Rescued by a Mobster

by Raven Rivers

  The reality of her situation hit her like a gut punch. Her security was lying lifeless on the floor, likely dead, and she’d been the cause of the man losing his life. She’d also gotten Sir Kitty strangled and possibly killed as well. She hadn’t seen him scurry off after being thrown into the wall, and he’d been thrown hard. The cold realization hit her that she was going to die, too, if not tonight then the night after, or some other night. This wasn’t something she was coming back from. Not this time. She’d merely postponed the inevitable ten years earlier when she’d escaped that cave.

  Getting abducted all over again felt like drowning and being reborn into a body with no emotions. By all accounts, she should be panicking since she already knew her fate. Instead, her mind coalesced into something approaching clarity as Calvin led her outside and ushered her towards a van parked around the corner, just out of sight from any neighbors. A small voice in the back of her mind whispered, Leave bread crumbs, Gretel. Leave a trail and Yuri will find you. Taking off her ring, she scrapped it hard against the van’s bright red paint job and tossed it inconspicuously onto the ground. Maybe they wouldn’t ever find it, or if they did, the paint color wouldn’t be all that helpful, but it was all she could do.

  Dragging her into the van, he locked a set of handcuffs through the zip ties and cuffed her to a metal rail running down the bottom of the floor. It was a smart move, she noted. She couldn’t get up if she wanted to.

  “Where are you taking me? I have a right to know,” she tried asking, but it came out a garbled mess because of the gag. Hell, she couldn’t even understand her own words.

  Turning around to look at her, he caressed her cheek tenderly. Suddenly, he drew back and slapped her across the face so hard she saw stars. “Don’t speak again unless I give you permission.”

  He slammed the door behind him.

  Rubbing her swelling cheek against her shoulder, it felt like an explosion of fire spreading over the side of her face. Rather than obsess over getting hit, or worrying what was to come, she turned her focus on devising an escape. It didn’t particularly matter that she didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting away. She only had two choices: fight, or lie down and die. She wasn’t going down easily. If he wanted to kill her, she was going to make him work for it.

  He climbed into the driver’s seat and drove for what seemed like forever. Unable to see out of the front window, she had no idea where they were going. Just as it was beginning to get light out, he pulled the over along the side of a bumpy road and climbed into the back with her.

  “You got yourself a shiner coming up there, hot stuff,” he said with a twisted smile. “Better learn to keep your mouth shut or you aren’t gonna last long.”

  Jerking open a black duffel bag, he rummaged around for a moment and pulled out a small box. Inside was a small bottle of clear liquid and a cloth. Looking down into the duffel, Jade saw more zip ties, duct tape, ropes, a red hose, and knives gleaming in the dimly lit van. He’s obviously come prepared, she thought as her heart began to race. More than prepared, as she couldn’t imagine why he’d need more than one knife. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. What she did know is that he was getting ready to chloroform her, and that thought alone was terrifying enough.

  “Sorry, but I gotta pick up a few things. I can’t have you raising hell in the van while I’m in the store.”

  “I won’t! I’ll be quiet as a mouse,” she tried to say through the gag.

  Speaking got her backhanded across the other cheek. He quickly moved on top of her, forcing the cloth over her face, the strap tearing at the corners of her mouth. She tried to make herself go limp, hoping to trick him into letting up. It didn’t work. The last thing she saw was his ugly face being engulfed by darkness.

  Chapter 21

  Practically Feral

  Yuri

  Yuri drove to her house at sunrise, eager to see her smiling face. They were slowly working through the little information they’d managed to get on Calvin, and things were looking up. His mood was dashed, however, when he pulled into her driveway and saw Sir Kitty on her front porch. He was an indoor cat, so seeing him outside immediately raised an alarm. As he approached, he noticed Sir Kitty was acting strange, trembling slightly while making a sad meowing noise.

