Page 46 of Mountain Refuge

“Because I was there. I saw and heard the whole thing. Lyd—Belle, her father was marrying her off. She was seven fucking years old, and he was selling her like she was a brood mare.”

I felt sick. “Oh God.” I didn’t want to believe him because believing him would mean that Belle’s biological father had tried to sell her. That was beyond heinous.

What if he was lying? What if Elijah had taken twochildren that were not his from a loving household? What if that was why he was on the run?

That conclusion didn’t feel right. Even though believing him was a worse reality for Belle, I couldn’t make myself believe that Elijah was so cruel and selfish a person to take two innocent babies from their home. It didn’t fit with the man I had come to know.

Then again, I’d only known him for six days and he was unconscious for one of those days. So maybe I didn’t know him well enough to trust my intuition about him. But it was those five plus days and nights that I had seen Elijah with his children that didn’t let me believe he was capable of such cruelty.

When Elijah had collapsed in my kitchen, Belle hadn’t been happy he’d fallen unconscious. She hadn’t said anything that indicated Elijah had been anything but loving to her brother and her. I recalled how protective Belle was of her baby brother those first couple of nights while Elijah slept. No matter how much I coaxed or tried, she would not rest. She was guarding her brother against…something.

And that something hadn’t been Elijah.

If Belle and Lucas were strangers to Elijah, or even if they were familiar with him and had been taken from a loving family, wouldn’t Belle have given some indication of that? She was old enough, even at seven, to know right from wrong. Yet, instead of telling me that Elijah was a stranger who had kidnapped her and her brother or ask even once where her parents were, she’d been attentive to Elijah. She’d tuck him in tighter when the blanket would start to fall and had put moisturizer on his lips when they’d been cracking and bleeding from being out in the cold. She’d called him ‘Daddy’. She’d never once slipped and called him ‘Adam’ or another name.

Didn’t they say that kids and pets could always tell the true character of a person? If Belle had been cautious in any waytowards Elijah, it would have sent up red flags to me the day I’d rescued them. But she hadn’t. She’d shown clear devotion and love towards Elijah.

Elijah continued talking while I tried to wrap my head around what he was confessing to. “Her older brother and I were already planning on escaping with her when we learned about Lucas. His mother was still pregnant with him then. We knew we couldn’t subject another child to that life, even if it meant stealing the children away from their biological father. We knew the implications, and I didn’t care. Brooke, the man is a psychopath—and I knew that long before he tried to sell his own daughter. Their brother and I decided to wait so we could get the baby out too. We had it all planned out, but everything went wrong. Neither of us were expecting…” He cringed. “There was a shootout between their father’s organization and the one he was trying to marry Belle into. Their older brother was shot protecting us. I didn’t think. I just took both kids, and I ran.”

For a moment, I thought I was going to throw up. Belle’s laugh, the joy on her face tonight… And some bastard who didn’t even deserve to be called her father had tried to take that away from her.

Neither of us spoke for a while. I was trying to process all he had told me. Clearly, he’d left out some details. A lot of details. But God! How could the law be on the side of a murderer and pedophile? Because, whether he touched his daughter himself or not, he wasallowinganother man to. Worse, he was getting money or some exchange for it. I was fairly certain that fell under human trafficking too.

If what he was saying was true, I couldn’t blame Elijah for running. But he could have run to the police! I get that he thought of those kids as his own, which was another thing I had to address, but surely the police could have helped him.

But it also sounded like his employer was a powerful, manipulative man. I recalled Elijah referring to his contract as signing a deal with the devil. What had seemed like an exaggeration then was now an understatement. Plus, his employer had been blackmailing Elijah. He’d known about the gun with his fingerprints on it, and he’d still taken those kids and run.

“Belle calls you ‘Daddy’. Does she know?”

Elijah looked more ashamed answering that question than he did when he’d admitted to kidnapping two children. “Belle knows far too much. No child should know or have seen the things she has.” The disgust was plain on his face as it was in his voice. “I’m working with her, though, helping her process. Since she could speak, she’s called me her dad. We had to be very careful about who heard her call me that. Biology never mattered to me. From the moment I held her in my arms in that delivery room, she wasmine.”

In any other situation, I would call that statement crazy. The man was claiming another man’s child as his own. But given the facts I had, not even knowing the facts he hadn’t yet told, I could understand why Elijah felt justified to take the children out of that situation.

But there had to be other options than going on the run with them like he had. Witness protection or protective custody?

“Jack and Corbin can verify everything that I’ve told you. I know you’ll trust their word over mine. I get if this changes how you feel and think about me. You were right that it wasn’t fair to you to start something without you knowing the truth, or at least part of it. But I beg of you, Brooke, don’t tell anyone about us. If not for me, for those children. They are finallyhappyand, above all, they’re safe. If their birth father finds us, I’ll be killed. And those kids? Belle will likely be sold or married off to benefit his business. In his mind, that’s all women are goodfor anyway. Lucas will likely grow up to be ruthless, heartless, and to follow in his father’s footsteps. I couldn’t bear that.”

I couldn’t either. It was clear Elijah believed what he was telling me. The disgust and the passion rang true in his voice. I also believed that if a man could sell his own daughter into slavery, then he would not hesitate to kill the man who’d tried to keep him from those profits.

But just because Elijah believed something, didn’t mean it was true. Humans had once believed the Earth was the center of the universe and that the world was flat. Others believe that the moon landing was a hoax and aliens walk among us. And don’t even get me started on the countless religions in the world that have sparked brutal and unnecessary wars.

I’d always been taught to uphold the law. Right versus wrong. It was why I’d longed to become a cop since I was a little girl. When I’d discovered what Tyler and Kate had done, I hadn’t hesitated to take action. There’d been no forgiveness, no listening to stories or reasons. I’d cut both of them out of my life completely and immediately. And when my family had chosen to support them, the wrongdoers, instead of me, the victim, I’d done the same with them (with the exception of my mother’s monthly email to prove I was still alive).

So why was I hesitating now?

Elijah was in the wrong. He’d taken two children that were not his, claimed them as his own, and gone on the run with them.

But blood wasn’t everything. Corbin and Elijah were as close as brothers and look at the extremes Corbin had gone to protect Elijah. Yet my own sister, who had also been my best friend, had been screwing my husband, the love of my life, behind my back for four months and now had a child with him. I’d never inquired about the child, and I’d never asked mymother if Kate and Tyler were still together. My own blood had completely blown up my entire reality.

And if I believed Elijah, which I was ninety-nine percent sure I did, then Belle’s biological father, herblood, had tried to sell her off to a man who would claim to marry her—because that sure as hell would never be a legal union—before raping her. A child.

Hadn’t Elijah proved he was more of a father to the children than their biological one was? But did that give Elijah the right to take the children away from their father and their home?

Right versus wrong.

I looked towards Corbin’s cabin. I’d never been invited inside before today. It was weird, because he’d never been inside of mine before he’d made it down the mountain to reunite with Elijah. We had a birthday party for the first time on this mountain tonight. Elijah had done that by bringing those kids to our mountain. I saw Belle’s face when Gertie had put her birthday spaghetti cake in front of her. That was a look of pure joy and innocence that only a happy and healthy child could portray.

I wanted to believe Elijah. I really did. It wasn’t that I needed more facts or to verify his version of events with Jack or Corbin. My hesitation came from my own morals. Was Elijah right or wrong to take those children?

---