The Darkest Hour (Running with the Devil Book 1)

by Jasmin Quinn

  “There’s way more to your relationship with the Russians than you being coerced into giving me up. ‘The Judge is waiting’ they said. Fuck, I thought they were talking about Malcolm. I should have known better. This explains so much.” She looked around the room, waving her arms. “This house, the security, the private education. And you, never home, no one ever here, but me and Owen and the help. All these years, you’ve been in the Russian’s pockets.”

  Kelsie’s father slammed his glass on the coffee table, the scotch swishing over the sides. He got up from the sofa and strode over to Kelsie, looming in front of her, furious with her. “I am not ‘in their pockets’, as you so inelegantly put it. They’re in mine.” He was seething. He gestured with his hands as Kelsie had. “I worked hard for all this and I needed to – I had to ensure that you and Owen stayed safe. And both of you throw it back at me as if it was nothing. I gave up everything for you, you ungrateful little bitch, including your mother, and what do I get in return? You can’t even sustain a relationship with a man like Keith, someone who would have been a brilliant partner. No, you get a little bad news from the doctor and then you walk away from me, as if you don’t owe me anything!”

  “That’s not how it happened!” Kelsie snapped back but Randall stopped her.

  “It is how it happened, princess. But that didn’t stop you from using my connections to pin down a plumb job. How the fuck do you think a fresh out-of-law-school useless little shit like you got to be assistant to the Vancouver Regional Judge? It sure as hell wasn’t based on your intelligence or your sparkling personality.”

  Kelsie felt tears spilling out of her eyes as his words battered her. She knew that they were way off topic now, she knew logically that she had to reign it back in if she had any hope of getting Randall to save Dean’s life, but her emotions won over logic. “Fuck you, dad,” she snarled as threw the water in her glass at him and then hurled the empty glass at the fireplace hearing the satisfying sound of glass shattering.

  Randall grabbed her by the upper arm, and slapped her face so hard that she would have fallen if he hadn’t been holding her. She felt her teeth slice into her cheek and tongue. Her world crashed down on her then, the reality of everything, hitting her as hard as the slap. And Randall, not done yet, grabbed both arms and shook her violently. Then he flung her away from him, and Kelsie off-balance, hit the floor hard, with her hip and her head.

  “Look at you,” he derided her. “So malleable, aren’t you Kelsie? A couple of days with that asshole and he’s got you dressing like a slut.”

  Kelsie looked up at him from the floor, hearing his harsh words through her haze. She pushed herself up with her hands, sitting up. “He’s going to die if we don’t help him.”

  “Too bad, Kelsie.” Randall stepped over to her and jerked her up to her feet. “Because we are not going to help him. “

  “Dad, no.” Kelsie tried to twist out of his grip, but he grabbed her by the hair. “Do you want me to slap you again, Kelsie? And again, until you do as I say? What’s it going to take to turn you back in the quiet, respectful girl I raised?”

  Kelsie stopped struggling; she was no match for Randall’s strength. She felt rage and impotence. This entire week was about men overpowering her. When this was over, never again. But she let her dad lead her out of his study. Towards the kitchen. “Where are we going?” she asked fearfully, but Randall didn’t answer, he opened the door to the basement, flicked on the light and shoved her in front him, forcing her to walk down the stairs.

  The lower level was as posh as the rest of the house, with a games room, a media room, a bar, a gym, a second unused kitchen and a wine cellar. It was the wine cellar that Randall dragged her to, flipping the door open and shoving her in hard enough for her to stumble and almost fall. She whirled around and looked at him. He was locking her in. She thought for a moment about breaking a bottle of wine and slashing her father with it, but she doubted she would be able to bring herself to do it. He was still her father. “Dad,” she said, pleading with him. “Please don’t do this.”

  “We both need a cooling off period, Kelsie. You’ll be fine down here for the night. I’ll come back tomorrow morning.” With that he slammed the heavy door shut and turned the bolt, leaving her in darkness. She ran over to the door, slamming at it with the open palms of her hands.

