The Deadly Match

by Kishan Paul

  He clenched his fists, savoring the pull of the ripped skin against his knuckles. “I have an outside team stepping in to fill in our holes. What this means to you is that six mercenaries will be joining our team for this mission. Three will be inside with us while the other three will be on the exterior, assisting with extinguishing outside threats. Additionally, Sai will not be our eyes for obvious reasons. Sin will fill in for him, and hers will be the voice you will hear tonight. I trust her, and you will too. She will help us work this mission. A mission that will require us to go to Palaza Jewelers tonight and retrieve both your mother and Wassim. Alive.”

  Eddie rubbed the back of his neck. So much had gone wrong. Most of which he blamed himself for. But this wasn’t about his feelings, it was about giving the team what they needed to hear. “Take a look around this room at the people in here…and you too, Moose. Aside from the fact you all survived that shithole of an orphanage you met in, you have something else in common. A woman you call Mother. She may not have been in your life long, but she was in it long enough to leave an impression on each of you. And on me.” He paused. “Almost six years ago, I breached Sayeed’s compound to extract her. Instead of thanking me, she tried to bribe me.” He chuckled at the memory. “She offered to pay to save each of you instead of her. The only reason you are standing here is because she wouldn’t leave without you. Now, the roles are reversed. She is the one who needs you, and you have a decision to make. Tonight, knowing our limitations, can you do the same for her?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  LOVE

  There were dozens of flies. Some all black. Others black with a mix of deep blues and greens. All of them plump, buzzing happily around the room. Ally swatted them away at first, but after a hundred-plus times of slapping the air, she accepted her defeat. This was their domain, not hers, and she was outnumbered. She glanced over at the object of their affection—the squat toilet in the far corner. There was no need to look inside; Khalin had already provided a live demonstration of what went into it.

  Aside from the activity of the flies, time stood still in their tiny prison. Thankfully, her nostrils had adjusted to the stench in the unventilated space, but her body had yet to acclimate to the heat.

  “You should have never come.” Khalin’s observations after she shared her past with the man who now shared her present were no different from Eddie’s.

  “He’s my son. I will do anything for him.”

  “Now he will grow up an orphan. A son needs his mother.”

  She didn’t argue. He’d given up hope a long time ago. She knew as much from what he’d already shared. “Tell me your story. Who brought you here?”

  “Veer’s family.”

  Ally eyed him. “Veer is the man you loved?”

  He nodded. “Our families are from Banares. We grew up two houses apart, attended the same functions, the same school. It started off as an innocent primary school friendship.”

  She took in his smile and how it broadened as he talked about Veer. “Our love didn’t change until we were much older. We denied it for as long as we could.” Khalin’s eyes glistened. He turned his face. “When we finally accepted our love was more than brotherly, we knew we were in trouble. Our families would never accept the truth. In true teenage-boy manner, we decided not to tell them. Instead, we joined a college in Mumbai and shared an apartment in the city.”

  “The freedom must have been nice.”

  “Freedom.” Khalin spoke the word as if savoring the taste of it falling from his tongue. “It was. We were free of our families’ rules. Free to love. Free to be just us.”

  “But the freedom was short-lived, wasn’t it?”

  He ran a hand through his hair. “There was a girl his family wanted him to marry, and when they wouldn’t accept his repeated no’s, Veer stopped answering their calls. His brothers and cousins decided to make a trip to Mumbai and pay him a surprise visit.”

  The room fell silent. Ally already knew how his story ended.

  “Maybe they had an extra key.” Khalin rested the back of his head against the wall. “It’s the only thing I can come up with. How else did they get inside our flat in the middle of the night? They walked in on us asleep, naked, in bed together. His brothers dragged me out of the room and beat me. They would have killed me if it wasn’t for Veer.”

  She grabbed his hand and held on to it.

