Captive Angel Ch. 14 - End

"Cut the crap, Sebastian? What do you want? Tell me, please. I'm too tired to play your sadistic little games anymore." She kept her eyes on him, seeing him look away as if he were suddenly nervous.

"I want to tell you a story, one you might find somewhat familiar, Angelina. If you will do me the courtesy to listen..." his voice trailed off and he sat down in the other chair, waving Clyde out of the room with a quick motion of his hand.

"Do I have a choice?" Angel found herself asking, her voice derisive.

"Not really, my dear, for I have you here and I will tell you. What you do with the information that I am about to impart, that is completely up to you." He leaned forward, pouring some amber liquid from a crystal decanter into one of the short tumblers and draining it down.

"Nervous, Sebastian? That is so unlike you."

"I don't often tell the story of my life to anyone, well, at least the real story," he said. "Of course there is the drivel that I've made up for the papers and such. If they knew the truth, well, I perhaps wouldn't be as well thought of."

He rose from his chair, pacing in front of her before stopping before the fire, his eyes going to the blazing logs.

"I was born to a man who was military from the top of his crew cut to the shine of his shoes. He believed in precision and dedication. He was fanatical about it, my dear. His fanaticism drove him and everything he did, including his raising of me. I woke at a certain hour, was responsible for following a schedule from the moment I opened my eyes until the time I laid my head upon the pillow. Every detail must be correct, everything from my school grades to the knot on my tie. I was regimented and regulated by him and the servants."

He paused and Angel watched his face, fascinated despite herself at hearing what made him the way he was. She drew her feet up in the chair, tucking them under her legs, her body shivering with cold that seemed to come from deep inside of her. She had a sudden clear thought. He was going to tell her something she didn't want to know about herself. It made her shudder in fear, as if she were on some runaway train with no way to stop it and no help in sight.

"...beatings on a daily basis. He felt it toughened me up for I was always rather delicate. I was a disappointment to him." He turned and stared at her.

"I know your mother never felt that way for you. You were her pride and joy, weren't you?"

"We aren't talking about me," she said quietly, not wanting to defile the memories of her mother by speaking of them with him.

He nodded, as if respecting her wishes, before continuing on. "My father grew more insane every day. I was only ten the first time he killed someone in front of me. He enjoyed killing, it was the ultimate form of power over a person for him. I used to wonder when he would get tired of me and kill me too. But I was something that those others weren't. I was a part of him."

He walked to the decanter, once more pouring a small draft of amber liquid and downing it. "When my mother tried to run away from him, he brought her back. Her punishment was to watch as he beat me, every day. I was her punishment." He bowed his head for a moment. "And then he killed her."

Angel held her silence, feeling not the tiniest bit of sympathy for the man.

Many others had terrible home lives and didn't grow up to maim and murder, to live the way Sebastian did. "Why tell me?"

"If you'll be patient, you'll see, Angelina," he said quietly, walking away from the fire finally to sit down in the chair next to hers. "You see, I thought I deserved what he was doing to me, the beatings, the isolation, and the demeaning rituals he put me through. I thought for a while that all children needed to go through this before they became adults. That this was the way of life, because that is what he told me. But one morning, I just knew I couldn't do it anymore. Perhaps I had more of the old man in me than he thought." Sebastian smiled, his eyes turning almost silver, pure malice gleaming from them.

Angel shivered and wrapped her arms around herself, her hands coming to rest against the life that was growing deep inside of her.

"I took the whip from him, he didn't even bother having me held down anymore, he just thought I would stand still and let him whip the skin from my back. But not that day. I took the whip right out of his hands. His face...," Sebastian laughed, the sound like that of nails on a blackboard. "He looked so surprised when I turned the whip back around on him. I whipped him to death that morning, beating him so hard that I couldn't lift my arm for two days. I was sixteen years old."

He rubbed his hands over his face and when he looked up, he smiled at her.

It was a gentle smile, but one that was infinitely creepy. "His bones still lay where he fell. I wouldn't give him the honor of a burial, he didn't deserve that much consideration." He paused, staring at her as if expecting her to make some sort of exclamation of horror.

"What do you want me to say? Do you want me to tell you that it wasn't your fault? That you did what you had to do to survive? I'm sorry, Sebastian, I can't seem to summon up a drop of sympathy or sincerity for you," she said harshly.

