Running From The Big Bad Wolf

17.

I freeze at the words.

Rhydian.

I went to talk but nothing came out. I stopped fighting to be freed from this man's grip and just stood there. Frozen.

"Do you have a child?" Axel snarled at me, repeating the question. "You have gone awfully pale, I'll take that as a yes."

"Why? Why do you want to know? What is it to you?"

"That was Eric!" Axel yelled, pointing to the phone. "He claims he has a child there, your child and since I didn't pay for your ransom, he has doubled it for the kid!"

I felt my legs weaken. All the blood in me turning to ice. I lowered my head, tears stinging my eyes. "Yes. I have a child."

"Speak up!"

I snapped my head up to him. "Yes, I have a child! A toddler actually. Please, please, please, I need to get to Eric's."

"So this is why you were so eager to return. You have a bastard child and want it back?" Axel gritted out.

I clenched my jaw at him. "I want my child back!" I snapped. "Please, I'm begging you. Please, pay the ransom. Please!" I cried out.

"You willingly went there, to Eric's. He tricked you. Now your child is there."

"I did it because I thought I was protecting him! He tricked me!" I screamed out.

"You thought wrong. Now your bastard child will most likely die. You don't deserve to have a kid!" Axel snapped at me, making me sob out.

"Please, Axel. Please!" I begged at him, my face wet with tears. "Please! Have some compassion!"

Axel glared at me with cold eyes before waving his hand, telling the man holding my arm to take me away.

The whole way to my room, I kicked and screamed, howled and begged. I was thrown on to my bed and I ran to the door, but I was too slow. The door was locked and I couldn't open it. But then I noticed, it wasn't my room.

I looked around the place and more tears sprung forward.

I was in my late mother's room.

I went to the corner off the bedroom, next to the bed and dropped to the ground. I hugged in to my knees, crying, sobbing for my son. Probably mourning him. This world is cruel. It is nasty, mean, cold and cruel.

I heard cars come and go, not too sure if it was here or not. I was utterly alone all over again.

Axel

There is no way I will be spending ten million dollars on a kid. He is not mine, so why should I? He is Caitlyn's bastard child. But I don't know that for sure. I don't know exactly if the kid was born out of wedlock or not.

I had let Caity stew upon it for hours. She screamed all the way to the room. I went to her room to see if she was there when I was told she was in the room I had been using.

I took the extra steps to that door and with each step that I got closer, her crying got louder. Full hysteria sobbing. A mother sobbing for her child. I know damn well that is what it is. I've heard it before, years ago. When my mother cried over the death of my older brother, killed doing what I do now. When my mother cried over the death of my younger baby sister, dying in her sleep, to SIDS.

Caitlyn was crying over her son and it tore me. I had spent so long looking for her. With no luck. I had no idea how she got out three years ago. No idea where she went. One lead sent us north. To an abandoned house.

That was where I saw her necklace on the ground. The thick chain with the small key. She was there, but gone. An empty box on the floor, ashes inside the box. All other leads were dead ends.

But now she is back. After three silent years, Eric calls telling me he has her and he demanded money for her safe return. I wasn't paying. I took her.

But I can't listen to Caity cry like that any longer. I can't. So growling to myself, not even entering the room, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and walked to the study to the safe.

"Eric. Where and when?" I snapped, opening the safe as soon as Eric answered.

"There is an old warehouse, a few hours north west from you. I suggest you hurry. Your time is running out." Then Eric hung up. I snarled, frustrated I didn't have an exact address.

I emptied my safe in to a large bag and zipped it up, and stood up right. I pointed to two men. "You two, with me." I snapped as we went to the car. I drove like a mad man, trying to get there as fast as I possibly could.

Caitlyn will be staying with me. For good. And I won't have her moping around the house for the rest of her life over a dead child. I witnessed it once with my mother before she died. I'm not witnessing it again.

I rang one of my men back at the house and told them Caitlyn can leave the room, just keep an eye on her.

I didn't want her leaving ever again.

The destination was still a couple hours drive and I flattened my foot on the accelerator, making the car go its fastest speeds, shaving time.

I don't know how I feel about having her child in the house. But I am angry that she has one. Caitlyn said the child was a toddler. Maybe a one year old. Two year old? The kid couldn't be any older, or three even.

The old warehouse started to come in to view and I took the exit, squealing my tyres on the turn, the smell of rubber wafting through the car.

I want Caity happy and if it means her having her child, then so be it. If Caity is happy, then life will be so much easier.

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I had decided to throw Axel's POV in because I felt you all needed to know what exactly happens in his head, still following the story line with no important missing gaps. It's not as twisted as I had hoped, but he still showed some empathy and compassion, which was what I was originally going for.