  “Veer begged them to stop. Said he’d do anything they wanted if they’d let me live. So, while his brothers took him back to Banaras to meet his future bride, the cousins dragged me here.”

  His Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed. “There’s not a day I don’t wish they’d have killed me instead.”

  Their palms still twined, she watched while he continued to draw circles around her wrist. “Does Veer know what happened to you?”

  “I doubt it.”

  They spent the next few hours in silence. Lost in their own thoughts.

  Her heart ached for all of them. Khalin, Tanu’s mother, the child with the red pillow. When she wasn’t focused on the people in the current situation with her, her mind wandered to Jayden. How could she get Wassim to listen? She considered the potential scenarios to come, from the different ways she could plead Jayden’s case, to the various things that could go wrong. In all those scenarios, the one truth she believed deep to her core was she’d survive. Eddie would find her. She just needed time to convince Wassim to help Jayden before Eddie showed up, because once he did, the time for talk would be over.

  The distant shrill of squeaking pulled her out of her thoughts. Ungreased hinges of wheels groaned their complaints with every turn.

  “Room service has arrived.” Khalin rose from the bed and made his way to the pail of clean water. He grabbed a bar of soap from the floor and lathered up before washing the suds off his hands. Once he was done, he stretched out the bar to her.

  She copied him, although food was the last thing on her mind. Her brain was focused on the activity in the hall. Each time the squeaking of the cart stopped, the scraping of metal against cement began, and the vocal accompaniment to the painful melody belonged to Madam. She hurled insults and threats as she worked, ordering her prisoners to eat what’s given and not complain. Not that anyone was. In fact, the area had been eerily silent.

  Madam was a master at her job. She reminded her prisoners she was the alpha and they her submissives. The cycle of squeaking wheels and metal and her curses continued and grew louder as she approached. Ally sat frozen, waiting for them to arrive at her door.

  “Here,” the woman snarled as a steel plate slid in from the gap below their entrance. A second plate pushed the first one forward. On the center of the round metal dish was yellow soupy rice and a slice of bread.

  Khalin lifted the trays and returned to the bed, placing one on his lap and handing the other to her. “Eat. It’s the only meal you’ll get today.”

  He used his fingers and wiped out his rice porridge and bread in a matter of minutes. Other than the dark shadows under his cheekbones and eyes, he showed no signs of distress. But the bruises were there. Evidenced in his eyes, trauma etched deep inside his psyche, wounds that could never begin to heal until he was freed from his hell.

  “If you got away, where would you go?”

  Khalin’s brows rose. “I stopped dreaming a long time ago. Why create dreams we know will never happen?”

  “Because it’s hope. The only force capable of giving us the will to keep fighting, to keep moving forward until our dreams become reality. So back to the question, where would you go?”

  He stared at his empty plate. “I’d kill the bastards who brought me here.” Khalin licked his fingers clean and tipped his head at her plate. “Like I said, they only feed us once a day.”

  She slid her portion to him. “Take it. I can’t eat.”

  He winked at her. “Too busy hoping.”

  “Maybe,” she whispered. “Or too scared to be hungry.” Before she said more, the
echo of footsteps returned.

  Khalin grabbed her arm and tipped his head toward the floor. “Get back there.”

  The hair on her back rose as the steps neared. She slipped to the floor, adjusted the ropes around her wrist when the steps stopped in front of their room. The keys jiggled.

  By the time the door opened, she was on her knees, her hands tied in front of her while Khalin stretched out on the bed with an arm curled under his head.

  Madam stood barely five feet in height. Her jeans hung loose on her exceptionally thin frame. An orange tank top clung to her chest, and from where the shirt ended and the jeans began, a two-inch strip of golden-brown skin peaked out. Her wavy black hair fell to her shoulders. Black kohl traced the rims of her lids and outlined her brows while bright red colored her lips. She seemed young, late twenties at the most, and almost attractive, if it weren’t for the iciness in her dark, dilated eyes, the bright red scabs peppering the area around her mouth and jawline, and the red track marks lining the inside of her elbow.

