Gone. Possibly dead. Badly wounded at least. Fuck yeah.
I was sorry they weren’t mine to kill. These ambushers shot straight and fast.
A straggly line of men, likely to be raskols, ran in, weaving past the trucks. As they passed downed guards, they shot them again.
By the time I was freed, Jurgen, Glass, and Randall had arrived toting scoped rifles. Now I knew who the first shooters had been. Rescuers, not worse. My heart slowed as relief washed in.
There were none still alive, except a moaning and crawling Gregor. The client lay silent and twisted with his cock still out and limp and half his chest blown away. My finger hurt but a man had tied it off with a cloth tourniquet before releasing me.
Sounds were muted. My head rang from a round that’d spun past my ear.
Jazmine clutched at my leg, wiping her face. “Show me your hand.”
“It’s fine. I’ll fix it after.”
“God, I’m sorry. I wish... Do you know these people?” The last was whispered after she climbed up and stood, and she stared up at me, desperately hoping.
“Yes. They’re friends. Wait. I’ll be back. Sit down on the chair. Okay?” I led her to it and made her sit.
A grim job waited for me.
After a quick hug, I went to Gregor, collecting the chunky stool on the way.
Glass followed me over, asking distant questions in his ridiculous Brit accent that I’d never been so happy to hear.
I watched Gregor claw at the ground whimpering, his face in the mud. Gloating wasn’t my thing...normally.
“Hello, you fucker.” I spat on him then kicked his side, drawing a small, coughing moan.
Disappointing, that I hadn’t boots on.
“You know, Gregor,” I croaked out, past the rage clogging my throat. “Evil bastards like you die because you make too many enemies. One day, the hate spills over, and you drown in it.”
I kicked him again, harder, and hefted the stool by one leg, considering my options. Heavy timber. The things he’d done to me and Jaz. A hundred times over, I’d killed him in my imagination. Beating him to a pulp with the stool would leave me satisfied but disgusted. Just standing over him, breathing in some of the putrid air he’d breathed out, and watching his wormlike movements, made me want to vomit.
“Your Ruger.” I held out my hand to Glass, giving him a bare smile. We went way back and didn’t need fancy hellos.
“Yeah?” He drew it from his holster and gave it to me. His bright white blond mohawk and aviator sunglasses stood out like a model ad billboard in a swamp. The man had perfected rugged male chic and his girlfriends knew it. “Who’s he?”
“The bad guy.”
Shooting him in the dick might be justice but I didn’t want to see his face while he still lived. I put a round into the back of Gregor’s head and he stilled instantly. Blood puddled under him. Then I emptied the rest of the clip until the back of his head was mush. The front? I flipped him over with my foot. Worse. Grass and dirt stuck to him, but he didn’t have a face anymore, just blood, meat, bone chips, and frothy redness.
Glass whistled. “Guess he wasn’t a nice man?”
“Fokken understatement of the year.”
Blood had spattered all over my legs and I prayed reincarnation was real because if he came back I could kill him again.
But it was done. Jazmine? I turned and saw her wide eyes fastened on Gregor, her mouth half open in shock. Then she shifted her gaze to me and her expression didn’t change.
My stomach flopped. Had I done bad again?
“Who is she?” Glass holstered the gun. “And man, we need to get that finger fixed.”
“A...friend.”
Holy crap. We were free. Damn finger was leaking again. I held the base of the stump, grimacing as I scanned the surroundings again for enemy and found nothing. Though the raskols were a worry. “Are they safe?”
“Yes. As safe as we can get.”
Jazmine was looking lost and everything in me was yelling go to her but there were things I had to say.
“Pretty thing. She looks like she needs someone to lean on.” Glass rubbed his chin with the back of his hand, while checking her out.
“Yes, and that’s going to be me.” In other words, fok off. “Wait.”
