Read Online Purpose by Kristie Cook - Free Book Online

Mom. So bad, neither of them could
even voice it. I instantly knew I didn’t want to watch the video.
Yet, acting on its own accord, my trembling hand moved the mouse to
the file and double-clicked.
    Ian, the ugly Irish ogre who’d dropped the
bomb on me about the Amadis plan for my marriage, appeared on the
screen. He stood in a darkened room, a spotlight trained on him,
wearing black leather pants, a black trench coat and no shirt. His
red hair provided the only real color to the scene. His lips pulled
back, exposing his crooked teeth, whether in a grin or a snarl, I
couldn’t tell.
    “We know ya want to go to the media,” he said
in his Irish accent, “to protect your lil lassie’s reputation. But
ya might want to think twice ‘bout that. If you do, if you
acknowledge Seth’s existence in any way, heads will roll.”
    He cackled his disgusting laugh as the
recording cut to another scene. This one had all the appearances of
a group of terrorists with a hostage, just like those seen in the
early years of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Several men
dressed in Middle Eastern tunics, sabres hanging from their leather
belts, stood in a circle around someone unseen. Those in front of
the camera moved to the side. My breath caught.
    “Oh, no ,” I gasped.
    The shirtless hostage knelt on his knees, a
burlap sack over his head. One of the terrorists—a Daemoni, I
assumed—held his sabre to the hostage’s neck. I had no way of
knowing for sure without seeing the face, but the build seemed
close to right, too close, from what I could remember. And then I
saw it. My hands flew to my mouth. The blood drained from my head,
coagulating into a ball in the pit of my stomach.
    Just below the curve of the knife, on the
hostage’s chest, barely visible over his heart, a darker
pigmentation against the rest of his pale skin. When our souls were
joined in marriage, it had burned bright red. The Amadis mark.
Choking, gasping sounds gnarled in my throat, the scream unable to
pass the huge lump.
    “You tell the world anything, we show them
this,” Ian spoke in a voiceover.
    “Alexis!” a voice screamed. A very familiar
voice. One I had heard only in my dreams for over seven years. It
careened into a wail of tortured agony.
    Then the Daemoni with the sabre jerked his
arm. The camera’s view dropped, but unlike the news producers who
cut away from the gore at this point, it angled in on the burlap
sack, now rolling on the floor in a pool of blood.
     
     

Chapter 4
     
     
    I felt completely numb. I sat completely
still, only my finger moving on the mouse to click the Play button
over and over and over again. My brain refused to register what I
saw as I watched it replay, as if I watched some amateur video
staged in Hollywood, fake blood and all. But slowly, the reality of
it slithered its way into my mind. And all I could think was, It’s not him.
    “Mom?” Dorian asked, running into my office
sometime later and making me jump.
    I slammed the laptop shut. I couldn’t let him
see that. He couldn’t know about the video at all. Because it
wasn’t real. And that hostage wasn’t his father.
    I opened my arms and he climbed into my lap.
I held him tightly against my chest, the pressure of his body like
a catalyst to keep me breathing.
    “Alexis,” Mom called from down the hall. I
could tell she rushed toward us with each syllable sounding closer.
“Rina’s email account’s been hacked. Don’t open—”
    She cut herself off as she charged into my
office and saw me. Something on my face must have told her I’d seen
the video because her own face crumpled with what should have been
my pain. I simply shook my head. She pulled in a deep breath and
rearranged her expression.
    “Come on, Dorian, honey, Uncle Owen’s making
you breakfast,” Mom said. My arms fell numbly to my sides as she
pulled Dorian off my lap. He ran off for the kitchen.
    “It’s not him,” I whispered.
    Mom closed the door, came over to me