Chapter 13

Phoenix

Istare at Kenz, waiting for her to tell me what she needs to say. My stomach tightens as I wait. The strap of her dress falls off her shoulder, so I fix it, trying to keep my mind and hands busy. I didn't even undress her. But taking her against the ladder in the library has been a fantasy of mine for years. Even when we finally decided to not stay away from each other, it wasn't something we ever did. The main place we played our fantasies was at the auctions. That's where we played.

When I got Kenz back the first time, she was different. She was more assertive but aloof. Like she was trying her hardest to not let her walls completely down. And I never tried too hard to make them come down. We were never completely ourselves with one another. Maybe now we can be.

So, her asking if we can be completely honest with each other; I mean it when I say yes. She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth and takes another deep breath as she tries to climb off my lap, but I won't let her. She settles and leans her back against the arm of the chair, her legs draped over my lap. I rub the palm of my hand along her silky soft skin as I give her time to figure out what she wants to say.

"I know who took me the first time," she admits. My hand stills on her leg for a second before I resume its trek up her shin to her knee.

"I thought you did."

She tilts her head at me. "You did?"

I nod. "I can tell when you're lying. When I got you back the first time I asked you and you told me the same thing you did last week. They put something over your head before you got a look at them." She opens her mouth to say something, but I hold my finger up, telling her to wait. "But both times you couldn't look me in the eye when you said it."

"Why didn't you push me on it?"

I look away from her and stare out the window. "I should have. Because I'm pretty sure the person who took you the first time is the same person who took you the second time and I could have stopped it if I had known. I didn't push you on it last week because I decided to give you some time, but I wasn't going to let it go like I did before. I was going to ask you again, and if you refused to tell me, I wasn't going to let you leave the house until you did." I look back at her and she frowns.

"I should have told you back then. I wish I knew why I didn't tell you, but I still can't remember everything after I was taken. I've gotten small memories back, but that's it." She looks down at her lap as she interlaces her fingers. "So, you know when I lie to you." It's a statement, but I nod anyway. She lifts her head and looks me in the eye. "It was your mother who took me."

Every muscle in my body locks into place as her words ricochet in my mind. "My mother?" My words are low, but she nods. That was the last person I expected her to say. I gently push her off my lap and sit forward, leaning my elbows on my knees as those words repeat in my mind over and over.

She sits next to me; her knuckles turn white from how hard she's clinching the sofa by her thighs. I feel her eyes on me, but I don't look at her. I stare down at a spot on the carpet, trying to remember the last time I saw my mother. I was fourteen, and it was Christmas time. I went home for the holiday break and I remember thinking things were strained at home.

My parents barely spoke to each other and my mother barely spoke to me. My dad said it was because she was struggling with depression, but deep in my gut, I knew something wasn't right. But being the self-centered teen I was, I blew it off. I run through the summer before high school, how we searched everywhere for her.

My dad and mom started going to auctions; it had been my mom's idea, and he agreed. They had planned on going to the auction in the spring that year, but my dad didn't want to because it was going to be my first weekend home. Mom went anyway, and it was the last time he saw her.

"Nix?" Kenz whispers my name, but I don't respond. This can't be true. It has to be someone else. She's never met my mother.

"It had to be someone else saying it was my mother," I finally say. She's quiet for a long moment.

"Maybe. I've never met your mother, but…" She trails off and I finally lift my head to look at her. Her lips press together in a slight grimace.

"But what?" I ask. She wrinkles her nose and tries to smile at me, but it wavers.

"She told me to tell you she wasn't taken. She left."

I curl my hands into fists, my heart beating so loud I can hear it in my ears. I snatch the T-shirt I threw on the ground earlier and pull it over my head. Standing, I place my hands on top of my head. Kenz stands and rubs her hands down her dress. I'm sure my cum is dripping out of her now, but I can't bring myself to walk her upstairs and clean her up.

"Nix—"

"Don't," I snap. She closes her mouth and runs her hand through her hair, her fingers shaking slightly. "I need some time alone." I turn on my heel and walk out of the library. Placing my hands in my pockets, I grimace when I touch McKenzie's panties I pocketed earlier.

Walking into the kitchen, Phillip greets me. I give him a half-hearted smile and walk outside. I head toward the hydrangea garden McKenzie requested when we first started building here. I hired a landscaper and didn't spare any expense. After I got her back, I was determined to move us out of our house in the city to somewhere that was more secluded.

I met Larry one night at one of my bars. He got so drunk instead of me calling him an Uber, I had Rex drive him home. I rode along to make sure he was okay. On the way, he told me about how he lost his wife five years earlier and that day would have been their fortieth anniversary. We developed a relationship over the next few months, and he told me he owned almost two hundred acres of land.

Developers had been hounding him to sell so they could turn it into lake houses, but he liked his privacy and the land had been in his family for three generations. But it was too much for him and he didn't have any children. He asked me if I would buy it and let him stay in his house. He didn't know what I did, but he knew I had contacts that would leave him alone if I bought it. So, I bought the land for almost a million dollars.

We did updates on his house while we built our house. I bought the land while I was still looking for McKenzie after she was taken the first time. Sitting on one of the benches in the middle of the garden, I watch the bees and butterflies as they fly around. I knew Kenz wasn't comfortable in my house in the city from the comments she made and I wanted her to be comfortable. I wanted her to have a home that she helped design and decorate.

I was in my office downtown when all hell broke loose. Rex and a few of the security guys we had back then were notified something had been dropped off in front of the building. I was going to go down and see what it was, but Rex made me stay in my office until they figured out what it was. It wound up being McKenzie. She had been tied up, put in a brown rucksack, and knocked out with some kind of drug.

We scanned every surveillance footage around the area available to us and no one could tell who it was that dropped her off. It looked like a man. It definitely wasn't a woman. This whole time I thought McKenzie's father took my mother, and I thought he took McKenzie.

Grabbing my cell phone out of my pocket, I pull up my father in my contacts.

He answers on the third ring. "Hello?"

"I need you to meet me downtown in thirty minutes."

"Son—"

"I don't want to hear any of your fucking excuses. Be there."