Blind Loyalty by M J Marlow (ereader for android .TXT) 📖

looked down at his sleeping daughter. “You’ve helped me rescue her twice from that bastard. And you, Dubois…” “Neither Dubois nor I could ever repay you for your past assistance, Jeffries,” Hawk told him bluntly. “Just try to keep her out of trouble for awhile?” “I can only hope it works out that way,” Adam replied. He went to pour himself a drink. “She’s been through hell, Hawk.” “She’s your daughter, Jeffries,” Hawk smiled. “She has inherited your ability to fight off poisons introduced into her bloodstream.” He looked over at her then. “I have a feeling she was leading the man along just waiting her opportunity to escape him.” He saw Adam’s expression and laughed. “You are not the only one of us who gets ‘feelings’, my friend. Mine tell me that your daughter is going to be an exceptional woman.” “She already is exceptional,” Dubois said softly. “Do you realize, gentleman, that thanks to Joanna we have taken out Leighton and his foul Council in two months? Something we have been failing to do for years?” He shook his head. “She is a wonder, Jeffries. Keep her safe.” “Father?” Joanna cried out softly and sat up. She looked at Adam. “I need to talk to Charles.” He looked hesitant. “Please, Father. I need to apologize to him for the hateful things I said…” She saw the other men’s expressions and she bit back a sob. “He’s dying, isn’t he?” Dubois nodded and she burst into tears. “It’s all my fault!” “It is not your fault, Joanna,” Adam looked at her aghast. “If Charles had really thought things through, he would have found a way to bring your mother and you to me instead of leaving you in that madhouse.” He saw her shock at his bluntness. “Do not feel sorry for that man. He brought this on himself!” “Father!” Joanna could not believe he could be so hard and unfeeling. The man was dying because he had tried to save her. She got to her feet and started for the door, shaking with anger and weariness. Adam caught her as she fell to her knees. “Please don’t hate, Father,” she said as she looked up at him with despair in her eyes. “You make yourself a victim and he has had enough of those already.” “I’ll take you to him,” Adam sighed as he picked her up in his arms. He carried her down the corridor and they entered another room. Charles was lying in bed hooked up to monitors and lines. He opened his eyes as Joanna put her hand on his. “My daughter has something she wishes to say to you, Dearborn,” Adam said stiffly and went to stand in the corner. Charles looked at the girl he had done his best to keep safe and wished he could have done more. He knew he was dying and he accepted his fate. But there was more that needed to be undone. So when she started to talk, he lifted his fingers to her lips and quieted her. Joanna nodded and he smiled at her and patted her hand. “Your mother and I loved each other, Joanna,” he told her bluntly. “Not at first,” he said as he saw Adam’s expression. “Leighton lured her away from your father with his lies and his drugs and she was lost to him for the first few months.” He was drifting back into his memory then. “But it all changed when she had you. Leighton was furious with her for having a girl. He had wanted a son and he began to make her life miserable. He only let her have access to you when you needed to be nursed. He made her beg for access to you after that.” He frowned as Adam cursed. “I started spending time with her when Leighton was off the estate. I would sit with her and we would talk about things. We fell in love.” “Why didn’t you get her and Joanna out of there when he was gone?” Adam asked the man bluntly. “If I had done that, Leighton’s men had orders to hunt them down and murder the baby in front of her eyes,” Charles told him bluntly. “Hannah wouldn’t risk it.” He saw Joanna go white. “He was determined to keep you both under control.” He bit his lip as the pain hit him. “He came back after one of his trips and found her packing to leave. She had you in a stroller, Joanna. He followed her to the stairs and I arrived just in time to see him shoving her.” His eyes were blazing with rage then. “He broke her back and refused to let her go to the hospital. He had nurses brought in. When she had recovered her strength he made his ultimatum; she would only have access to her daughter if she agreed to sleep with him.” He was crying then. “She couldn’t say no,” he said as he looked at Joanna. “She loved you so much, Joanna. She had to do whatever he said so she could be with you.” He got an impish smile on his face. “But we fooled him. I had my sister get a prescription for birth control pills and I slipped them to your mother.” “He was furious with her,” Joanna remembered the argument on the day her mother had died, “when he found out why my mother hadn’t given him a child. I remember seeing him go white and his eyes going all cold and hard. He said he had no time for a woman who would not do her duty by him.” Joanna was crying herself now. “Then he told her that he would just wait for me. I would do what she couldn’t.” She was shaking as her father put his arms around her. “I didn’t understand what he meant then.” She clung to Adam