As I jogged to her, already I could see her withdrawing. I had to stop killing people around her. Or maybe I should just do it quieter – like without the ten shots to the back of the head. She hated Gregor and would’ve wanted him deader than dead, same as me, but doing it messily must’ve reminded her of my nastier tendencies. I’d definitely fucked up and hell if she didn’t owe me a finger.
I went to one knee beside the chair, looked her in the eye. “Hi.”
Her mouth quirked to the side. “Hi.”
“There’s a lot of bad stuff happening and I’m sorry you had to see it. But I can also see you need a hug.”
When I put up my uninjured hand to cradle the back of her head, she flinched but I carried on. This was one time she definitely wasn’t avoiding human contact...me contact.
“Come here.” I pulled her closer and into the angle of my shoulder and neck, pleased, after a few seconds, at her little mmm and wriggle.
“You’re free.”
She heaved out a long sigh then choked up. “I know.”
“Fok you’re strong, girl. Anyone else would be bawling their eyes out.”
“Hah.” Her hand came up, and she wiped at her face. “You aren’t.”
“I took my tough pills this morning. Though my finger hurts like hell still.”
“Tough pills? So that’s the trick. You should get some painkillers.”
“I will. Shut your eyes. You need to.”
“I...guess. Okay. Wait.” Then she went to sit up, except I kept her down. “The others! Are they looking to see if there are other women?”
“They will. I’ll ask soon. Shh. You close yours, I’ll close mine.”
Not that I did, but I felt her relax.
For a while we breathed together until Glass signaled to me. I kissed her head and rose. “Be back soon as I can.”
“’Kay.”
Glass waited, head angled. “We have to leave soon. You had questions?”
Where to start? “How the hell did you find us? Did the cleaning lady here send out a message?”
His perplexed look gave me the answer. “No. The police found out one of their own was killed and that you were here, and of course you’re one of us. Jurgen pays them enough. If you have possessions to grab, say so. We have to be out of here in an hour, before the cops officially arrive.”
So...” I figured it. “You’re doing their dirty work?”
“Exactly.”
Pieces were missing.
“How’d they know I was here?” I frowned. “The dead cop?”
“I heard a little girl knew your name and a messed-up version of my address and she told her mother. It went from there.”
“What? A little girl?”
“Yeah. The day they brought you here. You spoke to her after you saved her from a dog.”
“I can’t remember that, at all.” I shook my head. “Doesn’t matter.” I ran through the problems that might pop up. “If they have an office, can you grab records? Hard drives? I don’t want anything there pointing to me or to Jazmine. Plus...” Did I want to do this? Yes, I did. I needed the truth and I had a feeling she wasn’t going to supply it. “I’d like to see her records. Especially.”
He nodded. “We’re torching it anyway. The dirty cop has interests to be protected too. His friend died here. I’ll grab what I can – just it’ll be our secret. Okay?”
“Yeah. You know me. Mouth is zipped. Are you checking for other captives?”
Glass tapped his earpiece. “They’ve found three women in cells. All are going to be left alone for the cops to find. They’re well enough to wait. We can’t afford for more people to see our faces.”
“Casualties?”
&nbs
p; “Just your finger and one bullet wound through an arm. We can fly you out. The rest will be taking trucks on a long drive back down to Moresby.”
“Okay.” I turned to Jaz. “Her too. She comes with me on the plane, or I stay.”
“Shit. I guess the little Cessna can take you all. The climb out of the airstrip is a fucking tight one. We’ll have to jettison a few things. I don’t want to side-swipe a mountain.”
If I left her here, even with my friends, to drive out on miles and miles of roads, I’d be the worst man ever.
“We have to decide what to do with her, Pieter.” With the hand carrying his rifle, he gestured toward her. “She’s seen us all, knows you, and our rogue cop won’t be happy with a witness on the loose. Can we trust her?”
Good question. I did and I didn’t. “I think so.”
“We have to be sure. She can stay in the compound under lock and key until I talk to you some more.”