"Honesty," he sighed, smiling at her warmly. "I love that about you, dear Angelina. I'll always know exactly what you think."

"You don't know how to love," she spat at him, her body tensing.

"True," he said, not bothering to deny her words. "But if I could love, I think it would have to be you. We are more connected than you might think, my dear. If you'll but let me continue?" he asked, pausing as if he'd actually give her the consideration of telling him no.

"After my father's death, I went a little wild. It was the first that I'd been allowed to do as I pleased, to eat what I wanted, to stay up later than the regimented bedtime that he'd ordered. The staff was terrified of me, considering that they had seen what was left of my father and knew I wouldn't hesitate to use the whip again. I used to carry it with me, bits of daddy dearest still embedded in its coils." He paused, seeming to savor the moment as he thought of the fear he had elicited from the adults that had been the ones in charge of him for so long.

"I forged my father's name on a legal document giving me his power of attorney when I reached the age of eighteen. After that, I ran his businesses, with a much finer hand to detail than he could have ever hoped to have. I made him richer than he could ever have thought of himself. And after a few years, I staged a fake heart attack for him, just to get that wonderful death certificate that set me free."

He stared into the fire for a few seemingly endless moments before he shook himself, standing and pacing the floor in front of her. "I...found myself in Detroit on business one summer. It was hot and I had an afternoon free of meetings. I met a waitress, she was young and pretty, a redhead with big green eyes. She took me with her that afternoon, introduced me to her friends, and took me to the beach." He glanced over at her, seeing her stunned and almost horrified expression.

"Rosalie spent the afternoon showing me how she had fun; I showed her that night how to be a woman. I was her first." He paused before continuing, watching Angel's every expression. "I fucked her every way a woman could get fucked and then in the morning, I gave her cab fare. She must have taken one of my business cards with her. When she found out she was pregnant with you, she called me, wanting my help."

"It's not true," Angel said, her stomach clenching, her heart in her throat. "You're lying."

"Oh no, my darling daughter. It is very much true. I've even got the DNA tests to prove that you and I are father and daughter."

"No," she said, shaking her head in denial. "I don't come from you. I can't come from you." Her voice rose, becoming shrill as shock and fear sent her into a panic.

Sebastian reached out and slapped her, the blow snapping her head back.

But it cleared the panic from her brain. Her eyes grew dark, even harder than they'd been before. "You let her get kicked out, let her suffer and worry, never knowing if she'd have enough money to feed herself, much less raise a child on her own. You didn't help her," she accused, hating him more than she thought possible.

"I didn't think you were mine, so I handed her the money for an abortion and walked away. I never thought she'd keep you." He sank down in the chair next to her. "But she did, and now we are together. I want to share what I have with you now."

"Are you crazy? That's it. It has to be it. You're crazy. You can't possibly believe that after everything you've done to me I'd walk willingly into your arms and call you daddy, can you?" She shook her head, her hair flying around her face. "No, I don't believe it. This is a lie."

Sebastian rose, grabbing her wrist and dragging her out of her chair. "It isn't a lie. Come with me." He pulled her from the room, never letting go of her wrist even when she struggled. For a man of such diminutive height, he was strong, his fingers like a vise digging into her skin.

Out the doors of the library and down the hall going the opposite way from where she'd always come, he pulled her along behind him, striding with purpose toward the huge stairway that lead to the grand front entrance.

Stopping at the top of the stairs, he indicated the wall in front of him, shaking her when she kept struggling against him.

"Look at the portrait," he growled.

She glanced up, her eyes widening even further, her hand going to her throat as she gasped in horror.

Chapter Fifteen

Her horror wasn't lost on Sebastian though to him, it was a vastly enjoyable moment. She couldn't deny him now.

"Your mother sent me this picture and I had it made into a portrait of the two of you. It's been hanging here for close to twenty years now." He reached out, touching the cheek of the painted Angel, who couldn't have been more than two or three, sitting in her mother's lap both concentrating upon the book her mother was reading to her. "I though it an adorable picture."

Angel had had that very same picture in a frame beside her bed. It had been one of her favorites. Her and her mother, their red heads pressed close together as her mother read to her. She wasn't even sure who had taken the picture.

