Broken Ties by Gloria Davidson Marlow Read Free Book Online Page B

tilted her head back to look at him. “I was petrified, and no one even knew I was gone.”
    The fear and confusion in her voice tore at Levi’s heart, and he wanted nothing more than to ease the aching loneliness in her eyes.
    He didn’t try to stop himself from kissing her. There was no reason to fight it. The need to comfort her was too strong.
    He caught her trembling lips with his own, swallowing her low hum of acceptance. Her loneliness, her need, her aching desire to be a part of someone else became his own, and he drank it in. She was his now, whether she knew it or not, and he would never again let her face her pain or fear alone.
    He was so lost in the kiss it took a moment for his mind to register the sound of the elevator moving upward. He whirled around, pushing Sidra behind him as he drew his gun and aimed it toward the doors.
    “D-d-don’t shoot,” the gangly, freckle-faced kid cried, his hands clutching a large manila envelope. Every freckle stood out in vibrant contrast to the pallor of his skin, and Levi cursed as he put the gun back in its holster.
    “Sorry, kid. What do you want?”
    He held out the envelope with hands that shook so badly Levi wondered how he kept his grip on it.
    “I-I have a delivery for Sidra Martin,” he stammered.
    “Who gave it to you?” Levi demanded as Sidra snatched it from his hand and ripped it open.
    “Some guy downstairs. He gave me ten dollars to bring it up here.”
    The office phone began ringing and Sidra hurried toward it, removing the contents of the envelope as she moved.
    “Tanner & Tanner Invest—” She stopped before asking shrilly. “Who is this? What do you want?”
    She looked down at the paper she’d removed from the envelope, and the color leached from her face. The phone slipped from her hand and she grasped blindly at the edge of the desk, her eyes wide with shock.
    Levi bounded across the room, catching her around the waist and sinking to her office chair with her on his lap.
    He grabbed the phone. “Who the hell is this?”
    Low foreign words filled his ears, hateful and guttural sounding, and obviously aimed at Sidra.
    “When I find you, you’ll be sorry you ever contacted her,” he promised before slamming the phone down.
    “He wanted to know if I got the picture.” Her eyes were still fixed on the paper in her hand.
    “Let me see it, sweetheart,” he coaxed, prying the picture from her fingers. He let out a low harsh curse.
    The dark-haired woman in the picture had not just been murdered but viciously tortured before being killed. Her body was riddled with wounds, blood smeared across her clothing and limbs. It was a horrible image, made eminently worse by the small blond child who knelt beside her, tiny hands covered with blood.
    “Shit!”
    He slapped the picture face down on the desk, and when Sidra would have reached for it, he caught her hands in his own. Tears stung his eyes as he brought them to his lips, wishing he had been there for her then. Wishing someone had kept her from touching the poor, tortured woman, wishing someone had kept her from witnessing it at all. No wonder her mind chose not to remember what happened. Why on earth would someone want to remind her of it now?
    “Is she okay?” the kid asked from the elevator, reminding Levi of his presence.
    “She’ll be fine.” He looked the boy up and down. “What’s your name?”
    “Danny Ryan.”
    “Well, Danny Ryan, I need you to come over here and answer some questions about the man who gave this to you.”
    “Yes, sir.” Fear gleamed in his eyes, but he didn’t hesitate to come closer. “I’m sorry I brought it up here, man. I didn’t mean to upset her. I didn’t even know what it was.”
    “Who gave it to you?”
    “I told you, he was just some man downstairs. I didn’t know him. I never even saw him before.”
    “What did he look like?”
    “He was kind of short, and not fat but big. Like a football player. He had no neck.”
    “Dark