  The intruder entered the small space, a smile twitching at the corners of her lips. She poked her fat toe at the sack that once covered Ally’s head. “Did you take this off her?”

  “I did it without help,” Ally announced, surveying her threat, trying to anticipate any potential attacks. “It was hot.”

  “It wasn’t for you to decide.” She slammed her foot in Ally’s side, sending waves of pain crashing inside her. She bit her lip and fixed her gaze on the door, not allowing the woman the satisfaction of hearing her cry out.

  Arms crossed, a man stood in the hall monitoring the events. Ally locked gazes with him, remembering him. At the drive, he’d been assigned to protect her. Instead, he betrayed his own team and Omar, helping Adil and Rafi steal her away. At well over six feet and too thin for his height, his jeans were a few sizes too big, and the sleeves to his black leather jacket were too short for his long arms. Black Leather surveyed her with lust, making her inch back.

  “Has this woman given you a hard time, lover?”

  Madam’s question to Khalin pulled Ally’s attention back to the room.

  “Not at all. I was just enjoying her plate of dinner as well as my own.”

  “Good. It will build more muscles. Gives you more energy for when you exercise.” Ally’s skin prickled at the way Madam gazed at him. “Are you enjoying your evening off?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  She swayed over to him and pulled at his collar. “Take this shirt off. Let’s see how those pushups are doing.”

  Khalin rose to his feet, his attention and smile fixed on the woman who traced a finger up and down his chest. He removed the shirt, dropping it on the bed behind him. “Anything else I need to do?”

  The innuendo-rich question made Madam purr. “Not yet, but soon.” She traced circles around his nipple before moving it down to the trail of hair below his belly button. “I’ll come back, and maybe we can help each other. In the meantime…” Madam turned to face Ally, the flirty eyes and pouty lips replaced with a scowl. “Get up.”

  Overdrawn brows rose. She grinned her pleasure, displaying a row of teeth minus a few when Ally complied with the order. “I have some trash to get rid of.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  WASSIM

  Madam led the way while Black Leather stayed behind to lock Khalin’s door.

  Ally eyed the front pocket of his jeans, where he’d tucked the keys to the door, before she returned her focus to the one in front of her.

  Her head up, shoulders back, the woman’s denim clad hips swayed like a pendulum while she moved down the narrow hall. There was no doubt she reveled in her role. And from the tracks on her arms, it wasn’t just the power and Madam designation the woman was high on either. Her gait was off, swerving from one side to the next. Perhaps the drugs were her way of numbing the emotions involved in the heavy price she paid for the title she now carried.

  Her thoughts drifted to the little girl and her red pillow in the room she passed. Had the woman in front of her once upon a time been like Nikki? A child taken from her parents and imprisoned, used to fulfill the fetishes of the perverse. Or had she been older when her nightmare of a life began?

  Ally’s fingernails dug into the heel of her palm. No matter what the cost, Nikki and Khalin would escape this hell. To do that, she had to first meet with the devil who put them there.

  The pathway was long and dark, a mix of bricks and doors. Dozens and dozens of doors created from repurposed wood lined each side. They were of different colors and shapes. Some still brandished the name of the shops they were taken from, while others were a singular piece of wood unevenly cut to fit an opening. A few had knobs, but most did not. Just metal latches with a loop into which padlocks could be secured.

  When they arrived at the stairwell, she’d counted over two dozen with padlocks from when she left Khalin’s. Twenty-five rooms containing something or someone valuable enough to hold captive. When Madam began her ascent, Ally froze. “Where are we going?”

  “To the spa.” Madam laughed at her own joke.

  When Ally didn’t move, the woman turned and stepped toward her. “You can either walk, or I can drag your ass up there. And believe me, if I’m dragging, it means you’ll never be able to walk again.”

