Chapter 12

"Well my dear it seams our time together is about to come to an end." The man said as he stood before the woman chained to the bed before him. "I do hope you have enjoyed my hospitality."

The man was tall and lithe with longish black hair. He was an older man with classic features and a handsome face and a deep cultured English accent.

"Oh don't look so sad my dear woman. I have not harmed you and have never had the intention to do so, you were merely, well shall we say a prop in my play. Granted it has taken longer than I expected to be able to bring an end to all of this, but then Nathan Ford was never a predictable man. Who knew he would leave your funeral, leave his so-called family, and just disappear into thin air? As you know it took a long time and a lot of resources to find him. Then of course there was the interruption of that damned Gardner and his dealings with your team." He said then took a drag on his cigar before continuing. "I was amazed really, that Nathan would pay attention to what was happening in their lives and put his quest for you on hold to ensure their safety, I suppose I underestimated how he felt about them. But I did not underestimate how he felt about you my dear. Oh no, he has done things he will never forgive himself for to find you, done things his father would be proud of." He said and seeing her face darken he laughed. "You should be flattered dear lady to have such a devoted man who is willing to compromise his very essence to ensure he finds you and rescues you from your fate, and to do all of that on a promise, on a maybe…yes my dear you do mean a lot to him."

"What are you going to do to him?" She asked locking eyes with him.

She had spent over a year now locked up in this place. She was comfortable yes and well looked after but confirmed to this small room and not able to move more than a chains length from the bed. The only thing that had kept her going was the knowledge that Nate was looking for her. This man had kept her updated on Nate's progress, on everything the man had done over the last six months to try to find her, of the roads this damn man had taken him down, forcing him to do things that he would never do on the promise that he would find her if he did do them.

"Why my dear woman I am not going to do anything to him, no I have done what I wanted to, he will never recover from this."

"I don't understand?"

"Of course you don't how could you, you are a criminal and doing certain things, well they do not bother you. But him…when all this ends and he has you back he will remember what he had to do to get you back. He will wonder how you see him, how they see him. He will question himself. The day he watched you die my sweet lady something broke inside the man and all I have done is widen those caverns and shattered what was left. He will never be able to live with the man he has become to retrieve what he had thought lost. He will pay the same price my son paid when Nathan sent him to prison, he will be lost."

"You are wrong."

"Am I…" He said taking another drag of his cigar. "He did not kill the man he held responsible for the death of his son, he did not kill the men whom he held responsible for the death of his father, he could not because that is not who he is. He hated who his father was, hated what his father was and never wanted to be him. He only admitted what he had become two years after you had all got together is that not so, and that was just a thief, being thief is one thing, but becoming a cold blooded killer, a man who has tortured and killed, well that I don't think even the great Nathan Ford will be able to deal with. Now he is too full of adrenaline, too focused on saving his precious wife from the clutches of me. But once the dust has settled, once all is said and done, will he be able to bear being the man he has become. You have no idea what he has done during these six months, none of you have, to get to where he is now. Will he ever find his way back from that? I don't think so, I don't think even you and your little family of thieves will be able to get him to do that. No he will leave you in the end, he will leave and he will go back to being what he was, a nothing, a nobody, a drunk, until one day he will just cease to exist."

Sophie could feel the emotion welling in her, the pain she felt for Nate and the hatred for the man before her but she kept her composure as she stared at the man who stood smoking his cigar a smirk on his face as he watched her. He was wrong, yes Nate had done terrible things but with her help and the help of the other three they would get him through it, he would find her and then they would all work their way through the fallout of all that had happened during this last year.

"Anyway my dear, I bid you a fond farewell I doubt we will ever see each other again." He said then left closing and locking the door behind him.