“One day, I was holding Braden in my arms and Kate was asleep in the stroller. An older lady joined me on the park bench and she started asking me about the babies. I didn’t see the harm. She began the conversation in Spanish and then she was intrigued that I knew it so fluently. I told her about my family in Colombia. I remember she rolled her eyes and told me that’s where I had gotten my ugly accent. I didn’t even think much of it because I remembered my mom saying the same thing about people from other Spanish-speaking countries. She asked if I planned on teaching the babies and I told her I would try. Definitely Braden would learn, but I didn’t really know how long I would get with Kate.”

“She seemed nice, just a little nosy. She told me how she never could have children and she was envious of the two pretty babies. I didn’t know if she understood that I was just Kate’s nanny, but I didn’t bother to explain myself. Braden started getting hungry and fussy at that point and she asked me if I breastfed. Then she went on this huge lecture about how it was best for them. I nodded my head and politely excused myself so I could feed him back at your apartment without her advice. That…” Her voice cracked and I tensed. My hands gripped her legs, and I lifted up and lightly kissed her stomach.

“She must have followed me. That’s the only way she could have known where to find us that night. I was an idiot, Lane.”

I finally climbed back up her body and positioned myself above her. “No babe, you weren’t. Even I would have fallen for that. She was a con-artist.”

“If I would have just kept my big mouth shut, she never would have been so interested. Then we would have never…”

“Shhh…” I consoled.

“She liked that I spoke Spanish,” she continued.

“Do you know how many people speak Spanish in New York City, Rae?” When she didn’t answer, I did. “Millions, Rae. Millions. This lady picked you out because she liked you. She wanted what you had and she just so happened to have an evil bastard of husband to help her.”

“I had nothing! My aunt died so I was on the streets. Braden and I bounced between friends’ houses and your house. I don’t know why she chose me, but I had nothing.”

“You had two of the prettiest babies known to mankind.”

“She was sick,” she said quietly.

“That she was.”

“No, like terminally ill. It wasn’t long after we got to Mexico that she passed away. I guess Flores had… taken us… for his wife. To give her the babies she could never have. I was just the convenient caretaker. They probably planned on killing me once Braden and Kate didn’t need me anymore.”

“He stole you guys so his wife could have kids?” My temper spiked. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard! What about adoption?! Legal fucking adoption! What about the fact that one of the babies was mine!?”

I rolled off of her and she followed to face me. I had spent many sleepless nights trying to determine a possible motive. Now that I knew, I felt deflated. How the fuck does someone take someone else’s child just because they couldn’t have their own?

“I heard one of the guys say that she had been obsessed with me for a long time. I guess… she had been watching me.” I felt a violent shiver run through her body and I grabbed her to hold her close—to comfort both of us. “Well, turns out it had all been for nothing. The bitch died and then Flores had no idea what to do with us. So he kept us locked in a room. I guess he hoped that Braden would grow up and work for him.”

I took a deep breath, preparing myself to ask a question I needed to ask, even if I wasn’t sure I could handle the answer. “You said they tried to get rid of… Kate?” I was surprised to hear the weakness that bled from my own voice.

She cleared her throat uncomfortably. “Flores came to me one day, which was rare. He said he had no need for a daughter.” I clenched my fist at those words. If I could get a hold of that bastard again, he would die a slow death. He had no right to even use the word ‘daughter.’ Raegan waited for my inner turmoil to cool down.

“He said that only Braden would really be of any benefit to him one day. I clutched Kate to my chest so tightly they would have to take me before they would only her. So that’s what they did… they took us both. Away from Braden and I about died right there.”

“What? I don’t understand… you never said you were separated from him…” I felt immensely guilty and pulled in a thousand different directions. I was thankful she had held on to Kate, but how could I expect any mother to have to leave her own child?

“They couldn’t console Braden… no matter what they tried. He was only breastfed so they couldn’t even get him to eat. After what felt like a lifetime, they let Kate and I go back to him. I still hadn’t let her go. Then they just kept us there, locked away from everything, hoping that their version of solitary confinement would eventually break me. They came back every couple of months to collect Kate, but I wouldn’t let them. So they took to… marking me. Each time I refused to give them Kate… another mark. I think it was just a fun game to them; they didn’t really care about Kate anymore. They just liked fucking with me.”

“What do you mean they marked you, Rae?” I managed to get through my clenched teeth.

“Like cuts. On my skin,” she whispered.

“What the hell?” I asked a bit louder. I hadn’t seen any cuts on her.

She slowly rolled away from me onto her stomach. I sat up on my knees and looked down at her lying there below me. She didn’t move, didn’t even point to where I should be looking so I took her in her whole body. It didn’t take me long to see what she was talking about, although I wished it had.

There, from mid-calf to her upper thigh, all along the backside of her left leg were slices in her skin, each about four inches in length. They were all healed but in different phases of scarring and looked like stripes down her leg. Only her left leg, which was strange to me.

“Babe…” I stated, at a loss for words.

“It didn’t really hurt,” she lied.

“Is this why you only wear pants?”

“It didn’t seem polite to scare anyone. I know it’s not pretty.” She turned back over, taking the view of her leg away from me but not the memory.