"I couldn't have come from you," Angel said quietly, feeling this surrealistic nightmare closing in on her. "I couldn't have your blood in my veins."

"But you do," he said, coming up behind her, his hand on her waist. "You are my daughter, my heir, and it's time you took your place at my side. I will teach you everything I know about the business and then, well, when I'm gone, this will be yours. Why do you think I went all the way to Michigan when I needed a doctor in the first place?"

Angel shook off his hand, angrily turning to push him away. "No," she said softly. "I won't do it. Why couldn't you have just left me with Hunter?" Tears blurred her vision.

Lights suddenly flashed in a staccato of warning, a siren blared, loud enough to make Angel cover her ears. She felt Sebastian's hand on her arm, saw the gun come up and she pushed at him, trying desperately to get away, to protect Hunter's child from him.

"NO!" she screamed, her voice barely heard above the cacophony of sound.

Sebastian stared over her shoulder at the staircase behind her, seeing the dark helmeted heads of the police as they swept into his home, heard their yelled demands. His eyes narrowed and he felt a sweep of outraged anger rise up inside of him. How dare they? Didn't they know who he was? He felt Angelina's struggles and brought the gun up to her head, more of a gesture than an actual threat but she didn't know that.

"Come with me, daughter," he growled in her ear.

"No! I'm not going anywhere with you. Don't ever call me that again!" She kept struggling against him, her hand coming up to knock the gun aside. She managed to loosen his grip and pushed him once more, backing away and then stumbling, her body heading towards the stairs.

"Angel!"

She heard his voice as if in a dream, turning her head as she grabbed the railing to keep from falling down the long staircase. There he was, his stormy gray eyes peering up at her, that big, athletic body rushing toward her.

"Hunter?" she whispered, too shocked to do much more.

Sebastian reached for her once more, grabbing her against him, his gun now pointed at the man climbing the stairs toward him. "Will you not die!?"

"NO!" Angel screamed again, grabbing the gun. They fought for control of the piece, struggling against each other at the top of the stairs.

Hunter could only watch and try to reach them as the two fought. He took the stairs two and then three at a time, reaching the top just as a loud explosion sounded. The two combatants both stopped fighting, their eyes going to their hands, where the gun they fought over had just gone off.

Angel stumbled back, the pistol dropping out of her hands. Her eyes stared at the man who'd shot her and then back at the man she loved and had thought dead. "Hunter?" she whispered once more, reaching out with blood-streaked hands toward him. He caught her to him, cradling her in his arms even as he dropped to his knees on the floor.

"Oh God, baby, no," he said, his hand shaking as he reached for her sweater, trying to lift it to see her wound.

"You aren't dead?" she asked him, touching his face with her fingers and leaving a streak of blood.

"No, baby, shush, don't speak. You've got to stay still, Angel. We've got to get you to the hospital." He blanched as he saw the ugly hole in her body that was angled towards her ribs. "You'll be...just fine, baby. You've just got to stay still." He yanked off his shirt, wadding it into a ball and pressing it against the wound, pushing hard. "Please God," he prayed. He raised his voice to shout above the din. "I need an ambulance!"

Angel gasped, her eyes fluttering as the pain grew. She tried to keep her focus on his face, but the dark spots were gathering in front of her eyes, making it difficult to even think, much less see.

"Let her go."

Hunter looked up and into the weapon that was pointed at his head. He growled, but didn't release her. "I let her go and she'll bleed to death. I'm not doing it, Sebastian, so if you want to shoot me, go ahead."

He heard the click of the slide being ratcheted back and looked back down at Angel. "Don't move, love. Just keep breathing for me, please, Angel. Don't you dare die on me."

Sebastian moved closer, the muzzle of the pistol he'd retrieved off the floor after shooting Angel pushing into Hunter's forehead. "Didn't you hear me Aaron? I said, let her go!"

"Listen, fuck wad. You shot her and I plan to kill you for it as soon as she's safe. But for now, I'm not letting her go to bleed to death." He glared into the blue eyes above him, feeling the warmth of Angel's blood as it started to saturate his shirt. "If she dies, trust me on this, there will be no place you can hide that I won't find you and kill you."

"I'll give you to the count of three," Sebastian said, his voice low and serious, his eyes trained on Hunter though he knew what was going on around him.

