“Jamie went to check on them and tell Bree the situation. She’s taking them to the bungalow.”
“Situation,” Damien repeated. “What a fucking horrible word.”
“We’ve got this,” Ryan said firmly. “We just need to focus. We’ll get her back.”
“We will.” He swallowed, once again pushing the fear away along with the self-recrimination. None of it would do her any good. He had to think. He had to act.
He had to find her.
“If Sofia is behind this, then she must have Nikki somewhere. We need to keep looking for surveillance footage. Find video of the grab, and who knows what else we’ll learn.”
“On it,” Quincy said. “And I’ll hook in Ollie.”
“If she was planning this, there might be info in her phone. Get Jeff whatever support he needs to hack into it as soon as he gets to the hotel. Tell him to stay there so he’s got access to a decent internet connection. We may need him to pull information for us. Let Richard know and get him set up with a space to work and whatever tech he needs.”
“Done,” Ryan said, pointing at the other tech guru, who nodded and hurried off to make the calls. “I have to say, though, I don’t think she’s behind this. Involved, maybe. But behind the kidnapping? I don’t buy it.”
Damien looked hard at his friend. “I don’t either,” he admitted. “But I want you to tell me why.”
“Anne,” Ryan said. “Nikki’s a question mark. She’d certainly have hurt her in the past, and I’m not sure about now. But I don’t see her hurting Anne.”
“Anne wasn’t hurt,” Damien pointed out. “But Sofia was hurting. She’d had the miscarriage.”
“Even so.”
Damien nodded. “Honestly, I agree with you. But we both could be wrong. God knows I seem to be that a lot lately. Can’t say I like the feel of it. And if we’re right and she’s not the one pulling the strings, then we’re right back where we started.”
“Except maybe there will be something in her cell phone. A contact. A call history.”
“Maybe.” The idea of waiting for Jeff made Damien’s stomach twist, and he crossed the room again. Like a shark, he had to keep moving or else he’d die. Had to keep his thoughts churning. Had to keep chasing after whatever it was that he was missing, because there was something there. Something important. Something—
No.
Oh, holy fuck, no.
“Damien?”
Ryan’s voice sounded a million miles away. He felt the blood drain from his body. And he heard the echo of his father’s words—And God, even Sofia. I actually went and added that poor girl to the mix. That’s how low I sunk.
He looked at Ryan. “What did he mean by that?”
Ryan’s brow furrowed. “What did who mean?”
But Damien wasn’t listening any longer. He had his phone out. He was dialing his father. And when Jeremiah answered, Damien wanted to reach through the phone and grab the bastard by the scruff of his neck. “What did you do?” he demanded, his words pouring out. “What did you get Sofia involved in? You weren’t talking about the tennis circuit. That was all on Richter. You did something now, you fucking bastard. What did you do, old man? You tell me what the fuck you did.”
“Breckenridge.” Jeremiah’s voice sounded lost. “She was alone. Broke. She was looking for help. And he said he’d let the money I owed him slide until after The Domino investment paid off. All I had to do was introduce them. That was all. She could have walked away any time. I just introduced them.”
Damien’s head throbbed. He tried to make sense of the words. “Sofia’s been dating Richard Breckenridge?”
“I just introduced them,” Jeremiah said again.
Suddenly, Damien understood. “The miscarriage. Breckenridge was the father.”
“It’s not my fault,” Jeremiah said, but Damien barely heard him.
He ended the call and looked at Ryan. “He hooked her up with Breckenridge. All my life I’ve tried to protect Sofia, and my father introduced her to that perverted, abusive, misogynistic pig. He got her pregnant. He’s probably hit her. God knows he’s using her.”
“And isn’t fucking Sofia a stellar way to get back at you?” Ryan said, his voice harsh. “Almost as good as kidnapping your daughter.”
“Or hurting my wife.” He shivered, his body suddenly as cold as ice. “I have to go. I have to find him.”
He started for the stairs.
“Go where?” Ryan called, but Damien didn’t answer. Hell, he didn’t know. He’d call Ryan from the car, get the team searching property records for Breckenridge’s address. Right then, he simply had to move.
He got as far as the guard station and saw another car in the drive. A plain white Toyota. A rental. And there, in the driver’s seat, was Sofia.
She looked up, her eyes meeting his through the windshield. Then she slammed open her door and raced toward him, collapsing at his feet as he bolted from his car.
“Damien,” she cried. “I did a bad thing. I think I did a really, really bad thing.”
Chapter Twenty-six
“What did you do?” Damien demanded, pacing in front of the chair where he’d parked her. “Sofia, tell me where my wife is.”
He’d managed to hold his fury in check until he got her into the house. He’d been silent. Completely silent in the face of her sobs. He knew that if he said even one word—if he opened that gate at all—it would all spill out. And he couldn’t let it. Not until they were inside. Not until he had help.
Not until he was sure he wouldn’t fucking explode.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I swear, Damien, I don’t know.”
He clenched his fists at his sides. He’d never wanted to hit a woman, but dammit he wanted to hit Sofia now. And that reality made him both profoundly angry and desperately sad.
Ryan laid a hand on his shoulder. “Pull it back, Stark. We’ll get there. But we need to give her space.”
“Fuck space,” Damien snapped, but he turned away, his hands clenched behind his neck as if that pressure could vanquish the urge to lash out.
Ryan crouched down until he was eye level with Sofia. “Did Richard Breckenridge organize Anne’s kidnapping?”
Sofia nodded, her nose running and tears leaking down her face. She wiped a hand under her nose and sniffled. “I told him not to. I told him. But he said I should be glad. Because you didn’t deserve what you had. And he said he wasn’t going to hurt her. He was just going to scare you.”
“Did you help?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know.” She licked her lips. “I didn’t tell. I should have told. But then I did, but Damien didn’t figure it out.”
Ryan shot a glance toward Damien as he stood up, then looked back at Sof
ia. “You mean you did tell? I’m not following you. Can you explain?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t know how to explain.”
Quincy stepped forward. “We talked. Do you remember? I gave you the test? Hooked you up to wires. You told me you had nothing to do with the kidnapping.”
“I didn’t. Cross my heart.” She drew an X over her chest with her fingertip as she talked. “That was Rory. That was all Rory.”
“How did you meet Rory?” Ryan asked as Damien, finally calming, sat in a chair and watched the woman who was once his closest friend. Who’d been his responsibility for decades.
“I knew Louisa. We met at meetings. When I was in recovery and she was, too. And there was a boy who helped her. And when Richard needed someone to help him—someone who needed money…”
“You suggested Rory?”
“He needed money for Louisa. I didn’t know. I swear. About Anne. About him wanting to hurt you. I didn’t know. I just did what he told me. Because he was taking care of me.”
The words shot straight to Damien’s heart. Breckenridge was taking care of her.
Which meant that Damien hadn’t been.
“He told you to spray paint her office?” Damien asked, his voice low as he worked to stay calm.
She shook her head. “I did that. I was angry about losing the baby. And because Nikki hadn’t. But mostly because I wanted you to figure it out. I wanted you to catch me, because then I could tell you. Don’t you see?”
Her eyes flashed with desperation. “Don’t you get it? If you caught me, I could tell you everything. And then you would protect me. That’s why I looked at the camera. The security one in Nikki’s lobby. But you didn’t find me, and then he took her and then it was too late.”
“That camera was broken,” he told her. “It took a long time to find out it was you.”
“But that’s not my fault.” She looked at the three of them, almost vibrating with desperation. “That wasn’t my fault.”
“And you ran.”
“He did bad things. I didn’t think you’d believe me.”