Under lock and key? After this? But he was right. No matter how bad Gregor had been, a ton of illegal acts had just been committed. I understood his problem.
“Now, go back to her.” He slapped my good arm. “We’ve been waiting days to get in here and if what I saw through the scope is any indication of what went on here, she’s going to need you.”
She did. If only I was sure she would agree with that, because now we were free I had to get used to normal etiquette with a woman. Whatever the fuck that was. She’d want to go back to Australia, where I couldn’t go, and the thought of losing her was combining with the finger pain to give me a big fat headache, as well as making me want to hit someone.
Chapter 24
His arm rested across my shoulders and with every bump, as the plane hit turbulence, I was rocked against his body, his muscles. I loved it, I wanted to wrap myself around him and let loose all my sorrow by weeping on him, knowing he’d understand that need. What I would soon have to do made me feel ill. When he spoke, his soft words seemed to grind their way to my heart leaving bits of me in their wake.
I was lost.
No collar, no wrist cuffs, no angel bracelet – they’d all been removed. Who was I now?
Having Pieter being so gentle after everything that had happened – the violence, the killing, the sense of freedom that had blasted its way inside me – it was too much. I could barely cope. One minute, a victim without any say in my degradation by that man...
My name is Andrew Gavoche. I am the father of David Gavoche.
That statement had embedded in my head. I’d never forget it, accompanied as it was by a barrage of confusion, then recognition, then terror.
The man who’d been orchestrating my torture wasn’t just having some terrifyingly illegal fun or exploring a deviant perversion, he wanted to destroy me.
The jump between that second and my old life as a freelance journalist had been too abrupt. At first I’d scrambled to recall the old me. I hadn’t known why David had died but it was clear I was being blamed.
Then the Client died, and Gregor too, after Pieter had spat on him, kicked him, and shot him so many times I’d been stunned by the callous ferocity.
He’s dead, you can stop, please stop, I’d wanted to scream. I’d seen enough of people killing each other. The sound, the blood, the stench of bowels from men shot through the guts – I could taste it on my tongue, the viciousness was so thick in the air. And after all that Pieter had come to me and held me, and made me accept his hug.
Fuck.
I’d done a 180-degree turn and just for that moment, I think I loved him more than a little. Which was making me have to hold back tears to the point of my head almost exploding from the ache in the middle of my forehead, chest, and stomach.
I was going to leave him and I was certain he had other ideas. No man was this this...what was the word? Nice would do...unless he wanted you in his bed.
Well, I’d been there and he was the best as well as the most insane lover I’d ever had.
And he scared me so much at times that my heart nearly stopped beating.
When he’d shot Gregor...and the knifing of the boy...those acts bounced around in my memory.
I would never be able to see him and not see them. I would never be free of the thought that he might do something like that again. I didn’t need this in my life. Safety, comfort, boredom – I needed those again, desperately.
I needed to get away, and yet I wanted to stay in his arms. He was something unique in my life. Why did he also have to be so wrong for me?
“We should be there in fifteen minutes.” He squeezed me. His finger stump with its gory bandage dangled against the seat rest, bouncing as the plane’s movement bounced his arm.
My mind went off on a tangent. A good one. I could repay some of his kindness.
“Time to loosen the tourniquet?” It had to be done, regularly, his friend and fellow ex-soldier Jurgen had told me, or risk killing off the rest of the finger.
“Sure. Can you do it again?” Pieter rested his hand on my lap.
Carefully I untied the little knot and released the pressure for a few minutes. At least it wasn’t gushing blood anymore. The end of the finger was gruesome. A sliver of bone wriggled. Ugh.
I glanced at Pieter. The man was made of rock. His face might be tense, but apart from a twitch at his wrist, he barely moved as I reapplied the tourniquet then arranged the bandage.
“Want a lollipop?” I grinned at him.
“For what?” His tone was incredulous.
“For being good. All the kids get one.”
