Roma Queen (Roma Royals Duet Book 2)

by Callie Hart

  He explodes then, face twisted into a rictus of rage and pain. One second he’s holding the white board, the next it’s hurtling across the room and hitting the wall, denting the plaster work before it clatters to the floor. Garrett blows down his nose, panting, his eyes burning with anger. For the first time since I realized it was Garrett who took Sarah, since I went and found him on that bus, I am afraid of him.

  I raise the gun again, aiming it at his face, trying not to tremble. “Just take me to him, Garrett. Please. If you care about me at all, if you care about Sarah, or doing what’s right, then get up and walk out of this door with me now. It’s not too late. We can fix this. I swear, we’ll work it out.”

  Garrett wears a dark, ominous look as he slowly gets to his feet.

  The air’s shivering with snow as Garrett heads back toward the van. A parking ticket sticks out from underneath the windshield wiper; he plucks it out and tosses it on the ground, then unlocks the vehicle, giving me a meaningful look before he opens the door. I can read the look: Are you sure you want to do this? It’s a really bad fucking idea.

  By way of an answer, I climb into the passenger’s seat and slam the door closed behind me. We sit in tense silence as Garrett drives us across the city. Thanks to the snow, there are only a few cars out on the roads, and traffic is non-existent. We make excellent time, though the twenty minutes that pass between leaving the Bakersfield and pulling up alongside the entrance to the old Rochester subway station are painful to say the least. I can’t get the image of his ruined tongue out of my head. I can’t stop myself from imagining how the hell it happened. I also can’t prevent myself from wondering how many people Garrett’s hurt over the years because Lazlo told him to.

  This can't be the first time this has happened. According to Pasha, Lazlo is in his sixties, and the insidious, vile sickness that afflicts him doesn't suddenly come on in later life. He's probably always carried it with him, which means there are bound to be a string of lives that the bastard has ruined over the years. What part has Garrett played in the destruction Lazlo has wrought? Right now, all I know is that he's responsible for forcing Sarah into the back of the Sprinter and taking her to Lazlo, but has Lazlo assigned him much darker tasks in the past? Has Garrett ever abused or assaulted anyone the same way his master has? Has he seriously hurt people? Has he killed?

  I'm disgusted, and furious, and more than a little afraid, but somehow I just can't seem to picture that. There's a softness to Garrett that's hard to fake. My friendship with him has been a lie. The last three years have all been an act. I obviously don't know him the way I thought I did, but it's impossible for me to accept that he's capable of such violence. As we approach the intersection of Cross Street and Delongpre, Garrett cuts down a side street and my stomach does a back flip. I've kept my gun in my hand the entire way here, but I've kept it resting in my lap, only loosely holding onto the handle. Now I hold up the weapon and aim it at him, adrenaline coursing through my body.

  “What are you doing? Where are you taking me?” I hiss. My hands are shaking. The gun feels heavy and unstable as I aim it at his temple. Garrett huffs. We haven't brought the white board with us, and even if we had, he wouldn't be able to write down where he was taking me. He scowls at me out of the corner of his eye, shaking his head, then jerking his chin straight ahead, out of the windshield, grunting. He should have taken me straight to the entrance that leads down in the abandoned subway station, but instead he drives five hundred meters down the side street and pulls the van over, parking it outside an antique bookstore.

  He kills the engine and removes the key from the ignition, holding it up between pinched fingers in his right hand. He grunts again, offering them out to me, rolling his eyes when I don't take them immediately. I accept them from him in the end, though. I insisted he bring me over here. What I actually said, specifically, was that I wanted him to take me to Lazlo. He points out of the windshield, off up the street, making a sound of frustration, and I get the picture that that's exactly what he's trying to do.

  Fuck, I should just call Detective Holmes. I have no idea what I'm doing here. I'm probably walking into some sort of trap. It would take too long to try and explain all of this to the detective though. Too much has happened. There are too many moving pieces to this thing now. I'd have to go over everything three or four times before he had the information down, and then it would take hours to get the go-ahead from his superiors and get a task force down here. By then, god knows what will have happened to Pasha and Sarah. There's just no time for any of that. Carefully, I collect the backpack from the foot well, and slide the strap over my shoulder, hitching it onto my back.

