Insatiable Read online

  Insatiable

  Steel Brothers Saga: Book Twelve

  HELEN HARDT

  This book is an original publication of Waterhouse Press.

  * * *

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.

  * * *

  Copyright © 2020 Waterhouse Press, LLC

  Cover Design by Waterhouse Press, LLC

  Cover Photographs: Shutterstock

  * * *

  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic format without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Epilogue

  Continue reading the Steel Brothers Saga with Book Thirteen

  Message from Helen Hardt

  Also By Helen Hardt

  Acknowledgments

  About Helen Hardt

  For all the readers who’ve made it through twelve Steel Brothers books.

  Thank you so much!

  This wouldn’t be possible without you.

  Prologue

  Now I have what I need.

  The wait is over, and I’m ready.

  Ready to seek revenge.

  Yet a duel rages inside me, tormenting me.

  How could everyone have forgotten me? Left me to rot in hell? How? How? How?

  No.

  Won’t go there.

  Must be strong.

  If only I could split off the weak part of me, leave it to putrefy in a swamp somewhere.

  I must fight.

  I must fight, and I must win.

  Chapter One

  Bryce

  Silence on the other end of the line.

  “Did you hear us?” I asked. “About the cufflink?”

  Nothing. Maybe her battery had gone dead. If it had… Was someone listening in? Had someone…?

  My heart hammered into itself, my chest heaving. “Marjorie? Sweetheart?”

  “Sis,” Joe said, his tone panicked. “What’s going on?”

  “Marj! Marj!” Franticness strangled me like a noose of fire.

  Something was wrong. Very wrong.

  “Did she say where she was?” Joe asked.

  “No. I just assumed she was home. But now I’m not sure.”

  “Fuck,” Joe said, pulling out his phone. “Keep that line open. I’m calling the cops.”

  “Marj!” I shouted again into the phone. “Marjorie! Talk to me! Damn it!”

  “The cops are on the way,” Joe said. “Keep that line open, whatever you do.”

  He didn’t have to make the demand. No way was I severing my only line to the woman I loved.

  No fucking way.

  “We’re coming, baby,” I said into the phone, hoping she could still hear me. “We’re coming for you. I love you, Marjorie. Be strong. I love you.”

  “Fuck,” Joe said. “Holy fuck.”

  I didn’t reply. Worry for Marj consumed my whole body. I literally shook from head to toe. I’d never been so frightened in my life.

  “We’ll find her,” Joe said. “We have to. We found Ruby, remember?”

  Yes, the Steels had found Ruby. They’d pull out every source and more to find their little sister.

  But…

  What if it wasn’t enough?

  Vivid scenes exploded through my mind.

  Marjorie falling, lying on the sidewalk hurt.

  Marjorie being hit from behind and then dragged off somewhere.

  Marjorie being drugged with chloroform, like Ruby had been…

  My muscles tensed, and I rubbed at my forehead.

  “Easy,” Joe said.

  “I love her. She’s everything to me.”

  “I know. If I had any doubts before, which I didn’t, they’d be gone now. Calm down, man. You’re quivering.”

  I nodded, drawing in a deep breath.

  Not a good time to lose it, not when the woman I loved needed me more than ever.

  I silently thanked God that my mother and Henry were safe and out of the way in Florida. Then I turned to Joe.

  “She was with Colin in the park. Do you think he had anything to do with this?”

  Joe shook his head. “Colin wouldn’t hurt Marj. His father, on the other hand…”

  Joe didn’t finish his sentence. He didn’t have to. If Colin was right, and his father had sold him to my father as a plaything to rape and torture… Well, then, he was capable of just about anything.

  In his own way, he was as bad as my father had been.

  I looked around. This was Steel country, the beautiful western slopes of Colorado. Snow Creek was a friendly small town. Psychotic creeps didn’t exist in friendly small towns.

  Except that they did.

  My father and Larry Wade had proven that a hundred times over.

  Granted, Ted Morse was from Denver. How he’d even gotten wind of my father was still a mystery to all of us, as was how he’d found out about Justin Valente, the poor kid Joe and I had invited along to one of our weekend campouts with my father.