  “Dad,” she cried out. “Dad, let me out! Please!” But there was no response, she was alone.

  She reached over beside the door and felt for the light switch, flicking it on. The room was instantly bathed in soft light. She turned around, leaning her back against the door and sliding down until she was sitting on the cool hardwood floor. She felt a wave of hopelessness wash over her as she brought her knees up and hugged them to her body with her arms. She closed her eyes in despair and banged the back of head softly against the door. Her last image of Dean burned into her brain – strung up by his wrists by a chain, helpless to defend himself.

  Tears started sliding down her face as her thoughts took her to what was going to happen. He would be beaten, isn’t that what they said? But not killed, not yet. Not until the Russian boss got back. The thought of what they were doing to him was too horrifying for her and she tried to shift her mind away from the eventuality. There was still time to help Dean, save him. If she could get out of the wine cellar.

  Self-blame rose up in her. She should have been more strategic, agreed with her father, pretended that she understood. She should have played her emotions closer to her chest. Tried to find the believable balance between concern for a fellow human being and concern for her own well-being. Her father would have bought into it if she hadn’t gotten so angry at him.

  She opened her eyes and looked around the room. She had only been in the wine cellar a few times – the door was always locked so she could only ever enter with her father or one of the staff. There were rows and rows of wine bottles, on either side of the room, leaving a narrow walkway to the end of the room which widened into a small bar area, with stools and a round table with chairs. If she wanted to, she mused, she could drink herself to death. She tried to think about why her father would have built the room as he did. Perhaps a place to hold clandestine meetings, she wondered. Her father rarely entertained. He went out a lot, but she could count on her fingers the number of times her father had guests in the house. Never overnight that she could recollect.

  Yet here was a room that she was never allowed to enter unaccompanied. Always locked, but set up for entertaining. It struck her as odd, but then again, until an hour ago, she thought her father an honest, upstanding citizen. She slowly got to her feet, feeling the ache in her bones, and walked the length of the room past the bar to the walls opposite. She stood in front of the stonework and studied it. If he held meetings in here, away from prying eyes and ears, how would the people get in and out? She felt along the stone wall with her hands, trying to find a recess or outline that could be an entrance and exit.

  There was nothing, not on the walls, no secret switch under the bar, nothing in the bar fridge. As far as she could tell, there was only one entrance and exit out of this room, the one her father so unceremoniously pushed her through. She turned to look at the door as a thought played at the edge of her mind. What was it that was strange about the setup? She walked to the door and pulled at the handle. There was no give. The door was definitely locked. Then realization dawned on her. This door had two sets of locks – one that locked you out and one that locked you in.

  And she was locked in! She felt in the pocket of her leather coat and allowed herself a small smile of triumph as her fingers landed on the pins Dean had fashioned for her to pick his apartment lock. She almost laughed out loud at the absurdity of it. Three days ago, she was a lonely woman with an uninteresting job and little to think about except how she was going to spend her Saturday night. And now, here she was – decked out in leather holding lock picking tools between her fingers. Her lover was an undercover cop being held by the Russia
n mafia, her father was a criminal and she, well, she was a badass without a plan.

  But at least she could get the hell out of her father’s house. She struggled to pick the lock. She couldn’t maneuver the pin properly with her splinted fingers. Finally, in frustration, she unwrapped the bandage and pulled the splint off, throwing it to the floor. Her finger was stiff and sore, and uncooperative. After several attempts, Kelsie stepped back from the door and took a deep breath. For god sake, Kelsie. Dean is strung up in a warehouse, getting the life beaten out of him, and you’re afraid of a little pain in your finger. Suck it the hell up! Kelsie closed her eyes as she used her left hand to massage the joints of her right hand; a fissure of pain shot from the finger up her arm, but she kept massaging until it became a dull ache and the finger felt more pliable.

