Alive? A spark of hope cuts through the haze of panic in my brain, and I realize he has a faint accent. It’s something exotic. Middle Eastern, maybe, or Eastern European.
Oddly, that detail centers me a little, provides something concrete for my mind to latch on to. “W-what do you want?” The words come out in a quaking whisper, but it’s a miracle I can speak at all. I feel like a deer in the headlights, stunned and overwhelmed, my thought processes bizarrely slow.
“Just a few answers,” he says, and the knife retreats slightly. Without the cold steel cutting into my skin, some of my panic subsides, and other details register, like the fact that my assailant is at least a head taller than me and packed with muscle. The arm around my ribcage is like a steel band, and there’s no give in the large body pressing against my back, no hint of softness anywhere. I’m of average height for a woman, but I’m slim and small-boned, and if he’s as muscular as I suspect, he must be almost double my weight.
Even if he didn’t have the knife, I wouldn’t be able to get away.
“What kind of answers?” My voice is a little steadier this time. Maybe he’s just here to rob me and all he needs is the combination to the safe. He smells clean, like laundry detergent and healthy male skin, so this is not some meth addict or bum off the streets. A professional burglar, maybe? If so, I’ll gladly give up my jewelry and the emergency cash George stashed in the house.
“I want you to tell me about your husband. Specifically, I need to know his location.”
“George?” My mind goes blank as a new fear bites at me. “W-what… why?”
The blade presses in. “I’m the one asking questions.”
“P-please,” I choke out. I can’t think, can’t focus on anything but the knife. Hot tears slide down my face, and I’m shaking all over. “Please, I don’t—”
“Just answer my question. Where is your husband?”
“I—” Oh God, what do I tell him? He must be one of them, the reason for all the precautions. My heart is beating so fast I’m hyperventilating. “Please, I don’t… I haven’t—”
“Don’t lie to me, Sara. I need his location. Now.”
“I don’t know it, I swear. Please, we’re—” My voice cracks. “We’re separated.”
The arm around my ribcage tightens, and the knife digs in a fraction deeper. “Do you want to die?”
“No. No, I don’t. Please…” I’m shaking harder, the tears streaming down my face uncontrollably. After the accident, there were days when I thought I wanted to die, when the guilt and pain of regrets were overwhelming, but now that the blade is at my throat, I want to live. I want it so badly.
“Then tell me where he is.”
“I don’t know!” My knees are threatening to buckle, but I can’t betray George like this. I can’t expose him to this monster.
“You’re lying.” My assailant’s voice is pure ice. “I’ve read your messages. You know exactly where he is.”
“No, I—” I try to think of a plausible lie, but I can’t come up with one. Panic is acrid on my tongue as frantic questions pop into my mind. How could he have read my messages? When? How long has he been stalking me? Is he one of them? “I—I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The knife presses in a hair deeper, and I squeeze my eyes shut, my breath coming in sobbing gasps. Death is so close I can taste it, smell it… feel it with every fiber of my being. It’s the metallic tang of my blood and the cold sweat running down my back, the roar of my pulse in my temples and the tension in my quivering muscles. In another second, he’ll nick my jugular, and I’ll bleed out, right here on my kitchen floor.
Is this what I deserve? Is this how I atone for my sins?
I clench my teeth to prevent them from chattering. Please forgive me, George. If this is what you need…
I hear my attacker sigh, and in the next instant, the knife is gone and I’m flipped over onto the counter. My back hits the hard granite, and my head flops backward into the sink, my neck muscles screaming from the strain. Gasping, I kick out and try to punch him, but he’s too strong and fast. In a flash, he leaps onto the counter and straddles me, pinning me in place with his weight. He secures my wrists with something hard and unbreakable before gripping them with one hand, and no matter how hard I struggle, I can’t do anything to get free. My heels slide uselessly on the sleek counter, and my neck muscles burn from holding up my head. I’m helpless, pinned down, and a new kind of panic washes over me.
Please, God, no. Anything but rape.
“We’re going to try something different,” he says, and a piece of cloth drops over my face. “See if you’re truly willing to die for that bastard.”
