Roma Queen (Roma Royals Duet Book 2)

by Callie Hart

  Sarah’s objection is cut short. She lets out a panicked scream, but it’s silenced almost immediately. A staccato sound, like a knuckle tapping against a door, comes next, but it isn’t that. The rhythm is way off, all over the place. It’s something else. It’s…

  God, I can’t place it. Don’t know if I even want to.

  A loud slam puts an end to the tapping.

  Sarah lets out a sob. “Please,” she whispers. “What have I done? Wh…why?” She sounds bewildered, utterly confused by what’s happening to her. I’m in the same boat. I haven’t heard a single thing so far that might tell me who has taken her.

  An engine starts up, and Sarah’s quiet, frightened sobs continue as the rumble of tires returns, this time louder and closer. From what I can gather, she’s inside a vehicle at this point.

  I bite down on my thumb nail, trying not to lose my shit. “Is that it?”

  Pasha checks the digital read-out on the Dictaphone. “No. There’s another thirty minutes.”

  Oh, lord. How the hell am I going to get through another thirty minutes of this? It’s going to be impossible. As if he can read my mind, Pasha hits the fast-forward button on the recorder once, then again, and again, when there are no other sounds on the recording bar the background noise of the vehicle and Sarah’s weakening crying. The fourth time he scrubs forward and then hits the play button, everything is silent. And then, there’s a squeak and a moan—the sound of a stiff door swinging open.

  “Look. I don’t know what any of this is about, but you don’t need to do this. If she said she’d paid you…if she told you I had money…I can promise you she was lying. Wait, wait, no. Forget it. I’m not…I’m not going down there. What did I tell you. If this is some kind of practical joke, then it really isn’t funny okay? I don’t wa—”

  Whatever she had been about to say dies on her lips. Sarah falls silent, but a range of noises are still picked up by the bug’s microphone. More rustling. The groan of an iron gate. The sound of heavy footsteps. The quiet rushing of running water, far away, and over it all, the slow pull and draw of someone breathing very heavily.

  The quality of the sound changes, as if Sarah and her captor, up until now in a small, tight space, have entered a much larger venue.

  Then a deep, male voice, off to the right. “What the fuck? She looks half dead. I said knock her out, not kill her.” There’s a pause, and then, “Put her down on the trolley. Use the straps. Get rid of her clothes first. She’ll try and run when she wakes up. She might think twice if she’s naked.”

  Bile burns hot and bitter at the back of my throat. I want to throw up. Poor Sarah. Whoever took her stripped her of her clothes? A series of horrific images carousel around the inside of my head and I can’t put a stop to them. God, if they’ve hurt her. If they’ve…done anything to her. If they’ve…fuck, if they’ve raped her, I’m never going to forgive myself.

  The recorder picks up another sound—a numb, dazed moan that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention. “Where?” Sarah’s voice says, distant and confused. She mumbles something too quietly for it to be audible, but I hear the next thing she says perfectly fine. “Stars? Underground?” she mumbles. “They’re so pretty.”

  PASHA

  I hate lying. I seriously fucking hate it. It’s the biggest act of betrayal there is between two people who trust one another, but right now I have no choice. I need to keep Zara safe, and I’ll break every oath I’ve ever made, and I will lie to every last person who matters to me, including her, if it means I’ll be able to accomplish that task. She’s pacing the kitchen, practically tearing her hair out as she tries to decipher the meaning behind the recording, and I play along, worrying at my lip, frowning deeply as I drum my fingers against her kitchen table.

  I’m not trying to figure out the recording, though. I had it figured out in real time, as the seconds ticked by on the Dictaphone read-out and my ear drums registered each new sound. I know where Sarah is. No, I’m beyond worrying over the recording. I am trying to figure out how the hell I’m going to make sure Zara stays safe while I leave her and take care of this mess. She’s going to be furious later on, but I’ll happily deal with her wrath after the fact, once Lazlo is either dead or in police custody, and my aunt is back in her apartment.

