“Esther.” Dylan bent down, held her arms and smiled into her face. “You were afraid when you went after those men who abused you, and sent them to prison. You were terrified when you stood at a board and let me throw knives at you, but you did it.”
“Because I trusted you,” she insisted.
“And now is not the time to give up on that, or have any doubt about yourself. These past weeks, you’ve survived without me and you’ve cared for Melanie. Now she needs you, just as you needed me, and so does Greta.”
She nodded. “I know.”
“Support, I can give you.” He opened a tool box and took out a cell phone, handing it to Esther. “It’s time you spoke with Yvette. She will call you within the hour and explain things to you that I haven’t got time to explain. Once you have spoken to her, destroy the phone.”
“Yes, Master.”
. “Right now, I need to talk to Yvette and I want you back inside with those girls. I want you to talk to Greta and find out more about these girls.”
“You’re going to get them out,” Esther said.
“If I can, but Mairead is my priority. Now go and I will be in soon.”
When she was gone, Dylan switched on his earpiece.
“Yes, Master?”
“Yvette, Leo Ashrukov, all you can get on that name and, in particular, his house near a coast somewhere within two hours flight of the city. I want the schematics, everything. I want phone numbers and I’ll eventually need to route a call to them through a secure network, possibly in the early hours of the morning. I’ll need you to be in constant contact with me for the next several hours.
“I’ll also need you to get Carl to assemble at least three of his most trusted crew, and have him pilot a chopper for me. Let him know, there will be some illegal activity. The choice has to be his.”
“Carl would never refuse, Master.”
“I know, but he needs to know this is a highly dangerous operation. Tell him it may also involve a few fireworks.”
“Fireworks?”
“He’ll know what I mean. Yvette, listen to me. I’m with Esther now, but Mairead… I think they have her.”
There was a harsh intake of breath before Yvette spoke. “But you’re going to get her back.”
“I am,” he nodded. “But, you understand what that could mean, don’t you Yvette.”
She paused and then quietly replied. “Yes.”
“All connections must be severed between here and Paris, and you’ll need to be here. You should probably make plans in the next day or two.”
“Yes, Master.” Her voice was weak.
“It’s going to be alright, Yvette. We’ll get through this.”
“If that is what you believe,” she replied. “Then I believe this too.”
“Good girl. I’ll talk to you soon.”
He hung up and stared back at the house with another problem inside. It wasn’t the time to tell Greta about her mother. The girls were emotional enough, and the last thing he needed was for Lena to be pulled back into this mess. She was safer where she was and he would instruct Yvette to make sure Greta and Lena were reunited. As for his own hope of seeing her again, he now knew it had been for the best that he had said goodbye.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
In the past hour, Mairead had managed to ignore her terror, while trying to learn anything she could about her abductors. An older man, Eddie, was the one who was holding her. Another man in the front was Yuri.
The van stopped and Mairead felt the first grip of fear as Eddie pulled out a knife and held it to her throat. He whispered in her ear. “Silence.”
Yuri was talking and laughing with someone. “A very busy day. No rest for the wicked. You take care, Terry.”
The van moved again and Eddie continued. “The van will stop again and you will walk with me. We’re about to take the next part of our journey, one that I do not enjoy and which puts me in a foul mood, so don’t do anything you’ll regret. Is that understood?”
“Yes.”
When the van door opened, Mairead was stunned to realise that they were near Wellington airport, but far from the main terminal. A single hangar housed a light aircraft and a helicopter waited on the tarmac. Any hope of rescue was thwarted by the verbal exchanges of the employees being in Russian. There was no one about to come to her aid.
She was marched across the tarmac and ushered into a middle seat in the helicopter between Yuri and Eddie, who cabled her hands again. Asya sat up front with the pilot. The moment they had taken off, Yuri pulled a black cloth bag down over Mairead’s head.
During the flight, she sat silently in darkness, listening to the two men speaking in Russian over her. Occasionally, she heard snoring and was thankful Asya was still effected by the drugs.
The isolation in the dark bag allowed her to assess her situation. She was terrified, but she had to steel herself for the reality of what lay ahead. They wanted information that she didn’t have, but that wouldn’t stop them for trying to get it out of her in the most brutal of ways. Asya had made that quite clear.
Escaping was the only option. Somehow she had to stay calm and wait for any opportunity that presented, and then seize it for all it was worth. It meant that she had to stay vigilant and not allow herself to sink into some dark recess in her mind to deal with the horror.
Mairead remembered only too well, when Barry had cornered her on a bridge. She’d escaped by climbing under it and clinging to the structure, while hanging precariously over a raging river. He’d done everything to get at her, even urinating on her, while intimately describing what he would do to her.
The terror had nearly destroyed her. She’d come so close to letting go, giving up, rather than fall into his hands. Instead, she had held on and survived. Now Barry was dead and she was still alive.
She felt the helicopter descending and her heart picked up pace. There was the jolt of the landing and bodies moving away from her, before the bag was pulled from her head. As she was removed from her seat, she got the first glimpse of her surroundings and started taking it all in. There was a house in the distance, obscured by trees. At least ten men were patrolling the grounds with rifles slung over their shoulders. Some were in suits and others were in black fatigues. Her determination to survive deflated a little.