Panting, I twist my head from side to side, trying to throw off the cloth, but it’s too long and I can barely breathe underneath it. Is he trying to suffocate me? Is that the plan?
Then the faucet handle squeaks, and everything becomes clear.
“No!” I struggle harder, but he grips my hair with his free hand, holding me under the faucet with my head arched back.
The initial shock of wetness isn’t so bad, but within seconds, the water travels up my nose. My throat clenches, my lungs seize, and my whole body heaves up as I gag and choke. The panic is instinctive, uncontrollable. The rag is like a wet paw clamped over my nose and mouth, squeezing them shut. The water is in my nose, in my throat. I’m suffocating, drowning. I can’t breathe, can’t breathe…
The faucet turns off, and the cloth is yanked off my face. Coughing, I suck in air, sobbing and wheezing. My whole body is a heaving, trembling mess, and white spots dance in my vision. Before I can recover, the cloth is slapped over my face again, and the water is turned back on.
This time, it’s even worse. My nasal passages burn from the water, and my lungs scream for air. I’m heaving and gagging, choking and crying. I can’t breathe. Oh, God, I’m dying; I can’t breathe—
In the next instant, the cloth is gone, and I’m convulsively dragging in air.
“Tell me where he is, and I’ll stop.” His voice is a dark whisper above me.
“I don’t know! Please!” I can taste the vomit in my throat, and the knowledge that he’ll do it again turns my blood into acid. It was easy to be brave with the knife, but not this. I can’t handle dying like this.
“Last chance,” my tormentor says softly, and the wet cloth drops over my face.
The faucet begins to squeak.
“Stop! Please!” The scream is wrenched out of me. “I’ll tell you! I’ll tell you.”
The water turns off, and the cloth is pulled off my face. “Speak.”
I’m sobbing and coughing too hard to form a coherent sentence, so he pulls me off the counter to the floor and crouches to encircle me in his arms. To someone looking in, it might’ve seemed like a consoling embrace or a lover’s protective hold. Adding to the illusion, my torturer’s voice is soft and gentle as he croons in my ear, “Tell me, Sara. Tell me what I want to know, and I’ll leave.”
“He’s—” I stop a second from blurting out the truth. The panicked animal inside me demands survival at all costs, but I can’t do this. I can’t lead this monster to George. “He’s in Advocate Christ Hospital,” I choke out. “The long-term care unit.”
It’s a lie, and apparently not a good one, because the arms around me tighten, nearly crushing my bones. “Don’t fucking bullshit me.” The soft croon in his voice is gone, replaced by biting rage. “He’s gone from there—has been gone for months. Where is he hiding?”
I’m sobbing harder. “I… I don’t—”
My assailant rises to his feet, pulling me up with him, and I scream and struggle as he drags me toward the sink. “No! Please, no!” I’m hysterical as he lifts me onto the counter, my bound hands swinging as I try to claw at his face. My heels drum on the granite as he straddles me, pinning me in place again, and bile rises in my throat as he grips my hair, arching my head back into the sink. “Stop!”
“Tell me the truth,
and I’ll stop.”
“I—I can’t. Please, I can’t!” I can’t do this to George, not after everything. “Stop, please!”
The wet cloth slaps over my face, and my throat seizes in panic. The water is still off, but I’m already drowning; I can’t breathe, can’t breathe…
“Fuck!”
I’m abruptly yanked off the counter and onto the floor, where I collapse in a sobbing, shaking heap. Only this time, there are no arms to restrain me, and I dimly realize he stepped away.
I should get up and run, but my hands are tied and I can’t make my legs function. All I can manage is a pathetic roll to the side, followed by an attempt at a crawl. The fear is blinding, disorienting, and I can’t see anything in the darkness.
I can’t see him.
Run, I will my limp, shaking muscles. Get up and run.
Sucking in air, I grab at something—a countertop corner—and pull myself up to my feet. Only it’s too late; he’s already on me, the hard band of his arm wrapping around my ribcage as he grabs me from behind.
“Let’s see if this works better,” he whispers, and something cold and sharp stabs me in the neck.