  “What are you doing outsi—” he began to ask, stopping when he saw the front door ajar. His heart sank as he peered inside and saw Karl’s limp body sprawled out on the living room floor, a pool of dried blood around his head. Drawing his gun, Yuri slowly pushed the door open wider and surveyed the room before rushing to check on his friend. Karl still had a pulse, thankfully.

  “Hang on,” he whispered to Karl. “Hang on for me, old friend.”

  Gun on the ready, he did a quick sweep of the downstairs before creeping upstairs to Jade’s room. Her room didn’t look ransacked. However, her top sheet was pulled out in a long trail from the bed to the middle of the room, like someone hadn’t let go while being dragged from the room. Flying through the rest of the house, he found no trace of her or anyone else. Hurrying back to check on Karl, Yuri dropped to his side and held his hand. His comrade’s breathing was shallow and there was a giant gash along the side of his head. Snatching up his cell, he called 911, asking for both an ambulance and law enforcement. He generally avoided the police, but this time was different. This time he hadn’t done anything wrong.

  “Hang in there,” he told Karl. “Help is on the way.”

  He called Mikael and Luka, ordering them to come right away. Removing his sim card from his phone, he popped off the back of his wrist watch and hid it there. It was a custom piece meant to keep his business affairs away from the prying eyes of law enforcement. Within minutes an ambulance arrived and EMS began working on Karl. Yuri backed up to give them room, watching as they loaded his longtime friend onto a gurney. Just then, two officers arrived at the scene and wasted no time asking him questions. Typically not a fan of cops, he did his best to keep his cool and maintain his composure as he identified himself and explained the situation.

  “I’m familiar with the problems she’s been having,” one of the officers told him after Yuri had finished recounting the events. “I’m officer Brookes and I’ve been helping Jade with this situation. My partner Kelsey’s been putting in some extra effort for her as well.”

  “Yes, some help you’ve been,” Yuri sneered as the paramedics lifted his friend into the back of the ambulance. Catching himself, he added, “I’m sorry. Forgive me. Please, we need to find Jade.”

  “I promise we’ll do our best to find the person responsible for harming your friend. As for Ms. Reinhold, we’ve posted an APB with her name and description. We’ll see what turns up.”

  Yuri sensed the officer was holding something back. Brooke’s wasn’t eyeing him as a suspect the way he’d expected him to given his criminal background. The tattoos visible on his arms were enough to make most cops wary of him. Normally, he’d be at the station being interrogated already with fingers being pointed in his face.

  “What aren’t you telling me?” he asked the officer bluntly.

  “What makes you think there’s something I’m not telling you?” Brookes replied.

  Yuri narrowed his eyes at him. “Come on. You can’t bullshit a bullshitter. What’s really going on?”

  The officer sighed and pulled him aside while his partner continued searching the house. “Look, we’ve had a string of disappearances lately. All black women around Jade’s age and description.”

  “And?” Yuri prodded.

  “We’ve found a few bodies. Evidence shows they’d been bound and beaten with a cord or hose of some type, then strangled with it.”

  “Calvin McMillan,” Yuri replied flatly.

  “We can’t be sure of that. It’s looking like we might have a serial killer on our hands, though. The pattern is the same with each case.”

  “It’s Calvin. I’m sure of it. He’s been practicing for Jade using other women.”

>   “It’s a possibility, yes,” Brookes conceded.

  Feeling like there was something else the officer wasn’t telling him, Yuri asked, “What else? There’s more, I know it.”

  “We also found the body of a man this morning. Well, what was left of him, anyway.”

  “And?”

  “Seems he was a higher-up at Ms. Reinhold’s publishing company. Looked as though he’d been tortured.”

  “So that’s how he got Jade’s address…” Yuri muttered, piecing it together.

  “Looks it. Now excuse me, I need to write this up.”