  Justin had never returned from that trip.

  Joe was talking on his phone again. I lifted my eyebrows when he ended the call.

  “No sign of her in the park. I say you and I get over there pronto and check things out ourselves. I texted Ryan and Ruby. I’d like her to join us if she can. In the meantime, we’re going.”

  I nodded.

  We couldn’t get there fast enough.

  I’d gotte
n control over my shivers, but the inside of my body still felt like a cold cavern with pointed icicles prickling me all over.

  Marjorie.

  We’d just found each other, decided to be together despite all the other crap surrounding us.

  I couldn’t lose her now. I just couldn’t.

  “Do you have Colin Morse’s number?” I asked Joe. “He might know something. He was the last person to see her.”

  “I don’t. Jade probably has it.”

  “Shit.” I raked my fingers through my hair. “Someone has to tell Jade.”

  “That needs to come from Tal,” Joe said. “With her pregnancy and all… Fuck!”

  Two blues hovered around the park.

  “Maybe the cops can get it,” I said.

  “Probably.” Joe approached them.

  I stayed at the bench where Marjorie and Colin had presumably been talking.

  Nothing.

  Fucking nothing.

  Not even a dark-brown hair to indicate she’d been there.

  “Damn it!” I said out loud.

  “Hey.”

  I turned. Ryan Steel and his wife stood next to me. Ryan’s eyes were heavy-lidded and troubled, and Ruby’s blue eyes held sadness as well, but she was a pro. She got straight to work, her hands gloved.

  “You sure this was the bench where she met Colin?”

  “I have no idea, but it’s the one closest to town, and I assumed she was in town when she called me. Reception is never great in this park.”

  “I don’t think she was in town,” Ruby said. “If she were, someone would have seen something. This park is usually dead weekdays during working hours. I’m betting she was still here.”

  Of course. That made sense. Why hadn’t Joe and I thought of it?

  I exhaled.

  Because we were fucked up in the head with worry and fear.

  Ruby eyed everything, leaving nothing to chance. She got down on her hands and knees and regarded the grass under the bench, threaded her hands through the thin carpeting of blades. I watched every move she made, my insides knotted, hoping she’d come up with something.

  She didn’t.

  “Odd.” She shook her head. “Or not so odd. If we’re dealing with seasoned pros, they’d know not to leave clues. Or they’d leave blatant plants like they did outside the playground where Dale saw the stranger twice now.”

  “Damn,” I said again. “Now what?”

  “Now we look around. We ask questions. The cops are already downtown checking to see if anyone saw Marjorie. Do you have any idea where she might have gone in town?”

  “She’s got a new trainer at the gym,” I said. “And she likes the smoothie place.”

  “I’m going to go ask some questions in town, then,” Ruby said. “You two can come along if you want.”

  “I’ll go with you.” Ryan took her hand.

  I felt like I was being tugged in two different directions. “I’ll stay with Joe,” I finally said. After all, Ryan loved Marj as much as Joe did, and he and Ruby didn’t need me breathing down their necks.

  Joe finished talking to the cops and returned to me. “Anything?”

  “Ruby didn’t see any clues. She and Ryan headed into town to see if anyone saw Marj or Colin there. Did you uncover Colin’s number?”

  “Yeah. I got it, but he’s not answering.”

  “Of course he isn’t,” I said. “Either he has Marj—”

  “I honestly don’t think so,” Joe interjected.

  “I don’t either. Which makes me think whoever has Marj also has Colin.” I shook my head. “This has my father’s stench all over it.”

  “Your father is dead, Bryce. I saw it with my own eyes.”

  “I know. But he’s haunting us. In the form of Ted Morse.”

  Chapter Two

  Marjorie

  Darkness all around me.

  Movement too. Jiggling movement.

  And nausea.

  Overwhelming nausea.

  Then…the fear set in.

  A scream rose in my throat, tearing through my vocal cords, and then…

  Nothing. Nothing but suppressed gagging.

  I was gagged. My mouth had been taped shut.

  The nausea again, bile creeping up my throat like clawing acid.

  I attempted a swallow.

