Captured By The Obsessive Billionaire King

The damp, rotting smell of the West Virginia forest floor clung to Helen's flannel shirt. She knelt in the mud, her fingers expertly separating the roots of a rare medicinal fern.

A sudden shift in the wind hit her face. It carried the heavy, metallic stench of fresh blood.

Helen stopped breathing. Her eyes, usually calm and indifferent, sharpened into the predatory stare of a hunting cat. She dropped the fern. Her right hand moved to her thigh, her fingers wrapping around the cold, textured grip of a black tactical combat knife strapped to her leg. She pulled it free without a sound.

She lowered her center of gravity. Using the massive trunk of an old oak tree for cover, she moved forward. Her boots made zero noise against the dead leaves.

She pushed aside a thick cluster of ferns. A man lay face down in the mud.

He wore a torn Armani suit. The expensive fabric was soaked and ruined, completely alien to this harsh wilderness.

Helen didn't rush to him. She stayed crouched behind the ferns, holding her breath. She scanned the tree line, listening for the snap of twigs or the heavy breathing of trackers. She waited for a full minute. The forest was dead quiet.

Only then did she step out. She walked to the man and looked down. His face was pale, slick with cold sweat. His breathing was shallow, a wet rattling sound in his chest. A deep, jagged knife wound tore across his abdomen, pumping dark blood into the dirt.

Helen crouched beside him. She pressed two fingers hard against his carotid artery.

His pulse was erratic, racing and then dropping dangerously low. Her mind calculated the symptoms instantly. The blade had been laced with a neurotoxin.

The second her fingertips pressed into his skin, the man's eyes snapped open.

Damian's gaze was lethal. Even bleeding out in the mud, his eyes held the raw, violent intent of a dying beast. He forced his arm up. His large, blood-stained hand clamped down on Helen's slender wrist like a vice.

Helen's face remained entirely blank. She didn't flinch. Her eyelashes didn't even flutter.

Damian gritted his teeth, trying to use her arm to pull himself up. His muscles trembled, failing him. He realized with a surge of frustration that he was too weak to move her an inch.

Helen twisted her wrist. The movement was a blur. In a fraction of a second, she broke his grip and bent his wrist backward, locking his joint in a painful hold.

She leaned over him, her face inches from his. "Let go if you want to keep breathing," she stated. Her voice was flat, devoid of any warmth or panic.

Damian stared at her. The absolute, chilling calm in her eyes forced his survival instincts to kick in. His fingers went slack.

Helen released him. She took her knife and sliced straight up the center of his ruined Armani shirt, ripping the fabric apart to expose the wound.

Damian let out a low, guttural groan. His stomach muscles locked up tight, his body instinctively fighting the blinding pain.

Helen ignored his suffering. She pulled a waterproof medical kit from her canvas backpack. Her hands moved with mechanical precision, wiping away the poisoned blood. She pulled a crudely carved wooden vial filled with a foul-smelling, dark liquid from a canvas pouch. Without hesitating, she pried his jaw open and forced the bitter mountain remedy down his throat, massaging his neck to force the swallow.

Damian's jaw clenched so hard his teeth ground together. "Who the hell are you?" he rasped, his voice rough with pain.

Helen didn't answer. She grabbed a roll of rough, unbleached cotton cloth and wrapped it tightly around his waist, pulling it hard to apply pressure.

A flock of crows suddenly exploded from the trees a quarter-mile away. The faint, rhythmic crunch of heavy boots hitting the dirt echoed through the woods.

Helen froze. She shoved the bloody wrappers and the empty wooden vial back into her pack and zipped it shut.

She stood up. She looked down at Damian, her eyes calculating the weight of his body against the speed of the approaching killers. She was deciding whether to leave him here to die.

Damian heard the boots too. His eyes darkened. He looked up at the girl standing over him. "Get me out of here," he ordered, his voice tight.

Helen crossed her arms over her chest. A cold, mocking smile touched the corners of her mouth. "Why would I risk my neck for a dead man?"

"I can write you a check that will buy this entire mountain," Damian grunted, fighting a wave of nausea. "Get me out, and your life changes forever."

Helen looked at his expensive, ruined clothes with utter boredom. She turned her back on him and took a step toward the dense brush.

Panic and fury spiked in Damian's chest. He forced his hands into the mud and pushed himself up. His legs gave out instantly. He crashed back down onto the hard ground.

The impact tore his wound open. Fresh, hot blood soaked through the tight bandages. A low, agonizing sound ripped from his throat.

Helen stopped. She closed her eyes for a second, letting out a heavy, irritated sigh. She turned around and walked back to him.

She bent down, grabbed him by the collar of his ruined suit, and hauled his massive frame off the ground with a violent jerk.

Damian gasped, his vision swimming. He felt the terrifying, unnatural core strength radiating from this seemingly fragile girl.

Helen threw his heavy arm over her shoulder. She wrapped her arm around his waist, practically carrying his dead weight as she dragged him deep into the thickest part of the woods.

Every step sent fire shooting through Damian's abdomen. To keep himself from passing out, he forced his brain to work. "What's your name?" he demanded, his breath hot against her neck.

"Jane Smith," Helen lied smoothly, not missing a step.