  Mikael and Luka appeared, both looking nervous at the sight of the officers and trying their hardest to keep their heads low. Yuri gave them the run down, explaining the scene he’d arrived at and how Jade was missing… again. How he felt it was his fault for not demanding she stay with him, or at least upgrading her security system faster. Mikael and Luka did their best to reassure him that he wasn’t to blame, and that what had happened was out of his control.

  “She’s a stubborn woman, you know this,” Luka said.

  “And there’s no way I could have installed a new alarm that fast. I ordered the best system money can buy but it won’t even be here until tomorrow,” Mikael added.

  “Still. I should have done something. Stayed here with her, maybe.”

  “We’re going to save her just like last time,” Luka insisted.

  “Yes. We’ll save her or die trying,” Mikael agreed.

  Touched by their loyalty, Yuri had no time to get emotional since the clock was already ticking. Calvin had his Jade, and there was no telling how much longer he’d keep her alive… if she even was. Mikael left to follow Karl to the hospital and Luka stayed behind with Yuri to get started on the search. They would find Jade. One way or another, they would find her… and Calvin would pay with his life.

  Chapter 22

  Not the Only One

  Jade

  Head cloudy and the corners of her mouth sore, Jade woke up on the cold floor of some kind of basement. It smelled damp and musty, much like the cave she hated being reminded of. Why did Calvin have such a fascination with dark, dank places? Because he’s deranged, that’s why, she reminded herself. She tried to push off the floor into a seated position but couldn’t manage it. He had her cuffed to a large metal ring set deep in the concrete floor. Horror slowly crept up her spine as she realized the inch-thick metal ring had a multitude of scratches concentrated in one area. She knew it was from people before her who had been desperately trying to escape. The thought of it roiled her stomach.

  She stared down at her own cuffed hands. Was she scared now? Yes, yes she was. However, anger was the emotion stealing the show. He had dared to chain her up, forcing her to share the same fate others had clearly endured before her. This was nothing but rich male privilege with a big dose of crazy on the side. Something fired to life in her gut, doubling and tripling until it consumed her soul. She yanked on the cuffs so hard they cut into her flesh.

  “That motherfucker,” she growled as she tugged on the chain again. “I’m going to kill that stupid cocksu—”

  “Not if we get the chance first,” a female voice said, snorting a laugh.

  “He’s all mine,” another female voice sounded.

  Managing to sit up, the final cloud of grogginess from the chloroform wore off enough for Jade to make out her surroundings, and what she saw horrified her. There were two other women in the room who were both chained up as well.

  “W-what the fuck is going on?” she stammered, still trying to make sense of everything.

  The first woman, who appeared to be around her age and bore a slight resemblance to her, was the first to speak. “What does it look like?”

  “He’s getting us ready for slaughter,” the other woman said. Jade couldn’t help but notice that she was also close to her in both age in appearance.

  “Calvin… that goddamn psychopath,” Jade hissed, futilely tugging at her chain again.

  “Is that his name?” the first woman asked. “Shit, I never got a formal introduction.”

  “Who are you?” Jade wanted to know, looking back and forth between the two women.

  “Name’s Gabby,” the first woman answered.

  “Chelsea,” said the second. “Are you Jade?”

  “Yes. Jade. Jade Reinhold. How did you know that?”

  “You’re all that crazy motherfucker talks about,” the woman now identified as Gabby told her. “Jade this, Jade that. My precious Jade, blah, blah, blah.”

  “It’s true,” Chelsea nodded. “He doesn’t shut up about you.”

  “What else does he say?”

  “Lots of things,” Gabby shrugged. “Is always mumbling something about you. Said you were going to pay for what happened… whatever that means.”

  “How long have you two been down here?” Jade asked. She paused to look around before adding, “Wherever ‘here’ is.”

  “A week for me,” Gabby replied.

  “Four days for me,” Chelsea volunteered. “I think. It’s hard to keep track down here.”