a moment. “Then he gave her the injection and she had the heart attack. I remember screaming and him yanking me out of the closet and striking me.” “He would have killed you then, Joanna,” Charles told her bluntly; “but I reminded him of what he had planned and he let you live.” He pointed to his watch and asked her to remove it. Then he turned it over and asked her to open the back. Inside was a key. “You’ll find the name of the bank and the box number etched on the back of the cover,” he told her. “What you find in there contains everything you will need to bring down the entire organization that Leighton belonged to.” He heard Adam stiffen. “I have been keeping detailed records on them for the past twenty years.” He went white as pain hit him and she held the cup of water to his lips. “So gentle and so pretty. Just like your mother.” He smiled at her a moment and stroked her hair. “I promised her I would always protect you from him, Joanna.” His voice was fading. “I should have done better.” He began to cough and he looked at Adam in desperation. “Take her out of here, Major Jeffries. I don’t want her here.” Adam took the watch and cover and guided his daughter out of the room. Joanna heard the alarm go off as they approached the door of her room and she knew he was dying then. She burst into tear s and Adam held her close as she grieved for a man she had finally understood was a friend too late. James Leighton had destroyed so many people’s lives, Joanna thought as she went back to her room. If it were the last thing she did, she would make life better for his victims. “I’m not ever having children,” Joanna said as she sank down on the bed in her room. She saw her father’s shocked reaction. “Mother was kept a prisoner by that monster because of me, Father. If I hadn’t been there, she would have left with Charles. They might have been happy…” “You can’t know that, Joanna,” Adam broke in as he took her hands in his and sat down on the bed. “Your mother loved you as much as she was able to love anyone but herself.” He saw her look at him in confusion. “Hannah was a weak woman, Joanna. She was easily led by promises of a better life.” “But she was happy with you and my brothers,” Joanna protested. “I saw the photos…” “You need to look closer,” Adam said over her protests. “Hannah was the pampered child. She never had to work for anything in her life. She was not suited to be the wife of a military man.” He looked regretful. “I was too pleased at her accepting me to see it at first, and she did try her best to be a good wife. But the strain of not knowing if I was coming home from my tours of duty began to wear on her.” “And Doctor Leighton stepped in?” “She’d just had your brothers,” Adam nodded. “He was everything I was not to her. When I went off on my last tour, they had an affair. I came home to find my sons living with their grandfather and my wife gone. She left a note telling me she was through; she had found a man who could give her what she needed.” He choked. “I loved her, Joanna. I was enraged when I got that note and I spent the next three months drunk more often than sober. It was Rachel who finally helped me dry out and get my feet back under me.” “You love Rachel, don’t you?” Adam hesitated. How did a father tell his daughter that he loved her aunt more than he had ever loved her mother? But he could see in Joanna’s eyes that she would understand. She would always want the truth from him. He pulled her to his chest and rested his chin on top of her head. “She is my heart,” Adam said simply. “I know she’ll stick by me when life gets too rough, as it will from time to time. She won’t run at the first sign of difficulty.” He smiled at her then. “You don’t mind having her for a mother, do you, Joey?” “Rachel was more of a mother to me in six months,” Joanna said as she hugged her father close, “than Mama was in five years. I know that wasn’t her fault entirely, Father,” she said sadly; “but it’s the way of things.” She heard the door open and Rachel was there. She smiled and held her hand out to the woman and Rachel came to join them. When Dubois came to check on her, he found the three of them curled up together asleep. He backed out, smiling. The nightmare was over for that trio for a while. He hoped it would stay away for a long, long time and give them a chance to know peace. They all deserved it. Joanna couldn’t believe it when she woke up and found herself in her own bed at the Winbourne house. She actually pinched herself to make certain she was not dreaming. Then she pinched Sarah and the twins. The nightmare was over for now. She was home with her family and Leighton was gone. He had no claim to her. Her euphoria eased after the first day and she was thrust back into school. Aidan was her own personal guard when his schedule and hers permitted and she found she liked having him around. They graduated to hand holding and she was happy. She had the uncomfortable feeling that it wouldn’t last but for now she was happy. School went on as before. She attended her classes and practices. George continued pestering Joanna about changing partners and she kept ignoring him; as Aidan suggested. It finally came to a