Taken, Kissed, and Loved [FREE and COMPLETED]

Chapter 9

Christina was finally alone. It had been two days since she woke up. With a killer headache, just as he promised, but alive and safe, in a private clinic her father sponsored. They have done all sorts of scans and examinations to make sure she was not harmed. She was not. Aside from the bruised butt and wrists, of course. Michelle took a bit longer to wake up and even then still was a bit drowsy and slept for several more hours. Christina refused to leave her side.

Father’s security advisor Roman something-ich, Christina could never remember the name, made her describe everything she remembered, everything that happened, questioned her about various details for hours until she got really tired and kicked him out. She never told him about the flash drive, and not just because of the promise she made to her captor. More importantly, she never really trusted Roman, the man always seemed sleazy and weird. His eyes never smiled, even when his mouth did. Why did her father have to keep him around, let alone trust him as a head of security, was beyond her.

He showed her a couple of pictures of people she didn’t recognize and one she did. The man in the photograph looked a bit younger than the one who captured her, naturally, and maybe slightly happier, or at least as happy as you can look on an ID card photo, but there was no mistake. It was him. Roman frowned as she told him, but refused to give her any more details, not even a name.

No detective, police officer, or an FBI agent ever came to question her, apparently her father somehow managed to completely cover up their kidnapping and Christina wasn’t sure what to think about it. He told her it was to protect them, that their kidnappers would feel threatened by the sudden media coverage and police investigation and might have panicked, deciding it would be safer to get rid of the hostages and run. It sounded somewhat reasonable. But shouldn’t a father invoke every possible power to save the lives of his daughters? He said that he knew from the start the abductors would never go through with their threats and that’s why he ignored their demands. But how could he have known that? For the first time in her life she felt like her father was hiding something from her, if not straight out lying.

Both her and Michelle refused to stay in the clinic longer than necessary and returned home as soon as they could. And while her sister was still sleeping off the sedative aftereffects, Christina locked herself in her room and curled up in bed as comfortable as her bruised butt allowed. She had time to think it all through and decided to watch the video her captor gave her, but first, she wanted to do something else.

“Albert Denning,” she mumbled as she entered the words into the search engine on her laptop. It seemed that Albert Denning, his wife Mary, and daughter Laura died in a horrible car accident a few months back. Not long after Christina heard her parents argue about him if she could remember correctly. Denning’s company was merged into Peter Anderson’s enterprise only a few weeks after Denning’s death. Christina shivered. She could see how someone could blame her father for these deaths, but it could have been just a coincidence.

The images of the Dennings showed a happy family not unlike Christina’s especially before her mother died. She was sure that if she googled the Andersons, the results would look similar. Laura Denning was about Christina’s age, a beautiful dark-skinned girl with short brown curls and the most bright and honest smile. She seemed to have been doing a lot of charity work. Christina’s animal shelter project was nothing compared to Laura’s network of community centers for underprivileged kids.

Christina scrolled through the results, sort of sad she didn’t get to meet Laura, who seemed like a nice person. And there he was, in one picture with her. Christina barely even recognized him, he looked so happy, laughing about something Laura said, carefree. He wasn’t mentioned in the caption or the accompanying article, which meant the journalists didn’t consider him important. So he wasn’t rich or famous. Was that why he hated Peter Anderson so much? He was friends with Laura and for some reason blamed Christina’s father for her death? How the hell did he jump to that conclusion?

She didn’t need to google Joan Blackwood so she went straight to the last name she remembered from the note. Christopher Lowe. A businessman like her father, it even seemed they were friends, or at least acquaintances, judging by the countless pictures of them together on golf, tennis, in bars, or at various other occasions. Christopher Lowe committed suicide over a year ago. How was her father supposed to be connected to that? It was all one big nonsense.

She played with the flash drive in her fingers, not really sure if she wanted to see whatever he wanted her to see. Petrelli’s leather goods, the writing on the side said. She shivered, remembering one particular leather item not so gently touching her butt. Did he buy the belt there? Was the drive a gift for regular customers? Just throw it out. Or better yet, give it to your father. But she couldn’t do that. Well, she could, but didn’t want to.

Her fingers typed the store name into the search bar, a bit curious what other leather goods were they selling. Weirdo. Her brows frowned when the search engine didn’t come up with anything relevant. She double-checked the spelling against the logo on the drive, but the result was the same. Petrelli’s leather goods didn’t exist. Why would someone spend money on personalized branded thumb drives for a nonexistent company? Coming to think of it, the two numbers under the logo didn’t really look like phone numbers, more like… She opened Google Maps and typed the numbers in, the result confirming her suspicion that the numbers were GPS coordinates. The address was in the industrial zone at the northern edge of the city, with mostly warehouses around it. Was that the building where he kept her? Christina refused to believe he would be stupid enough to give it to her by accident, it must have been intentional. But why?

She was just about to insert the drive into the port but hesitated. What if it’s a virus? Perhaps she had watched too many movies, but wasn’t plugging an unknown USB device into your computer always a bad idea? She had a feeling they even mentioned that at some mandatory cybersecurity class that she had to take in college. Hmm. What now? She shrugged and shoved the drive in. They managed to kidnap her, surely they could smuggle a virus into her father’s network if they wanted to.

The video came from a camera hidden somewhere in her father’s office. They were spying on him the whole time? Her father was sitting at his desk, frowning at the screen, fingers rubbing his temples. Christina knew that look. He was worried.

“Sir, we got another one.” Roman something-ich walked in and handed Peter a small flash drive. “We’ve already digitized it.”

It was the spanking video. Christina blushed and jerked at each sound the belt made hitting the video-Christina’s butt. Her father watched it for a few seconds with a stone face and then paused it. “Is there anything useful?”

“No, sir.” Roman shook his head. “We’re still going through it, but haven’t found anything yet.”

“Who the hell is that?”

“We don’t know.” Roman hesitated a bit. “There is a possibility it’s him.”

Christina’s father closed the laptop and slowly turned to his subordinate. He didn’t even watch the whole thing. She wasn’t sure whether to be glad or disappointed, she tried so hard to be brave for him and he just… turned it off? “You told me he was dead.” Peter’s eyes narrowed. “You said he wasn’t going to be a problem anymore,” he growled.

Roman scratched his head, clearly nervous. “I’m 100% sure I shot him. I know that he has special ops training, but still... He ran off into the prairie, we didn’t think he could survive there, plus the official forces were closing in, we didn’t have time to…”

“STOP MAKING EXCUSES!” Christina shivered, she had never seen her father furious like that. “You f****d up. David f*****g Parker is alive and he took what’s mine just to mess with me!” What’s mine? Was that how he talked about her? Roman was quiet, trying to avoid eye contact and waiting for Peter to calm down a bit. “Did you take care of those journalists?”

“Yes, sir. We’ve tied all the loose ends. There is no media coverage or official investigations.”

“Hmm. At least you are good for something,” Peter spat out. “Keep it quiet until the end. We will issue a statement after it’s all over. And Grigorievich, find him. I want him alive.”

“I’ll do my best, sir. And…,” he hesitated, “what about your… what about the girls?”

Christina’s father snorted. “He won’t do it. And even if he does… I’m not throwing away my life and everything I’ve built just for two stupid girls.”

Excuse me?!!