This wasn’t what she had expected. Dylan didn’t have a chance against the likes of this setup, even if he could find her. Any hope of securing her own freedom was fragile but it was all she had. Pleading for them to be merciful would only entertain them, but too much bravado might work against her. She had to make her captors believe she was too scared to try anything.
Eddie had a firm grip on her bicep and for a while she walked beside him until the enormous house loomed before her. The patrolling men stopped to stare at her. Mairead suddenly pulled herself from Eddie’s hold, shaking her head as she fell to her knees on the lawn, hyperventilating.
Eddie glared down at her. “Get up.”
“I can’t. I don’t want this. I don’t want you to hurt me.” Her body was shaking. “I don’t know anything. I don’t know how to find him. Please, just let me go.”
It was Yuri who pulled her to her feet by the front of her clothes. She was shocked by the new face so close to hers. He might have been a handsome man, but his nose was swollen, with dried caked blood at his nostrils and bruising under his eyes.
His upper lip was curled in a snarl. “What the fuck did you do to my sister, you fucking cunt?”
Mairead stared fearfully up at him, bracing for a physical assault, but Eddie stepped right up to them.
“Let her go,” he told Yuri quietly.
Yuri burned his glare into her before shoving her away. Mairead stumbled back but kept her footing. She bowed her head and waited for whatever would happen next. Thankfully, it was just Eddie gripping her arm again. She kept her gaze on the ground and was led over lawn and concrete, up white marble steps and onto polished timber floors. Inside the house, ther
e were more Russian voices, new ones and several people engaged in conversation around her. She stood waiting, staring at the one spot on the floor before she was led into an enormous room. The cable ties were cut from her wrists but it was a temporary relief before she was sat in a tall wooden chair. Two of the suited thugs crouched either side to tie her wrists to the back and her ankles to the legs.
Someone else stepped in front of her in polished black shoes.
“Look at me, bitch.”
Mairead lifted her head and saw a thin faced man, barely thirty years old with dark, beady eyes and stubble on his upper lip. His eyes searched her face and he grinned.
“Not bad.” He looked at Eddie. “And I hear she’s pregnant?”
“So she says.”
“I’ve got a doctor here that’ll confirm it. He’s staying on a few days while my new girl gets put through her paces, but he’s with Asya at the moment.” He looked back at Mairead. “What did you give her?”
“150mg of diazepam,” she answered quietly.
The man shrugged. “She’ll live, but you shouldn’t have done that. Asya doesn’t have the sweetest temper at the best of the times.”
Mairead said nothing. The men returned to speaking in Russian and she watched them walk away, leaving her alone in the room. The cable ties were biting painfully into her skin.
A few minutes later, Eddie returned, bringing a bottle of water. He held it up for her to drink from.
“How far along are you?”
“About four months,” she replied, avoiding his gaze.
“And how the fuck did you get involved with Zaleski?”
“He saved my life, more than once.”
“So you’re in love with him?”
Mairead frowned. “Yes.”
Eddie chuckled. “Yes, and I’m the Queen of fucking England. I’ve read a lot about you, and I don’t doubt there is something between you and Zaleski, but that’s not his child you’re carrying.”
She glared at him for the first time. “Does it matter? Asya has already made it quite clear what she’s prepared to do, for information I don’t have. I haven’t seen Dylan since the day your men came after us.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t be bringing that up if I were you. Eight or nine men were lost that day. It’s still a bit of sore subject with some of the other men here.”
“I lost a friend, too,” she told him angrily. “And for what? Because you have some stupid vendetta with Dylan from years ago.”
“That stupid vendetta, as you call it, was the death of my brothers, one who was Asya and Yuri’s father. Another was scourged alive by your friend and his arm cut off. He lived for a while but died of infection a month later.”
Mairead shook her head. “Dylan wouldn’t do that. You have the wrong man.”
“No we don’t. I’ve known Zaleski since he was just sixteen. We were in prison together, where I watched him kill five other men, three of them with his bare hands. It was carnage. I’d never seen so much blood. He was covered in it. It was the closest I ever came to shitting my pants.”
“Who were they?”
“Russian Special Forces, sent in to clean up the prison. They didn’t succeed.”
“And what makes you better than him?” Mairead asked bitterly. “I’ve done nothing to you or your family, but that didn’t stop you from trying to destroy mine.”
“If I recall,” he replied angrily. “You were about to take my niece hostage, which tends to make me believe you know exactly where Zaleski is.”
“He never put me up to that. I did that on my own.”
Eddie laughed. “I see. You planned that all on your own.”
“I did,” she insisted. “If you know Dylan so well, do you really think he would have let me do that? I don’t even think he knew who Asya was, because if he had, she would’ve had more to worry about than me.”
Eddie frowned and Mairead could see that she had him thinking, but at that moment Yuri returned.
“The doctor says to bring her in.”
Mairead gasped and looked at Eddie, shaking her head. “Please, don’t let them do this.”
