. His face lit up and he jumped out of the chair and raced to her. Something told her to brace herself and she did and glad for it when he slammed into her legs, hugging them tightly.

“Momma, you’re finally awake!”

Momma?
The one word echoed in her head and her whole world tilted. She quickly reached for the wall to steady herself. She looked down at the little boy whose head reached her hip, his arms now wrapped around her right thigh as he stared up at her, fear and tears swimming in his eyes.

“Momma, please tell me you remember me?” he begged in a little voice that shot right through her heart, breaking it.

Her heart crumbled away when the realization struck her.
Dear God, I have a son?

****

Ellie clasped her hands together in prayer, kneeling beside her bed. It had been a while since she’d actually prayed, besides the bedtime prayers with the kids. After what happened with Ellsa, she’d lost a little of her faith. First she lost her parents in the shooting with that corrupt cop, leaving just her and Ellsa alone in the world. Then her sister, her only family just suddenly loses her mind and tries to kill the family she’d made with Dale… there wasn’t much to have faith about. But now…

God, please let it all workout! Please give me back my sister the way she used to be. Spoilt, high maintenance, a snob—vices and all, but sane.

She jumped when the door slammed shut followed by loud arguing voices. She’d been a little jumpy since Ellsa escaped. Not, that she didn’t love her sister, but she needed to be realistic about a few things and her children’s safety came before her hopes of a happy reunion.

And speaking of happy reunions… She pushed herself off her knees and rushed out of her bedroom, hoping to catch the two before blood was spilled. By the time she got to the living room, there was barely an inch of space between Dale and Damien as they yelled at each other. She squeezed herself between the two, pushing Dale back with her ass and Damien with her hands.

“Quiet down you two, unless you want to wake the kids,” she scolded, looking up at them. “Now, why don’t we all sit down and calmly talk instead of yell.”