Page 50 of Ruthless Desires, Vol. Two (Ruthless Desires Series Extended Editions #2)

Wren

The old, wooden steps creak under my weight as I slowly descend to the first floor of the farmhouse. My mind is foggy from lack of sleep since my nightmares have only gotten worse over the past week.

The night Ludo’s men tried to abduct me, Finn and I ran. He called a friend to come deal with the bodies, and then we gathered up anything that gave away our plans for Ludo. Laptops, drives, blueprints—everything.

We brought it all with us to Finn’s farmhouse. It’s the same one I visited mere weeks ago when Rhett tortured and killed Austin. Apparently, it’s where Finn has been living for the past year. I’m still unsure of who he’s been hiding from, but for the time being, my focus is on other things.

For now, I’m just grateful that we have a place to hide. Finn has access to the guys’ security system—specifically, the cameras they have installed outside. So we know that after the first failed kidnapping attempt, Holloway sent another team to the guys’ mansion. When they didn’t find me, it looks like they searched the house, but we’d already cleared it of any important information.

We’re safe, and we’ve kept the guys’ secrets out of Ludo’s hands. Unfortunately, that’s all we’ve managed to do.

I rub at the never-ending ache in my chest. What if we’re already too late?

The stairs empty into the family room, and Maggie is waiting by the back door. When she spots me, she lifts her head up from where it was resting in between her paws.

“Hey, girl.”

She whines softly as I approach. After I scratch her behind the ears for a minute, I open the sliding door that leads onto the covered porch. Cool air rushes in, causing goosebumps to form on my skin.

Maggie bounds across the porch and into the backyard. The first time she did it, I thought she’d keep running and never come back, but Finn assured me she was fine. He told me German Shepherds need at least two hours of exercise a day, and she loves running around the huge yard.

I quickly learned that she’s a well-trained dog. Even when she’s playing in the yard, she never wanders out of sight—at least not for too long. She always comes back, panting and wagging her tail and often covered in mud.

For a few seconds, I watch Maggie sniff around the yard. The air is thick with a low-hanging fog that’ll burn off in an hour or two. The sun is just beginning to shine through the trees, causing the dew on the grass to sparkle.

A dull ache blooms in my head, so I close the door and move into the bathroom. There are pain pills in the medicine cabinet, so I take a few before thoroughly washing my hands.

The lotion I’ve been using is in here, too, so I squirt some onto my fingers and rub it into the back of my neck. I wasn’t prepared for how itchy the skin would be at this point in the healing process, but Finn told me it’s normal.

There was a part of me that wanted to delay getting the butterfly tattoo until the guys are safe, but then I realized I couldn’t wait. In a way, it helped me feel closer to them again. I’m not sure how else to explain it, other than it felt right.

It took some convincing to get Finn to let me leave the farmhouse, though. He’s been adamant that I stay hidden, and getting my tattoo has been the only exception so far. I think a part of him understood that I needed to do it. Underneath his grumpy, hard exterior, he has a heart, so we took some extra precautions for the appointment.

Once I’ve rubbed the lotion in, I move toward the kitchen to make some coffee. On my way, I pass the dining room, and I find Finn poring over a laptop. The room is dark, but the screen illuminates his pale face. His hair is mussed, and the bags under his eyes are concerningly darker than they were a few days ago.

“Hey. You want some coffee?” I ask.

He doesn’t respond—doesn’t even blink.

“Finn.”

Nothing.

With a sigh, I flip on the light switch.

“FUCK!”

Finn cringes and buries his face in the crook of his elbow to shield his eyes from the light.

“What the hell, Wren?”

“You weren’t answering me. Did you even go to bed last night?”

“What time is it?”

Lowering his arm, Finn squints at his phone.

“Shit. I thought it was, like, two.”

“You have a clock on your laptop.”

“I hid it. It was annoying me.”

“You didn’t hear Maggie whining to go outside?”

At that, he jumps to his feet.

“Fuck. Fuck.”

“I let her out.”

Tiredly, I lean against the doorframe.

“I can feed her, too. You should get some rest.”

“Yeah, I just have to…”

Finn’s gaze drops to the program he has pulled up on his laptop, but then he shakes his head and closes it out.

“Never mind. It won’t do any good.”

“What?”

“I was gonna check the security footage at the house again, but it’s no use. Even if Ludo sent another team to look through everything again, they won’t find anything, nor does it really matter.”

Slowly, I nod. We’ve both been monitoring a variety of things since the guys were captured. Refreshing Aubrey’s social media, re-checking messages with Sparrow, etc. Nothing particularly helpful—it feels like we’re treading water.

“I’ll keep working,”

I tell him. Last night, I was going through some of Holloway’s books, and there were some records that confused me. Initially, I brushed it off as me not being smart enough to figure out the numbers, but I want to double-check.

“Maybe I’ll find something.”

“Yeah,”

Finn mutters, but his tone isn’t convincing.

I get it. We’ve hit dead end after dead end, and we’re no closer to bringing the guys home. There’s so much on the hard drive, and there didn’t seem to be a good starting point. We still have an overwhelming amount of folders and files to look through.

