Page 1 of Breathless
PROLOGUE
The phone’sringing woke Chaney from a sound slumber early. She rolled over, noticed the very early hour and checked the caller ID. “Oh crap,” she muttered, picking up the receiver. It was her parents.
“Hello,” she croaked.
“Chaney? Did I wake you?” her father asked.
“What do you think?”
“It’s after nine. What are you still doing sleeping?” he questioned.
“In Baltimore, not in Colorado Springs.”
A pause. “Sorry. I keep forgetting the time difference.”
Sure, he did. She sat up. “What’s up?” she asked.
“Just checking in on you and wanted to see if you had given any thought to our last conversation,” he said.
She frowned as her stomach tightened at the mention of that phone call. Her parents could really be ball busters sometimes. And this was one of them. Placing all the blame on Justus for what had happened to them when they had been abducted by human traffickers in May. And now her parents were insisting that she stop seeing her best friend or suffer the consequences of having all college funding and housing support cut off after theyplaced her in this gated community to live away from everyone she knows?
It really made her blood boil, but breathing deeply, she counted to five while considering her next words.
“Listen, dad, I don’t have time to get into that right now,” Chaney told him. “I have to get ready for my deposition with the US Assistant District Attorney this morning. Or have you also forgotten about that?”
Darn it, she silently chided herself for the irritation she heard in her voice.
“No, we haven’t.” Her father’s tone was gruff. “Sorry we can’t be there with you for that, but we have obligations here.”
“I’m sure. You haveyourclients and Motherhercharity work,” she said, unable to keep the sarcasm from dripping from her words.
“I don’t like your tone, Chaney.”
“And I don’t like being treated–”
“Enough. We expect an answer from you by the end of the week or you’ll be cut off if you insist on continuing with this connection you have formed with the Killions. Either you end your associations with the Killions or we will no longer fund your college education or housing.”
“It’s kind of hard when we are in a lawsuit together,” she shot back.
“Break all ties with them or with our money,” he repeated. “It’s plain and simple.”
Chaney slammed the cordless phone back down on the charger, not bothering to respond.
Raking her fingers through her brown hair, she didn’t believe her parents. They were treating her like a child instead of a twenty-year-old but what was new. They had always been overbearing with her. Trying to dictate her every move and decision. The only reason she’d been able to come to Coloradoto go to college was because she had been sneaky with her applications and only applied to this one university. They’d had no other choice when she’d been accepted there, because it was too late to get her in anywhere else. No matter how hard they tried to pull strings to get her on the waitlist.
Now, her parents were blaming Justus for them being abducted into human trafficking. And while Chaney knew that Justus shouldn’t have been so reckless for trusting Kurtis Nuchols after knowing him for a short amount of time, Justus had not forced Chaney to go hiking with them that weekend. She’d gone freely because she hadn’t wanted Justus to be alone with Kurtis. Something deep down had warned her that her friend wasn’t safe alone with him, but she had never dreamed how right that feeling had been.
Kurtis had even brought along Dan a friend of his that day, to keep her company. He’d been okay, but hadn’t seemed that into her. He’d been more interested in Justus, which she had thought was odd since he was supposed to have been Kurtis’ friend. But she hadn’t said anything. And in the end, it hadn’t mattered because while they were eating lunch, they were drugged and taken to a house hidden away in the mountains outside of Fool’s Gold where they were held hostage by human traffickers for a few weeks.
If anything, Chaney felt her parents should be showing a little more gratitude to Justus’ sister, Liberty than they had since her rescue. As a Civil Liberties attorney, the woman had risked her life and her job to get them back. She’d also teamed up with the Brotherhood Protectors to help her find them. And it hadn’t cost her parents a dime. Not that they couldn’t have afforded it. But had Liberty heard a thank you from them? No. Not even once. All Chaney had heard from them was that she wasn’t to speak to or get near Justus unless it had something to do with the upcoming trial. And now they didn’t even want that.
Her parents couldn’t even spare her the time to stay in Colorado Springs long enough to support her during the weeks leading up to the trial either. They leased and furnished her this spacious condo in a gated community with round the clock security and then promptly flew back to their lives in Baltimore. And now, after this phone call, it sounded as if they were reconsidering. Like she really wanted to be here in the first place. She’d much rather be staying with Justus and Liberty if she couldn’t go back to rooming with her college roommates.
CHAPTER 1
“Canyou tell me how you came to be rescued, Miss Daniels?” the defense attorney, Bernard Felty from Felty, Reynolds and Kline, asked.
“It was during the auction. We were told each man there would be allowed to bid and buy one of us, but there was a bidding war between two older gentlemen. And one of them ended up with both Justus and me. The other gentleman got upset and caused a scene. The man who purchased us took that moment to take us down the backstairs and get us out of harm’s way.”
