Transcending Darkness

by Airicka Phoenix

  Like some sick joke, his eyes went to the destroyed monitor, his mind replaying Juliette’s screams.

  How old was the video? Two, three days? That morning? What state was Juliette in now?

  “Get the men.” The voice was his, but he had no idea who was speaking. “We’re going to find her even if we have to burn the fucking city to the ground.”

  Chapter 28

  All the world’s cold had found its way deep into the marrow of her bones, paralyzing her muscles and making Juliette all but useless sitting huddled in the corner of her cell. It had been hours since they’d dragged her down and dumped her where they’d found her, but her limbs refused to stop shaking. Her heart refused to stop threatening to burst free of her chest. There were tears burning the back of her eyes, but even they refused to fall. All she could do was sit and shiver and try not to think of Alcorn’s hands on her.

  “Juliette.” On the other side of the bars, Maraveet sat with her shoulder pressed into Juliette’s. It was all the contact the other woman would give, to which Juliette was eternally grateful. “Tell me what they did.”

  Juliette, face buried in the folds of her arms, shook her head rapidly. “They didn’t do anything,” she choked out for the tenth time.

  Maraveet exhaled. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  Juliette raised her head. “They didn’t do anything,” she repeated. “They started to, I think … I think for the camera…” Her voice warbled. “But they stopped and threw me back down here.”

  A soft sound escaped the other woman. It was so quiet Juliette almost didn’t hear it. But it was brimming with relief and dread. Neither had to say it, but they both knew that next time, she wouldn’t be so lucky.

  “We’re going to get out of here,” Maraveet promised. “We just need to figure out how.”

  The door opened and the soft hiss of air punched into Juliette’s chest. Her arms tightened around her drawn knees and she prayed to God they were only bringing food.

  There was no food, just Alcorn with his scuffed boots and smirking mouth. His hands hung at his sides and Juliette flinched at the sight of them. The bits of skin he’d touched throbbed like an agitated burn and she had to resist the urge to rub at the spot.

  “Boss wants to see you,” he drawled, peering through the bars at Juliette.

  The keys jingled as he found the one and inserted it into the lock. The sound mirrored the wild drumming of Juliette’s heart. Her head snapped towards Maraveet, but the other woman was glowering at Alcorn.

  “It amazes me how someone who looks as smart as you would work for a boy,” she said. “But I guess getting paid in lollipops and special favors work best for pedophiles.”

  Alcorn was unfazed by the jab. He laughed as he threw open Juliette’s door and stepped inside.

  “Do you think I haven’t heard worse?” Shaking his head, he stalked to where Juliette sat and hoisted her up by the arm. “You girls never think of anything new to say.”

  With that, he dragged Juliette from the cell. She had just enough time to glance back before they hit the stairs. The last thing she saw was Maraveet pointing at her pocket and mouthing something that looked like use it.

  Juliette’s numb brain took longer than necessary to register that. Her fingers slipped into the pocket of her coat and curled around the makeshift weapon she’d tucked away. It wasn’t exactly as though she’d forgotten the thing, but they hadn’t let her take her coat when she’d gone up earlier. Possibly to make their assault appear more authentic without a bulky jacket getting in the way. But they didn’t tell her to leave it behind now and she clung to the weapon with all her might. Carefully, she tucked the flat end up her sleeve for better access.

  Cyril sat in the same place he had been from the very first day, small and almost doll-like in his perfection. He wore a peach colored suit with a white shirt and white shoes. His pale hair was combed back, leaving those unfathomable blue eyes dominating his face like clear pools on white, sandy beaches. He watched her approach with the faint outline of a grin turning up the corner of his mouth.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  Juliette said nothing as she was shoved forward to stand in the center of the room. The other men sat in chairs on either side of her, making her feel surrounded and cornered.

  Plan your attack and make sure you don’t miss. Plan your attack and make sure you don’t miss.