It’s been a week since Ludo took Elliot, Rhett, and Oliver. As far as we can tell, he’s keeping them at his mansion, but we could be wrong. Our only indicator is that’s the last place we were able to track their phones to before they went offline. It’s possible Ludo is keeping them elsewhere, but if that’s the case, he hasn’t been going to see them.

Since I have to stay in hiding and Finn refuses to leave me alone, we’ve had to call in help. Sparrow has been happy to do whatever she can. She has a large network of people who owe her favors, and she wants Ludo dead just as much as the rest of us.

With her on our side, we’ve had a team of people discreetly watching Holloway’s mansion, so we know he hasn’t left since the wedding. He can’t. To everyone outside his inner circle, he’s happily on his tech-free honeymoon far from Philadelphia. We were able to get confirmation that he’s still here, but he’s keeping a low profile until the “honeymoon” is over.

Axel, however, has come and gone quite a bit. A couple nights ago, one of Sparrow’s people tailed him to a motel. Elliot was with him, and according to Sparrow’s report, he killed three people. We aren’t sure why, but I know Ludo had plans to force the guys to do certain jobs for him. I bet that was one of them.

“Were you able to get any sleep?”

Finn asks.

“No offense, but you look like shit.”

I snort.

“Don’t look in the mirror, then.”

He grunts in response, shooting me a grumpy glare.

Last night, I gave up on trying to get any work done a little after twelve. Sleep evaded me for hours thanks to the hundred terrifying scenarios that played through my head. I couldn’t get my thoughts to calm down.

They’re already dead.

He forced them to watch, just like Jordan was planning on forcing them to watch you.

They went through an eternity of pain, and it’s all your fault.

Once I was finally able to drift off, I had an hour or two of fitful sleep before the nightmares kicked in. That seems to be the pattern my nights are falling into.

Thankfully, I haven’t woken up screaming my head off. I don’t want to scare Finn or Maggie, nor do I want Finn to feel like he has to comfort me. He’s already doing enough.

“Don’t forget to eat,”

Finn mumbles as he shuts his laptop.

“And wake me if you get an update from Sparrow.”

“Will do.”

Once Finn is upstairs, I go about making myself some coffee and a light breakfast. And by light breakfast, I mean a plain bagel that I can’t even bring myself to throw in the toaster. I nibble on it as I move the stuff I’ll need into the family room.

Finn may prefer working in the dining room, but there aren’t any windows in there, so I hate it. Before I settle in, I glance out into the backyard. Maggie is happily exploring, so she’ll be fine for now. I’ll check on her in a little bit.

Opening the laptop, I lower myself to the couch. I stare at the bagel, trying to coax myself to take another bite, but I can’t do it. The thought of eating in general makes me grimace.

At least drink your coffee.

With a sigh, I pick up the mug and stare at the liquid inside. Its aroma is sweet, and the color is a light brown. It looks the same as Oliver’s coffee whenever I make it for him. He takes a little more sugar than I do, but we both take the same amount of cream.

If you’d just been more careful, you could be in bed cuddling with him right now.

The thought stings, and when I shove it away, another springs up with double the force.

Stupid girl. You thought you could help them, and now look what you’ve done.

Apparently, while Finn and I were getting information out of one of my would-be kidnappers before I killed him, I zoned out for a few minutes. In that time, the man explained that the guys got caught because I was spotted entering Ludo’s office.

It’s all your fault.

My coffee burns as I take a large gulp. It has the desired effect, forcing my mind to focus on the physical pain instead of the barrage of cruel thoughts.

There. Now focus.

It takes me a minute to find the documents I downloaded from Holloway’s hard drive. There are so many of them, and quite a few have similar names, the only difference being a different month or year.

When I first learned of the hard drive, I wondered why Ludo kept evidence of his crimes at all. The moment I actually looked at what’s on it, though, it all clicked.

This shit is complicated. There’s no way he could remember this all in his head. If he doesn’t have a way to keep track of where all his money and product goes, he’s bound to make mistakes—or get ripped off unknowingly.

Or, I think as I find the records I want and check the numbers again, forget just how much he’s ripping off others.

By itself, the document in front of me doesn’t mean much. It’s a fairly simple report on money in and money out for a specific trade that happens once a month.

It seems that, for this particular portion of Holloway’s business, he’s in with two other men—Raymond King and Fredrick Burbank. They seem to be suppliers, and Ludo seems to be the middleman. A distributor of sorts who then splits his earnings with the other two men.

For what, I’m not sure—drugs, probably? Maybe weapons? But at the moment, that’s not what I care about. The important thing is the numbers.

They just aren’t adding up.

I do a little more digging and find the agreement between Holloway, King, and Burbank. They’re supposed to split the money evenly between the three of them, but looking at the reports, that’s not what Ludo is doing.

Again, doubt trickles through my consciousness. Am I doing the math wrong? Are there expenses that are accounted for elsewhere? Maybe I’m not understanding the agreement?