  I couldn’t puke. If I puked, I’d suffocate.

  Though I had no frame of reference, I sensed I wasn’t alone. Someone else was with me. The presence of another body.

  Fear. Dark fear. Panic.

  God, the panic!

  Marjorie, calm down. If you panic and throw up, you’ll die.

  No, I would not die. Not when I had so much to live for now. My family, including my new niece or nephew growing in my best friend.

  Dale and Donny.

  My brothers and sisters-in-law.

  Henry and Evelyn.

  And Bryce.

  My wonderful Bryce.

  A low groan vibrated next to me. I felt it more than heard it. It could have come from an animal, but if an animal were trapped with me, it would be moving in chaos. Maybe it was drugged.

  No, not an animal. I felt sure of it. A person. A person was here with me.

  I moved against whatever bound me. Though I couldn’t see, I felt my wrists tied together in front of me. Also my ankles.

  I breathed in deeply through my nose.

  Air! Need air!

  Calm down. Calm down. Don’t panic, or you’ll fucking die!

  I was enclosed, so I needed to conserve air. If I panicked, I’d use more.

  I wasn’t claustrophobic.

  But I also didn’t know where the hell I was.

  Once, in college, Jade and I had gone to a sensory-deprivation tank before finals. The advertisement had said that forty-five minutes in the tank was equal to five hours of sleep.

  We were closed in, couldn’t move.

  And I’d never been more relaxed.

  I closed my eyes against the darkness, trying to force my mind to go back to that place, that feeling of peace I’d had while being closed in, suspended in salty water.

  But I wasn’t suspended. I wasn’t buoyant.

  I was trapped, tied up, gagged, and in some type of moving vehicle.

  God, the darkness!

  A trunk. Was I in the trunk of a car? With no ventilation? The exhaust fumes would kill me. But I had to breathe. Had to fucking breathe.

  Go back, Marj. Go back. How did this happen?

  Bryce. I’d been talking on my phone to Bryce and Joe. I’d just seen Colin in the park, and he’d told me… God, he’d told me…

  His father had sold him to Tom Simpson. Or so he thought. He was going to get me the documentation. He left. I called Bryce, and then—

  Nothing.

  Not until now.

  Not until this hell.

  Another scream lodged in my throat, unable to penetrate the gag in my mouth. I coughed, gasping.

  Get hold of yourself! You need to stay calm!

  How? How was I supposed to do that?

  Think of happiness. Think of something that brings you joy. Anything. Anything.

  Bryce.

  Bryce loved me. I loved him.

  He’d been on the other end of the phone when whatever happened had happened. He’d know something wasn’t right. He’d come for me. He and my brothers would have a posse looking for me in no time.

  In no time…

  No time…

  Don’t go there. I have all the time in the world.

  All the time in the world.

  All the time in the world…

  I jolted against something hard. Whatever it was let out an oof.

  Yes, another person was here with me. At least I knew it wasn’t Bryce or Joe. They’d been at the ranch when this had happened. Still, knowing another person was here gave me some comfort and helped stave off the panic.

  But who was it?

  Colin? He’d just left the park when this occur
red.

  He was the most likely, but things never turned out to be the most likely.

  Orange warmth punched my eyes.

  Sunlight. I was blindfolded. How hadn’t I realized it? Easy. I was in the dark, and I didn’t stop to think about my eyes adjusting.

  Again, I tried screaming, only to choke against the dirty gag in my mouth. Again, the nausea, the clawing acid.

  And again, I had to stop it.

  Movement. But I didn’t move. The balance of the trunk shifted. Someone had removed the other person.

  I stayed still. Easy enough since I was bound, but I was determined not to make this any easier on my captor, whoever he was.

  Dead weight.

  I’d be dead weight.

  Within seconds, I was lifted from the confined space. I groaned as I was thrown against a hard body. My head bounced against a bony shoulder as we moved along.

  A scream tried to force its way out of my throat once more, leading to more choking and gasping.

  Air! I was outside now. I could tell because of the light streaming through my blindfold. Plenty of air around, I knew, but still I gasped.

  Breathe in. Breathe out.

  Calm down.

  Calm down.