  “No wonder the Petrovs haven’t figured out where they took her. None of it makes any sense. There were no ambient sounds to tell us where they ended up. Y’know, like in movies, when the cop hears a ship horn or a plane engine or something that leads them to the docks or an airport or whatever. Unless we missed something when you fast forwarded through the recording. Maybe we should listen to that part again?”

  “Probably a good idea.” I scrub back though the recording, hitting the play button as we listen to Sarah get locked inside the back of a van once more, and Zara sits down opposite me at the table again, gnawing on her finger nails. I am submerged in a sea of conflict, wondering where the hell I can take her for a couple of hours, where she won’t become immediately suspicious and try to come after me.

  The perfect place strikes me like a lightning bolt out of the goddamn blue. I already regret this first lie I’m about to tell her, but I swallow down my guilt and force myself to deal. More lies are going to follow after this first one, so I might as well get used to it. Reaching out, I pick up the Dictaphone and stop the recording.

  “The road sounds are too loud. The engine’s blocking out all the finer details. The audio needs to be cleaned up.”

  Zara stills. “There’s a mixer at the dispatch center. The transcribers who type up the 911 calls use the E.Q. on it to clean files that are difficult to hear sometimes. That could work.”

  I feel shitty as fuck as I shut down that idea. “You’re still suspended. They wouldn’t even let us inside the building. I know someone in Korea Town. He’ll be able to run it quicker than us, anyway.”

  Zara considers this. A look of hope forms on her face, and I decide I want to throw myself from the fucking roof for being such a piece of shit. “Okay. If you think he can help, then we should go.” She gets to her feet, heading for the door.

  As I follow after her, a desperate mantra repeats itself inside my head, over and over again, until the words form a somber rhythm.

  Forgive me, Firefly.

  Forgive me, Firefly.

  Forgive me, Firefly.

  Twenty

  PASHA

  “A dentist? You want a dentist to clean up the audio file?” Zara gapes at the receptionist of Dr. Choi’s Emergency Dental Surgery as I take her by the arm and guide her down the hallway toward Seo-Jun’s office.

  We do not stop to ask for an appointment.

  The bottle blonde behind the desk squeaks as she gets out of her chair and hurries after us. “Dr. Choi’s already in with another patient! Wait! Waitwaitwait!”

  Waiting isn’t on the cards. I bust open the door to Seo-Jun’s office, and for one brief, horrible moment, I wish that I’d taken the time to knock. Just the once. If I had, I might not find myself standing in front of a naked twenty-eight-year old Korean hacker/dentist with his head buried between a morbidly obese woman’s thighs.

  The woman grunts when she sees us, hardly surprised. She taps the top of Seo-Jun’s head, and the guy pops up like a goddamn meercat from a den. He has the common decency to look a little alarmed when he sees me. Or rather when he sees Zara, standing right behind me. “Holy fuck,” Zara mutters, under her breath. “This is the guy?”

  “This is the guy,” I confirm.

  Seo-Jun wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “I know I said any time, Rivin, but a little advanced warning might be a good idea in future.”

  I do my best not to grimace. “Copy that. Loud and clear. This couldn’t really wait, though. Get dressed. I need to show you something.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Seo-Jun’s lady friend has vacated his office, and the dentist is up to speed. I tell him as much as he needs to know, and then I take Zara to one
side. The lies feel awkward and clunky as they spill out from my mouth. Half of me doesn’t think she’ll even believe me, but she does.

  “Sure. I can wait here. Do you think going all the way back to your place for a gun’s a good idea, though? Wait, what the hell am I saying? Of course a gun is a good idea. Fuck, this is such a mess.”

  Kissing her forehead, I hold her face in my hands for a second, breathing in the smell of her. Savoring her. If this doesn’t go well, I have no idea what the fuck I’m gonna do, but Seo-Jun knows the script. He’ll protect Zara if the shit hits the fan, I know he will.

  “I won’t be long,” I tell her. “An hour and a half. Two, max. Once I’m home, I’ll text you.”