“Shut your fucking trap,” Eddie snarled, pulling a knife from his belt. He began to cut the ties. “If you don’t want to see the doctor, now would be a good time to tell us where Zaleski is.”
Mairead was stunned by the sudden shift in his mood. “I told you, I don’t know and I explained…”
Her words were cut short as Eddie backhanded her hard across the face, sending her sprawling to the floor. Her mouth filled with pain and blood and she lay there whimpering and terrified.
“Get up.”
Mairead got to her feet, but wouldn’t look at him. Yuri was chuckling.
“Well done, Uncle.” He went straight to Mairead and seized her hair into his fist. “The doctor is waiting and Asya is feeling better now and looking forward to seeing you, so fucking move.”
He kept hold of her hair and pushed her forward, making her walk at a brisk pace. They went through the house to another room. The door was open and Mairead was pushed all the way inside until she was standing at a desk. Yuri released her.
The small room was starkly lit and looked something like a doctor’s office with the ominous presence of a stainless steel examination table with black nylon restraints attached to it. A small, balding man sat at a desk, writing notes. He didn’t look at her when he spoke with a Kiwi accent.
“How far pregnant are you?”
“Four months,” she whispered.
“We’ll see. Remove your clothes.”
Her face flushed and Mairead felt she was about to throw up. She lifted her head enough to look at Eddie who returned her gaze impassively. Yuri was still glaring at her and there were others in the room. Two of the guards were leering at her and Asya was sitting in a chair, looking weary and furious.
“That should be easy for a slut like her,” she commented dryly. “She loves flashing her body to men.”
Mairead turned her attention to the floor again, growing more afraid and uncertain. She was alone with a roomful of people who hated her and needed little excuse to hurt her.
The doctor looked up at her. “I said, remove your clothes or the men will do it for you.”
Mairead felt an instant hatred towards him. The fact that he wasn’t Russian like the others, seemed a greater betrayal. She sensed that he would enjoy seeing her forcibly stripped and she had no intention of being fodder for his pleasure.
The anger gave her enough strength to begin the unpleasant task. Jersey, t-shirt and track pants were discarded, until she was down to her underwear. Mairead stared down at the floor, aware of men’s voices murmuring nearby with the occasional chuckle.
“Your underwear too.” The doctor was sitting back in his chair watching her smugly.
She glared at him. “Why?”
“Because I fucking said so.” He stood up angrily and was a little taller than her.
Mairead knew that one kick between his legs would drop him and have him screaming, but would only invite the others to attack her.
She shook her head and glared at him. “No. If you want to establish that I’m pregnant. Then use your fucking eyes.”
He was taken aback by her refusal and moved back. “Someone take over here.”
Mairead looked to Eddie and spoke quickly, as the two hulking men moved towards her. “It’s a measurement from the pubic bone to the top of the uterus. It’s all you need.”
Eddie held up his hand. “Wait.”
The men stopped and looked to him. Eddie chuckled. “You really haven’t quite grasped your situation have you?”
Mairead gritted her teeth. “Of course I have. You want to break me completely and show me how much power you have over me, which I already understand. Anytime you could torture of kill me or let your men have their way with me, and for what? It won’t make me fear you any more than I do right now. It won’t give you information I haven’t got, but do you really need t
his fucking pervert to shove his fingers up my cunt on the pretence of something medical?”
Eddie eyed the doctor. “Is what she says true about this measurement?”
“In theory,” The doctor shrugged. “But…”
“Then just fucking measure her.” Eddie looked at Mairead. “Get on the table and lie still.”
It was obvious the doctor wanted to protest, but Mairead was too weary with grief to savour any victory. She walked to the table and climbed on, sitting facing her audience. All their eyes were upon her as she lay down, keeping her thighs pressed together.
When the doctor came to her, Mairead had never wanted to hurt anyone so badly. It took a harsh summoning of her will to keep still when she felt his gloved fingers touch her pubic bone while his other hand pushed down on her stomach. Her gaze remained fixed to the ceiling until the measurement was taken.”
“The size of the uterus indicates that she is about four months.”
He was standing well back as Mairead shakily climbed off the table, glaring at him bitterly.
“I hope you die horribly.” She spat at him,
“You fucking bitch.” The doctor wiped her spittle from the front of his shirt, as he turned his shocked look to Eddie. “Are you going to let her do that to me?”
He shrugged. “She’s already done it. What do you want me to do?”
“May I get my clothes on now?” Mairead asked him.
“Sure,” Eddie replied.
Asya came striding towards him. “What the fuck is going on? You’re letting her walk right over us. This bitch tried to kidnap me and do a whole lot fucking worse. Let’s stop this fucking pussy footing, and demand an answer from her.”
“And if she’s hasn’t got one.”
“Then let the doctor extract one from her.”
Eddie shook his head. “And take a chance that she dies, and then what do you have to bargain with Zaleski?”
“We show him we’re serious.” Her eyes were wild, staring up at him. “We can keep her alive, and still kill the child inside her.” She looked at the doctor. “This can be done, can’t it?”
“It has risks at this stage of the pregnancy,” he shrugged. “But it can be done. Of course, I would need more equipment than I have here.”
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