  Jade could see how that was possible since there were no windows and no clocks. In fact, there wasn’t much of anything, other than a jug of water and two buckets that served as makeshift toilets judging by the roll of toilet paper sitting next to them.

  “We won’t be down here much longer,” Gabby muttered under her breath.

  “Why do you say that?” Jade asked.

  “He got you. You’re the one he wanted. Us… we were just practice.”

  “It’s true,” Chelsea groaned. “We’ll be in a shallow grave soon. You will be, too.”

  “He’s going to…” Gabby started, then trailed off.

  “Going to what?” Jade prodded, fearing she already knew the answer. She repeated, “Going to what?”

  “Going to kill us while you watch. Just to make it worse for you.”

  “He told you that?”

  “Yes. He wants you to see what he’s going to do to you so he can watch you suffer more before he kills you.”

  “That’s how fucked-up he is,” Chelsea chimed in.

  Finding her courage, Jade finally got settled into a seated position. “Screw that. We’re getting out of here. We’re not letting this guy take us out. We’re going to—”

  The door handle began to rattle as somebody worked to unlock it. “Be quiet,” Chelsea whispered. “He hates it when we talk.”

  Yeah, Jade knew that all too well. Her face was still aching from his abuse. He shuffled into the room, stopping just in front of the doorway. “What beautiful flowers I’ve collected.” Looking them over, he wrinkled up his nose. “Unlike other flowers, mine stink.”

  “Well maybe if you let us shower…” Gabby mumbled.

  Exploding in anger, Calvin stormed across the room and delivered a swift kick to Gabby’s side. “Did I tell you to speak, bitch?”

  She squealed in pain, then dropped her head in submission.

  “That’s what I thought,” he hissed. Turning his attention to Jade, he squatted down in front of her and asked, “Do you know the real problem with picking flowers? They wilt and die all too soon. No matter what you do nourish them, they shrivel up and wither away once you remove them from their root system.”

  His analogies were vivid reminders of just how weird and distorted his thinking was. She needed to find a way out, or some way to let others know what was going on. Now that he had her, his prized catch, she knew they didn’t have much longer.

  His hand came out and he tilted her face up with two fingers. “I wasn’t going to pick you. You were my flower in the wild, the one too precious to cut and risk losing. I wanted to admire you from afar and enjoy knowing that you were sitting chastely at home just waiting to be plucked by me.”

  That was a bizarrely accurate description of her life until recently.

  Grabbing her chin roughly, he squeezed her tight, digging his fingers into her skin. “But being admired fr
om afar wasn’t good enough for you, was it? You had to call the big Russian. It was so obvious that you were trading sex for protection.”

  “You’re… you’re crazy,” she stammered.

  Slamming her head back against the wall in disgust, he roared, “You allowed him to take what’s always been mine! You’ll die for that mistake.”

  Shooting to his feet, he spun on his heel and stalked out of the room without another word.

  “Sweet Jesus,” Chelsea gasped as the door locked. “Are you okay?”

  Jade winced in pain and replied, “Eh, what’s a little blunt force trauma to the head?”

  Her words reminded her of poor Karl, who she’d last seen bleeding on her living room floor. She desperately hoped he was still alive.

  “How do you know this lunatic?” Gabby asked.

  Jade let out a long sigh, then repeated the story of her abduction and subsequent beating at the hands of Calvin McMillan ten years earlier. She wrapped up with talk of Yuri and his three friends who’d helped rescue her, and who had recently come back into her life.

  “Shit, that’s one messed up story for sure,” Gabby said, shaking her head.

  “Yeah, well, fifty Russians aren’t going to be able to help you now,” Chelsea grumbled. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re completely fucked.”

  “Maybe, but we can’t just give up. We’ve got to figure out a way. Any ideas?”

  “He never takes the chains off unless it’s time to play,” Gabby shrugged. “Trust me, you won’t like his games.”

  Jade swallowed hard, fearing the answer to the question she had to ask. “What games?”