  “Fuck! You can’t. Urgh, I left my cell plugged in at your place. We left so quickly, I forgot to—”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll bring it back with me. Just…just stay here, okay? Promise me. I need to know you’re gonna be here when I get back.”

  I see the fear in her eyes. The worry. She doesn’t let her emotions claim her, though. “Okay. Fine. I promise. But…just please. Hurry, okay?”

  The Mustang engine screams as I hurtle across town. I blow a stop sign, and then another. Luckily the traffic light gods are watching over me this afternoon, though. I’m green-lit from Korea Town all the way to Rochester Park, and I don’t see a single cop car, either. When I hit Cross Street, I consider leaving the car in plain sight on the street, but then decide against it. A nineteen sixty-six Mustang is a rare enough vehicle, and Lazlo knows what kind of car I drive. If he sees my ride parked on the side of the road, he won’t consider it a coincidence. He’s going to know I’ve found him, and he’ll bail before I have the chance to confront him.

  I leave the car in a parking structure two blocks away after collecting a monkey wrench from the trunk, and then I jog back to my destination, scouring the faces of every person I pass until I reach the staircase that descends down into the Rochester Park disused subway station. The grate is over the stairwell, of course. Patrin always makes sure it’s locked up when the clan leaves once the fair is closed down, but luckily I still have my key. The grate is open, its steel bars drawn back, and I’m closing it swiftly behind me in no time.

  Common sense dictates that I shouldn’t lock the bolt on the grate after me. If I need to get out of here quickly, fumbling to get the lock open again might just end up getting me killed, but if Lazlo isn’t here right now and he does return to find something out of place, again, he’s going to bail. The sound of the lock clicking closed above me has a worryingly final sound to it.

  No time to waste worrying, though.

  Down the stairs, two at a time.

  Along the dank, wet corridor, darkness closing in on all sides, and then through the heavy wooden doors, into the vast hall beyond. I’m not even remotely surprised to find the place lit up like the Fourth of July. It’s not as if we pay for the electricity down here—we rigged the work lamps that are affixed to the walls up to the city’s existing power supply—but still, we’re environmentalists at heart. We always make sure the lights are turned off when we’re not at home.

  Everything was in darkness when Zara and I came here the other day, which had me fooled, but clearly people have been coming and going here.

  When I look up, my eyes skate over the gothic ribs and the vaulted alcove recessed into the ceiling, and I see them. The thing that had all of the puzzle pieces snapping together as we listened to the recording on Petrov’s Dictaphone: a ceiling full of beautiful, shining, elaborate golden stars.

  Sarah’s speech had been slurred, but I’d understood her perfectly well. Stars. Underground? They’re so…pretty.

  The Rivin Clan have been holding the Midnight Fair down here, in the disused subway station for a long time, but not that long. Sarah would never have come here. Would never have seen the gloriously intricate mosaic that even I had a hand in creating, back when I was a child. It would have been a stunning surprise to her, just like it is to everyone else who descends into the Midnight Fair for the first time, and I heard that in her voice—the surprise and the dumbfounded awe, through the confusion of what sounded to me like a head injury.

  So.

  It turns out Lazlo told Zara the truth when she picked up the payphone outside her apartment for the first time. He had been in Rochester Park, waiting for her all along.

  I cross the compacted dirt of the main hall and find myself hovering on the lip of the unfinished subway platform. This station would have been a work of art had it ever been finished. The railway tracks were never fitted, but the deep well that would have taken the train was dug, and the tunnel to my right continues for at least a good mile and a half, branching off into numerous little side tunnels and airless rooms that Patrin, myself, and the other kids our age used to explore when were kids.

  Refusing to second guess myself, I jump from the raised platform, down into the dirt below. It’s on this lower level, from a different vantage point, that I can make out the twin, narrow tracks imprinted into the ground, leading into the darkness of the tunnel. What had Lazlo said in the recording? It was his voice—I’d recognized it immediately. He’d told his accomplice to strap Sarah to a gurney. And those, to me, look suspiciously like the kind of tracks a gurney would make.