A needle, I realize with a jolt of terror, and my consciousness fades away.
* * *
A face swims in front of my eyes. It’s a handsome face, beautiful even, despite the scar that bisects the left eyebrow. High, slanted cheekbones, steel-gray eyes framed by black lashes, a strong jaw darkened by five-o’clock shadow—a man’s face, my mind supplies fuzzily. His hair is thick and dark, longer on the top than the sides. Not an old man, then, but not a teenager either. A man in his prime.
The face is wearing a frown, its features set in harsh, grim lines. “George Cobakis,” the hard, sculpted mouth says. It’s a sexy mouth, well shaped, but I hear the words as though from a megaphone in the distance. “Do you know where he is?”
I nod, or at least I attempt to. My head feels heavy, my neck strangely sore. “Yes, I know where he is. I thought I knew him too, but I didn’t, not really. Do you ever really know someone? I don’t think so, or at least I didn’t know him. I thought I knew, but I didn’t. All those years together, and everyone thought we were so perfect. The perfect couple, they called us. Can you believe it? The perfect couple. We were the cream of the crop, the young doctor and the rising star journalist. They said he’d win a Pulitzer prize one day.” I’m vaguely aware I’m babbling, but I can’t stop. The words pour out of me, all the pent-up bitterness and pain. “My parents were so proud, so happy on our wedding day. They had no idea, no idea at all about what was come, what would happen—”
“Sara. Focus on me,” the megaphone voice says, and I catch a hint of a foreign accent. It pleases me, that accent, makes me want to reach over and press my hand to those sculpted lips, then run my fingers over that hard jaw to see if it’s bristly. I like bristly. George would often come home from his trips abroad, and he’d be all bristly and I liked it. I liked it, though I’d tell him to shave. He looked better clean-shaven, but I liked feeling the bristle sometimes, liked feeling that roughness on my thighs when he’d—
“Sara, stop,” the voice cuts in, and the frown on the exotically handsome face deepens.
I was speaking out loud, I realize, but I don’t feel embarrassed, not at all. The words don’t belong to me; they just come of their own accord. My hands act of their own accord too, attempting to reach over to that face, but something stops them, and when I lower my heavy head to look down, I see a plastic zip tie around my wrists, with a man’s big hand over my palms. It’s warm, that hand, and it’s holding my hands pinned down on my lap. Why is it doing that? Where did the hand come from? When I look up in confusion, the face is closer, its gray eyes peering into mine.
“I need you to tell me where your husband is,” the mouth says, and the megaphone moves closer. It sounds like it’s right next to my ear. I cringe, but at the same time, that mouth intrigues me. Those lips make me want to touch them, lick them, feel them on my—wait. They’re asking something.
“Where my husband is?” My voice sounds like it’s bouncing off the walls.
“Yes, George Cobakis, your husband.” The lips look tempting as they form the words, and the accent caresses my insides despite the persistent megaphone effect. “Tell me where he is.”
“He’s safe. He’s in a safe house,” I say. “They could come for him. They didn’t want him to run that story, but he did. He was brave like that, or stupid—probably stupid, right?—and then the accident happened, but they could still come for him, because they do that. The mafia doesn’t care that he’s a vegetable now, a cucumber, a tomato, a zucchini. Well, tomato is a fruit, but he’s a vegetable. A broccoli, maybe? I don’t know. It’s not important, anyway. It’s just that they want to make an example of him, threaten other journalists who’d stand up to them. That’s what they do; that’s how they operate. It’s all about greasing palms and bribing, and when you shed light on that—”
“Where is the safe house?” There is a dark light in those steely eyes. “Tell me the address of the safe house.”
“I don’t know the address, but it’s on the corner near Ricky’s Laundromat in Evanston,” I say to those eyes. “They always bring me there in a car, so I don’t know the exact address, but I saw that building from a window. There are at least two men in that car, and they drive around forever, switch cars sometimes too. It’s because of the mafia, because they might be watching. They always send a car for me, and they couldn’t this weekend. Scheduling conflict, they said. It happens sometimes; the guards’ shifts don’t align and—”
“How many guards are there?”