  She stepped up to the door again, gritted her teeth through the pain and on her first attempt, heard the bolt slide back. She breathed a sigh of relief as she dropped the pins back into her coat pocket. They were handy little fuckers, she thought and realized she was channelling Dean. The thought of him spurred her to action as she flicked off the light in the wine cellar and then cautiously, holding her breath, opened the door just a crack, peering into shadows cast from street lamps leaking in through the windows. She hoped her father wasn’t still down in the basement, thought that if he was, he would have heard her at the door and be on her already. Still, she needed to be cautious. She stepped back inside the wine room. She wasn’t going to kill him, she thought as she plucked a full wine bottle off the rack and felt its weight in her hand. She smiled grimly. But she sure as hell would have no problem using a fine chardonnay or whatever it was to knock him on the head if he or anyone else got in her way.

  She held the bottle by its neck as she left the wine cellar and scoped the room, listening for sounds, looking for danger lurking in the shadows. But her Randall wasn’t there. She walked silently and surely through the familiar room, to the sliding glass doors that led out to a lower deck. She flipped the lock and slid the doors open to limit the noise. She felt the welcoming rush of cool air on her face as she stepped out onto the deck. She closed the door behind her and walked away from the house, from her father.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Kelsie started running as soon as she was out of sight of the house. At first it was an all-out sprint, fueled by fear and anxiety. When she was several blocks from the house, she slowed to a jog, and then exhausted and out of breath, to a walk. She clutched at her side, trying to catch her breath, wishing she was more consistent with her running. Of course, before this weekend, she thought wryly, she had no reason to be more consistent with her running.

  She continued to walk, without any real intent other than to get further away from her father’s house. She was still holding the bottle of wine, and as she looked at it clutched tightly in her right hand, she wondered if she shouldn’t get rid of it. She realized that her only plan had been to escape the wine cellar, she had no other thought beyond that at the time. But now that she was out and safely away from her dad, she was at a loss as to what to do. She stopped then and looked around her. Still residential, but there was a bus stop half a block up with a shelter and a bench. At least she could sit and catch her breath, decide what to do next, find a little respite from the cool fall wind.

  The shelter was empty as Kelsie approached and she gratefully dropped down on one of the benches. Her legs burned, her finger hurt, she felt bruised and battered. She couldn’t stay here long, she knew. If her father found her gone, he would be out looking for her, or calling that fucking Russian, Anto, to come find her.

  As she sat thinking a bus pulled up to the stop. She stood up as the bus driver opened the door.

  “I have no money,” Kelsie said, feeling desperate tears slide from her eyes.

  “Have you been drinking?” the driver asked her as he eyed the bottle of wine in her hand.

  She looked down at the bottle and then up to the face of the bus driver. “I haven’t…” she started. “I had to get out of the house…”

  The bus driver flicked his eyes from the bottle to Kelsie’s face, from her wild hair, to her red eyes, to the evident bruise on her cheek and her split lip.

  “Get on,” he said, as he motioned with his head.

  “Thank you,” Kelsie whispered as she got on the bus and took a seat near the front but not too close to the driver. There was no one else on the bus and Kelsie wondered what time it was. She wiped at her eyes, and sniffled. No tissue, so she pulled the bottom of her shirt up to wipe at her nose. As the bus pulled away from the curb, she felt a fleeting moment of relief replaced immediately by despair as she thought about Dean and what was happening to him. She was a fool, she thought bitterly. She had believed her father would help her and so she didn’t pay enough attention to the location of the warehouse when they drove away. She knew she wouldn’t find it again.

  The driver made her jump when he spoke. “Where to?”

  She looked up, could see his eyes in the mirror looking back at her. She shrugged and looked out the window, a fresh round of tears threatening. “I don’t know,” she said, barely audible.

  The driver pulled up to the next bus stop and put the bus in park. For a minute Kelsie thought he was going to kick her off. But he didn’t. He turned toward her. “How about VPD?”