  Her hands tied, literally and metaphorically, Ally sucked in a breath and ascended the steps. The strong mix of sandalwood and incense greeted her as soon as Madam opened the door.

  The woman grabbed her elbow and shoved her in, making her lose her footing. Instead of the floor, she stumbled and slammed cheek-first into the wall. Her lower teeth cut into her lip. She swallowed the faint metallic taste of blood and steadied herself, inspecting the world around her.

  A narrow, windowless passageway stretched the length of the floor. The space resembled the floor plan of the level below except nicer.

  Not only did it smell better on the fourth floor, but it was also visually more appealing. Plush red carpet covered the ground and, although doors lined the right side like the other level, there were fewer of them and nicer—properly measured, installed, and painted.

  Furniture broke the room into different seating areas. Plush floral sofas faced their matching armchairs. End tables scattered around the seating with incense burning in brass holders. The scents to conceal the stench of human waste permeating from the prisons below. Mounted on the walls were large-screen televisions displaying nature scenes.

  At the far end of the room sat a well-stocked bar around which a group of men congregated. They were too busy enjoying their drinks and each other’s company to notice her. With Black Leather joining the drinking party, she counted eight, one of whom donned a suit, all with their backs to her. An attractive woman stood behind the counter serving their drinks, laughing at something they’d just said.

  Madam grabbed her bound wrist, dragging her toward the activity just as two of the men rose from the bar and approached them. Instead of coming for her, as Ally feared, they turned in to a private room a few feet away.

  She peeked inside as she moved past. A wooden-framed bed with deep-orange sheets sat in the center, but it was the woman kneeling on the floor at the foot of the bed that made her stop.

  Topless, her long hair fell over her breasts as if to shield them from danger. Ally took in the victim in her deep red pants with tiny green leaves printed across them. Familiar red-rimmed eyes locked with hers. Although Tanu’s mother remained silent, her body shook, her gaze begging for deliverance.

  One of the two men who entered squatted beside the victim and yanked his prisoner’s head back with a tug of her hair while he cupped her breast with his other hand. “Her tits still have milk in them,” he announced in amusement while he fondled her.

  A strong need to save her propelled Ally in the direction of the room. She twisted her wrist out of Madam’s grip and, once she’d yanked herself free, rushed toward the door just as the second man in the room slammed it in her face.

&nbs
p; “Let her go.” Ally tugged at the locked entrance with her bound hands, her rage making her jostle the door harder.

  “We should have killed her already,” Madam sneered as she wrapped her arms around Ally’s waist, lifted her off the ground, and swung her around, throwing her toward the bar and on to her knees.

  “Once she serves her purpose, she will be dead.”

  The voice sent shudders rippling through her. On all fours, she inspected the brown leather dress shoes a few feet from her head. Shoes shined to perfection, the way Sayeed liked. She sat back on her haunches, scrutinizing the tailored suit pants and jacket, until her gaze landed on the face of the man who had successfully filled those shoes.

  “What purpose do you have planned for me?”

  Wassim’s brows rose. “You understand Urdu?”

  The extra pounds he’d gained since their last meeting had not only rounded his trunk but also his face. His scalp was shaved clean and a well-trimmed beard hugged his cheeks and jaw. From the navy suit, crisp white shirt, and matching tie he wore to the expensive shoes covering his feet, it was clear his evolution from guard to lord was complete.

  Her heart slammed against her chest. She kept her emotions locked under her skin, not allowing him to see the impact he had on her. “We both understand a lot more now than when we last met.”

  Her words elicited a laugh from him. “Time makes us wiser, doesn’t it?” Wassim seated himself in an armchair a few feet away, waving at someone from the bar behind her.

  Whispered voices and other sounds floated from the direction he waved, but she didn’t break her gaze from the man in front of her.

  “Take me for instance,” he continued. “I used to fear you. Thought you to be a demon with magical powers who could kill people just by your thoughts.”