“Three, sometimes four. They’re these big military guys. Or ex-military, I don’t know. They just have that look. I don’t know why, but they all have that look. It’s like witness protection, but not, because he needs special care and I can’t leave my job. I don’t want to leave my job. They said they could move me, have me disappear, but I don’t want to disappear. My patients need me, plus my parents. What would I do with my parents? Never see or call them again? No, that’s crazy. So they disappeared the vegetable, the cucumber, the broccoli—”
“Sara, hush.” Fingers press against my mouth, stopping the stream of words, and the face moves even closer. “You can stop now. It’s over,” the sexy mouth murmurs, and I open my lips, sucking in those fingers. I can taste salt and skin, and I want more, so I swirl my tongue around the fingers, feeling the roughness of the calluses and the blunt edges of the short nails. It’s been so long since I’ve touched someone, and my body heats from this small taste, from the look in those silver eyes.
“Sara…” The accented voice is lower now, deeper and softer. It’s less of a megaphone and more of a sensual echo, like music done on a synthesizer. “You don’t want to go there, ptichka.”
Oh, but I do. I want to go there badly. I keep swirling my tongue around the fingers, and I watch the gray eyes darken, the pupils visibly expanding. It’s a sign of arousal, I know, and it makes me want to do more. It makes me want to kiss those sculpted lips, rub my cheek against that bristly jaw. And the hair, that thick dark hair. Would it feel soft or springy? I want to know, but I can’t move my hands, so I just take the fingers deeper into my mouth, making love to them with my lips and tongue, sucking on them like they’re candy.
“Sara.” The voice is thick and husky, the face tight with barely restrained hunger. “You have to stop, ptichka. You’ll regret this tomorrow.”
Regret? Yes, I probably will. I regret everything, so many things, and I release the fingers to say so. But before I can utter a word, the fingers pull away from my lips, and the face moves farther away.
“Don’t leave me.” The cry is plaintive, like that of a clingy child. I want more of that human touch, that connection. My head feels like a bag of rocks, and I ache all over, especially near my neck and shoulders. My belly is cramping too. I want someone to brush my hair and massage my neck, to hold me and rock me like
a baby. “Please, don’t leave.”
Something resembling pain crosses the man’s face, and I feel the cold prick of the needle in my neck again.
“Goodbye, Sara,” the voice murmurs, and I’m gone, my mind floating away like a fallen leaf.
Chapter 4
Sara
The headache. I first become aware of the headache. My skull feels like it’s splitting into pieces, the waves of pain a drumbeat in my brain.
“Dr. Cobakis… Sara, can you hear me?” The female voice is soft and gentle, but it fills me with dread. There’s worry in that voice, mixed with restrained urgency. I hear that tone in the hospital all the time, and it’s never good.
Trying not to move my throbbing skull, I pry my eyelids open and blink spasmodically at the bright light. “What… where…” My tongue is thick and unwieldy, my mouth painfully dry.
“Here, sip this.” A straw is placed near my mouth, and I latch on to it, greedily sucking in the water. My eyes are starting to adjust to the light, and I can make out the room. It’s a hospital, but not my hospital, judging from the unfamiliar decor. Also, I’m not where I usually am. I’m not standing by someone’s hospital bed; I’m lying in one.
“What happened?” I ask hoarsely. As my mind clears, I become aware of nausea and an array of aches and pains. My back feels like one giant bruise, and my neck is stiff and sore. My throat feels raw too, as though I’ve been screaming or vomiting, and when I lift my hand to touch it, I find a thick bandage on the right side of my neck.
“You were attacked, Dr. Cobakis,” a middle-aged black woman says softly, and I recognize her voice as the one who spoke earlier. She’s dressed in nursing scrubs, but somehow she doesn’t look like a nurse. When I stare at her blankly, she clarifies, “In your house. There was a man. Do you remember anything about that?”
I blink, straining to make sense of that confusing statement. I feel like a giant cotton ball has been stuffed into my brain, alongside the beating drum. “My house? Attacked?”
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