  Kelsie looked at him. Maybe the Vancouver Police Department was exactly where she needed to go. She could get them to help her, tell her story. Even if Dean’s handler was on the Russian’s payroll, the chief would listen to her, believe her. She took too long to answer as the driver interrupted her thoughts again. “It’s none of my business,” he said. “But someone beat you up. I’m guessing your boyfriend.”

  Kelsie considered his kind brown eyes and then dropped her eyes to her lap and nodded slightly. Let him think it was a boyfriend, it was too hard to tell him the truth.

  The driver sighed. “I can’t go off my route, but there’s a stop a few blocks from VPD central. I’ll drop you there. It’s not the nicest part of the city but if you go directly to the station you should be okay.”

  “Thank you.” A kindness from a stranger, the first she’d encountered in days. The driver turned off the bus then and walked to her. He handed her some tissue and then held out his hands.

  “Give me the wine. You can’t wander into VPD with a bottle in your hand, opened or not.”

  Kelsie looked down at the bottle she still had clutched in her hand. Then she held it out to him with a small smile. He grinned back and then opened the bus door, stepped off the bus and as Kelsie watched him, threw the wine in a trash can. She winced a little bit. It was a 2009 Sequoia Grove Cambium worth about $200. On the other hand, she thought bitterly as the driver started the bus and pulled away from the curb, it was not anywhere near as dear to her father as some of his other rarer wines. She perversely wished she had been more particular about her choice of weapon.

  The bus driver and Kelsie both sat in silence for the next 20 or so minutes. The bus passed empty shelters, no one got on or off. Kelsie was grateful for that. She didn’t know who travelled the bus in the middle of the night besides drunks and abused women. And she’d had enough drama to last a lifetime, so wasn’t really wanting to field anymore problems.

  Finally, the driver pulled the bus over to an empty downtown shelter. He turned to Kelsie. “This is where you get off. VPD is just a couple of blocks south,” he said as he pointed. “Go there, talk to them. They’ll take you to the women’s shelter.”

  Kelsie slid off the seat and walked up to the front. “I don’t know how to thank you,” she said.

  He looked at her, at her bruised face, her split lip. “Just don’t go back to him.” He opened the bus doors.

  Kelsie nodded to him and stepped off the bus, into the cool night air. She didn’t know what time it was, she should have asked the driver, she thought as he pulled away. It seemed like hours had passed and maybe they had. She was losing track of everything.
She felt afraid again as she stood at the bus stop, desolate, a lonely figure in a city of lights. Then she started walking in the direction the bus driver pointed. There were only a few people on the streets, none of them paying her any attention. She thought back to Dean’s lessons, they seemed a million years ago. But as she remembered, she straightened her back, lifted her head and lengthened her stride. Oddly, it helped. She felt a measure of her confidence returning as the fear faded into the wings. It was still there, but not so present.

  As she approached the VPD, she took a deep breath. She was ready for this, and even if Dean had warned her against talking to the cops, she had no other choice. She was the only one now that could save Dean and by god, she was going to do just that. She wasn’t going to lose the man she loved so soon after she found him.

  When she walked into the VPD, she felt her courage falter a little. Bright overhead fluorescent lights lit up the lobby making Kelsie feel vulnerable and exposed. The constable on duty looked up at her suspiciously. She knew what he saw – a woman in thrift store clothes, hair uncombed, no make-up, chipped fingernails, dirty and beaten - exhausted. He was judging her, assessing her. Deciding everything about her. “How can I help you?” he asked impassively.

  Kelsie walked over to him. He was behind glass, a safety measure she thought, given the time of night. She nervously bit at her bottom lip. “My name is Kelsie Scott. I would like to speak to the Chief Constable please.”

  The officer, whose name tag said Adam Brody, smiled a little. It wasn’t exactly condescending, but it was one of the smiles Kelsie saw on many men in power. Her father, her boss, her former fiancé. Like she had just said something laughable. And in a way, she had. She couldn’t have thought that it would be this easy to get past the front desk. “The Chief doesn’t work the night shift, miss. Is there something I can do to help you?”