  “I'm serious, Garrett.” I imbue my voice with as much gravitas as possible. “I don't care that we're in the hood. I don't care that it's the middle of the damn day. I don't care that I'll end up going to jail for the rest of my life. I will shoot you if you try and screw with me. Do you understand? Are we on the same page?”

  Garrett just stares at me. I get the feeling that he's not pondering the threat I just made against his life. He looks distracted. Worried, even. A little concerned. Slowly, he nods.

  We both get out of the Sprinter and the cold wind cuts through me like a knife. The weather is the least of my concerns, though. I slide the gun into the pocket of my down jacket, silently warning Garrett to behave himself with a hostile look. He has to know I'm serious. He must be able to see it in my eyes, but he doesn't appear even slightly fazed. He nods his head to the left, gesturing me to follow after him, and I do.

  Two seconds later, he's guiding me down another side alley, lined with overflowing dumpsters, and my pulse is quickening all over again. The alley reeks of piss and rotting food. I fight the urge to gag as Garrett, apparently immune to the rank smell, plows on further into the alleyway.

  “Garrett, seriously, what the fuck?” I tighten my grip on the gun's handle inside my pocket, placing my finger on the trigger. The action calms my nerves a little, even though I'm jittering from the crown of my head down to the soles of my feet. This is not good. This is really, really not good. Garrett finally stops and turns to face me, his eyes hard and distant as he points down to a manhole cover at his feet.

  “You want to take me down there?” My voice is thick with incredulity. He nods, then squats down producing a large T-shaped piece of metal from his pocket that looks like a hex key. He slides the end of it into a small hole on top of the manhole cover, and pushes down, twists and then heaves the heavy round disc of rusting metal out of the ground.

  Nope.

  No way.

  There’s no fucking way I should climb down into that hole in the ground. What I should do is stick the muzzle of this gun into the base of Garrett’s spine and make him take me around to the stairway on Cross Street. At least I'll know what to expect if we go down that way. This dark hole Garrett obviously wants me to descend into is an unknown. God knows what's down there waiting for me.

  Garrett rolls his eyes impatiently. He reaches into his pocket, and I very nearly lose my cool. Holding the gun, I swallow hard, watching him like a hawk as he pulls a slim Maglite torch out of his pocket and holds it up for me to see.

  His features are arranged into an almost amused expression. From the entertained huff of laughter he blasts down his nose, he thinks it's funny that I don't trust him. That I'm suspicious of him. But I'm not a fucking moron. Two weeks ago, I would have trusted him implicitly. I would have relied on him to have my back if I were going into a dangerous situation. Now I'm finding that he isn't the person I thought he was, and he is the cause of the danger I find myself in.

  Garrett points to himself and then points directly down the hole, shrugging his shoulders. He wants to know if he should go down first, or if I want to, and for a second, I'm paralyzed by indecision. If I go down first, then fuck knows what kind of shitstorm I'll land myself in when I reach the bottom. There's also every chance Garrett will run the moment I lower myself into the shaft.

/>   If he goes first, then he could try and take me as I lower myself down the ladder. He’d easily be able to overpower me and relieve me of the gun. And then what? We'd be down a very deep, dark, black hole, alone, with no one to come to my aid if he decided to attack me. Fuck, this entire situation is so messed up. I'm basically screwed no matter what I decide.

  I steel myself, praying to the universe that I'm making the right call as I jerk the end of the gun at the hole in the ground and say, “Do it. You first. But so help me, Garrett, I'm nervous as fuck right now, and if you try anything stupid, I'm probably gonna end up unloading this thing in your face. I don't wanna do that. I'm sure you don't want me to do that, either. So no sudden movements.”