  Maraveet’s words echoed in her ear, drowning out the words Cyril was speaking. His mouth continued to move and Juliette had to force herself to listen.

  “Well?”

  Juliette swallowed. “Sorry?”

  A mild flicker of irritation shone across his porcelain face. “I asked, what you thought of the videos.”

  The very mention of them made her insides roil, but she answered, “You haven’t asked for anything and you haven’t given any clues as to where we are even though you keep asking Killian to find you. So they are pointless if you’re trying to get what you want.”

  Someone shifted in their seat. The wood groaned under their weight, but no one spoke.

  “Clever,” Cyril murmured. “But I’m already getting what I want and I honestly couldn’t care less if he finds us or not.”

  Juliette frowned. “I don’t understand. Then why are you doing this?”

  “Because he took something very valuable from me years ago and I tend to hold a grudge.”

  Her frown deepened. “Years ago? You can’t possibly be old enough—”

  “I’m twenty three, but I’m told I look much younger. It comes in handy when dealing with certain people. They always mistake the appearance of youth for stupidity.”

  “Okay, but why haven’t you asked for whatever Killian took back? Just tell me what it is and I’ll—”

  “Unfortunately, that isn’t how it works.” He rose fluidly with the faintest whisper of silk. His feet barely made a sound as he started around her and headed for the bar. No one else moved, except Juliette, who turned to watch him. “My asking won’t give me quite the same satisfaction and I have waited too long for this moment to squander what little enjoyment I can garner from his misery.”

  “It must be horrible holding such bitterness towards a single person,” Juliette muttered, no doubt a very bad idea, but he laughed.

  “It has been.” He drummed nimble fingers on the table while he contemplated the rest of his words carefully. “For ten years I’ve waited and plotted and bided my time for this moment, the moment when I would finally have the Scarlet Wolf at my mercy.” He snorted and shook his head slowly. “I honestly never believed it would happen. Years I’ve watched while women paraded through his bed, one after another and nothing. I was just beginning to wonder if I needed to put him out of his misery and be done with it when the most remarkable thing happened.” Blue eyes glimmered like sunlight off clear waters as they lifted and fixed on her. “You.” He left his place at the bar and wandered back to her. “You, my beautiful Juliette, walked into his life and all that was missing was the heavens opening up and the angels singing the hallelujah chorus. Granted in the beginning I thought that you would be like all the others, just another whore to be cast aside, but then I saw it. I saw the way he looked at you. The way he touched you. I saw it all right there and it was like Christmas. You brought the beast to his knees and tamed him. You made him love you. You weakened him and left him completely open and vulnerable.”

  You make me weak and weak men die. Killian’s final words to her echoed between her ears. They rebounded off every bone until it was ringing throughout her entire body in ripples of truth and guilt.

  “Thanks to you, he will now know what it feels like to lose something so incredibly precious that the very thought of living another day without it is unbearable. He will know genuine pain as his entire world is ripped apart. I have dreamt of this moment for ten years and you helped make it happen.”

  He was practically panting, practically glowing. Happiness radiated soft pink blossoms
in his cheeks and danced behind the enormous smile stretching his face. His delight in Killian’s misery made her stomach hurt. It made her anger prickle and she had to resist the urge to punch her weapon straight into those wide eyes.

  “You’re crazy if you think I’ll ever help you hurt Killian,” she whispered instead.

  Straight, white teeth flashed in an almost Cheshire cat smile. “Oh, but you already have. Those videos you’ve been kind enough to help us make, what did you think they were for? My personal amusement? I’m fairly certain he’s beside himself watching that last one, wondering just what we’re doing to you right now. It will eat him up alive. It will destroy him. By the time I am through, Killian McClary will be on his knees, begging me to end his suffering.”

  The hatred turning his features demonic was terrifying. It twisted his perfect features into something evil and frightening. It was as though his hatred could manifest itself in human form and it was a terrible sight to behold.

  “Why are you doing this?” she asked again. “What has he done that was so horrible it justifies kidnapping and murder?”