“Your jokes will never win awards.”
“Mmm.” I snuggled back in and resumed worrying.
A few minutes later, he told me something that put ice back in my veins.
“We’re going to land at an airfield outside the main airport and drive into the city. Glass has a problem with trust.” He stroked my cheek with his finger. “You’re safe. I’m going to make sure a doctor examines you, meisie, but he wants you to stay inside his house until we figure out how to get you back to Australia. Okay?”
They were locking me up again. Okay, he asks?
I didn’t look up from my lap.
“Why can’t I fly back?”
“Because, there’s legal problems. These friends of mine who rescued us, like Glass...” He pointed with one finger forward, at the pilot.
Despite the drone of the engine, Glass heard and waved back lazily, without turning.
“If you arrive and people find out how you got here, bells will ring. The law will find out you were back there. That people rescued you. There’s a cop involved who helped organize this and he has to stay totally unseen. You would get questioned. People who are friends of friends would be implicated in murder, extortion, bribery.”
I swallowed. “So how do I get back home?”
“To Australia?” Big pause – like he was wondering about asking me to stay here? I could read him like a book. “The best way to avoid you being questioned, fingers being pointed, is for us to fly you back into Australia illegally. We have to smuggle you back in.”
Then what? Pretend I’d been wandering around Australia for weeks, unable to find my way home? I guess that was their plan. I could imagine the questions that would stir up. I would’ve been a huge news item for ages after I vanished. Not easy to explain away. But maybe they never meant to free me?
Pieter wouldn’t allow that, though, would he? I sent him a fleeting look. This man, I knew him like no other. How could I not, after all we’d been through? We’d survived the furnace together.
But I didn’t know this about him, because I’d seen how ruthless he could be. I’d also seen what he was willing to do to me in the name of just plain...showing me what I liked. Just because he thought I needed to know. He didn’t always ask before he did. It seemed I needed to escape, again.
I had this big Rottweiler of a man hugging me, like he’d turned puppy overnight. I wanted to soak this up, because it spoke to some new part of me that I never
thought I had. And I wanted him far, far away. The correct answer always was the safe one, right?
I turned my face into his chest and inhaled. He smelled so good.
Tears arrived and I let them leak onto my face silently.
Chapter 25
After the doctor left, I took a minute to check out the neat bandage on my finger stump. Having him chewing away bits of the sticking-out bone while I watched had been a little too personal. He hadn’t been keen on doing his surgery here, in Glass’s dining room, but the young doctor had adapted, laid out instruments like the big bone crunchers he’d used, injected the base of my finger with local anesthetic, then he’d gone to town cleaning up the debris and stitching me. Even without the X-ray he’d muttered about needing, he’d done a great job.
So now I had nine and a bit fingers and the woman upstairs I’d sacrificed it for was unhappy with us...with me, for keeping her locked in her room.
I went up the stairs two at a time, knocked after yelling, it’s me, Pieter, then unlocked the door. No protests were sung at me so I walked in. She was standing at the tall window, breeze blowing the lace curtains around her, looking out at the distant sea, over the tops of the houses. At least Glass had taste and had put in antique-style bars on his house.
Her little yellow-and-blue summer dress clung to her in all the right sexy places. I imagined one of Glass’s girlfriends was supposed to get it as a present. No shoes, but I liked her feet bare, and her calves too. I remembered running my hands up those while studying her body higher up, and her looking down at me, eyes bright, lips parted.
Damn. My hard-on had appeared as if to say, get to it. I wished.
“Hi.” I kicked shut the door.
There were six houses in this secured compound, and all of them belonged to Glass and people working for him and Jurgen. I knew some of the ways they earned money but had never dug too deeply. It wasn’t legal, that part I knew. I’d done some jobs for him, but I had a feeling he shifted drugs into Australia, as well as people circumventing the immigration laws.
Seize me From Darkness (Pierced Hearts Book 4) Page 16