I pushed between her legs again and raised her left in the air. Her breath hitched as I began kissing the skin at the site of the first terrible slash, all the way up to what looked like the newest one, closest to her ass. I hated that one the most. She must have been so scared and humiliated.

“The last one was over a year ago. I think they got bored with that tactic.”

Or they were biding their time for something else.

“I never let Braden and Kate see it happen,” she added, thankfully interrupting that horrific thought. I hadn’t even thought about Kate and Braden witnessing it, but I had come to trust Raegan’s parenting instincts so fully that the thought never occurred to me.

“We can get them fixed. I know they have plastic surgeons for all kinds of things. We can have them removed.” I tried to tamper my own hostile feelings toward every guy that has ever worked under Flores. I wanted any sign of their touch gone from her gorgeous body.

“We?” She smiled coyly. I continued kissing her, not addressing what that statement meant. She let it slide and said, “Besides, those are nothing compared to this ugly thing on my face.” Her hand brushed past the now healed but puckered scar on her forehead.

She had just gotten the stitches out the day before and I could tell she was feeling self-conscious about it. The scar was bright pink and it stuck out against her tanned skin, but I still felt like her bright green eyes were the most prominent feature on her beautiful face.

“Tell me what happened,” I demanded gently, releasing her leg and kissing along her forehead.

I felt like Rae and I had gotten to know one another better in these past two weeks, but we were just now talking about the important things. We’d spoken with the kids about their therapy meetings at the precinct, but we hadn’t discussed hers. Kate and Braden were cleared after one session because they had been kept in the dark about the whole situation. They never understood the seriousness of their position growing up. Raegan has had to endure a few more.

I was starting to know her little quirks. I knew that she hated the taste of soda; the carbonation gave her hiccups instantly. I still laugh at her annoyed face after she’d hiccupped for a straight hour after taking a drink of my Sprite. I knew that her long hair was starting to bother her because she was always scooping it up into a bun on top of her head. I knew that she loved a huge slice of greasy pizza from the local pizzeria down the street, even though she always complained about it going to her hips. I could lick those hips all day, so I didn’t care where the damn pizza went.

But until now, I had no idea what life was like for them during those years in captivity. If I was being honest, I’d been afraid to know, but it was nice to now fit all the puzzle pieces together.

“I was always trying to think of ways to escape. Every other thought for years was about escape. How? When? I ran so many scenarios in my head and none of them seemed to pan out, so I never attempted them. I knew we were on an island. I could see the water from the window, and I pieced it together when the guys outside of our door would talk.

“Running away was out of the question. I mean, how far could I possibly get with two babies under my arms? My guess was not far. Whenever we got sick or had any medical needs, they had a guy come who claimed to be a doctor. I never trusted him so I only asked in extreme cases. Once I needed some medicine when Braden got a stomach bug and another time they gave me Tylenol when Kate ran a fever,” she explained.

I remained close to her face, but I held my body above hers so I wouldn’t crush her. I liked the way her words whispered across my cheek and the nearness of her body calmed my agitated nerves.

“I knew my time was running out,” she continued. “Braden was getting older and I knew that Flores wanted to start training him to be… one of his guys.” She sneered at her words and I had a feeling my face mirrored hers. “So one day, I made one of the guys who brought us food mad. I knew he had a short temper and I sparked it just right. I knew exactly what was about to happen when he swung his arm back, so I braced myself.”

“You let him hit you?” I growled murderously.

“All a part of my plan,” she informed me. “He hit me so hard.” My body tensed up but she continued, “My original plan was for his hit to break some skin on its own. I wasn’t expecting to be hit so hard that my body flew back and I smacked my face into the corner of a desk. That was the one thing Kate and Braden did see. I spoke with them endlessly about it and assured them that I was okay. They were more worried about my head than scared about anything else.” She ran her finger across the scar on her forehead and then followed it down to her ear. “It was more pain than I had prepared myself for, but it still worked.”

“I don’t understand, and now I’m only more pissed off,” I grumbled.

“If I would have cut myself, they would have been suspicious. This way I had someone to blame for the laceration on my head whenever asked. I wish I would have thought of it when they were doing this to my leg,” she said, gesturing at the slash marks that marred her otherwise perfect skin. “I spent so much time trying to get those to heal properly, and by the time the idea hit me, they never came back around. So I had to get an injury from them somehow. I took horrible care of the cut on my forehead. Anytime it started to heal and close, I forced the wound back open. It got worse and worse. I expected the wound to get infected, which it did. The blood infection, I wasn’t expecting. I ran a fever and finally my lucky streak began.

“Flores was out of town. I guess off to one of those fights you spoke about. The men there had no idea what to do and they could tell I wasn’t faring well. I was pale and lethargic. The fake on-call doctor had no idea what to do either. They finally drove the kids and I up to Tijuana, but I begged them to take me to an American hospital. We went to one right across the border, and once I was checked in, they finally got a hold of Flores.

“I could tell by the looks on the guys’ faces he was not happy with their decision. He made them stand guard with me the entire time. I was there a week and a half. The nurses seemed to pick up quickly that something wasn’t right, so they never asked why I wouldn’t let the children leave my side. I was too afraid of the men hurting Kate or Braden, so when the nurses tried to discreetly ask me if I was okay, I always played the part and said yes.