  He turned away from her slowly and made his way back to the bar. He drew down a crystal tumbler and set it on the table with a resounding crack. A bottle of whiskey was brought out and placed next to it. The amber liquid sloshed in its confines, reminding her of liquid honey.

  “I’ve got my reasons and believe me, they are quite justified.”

  Ice cubes struck the bottom of the glass with a rattling clink and was drowned by whiskey. The bottle was set aside. The cap twisted back into place. He raised the drink. Light lanced off the rim as he brought it to his lips.

  “If you let me talk to him, I am sure I can get back whatever was taken,” she urged. “I know he will. Please, you don’t have to hurt anyone.”

  “Have you ever heard the story of Tantalus?”

  The question threw her. It was said so unexpectedly that for a moment, she could only stare at him in confusion.

  “I’m sorry?”

  Drink in hand, Cyril made his way back to the sofa. He sat with flawless grace, folding one leg over the other and observing her over the rim of his drink.

  “Tantalus,” he repeated like saying it a second time might help jog her memory.

  Juliette shook her head. “No, who—?”

  “Tantalus betrayed the Gods by divulging their secrets and stealing from them. But the worst betrayal was the day he killed his son Pelops and cooked him in a meal, which he served to the Gods. They of course knew and didn’t eat it, except Demeter who accidentally ate a part of Pelops’ shoulder. But as punishment, they cast Tantalus into the deepest part of Tartarus where he was to remain in the middle of a large lake with an apple branch dangling just over his head. He would stay there forever, unable to eat, despite the apples and unable to drink, despite an entire lake at his feet. All because of one little betrayal. It’s a powerful and horrible tool that can destroy everything.”

  Juliette had never heard of the story, but it sounded completely disgusting.

  “I don’t understand.”

  She prayed to God that wasn’t how he was planning to end his game, by cooking her and feeding her to Killian.

  “The moral of the story is how Tantalus treated the Gods, who were so good to him. They cared for him and no matter what he did, they forgave him and continued to give him their favor. But it wasn’t enough. He was greedy and selfish. In the end, it consumed him.”

  No matter how much he said, he seemed to make less sense the longer Juliette listened. His riddles were only making her head hurt and she needed to focus in case she missed something important.

  “That was how it all began, with Callum McClary betraying my father, ruining him and his reputation after my father made Callum what he was, for treating him like family. But it wasn’t enough. Callum got greedy. He sold my father out, got him arrested like some common criminal and thrown in jail. It didn’t matter what my father did after that. No one wanted to work with him. No one trusted that he could deliver. So of course my father was angry. He had every right to be.”

  “Yegor Yolvoski,” Juliette whispered, not sure how she knew, but knowing without a shadow of a doubt.

  Cyril’s head lifted, surprise stilled his drink halfway to his lips. “So you’ve heard the story.”

  Juliette swallowed. “It was an accident. Callum didn’t call the authorities. They just—”

  “They were tipped off,” Cyril cut in, taking up his drink once more and downing a large mouthful. “Someone told them where the ship would be. It was also highly suspicious that the minute Callum McClary broke their contract my father would get caught immediately after.”

  “But that was so long ago,” she stressed. “Everyone involved is dead. Can’t you let it—?”

  “They are dead because your boyfriend killed them.” He set his drink down with a deafening crack on the end table next to his elbow. “He slaughtered my entire family in a single night. Everyone, but me.”

  His bitter hostilities towards that fact caught Juliette by surprise. It was as though the worst thing Killian ever did was let him live.

  “Your father tortured and brutalized his mother and killed his father,” she pointed out. “Maybe it’s time to end this.”

  “No!” Temper turned his cheeks a harsh, sunburned red. With his soft, pink suit, he reminded her of a fancy lobster. “His father betrayed mine. Mine got even. That is where it should have ended. It was over. Callum broke the code. My father let him live. That should have been enough. But Killian sought vengeance instead and I am amazed by how unperturbed you are by his viciousness while when I seek the same justice, you get upset. Is it because I want your life?” The genuine confusion in the question had his head cocking to the side. “Would you be less distressed if I were to take someone else in your place?”