He knew he had little time, but after all of his planning, he wasn't letting Angelina go without a fight.

"One," he said softly. "Two." His hand tightened on the weapon, his aim sharpening as he moved a bit closer to Aaron. "Th..."

"Drop the gun, Antonelli," Brandon said, his pistol aimed at Sebastian, his hands steady. "Drop it and then get down on the ground, you scum. You're under arrest."

Sebastian looked between the two men. "You're both supposed to be dead," he growled, frustration gnawing a huge hole in him.

"Call it good living," Brandon said tersely. "Now, drop the fucking gun and eat the carpet, asshole."

Hunter knew he was going to shoot. He could feel it. He bent down over Angel, protecting her with his body even as he waited for the bullet. "It's okay, love, just stay with me, keep breathing. I love you, Angel," he whispered, never letting up on the pressure he was putting on the wound.

Over his head, Brandon glared at Sebastian. Cops were coming up the stairs, standing back, their pistols drawn. "You're surrounded, Antonelli, there's no way out. Drop the gun." He tightened his grip on the weapon, watching Sebastian's eyes.

They were wild, flitting from Hunter to Angel to the gun in Brandon's hands. He couldn't believe that this was happening. "Fine," he said finally. "But you'll never make any of this stick. I have too many friends," he let the gun slip over his finger, holding it out to Brandon with a sneer.

Brandon took it quickly and then watched as three officers tackled Antonelli to the ground, handcuffed and searched. He dropped his hand on Hunter's shoulder. "Rescue should be here soon, keep pressure on it."

"She's losing too much blood, Bran."

"She'll be okay, just stay with her. Keep her awake," he said, tightening his grip on his friend's shoulder. He watched as Sebastian was lifted to his feet, saw the man use his shoulder to push up his glasses. "Those friends in high places wouldn't happen to include Judge Jonathon Strong, Chief Deputy Commissioner Terrence Lee and Captain Rudy Becker, would it? Not to mention the whole host of underlings we had to cull from the herd."

He laughed when he saw Sebastian blanch, his eyes growing bigger.

"It seems that some house cleaning needed doing and the Feds were more than happy to help it along, Antonelli. You gave us the time and the proof we needed yourself. You're going away for a long time, Sebastian, a very long fucking time." Brandon smiled, watching as four more of his men came out, hauling Clyde and Floyd with them. "Maybe if you're lucky, one of your henchmen here will be able to come and be your bunkmate, otherwise the guys in prison are just going to love your pretentious little ass."

"This isn't over," Sebastian hissed. "Not by any means is this even close to being over. By the time I'm done, I'll own your badge." He jerked, trying to get away from the men dragging him away. "I'll own you when this is done," he screamed over his shoulder.

"Why do they always say that?" Brandon asked no one in particular. He saw the rescue team dragging a gurney up the stairs and moved out of the way. "EMTs are here, Hunt. She'll be ok."

"Brandon, find Shanna for me, please," Hunter asked his friend, keeping pressure on the wound as the rescue team set up their equipment. "Find her and bring her to the hospital. Tell her I'm okay?"

"No problem." He watched as they took Angel from Hunter's arms, pulling away the soaked shirt and changing it for bandages. They started an IV on her and then transferred her to the gurney. "Go with them, we'll be right behind you."

Brandon turned down the hall, not waiting to see them leave. His heart leapt into his throat as he thought of seeing Shanna again after the dreams he'd been having of her. Sensual dreams that had kept him pretty much hard and aching for most of the trip. He started down the long hall, opening doors as he went; amazed by the richness and the amount of stuff Antonelli had collected.

He'd reached his second hallway when he found the locked door. There was no key to be found so he took a step back, kicking out and catching it with the bottom of his boot. The door was heavy wood, but luckily for him and his leg, the frame wasn't as well made. It splintered and the door lashed inward, bouncing off the wall.

Shanna stood close to the rear wall of the room she'd been trapped in, her back to the window. Clyde had left just a little while before. He'd forced her into changing clothing, enjoying her fear and her shyness as she'd stripped out of the tee shirt and jeans and into the skimpy gold colored shift that he'd brought for her. The material was almost transparent and in the light, streaming in from the window behind her, every single one of her curves was outlined.