  His amusement only seems to grow as he clamps the end of the Maglite between his teeth and begins to climb down the hole into the sewer system below. My legs feel like Jell-O as I lower myself onto the ladder and step down one rung at a time, praying the soles of my shoes won't slip against the slick, icily cold metal. I keep my eyes trained on the top of Garrett's head the entire way down. When he hits the ground, I expect him to try and pull something. To do exactly what I warned him not to do, but he doesn't. He takes a step back, holding up the Maglite and giving me room so I can jump down from the bottom rung.

  He flashes me a sarcastic smile that says, “See. Nothing to worry about.” I feel like launching myself at the guy and trying to claw his eyes out. Over the course of my adult life, I haven’t let many people in. I've found it hard to trust people. Even harder to accept them as friends. The fact that Garrett never spoke didn't matter to me. It never had a bearing on our relationship. He was kind and he was good, and he looked out for me. For the last three years I've known, without the shadow of a doubt, that he’d be there for me if I needed him. That made me feel safe. He made me feel safe.

  His betrayal, this awful, terrible, heartbreaking betrayal, has cut me to the quick. I don't think I'll ever be able to recover from it. I've been angry ever since I realized that he was the one who took Sarah, but that anger has dulled now. It's faded quickly, replaced by a pain and a hurt so deep that I feel like I'm drowning in it, suffocating in it, and no matter how hard I try, I just can't seem to catch my breath.

  Garrett must see something on my face that betrays my emotions, because his smile quickly fades. “Go on. Let's just get this over with,” I say, ignoring the tightness in my chest. He lowers his gaze, nodding as if to himself, and then turns, pointing the beam of the Maglite off to the right, using it to indicate which way we'll be heading. He sets off, and the sound of his echoing footfall rings in my ears as I follow after him.

  We aren’t in a sewer system after all. It’s an access tunnel that snakes down and to the right. Garrett makes a number of turns, and I stay close behind him, aware that without that flashlight of his, I'll be swallowed by an absolute darkness. Fairly quickly, a low buzzing, humming sound fills the air, and as we continue down the access tunnel, the sound grows louder until I can feel the hum in my bones and beneath the soles of my feet. It seems to be shaking the very walls themselves as Garrett takes another right and we reach a heavy steel door.

  Garrett slides his hand into his pocket and produces a key. Quickly, he unlocks the door and opens it. On the other side, a long, narrow corridor awaits. Unlike the access corridor, this tunnel is lit. At regular intervals along the walls, dim yellow emergency lights cast off just enough of a glow to illuminate the white tiled walls and the low ceiling overhead.

  Garrett turns off the Maglite and slips it back into his pocket, then sets off down the corridor without so much as a backward glance over his shoulder. I feel like such a fucking idiot pointing the gun at the back of his head as I go after him. He hasn't lifted a finger to try and take it from me. He hasn't even really glanced at the thing, as if it makes absolutely no difference to him whether I have it in my hands or not. He hasn't tried to run. He hasn't tried to overpower me, but I'm not taking any chances.

  My heart is thumping in time with the oscillating, pulsing sound that now floods the corridor, vibrating in my ears. It grows louder and louder as we approach an army green door at the end of the hallway. Here, Garrett pauses and gives me a sorrowful look. He's wary now, which only makes me even more worried. Quite clearly, he's concerned about what lies on the other side of this door. He winces as he glances down at the handle and then back at me, and my insides begin to roil.

  This is going to be bad. This is going to be more than I can take. If Sarah's on the other side of this door and she's hurt, if she's in pain or if she's bleeding or, god, worse, if she's dead, then I don't know what the fuck I'm going to do. One thing's for sure: Garrett thinks I'm going to react badly to whatever I find, and that in itself is cause for concern.

  Taking a deep breath, I grip hold of the gun, my palms slick with sweat, and I growl out the words that are probably going to break me forever. “Open the fucking door, Garrett. I swear to God.”

  Flicking through his keys and selecting the right one, Garrett slides it into the lock and turns it. His hand hovers on the handle. He hesitates, his eyes pleading with me, and the tension and frustration that's been building in me over the last few minutes rises to impossible levels. “I am going to lose my shit if you don't turn that handle,” I snap.