  Juliette gave her head a shake. “I don’t want it to be anyone. I just want to go home.”

  “To him?”

  She didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Yes.”

  Even if Killian didn’t want her.

  Cyril’s arm lowered slowly. The ice in his glass rattled softly as his hand settled neatly in his lap and he regarded her with open puzzlement.

  “Is he home? That murderer? That … monster?”

  “Yes,” Juliette whispered again. “He’s not the way you say. I know he’s not. Killian isn’t a monster.”

  He stared at her. A faint dent appeared between his furrowed eyebrows and was shadowed by the wisps of hair that had escaped across his brow. There was a question in his eyes she didn’t understand.

  “It was him,” he insisted at last, refusing to believe her. “I saw him with my own eyes, standing over my mother, drenched in my father and brothers’ blood. It was a sight I will never forget.” Pale lashes lowered. He peered at the glass in his hand like all his memories lay within next to the abandoned chunks of ice. “My father had been doubling security for weeks since the systematic murder of his men the last two months. He’d known it was only a matter of time before the threat came to our doors. That night, when the alarms sounded, my mother put me in a closet. She made me promise not to come out no matter what I heard. Then she kissed me, said she loved me, and left. That was the last time she would ever say those words to me.” The hatred in his eyes when they lifted to bore into her curdled the contents of her stomach. “I broke my promise and left the cupboard. I’d already heard my brothers being killed, heard the weight of their bodies hitting the ground, their screams … I’d heard my father begging for my mother’s life and I knew she was next. So, I ran to her, not caring if I was killed too. She was on the floor, surrounded by the bodies of my family. My eldest brother was pulled into her lap and she was sobbing like I had never heard before. The sound was horrible. I wasn’t even sure it was human. But Killian stood over her like an angel of death descending on my family. But I couldn’t let him have her, not my mother. I threw myself between them. I swore I would kill him if he
touched her and he just stood there, staring at me with those black eyes, his face splattered with blood. I was so sure he would kill me too. But he didn’t. Even then, he was mocking me. It was a game to him, poetic justice. My father spared him, so he would spare me so I would live on knowing his pain.”

  “No!” Juliette blurted. “You were a child. You had nothing to do with what happened to his mother. He would never have hurt you.”

  “That was his mistake, wasn’t it?” Cyril set his glass aside. “He gave me ten years to study him, to learn his weaknesses, waiting for the day I would finally put an end to him.” His nostrils flared. “I lost everything that night and I will make him lose everything. Starting with you. Once I am satisfied I have tortured him enough, I will start all over again with his sister. I would have kept that fat cow of his for the same purpose, but she disgusted me too much.”

  Juliette gasped. “You killed Molly?”

  Cyril grunted, lips curling back. “Cutting into her was like slaughtering a pig. She practically exploded. Had a harder time with her husband. All bones,” he explained like that too was appalling. “Nevertheless, while it wasn’t exactly satisfying, I enjoyed watching Killian’s misery.”

  You need help! Juliette wanted to scream.

  “Killian will kill you,” she said instead. “If you hurt me or Maraveet, there won’t be anywhere you can hide.”

  Cyril seemed unfazed by her declaration. He sighed quietly and turned his head away in clear boredom.

  “What time is it, Delgado?” he asked the man on his right.

  The man checked his watch. “Nearly one, sir.”

  Cyril pursed his lips. “We’ve wasted enough time. Let’s get started.”

  Juliette stiffened. “Start what? What’s going on?”

  Cyril fixed his attention back on her even as Alcorn and Calhoun rose to their feet. “Our man inside has gone silent. While I don’t think we’ll be found here, I don’t relish being proven wrong.”

  “Man inside?” Juliette mimicked, needing to keep him talking. “You mean Marco? How did you get him to work for you?”