Damian's brow furrowed. The name was painfully generic, the kind of alias a ghost would use. But the blood loss was making his thoughts thick and slow. He couldn't interrogate her.

Helen dragged him behind a waterfall of thick ivy vines, shoving him into a dark, narrow cave hidden in the rock face. They were completely out of sight.

She dropped him onto a flat, damp stone. She immediately went to the cave entrance, pulling a thin tripwire from her pocket and rigging it across the opening.

Damian watched her fluid, militaristic movements through half-open eyes. The suspicion in his gut burned hotter than his wound. "Give me your phone," he ordered, trying to project authority. "I need to contact my extraction team."

Helen walked back to him. She reached into the front pocket of her flannel shirt.

Damian held out his trembling hand, expecting a satellite phone.

Helen's fingers flicked out. She slapped a damp poultice of crushed, pungent leaves directly onto the side of his neck, right over his carotid artery.

The heavy sedative hit his bloodstream like a freight train. Damian's vision violently tilted.

He realized what she had done. Rage boiled in his chest. He stared at her face, fighting the darkness, trying to burn her features into his memory.

Helen looked down at him. Her expression was completely empty, like she was watching a bug struggle on its back.

Damian's eyes rolled back. His head hit the stone. He was out cold.

Helen waited three seconds. She reached down and unbuttoned the rest of his shirt to check his breathing.

Her eyes stopped on his chest. Right over his heart, there was a bizarre, jagged scar. The skin around it was flushed red and radiating an unnatural, burning heat against her knuckles.

Helen frowned. She pulled a small, rusted tin of homemade herb paste from her pack and smeared a thick, earthy-smelling layer over the burning scar.

She wiped her hands on her pants. She reached into his pockets, pulling out his leather wallet, his encrypted phone, and a small GPS tracker hidden in his watch. She shoved them all into her bag.

She grabbed handfuls of dry brush and threw them over his legs, hiding him in the shadows. She brushed away their footprints near the entrance.

Helen hoisted her backpack onto her shoulders. She walked out into the freezing night air, leaving Damian and the generic fake name behind in the dirt.

Damian's eyes snapped open. The blinding white light of a private hospital room in Manhattan stabbed his retinas.

He ripped the IV needle out of the back of his hand. Blood dripped onto the pristine white sheets. The private doctor standing nearby let out a panicked gasp.

Mark, Damian's executive assistant, stepped forward, his face pale. He held out a tablet. "Sir, the extraction team found you in the cave just in time."

Damian ignored the tablet. His jaw was locked tight. "Did you find the girl? Jane."

Mark swallowed hard, sweat beading on his forehead. "Sir, we ran the name through every database in West Virginia. There is no Jane Smith in that region that matches her physical description."

Damian snatched the tablet from Mark's hands and hurled it across the room. It shattered against the wall. "It's a fake name," he snarled, his chest heaving.

He touched his chest. The strange, burning heat in his scar was gone, replaced by a dull ache. His eyes darkened with a violent mix of anger and obsession.

"Find her," Damian ordered, his voice dropping to a lethal whisper. "Tear the state apart. I want that woman."

Four hundred miles away, outside a rusting trailer park in West Virginia, a black Maybach idled in the dirt.

Arthur, a man in a stiff suit, handed Helen a thick manila envelope. "The DNA results are conclusive," he said, his tone dripping with condescension. "You are a blood member of the Gallagher family of New York."

Helen stared at the name 'Fredy Gallagher' printed on the lab report. A cold, sharp smile cut across her face.

She didn't say a word. She turned around, walked into her cramped trailer, and grabbed a faded canvas duffel bag.

Hours later, the Maybach pulled through the massive wrought-iron gates of the Gallagher estate in Long Island.

Helen stepped out of the car. She wore cheap, faded jeans and a plain black t-shirt. She walked into the cavernous, marble-floored living room.

Eleanor, the matriarch of the family, sat rigidly on a velvet sofa. Her eyes raked over Helen with undisguised disgust.

"You smell like poverty," Eleanor said, her voice echoing in the quiet room. "It's practically baked into your skin."

Sylvia, Helen's stepmother, offered a tight, fake smile. Her eyes were hard and defensive.

Candice, her half-sister, stood by the fireplace in a custom couture dress, covering her mouth to hide a vicious smirk.

Helen didn't blink. She didn't look down at her clothes. She walked straight toward the sofa and stopped two feet from Eleanor, looking down at the older woman.

"I'm not here to beg for scraps," Helen said. Her voice was ice. "So drop the aristocratic act."

Eleanor's face turned a mottled purple. She gripped her pearl necklace. "You lack basic breeding!" she spat.

Helen let out a short, hollow laugh. She turned to the head butler standing frozen by the stairs. "Take me to my room."

The butler felt a sudden, terrifying pressure in his chest. Helen's eyes held a deadliness that made his knees weak. He bowed his head instantly and hurried up the stairs.

Behind her, Candice stomped her foot. "Mom, she's a feral animal! How can you let her talk to Grandma like that?"

Helen walked into the small, dusty guest room at the end of the hall. She shut the heavy oak door and locked it.

She walked to the window and stared down at the manicured lawns. Her eyes were pitch black.

"Everything you took from my mother," Helen whispered to the glass, her fingernails digging into her palms. "I'm going to rip it right back out of your hands."