  The thrum, thrum, thrum mechanical noise surges as Garrett opens the door and pushes it back. The sound is deafening. For a second, the assault of the noise itself is almost too much, but then it seems to dip and subside, leveling out to a manageable volume. The room beyond is vast, filled with large metal cages, inside which green painted steel paneled housings conceal what I can only assume is some sort of electrical equipment.

  The whole place buzzes with electricity, in fact. The air itself seems to be thick with it, and my skin prickles as I step into the room, scanning from left to right, assessing every square inch of the place. The floor is comprised of grated steel. My footsteps produce a metallic clanging sound over the churning, thrumming of the substation equipment. Because that's what this is, I've decided: an electrical substation, below ground, underneath Rochester Park. We're so close to the abandoned subway line that I already know these tunnels must connect with it one way or another.

  I nearly jump out of my fucking skin when Garrett places a hand lightly on my shoulder. I’ve allowed myself to become distracted and didn't notice that he’d stopped beside me. I swivel, turning the gun on him, and he immediately moves back, holding his hands up in the air. He still doesn't look worried, though. Still doesn't look like he's really worried that I might shoot him. Pointing his index finger to the left, he indicates that we should turn that way. He then turns his body sideways, sliding in between two of the huge metal cages that obstruct our path.

  God, this is so fucking insane. This is Darwin Award level stupidity at its best right here, but I have no choice. I go after him, and a spike of claustrophobia hits me as I feel the cages pressing in on both sides. Four steps ahead of me, Garrett turns right at the end of the first cage, and for one heart-stopping moment, I can't see him. I bolt to the end of the cage and turn, then ...

  ... and then I stop.

  What the fuck? We're in some sort of opening, a square of empty space created by the huge hulking mass of the machinery around us, and in the middle of the space, a tall concrete pillar rises out of the ground. There, at the foot of the pillar, huddled up into a tiny, pitiful ball, wearing nothing but a pair of dirty underpants and covered in a patchwork of bruises sits a little boy.

  He's blue from the cold. His head is leaning against the pillar, his eyes closed. It takes me a second to realize that he's sleeping. Lord only knows how he’s managed to pass out with the earsplitting noise of all of the equipment surrounding him. His fingernails are filthy, and his small hands are covered in blood. Both his knees are grazed, and a large gash runs from his temple down to his right ear.

  My heart stops dead in my chest. I forget about the gun in my hands. I forget about the traitorous man standing le
ss than two feet away from me. I forget how to fucking breathe as the boy startles awake and turns to face us, and suddenly, I find myself staring into the face of the little boy who was plastered all over the newspapers.

  Unbelievably…

  Impossibly…

  …it's Corey Petrov.

  He looks up at me, and a gut-wrenching fear kindles in his eyes. I crouch down, opening my arms to him, still completely fucking stunned, but when the little boy gets to his feet, he darts into Garrett’s arms, not mine.

  “Who’s she?” he whimpers. “Is she taking me back? Don’t let her take me back!”

  Garrett shakes his head, lifting the boy onto his hip. Corey buries his face into Garrett’s jacket, and I feel like a nuclear bomb just went off in my head. “No. No. Don’t let her take me back there,” Corey whimpers. He’s shaking, he’s so terrified. Garrett cradles the back of the boy’s head, making a garbled, soothing sound. He leans back so the boy can see him and shakes his head again. Hard this time.

  Corey peeks over his shoulder at me, flinching when I take a step toward him. “I’m not gonna hurt you, Corey, I promise. We spoke on the phone, remember?” I say quietly. “When…when your brother was sick, and…the bad man came.”

  Corey says nothing. Just stares at me, dark brown eyes full of worry and suspicion. “Do you want to come to me, Sweetheart?” I open my hands, indicating that I can hold him, if he wants me to. He clings onto Garrett, whimpering again. “No! No, he’s my friend. He hid me from the bad man. He told him I was gone.”

  I look to Garrett and find the man’s eyes shining with sorrow and regret. “You did that? You hid him from Lazlo?”

  Garrett nods, looking down at the boy, and I see so much pain on him. So many emotions, none of which are even close to sadistic or malicious. Everything…damn it, everything just got so much more complicated. Again.