  Twenty-One

  ZARA

  Pasha Rivin obviously doesn’t know what a horrible fucking liar he is. He had me convinced for about a minute in total back at my apartment, when he told me we needed to pay a visit to his friend in Korea Town, but he couldn’t stop fidgeting in the car on the ride over here. His calm slipped, and his deceiving, fibbing little ass couldn’t stop squirming. Must have been the fact that his pants were on fucking fire.

  I already know he’s figured something out. He must have done, and I’ve been waiting for this moment for days now: the moment when he tried to ditch me in order to keep me safe. Don’t get me wrong. I understand his rationale. Lazlo’s a monster, a kidnapper and a murderer. I am a twenty-six-year old dispatcher, with very little in the way of self-defense training (only what Waylon taught me in my apartment living room three years ago), and literally no hope of overpowering a fully-grown man.

  I’m not useless, though. I’m smart and determined, and Pasha might not realize this yet, but we are better off together than we are apart.

  As soon as he leaves Dr. Choi’s dental office, I turn to the flush-faced guy plugging away at the keyboard in front of his computer and I make my demands. At first, Seo-Jun isn’t all that willing to comply.

  “No fucking way, lady. You’re hot and all, but have you seen Pasha fight? He could knock my head clean off my shoulders if he wanted to. And he will want to if I let you walk out of here with a bag full of goodies.”

  The man’s barely an inch taller than me, and besides, he’s sitting down. I square up to him, cocking my head to one side. “What do you think I’m going to do to you if you don’t give me what I want, Seo-Jun?”

  He appraises me hopefully. “A stern talking to?”

  “No. I’m going to call one of my friends at the police department. I’m a dispatcher. I have plenty of friends on the force. They’d probably be really interested in the weird set-up you’ve got going on in here.”

  Seo-Jun’s mouth drops open. “That is seriously low. You do know that you’re here on the back of Pasha’s good name. You just fucked his all access pass to Doctor Choi’s Emergency Denta—”

  I grab hold of the fucker by the scruff of his shirt, baring my teeth at him. “I’m sure you’ll forgive Pasha for my misdemeanor. And if you don’t, I’m sure he’s better off without you anyway. Now, are you going to give me what I need or not?”

  If I were to get arrested right now, I would be so, so screwed. The black bag slung over my shoulder contains an array of items that, on their own, individually, would be considered interesting. Combined, they paint a pretty damning picture. I basically have a serial killer’s tool kit strapped to my back, and I don’t even know what I�
��m doing with half of it.

  The duct tape and the handcuffs are one thing. Those can be put to good use fairly easily, without getting me into too much trouble. But the hypodermic needles are a different story. I also have enough Ketamin and Midazolam on me to kill a herd of elephants, according to Seo-Jun, and the gun I took from his safe? Well. That’s just the icing on top of this pretty little murder cake.

  I get a cab across town, only a couple of miles from the Bakersfield, and I consider going back there quickly, just in case the payphone just so happens to be ringing. After a moment’s consideration, I reject the idea out of hand. Lazlo might call, but it doesn’t matter anymore. A series of events have been set in motion, and I need to step in, before both Sarah and Pasha end up dead.

  I saw Pasha’s pupils blow out when he heard Sarah’s comment about the stars. My own pupils did the same thing. I was about to say the words—The fair! She’s talking about the ceiling in the subway station!—but then Pasha’s jaw had tightened, and I just knew he was going to pull this shit.

  Stupid, arrogant, ridiculous man.

  We’ll be having words about this, the moment we’re safe and Lazlo’s behind bars. In the meantime, there’s something I have to do. I’m not stupid enough to feel brave walking into this situation. Not even close. Fear writhes inside me like a tangle of venomous snakes, but I force myself to work around it, breathing calmly even though it feels as though I should be hyperventilating into a paper bag.

  The cab rolls to a stop at the side of the road where I’ve requested to be dropped off and I climb out, steeling myself. This is not going to be easy. This is going to be the most difficult thing I’ve ever done, but the thought of Sarah, naked, alone and afraid somewhere beneath Rochester Park does steel my nerves a little.