I wish Ell was here.

Fuck. Don’t think about him.

Quickly, I take another gulp of my coffee. It’s not as hot, so the burn isn’t as strong, and I sigh in disappointment. Whatever. I just need to keep working. Who knows how much time we have left?

Were there invoices?

Again, I start going through all of Holloway’s records from the past year. If I can confirm that the amounts he paid to Raymond and Fredrick are off, then it’s a start at least.

If it even matters.

Uncovering that Ludo is lying to at least two of his business partners is… something. I’m not sure what we’ll be able to do with the information, but hopefully it can help somehow. Maybe they’ll want revenge, and we could convince them to help us? But what if they don’t believe us, or Ludo finds out what we did and kills the guys—or Benny—before we can get to them?

Maybe Finn will have a better idea when he wakes up. I’m hoping that he’ll be able to help me figure out if I’m right or not since he has a better understanding of how all this stuff works. I’m a barista with an English degree, for fuck’s sake. I don’t know anything about distributing illegal substances or even how to run an above-board business.

It takes me a while, but I’m able to find separate records of payments for the past six months. Thankfully, it confirms my suspicions. Ludo is under-reporting his earnings to Raymond King and Fredrick Burbank so he can keep more than his fair share.

But what can we do with that?

Absentmindedly, I reach for my phone. My actual one is still at the guys’ mansion—we didn’t want to risk Ludo possibly tracking it if he has the ability—so Finn got me another one for temporary use. I pull up Aubrey’s Instagram like I’ve done dozens of times in the past week, except this time, there’s finally a new post.

Straightening, I swipe through the photos. Some of them are of her, some are of things like sunsets and food and little shops, and there’s even one of her and Ludo together. There’s no destination tagged, nor is it obvious from the photos. According to what she told me, they’re some of the pictures she saved up to post to make their marriage look real.

Once I’ve looked through the photos, I expand the caption: We were supposed to have a tech-free week, but my love snuck a camera into his bag. Can’t say I’m upset.

The post already has a decent amount of likes and a couple comments. That’s good—it means Aubrey’s plan is working. However much I wish she was here with me now, I’m glad she’s safe and doesn’t have to worry anymore.

Maggie whines at the back door, so I get up and let her in. I already put food in her bowl, and after she gets some water, she eats it all quickly.

Sighing, I glance at the laptop. There has to be some way we can use this information to our benefit. I’ll talk to Finn when he wakes, but for now, maybe I can come up with something on my own.

“You want to go on a walk, Mags?”

Her ears perk up at my question. I’m hoping that being outside and moving around will help me think better. After grabbing Maggie’s leash, we head out the back door.

We’re not completely in the middle of nowhere out here—there’s a house every half mile or so—but I feel relatively safe. According to Finn, this house isn’t even in his name. If Ludo or his men were able to make the connection between me and him, they still wouldn’t be able to find us here.

So I head toward the woods without much worry. It’s quiet out here—peaceful in a way I’m not used to. Birds chirp, squirrels leap from branch to branch, and there’s even a small creek that cuts through the trees.

I think Rhett would like it out here.

The thought pops into my mind before I can stop it. Immediately, any feeling of calm vanishes, replaced by pain that’s so deep-rooted it’s impossible to ignore. Tears fill my eyes, and I have to stop just as I step onto one of the paths Finn showed me the other day.

Maggie waits by my side patiently, nudging me with her head when I sob. In all my life, I don’t know if I’ve ever felt so empty.

My knees hit the muddy ground, sharp pain shooting through my legs at the impact.

“What if I can’t fix this? Oh, Maggie, what if I never see them again?”

With a low whine, Maggie sniffs at my hair. I bury my face into her neck while my tears flow freely. If we can’t rescue the guys, can I go on without them? Can I move on, knowing I’m the reason they died?

I can’t. I can’t do this.

There’s no way I’ll be able to live with myself.

“Wren?”

Finn’s voice is soft, but it still startles me. I jump before turning to look up at him. He’s dressed in his usual attire—dark colors with his leather jacket unzipped. Unsurprisingly, his hair is still messy.

“What are you doing out here?”

Embarrassed, I wipe at my eyes.

“Couldn’t sleep. Heard you and Maggie leave and thought you might want some company. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“It’s fine.”

Sniffling, I stand.

“Actually, since you’re awake, I think I found something that could be helpful.”

“If you need a couple minutes—”

“I need them,”

I yell. I don’t mean to, but it’s the only way I can get the words out without my voice breaking.

Finn doesn’t seem hurt or offended. If anything, I think he understands. I haven’t forgotten the way he looked in the farmhouse’s basement those few weeks ago.

At least I didn’t lead her to her death. She deserved better than you.

That’s what Austin told Finn before Rhett killed him. I don’t know who Austin was talking about, but I don’t need to know. Whoever she was, Finn cared about her, and losing her still haunts him. It’s written on his face even now. He doesn’t want me to meet that same fate, nor does he want to lose the guys.

“All right.”

Reaching out, he takes Maggie’s leash from me.

“Then let’s head back.”