I laughed although I felt like crying, screaming out until my throat burned.
"I'll never tell you a thing."
He nodded toward the chief and ripped open the steel fire door. I could see through the silhouette of his body that it opened out into the street where the rain was falling almost sideways through the faint illumination of the street lamps.
"Wait," I croaked.
He walked on.
"Wait!"
He froze and turned back, thinking I was finally going to give in and tell him what it all meant. He smirked and closed the door back over.
"I need to know something," I said, grimacing with the pain as my blood pooled into my fingers. "I need to know why you're so angry. Is it because I killed your girls and know I can get away with it? Or it is because I could expose your vile pedophile ring and bring this entire city to its knees?"
He stared into my eyes, his face as rigid and cold as stone.
"Well? What hurts you more? Knowing that I’ve been taking your sordid group out member by member and there's nothing you can do to stop me? Or knowing that you can't murder me? I bet it hurts like hell knowing you can't simply murder a billionaire. Especially one that keeps the economy of this whole town out of the red. What would this place do without me, eh?"
Still, his face was icy and unmoving except for the twitch below his eye.
"Fuck you," he said and strode toward the door. "O'Neil! Make sure that bastard doesn't go anywhere."
"With pleasure," said the chief.
We both watched as the judge let the door slam shut as he disappeared out into the rain.
"So, are you in his pocket or the other way around?" I asked and O'Neil glowered at me.
"Keep your mouth shut," he said. "You'll stay conscious longer that way."
I struggled against my restraints one last time but knew it was useless. A moment later, the chief approached with a blade in his hand and sliced the ropes free from my wrists.
"Don't get used to it," he said. "He'll be back sooner or later and I’ll have to truss you up like a turkey again."
The blood ran back into my limbs in a shower of pins and needles. It felt so good to stretch and stand up, to feel the pain dissolve from my fingers.
"So you're in his pocket," I presumed.
He said nothing. But he didn't need to.
Chapter Two
ETTA
"Where's Lincoln?"
They both stared at me.
"Hello? I waved an arm in front of their faces.
Still, there was no answer.
It was like being trapped in a room with two robots. Their large, uniformed bodies swamped the cheap wicker chairs and made the room look like a miniature doll set. I wondered if they could talk at all or whether the police department was only hiring deaf and dumb meatheads these days.
"With all the judge's money I would have at least expected I could have been kept in a decent hotel instead of this... this freakin' piece of shit Bates Motel hell hole."
They both continued to stare at me in silence.
All I could do was stare back and at least be grateful that I wasn't hurt or in handcuffs. As I sat on the edge of the bed, I squinted to see through the blinds out to the parking lot. The only vehicle was the black police van, large and sinister like the men sitting across from me with their assault rifles laying across their laps like briefcases.
"If you two refuse to talk to me can we at least turn the television on?"
One of them nodded and adjusted the scarf that was around his mouth and nose. With the heat on it felt as though it was about a hundred degrees. The guys must have been baking under their bulletproof vests.
Not that I cared too much about them. I had other things to worry about. After we were bundled into the van, I watched as Lincoln and Berger were ripped out and dragged toward a warehouse in an area I didn't recognize.
After that, I was driven here but I didn't know exactly where that was. The place kinda looked familiar in a way that all of these places do.
I'd been sitting with my two captors ever since, staring at the walls in silence as they oozed with the charm and confidence of an android.
"Any preferences?" I asked as I reached for the TV's remote although I knew I wouldn't get an answer.
Both of them looked as though they had turned to stone.
"Old movies it is then."
I flicked through the channels until I found my favorite station. It was the one that played vintage movies from my grandmother's childhood on repeat. As the voice of Bette Davis drifted across the room, I began to feel safe. Well, in only the way you could ever feel safe while being kidnapped.
Lying back against the bed, I watched the silver scenes unfold. All melodramatic facial expressions and fast talking schemesters. It reminded me of being sick and off school with my grandma looking after me and bringing me glasses of homemade orange juice as we watched her favorite movies.
What I would do to see her now.
And I would do just about anything to see my mom!
I wondered if she ever did make it out on her sailing trip and I thought about what life would have been like if she decided on never going. I would be living with her instead of staying in the house with Phaedra. I would never have grown close to Lincoln. I wouldn't be in this room!
Beside me, one of the cops stirred and yawned. Rubbing his eyes, he jumped up and for the first time since we arrived, he spoke.
"I gotta get a soda," he said to the other guy. "You want one?"
"Sure."
I sat up and turned down the television.
"Woah. You can actually talk."
"You stay there," he said. "And keep your mouth shut."
He handed his rifle to his friend before disappearing out the door.
Then we were back to excruciating silence as the android left behind stared straight into my head, into my brain, into my soul.
"I guess you're not worried I'll call the police," I said.
His eyes burned into me.
"So... Is this like regular police protocol? Kidnapping and holding people hostage. Or am I just having a really unlucky day?"
He pulled down his scarf and revealed his face. It was handsome in a boyish way, chiseled with purposely grown stubble and a square jaw that looked as though it could take a punch. He pulled down the blinds to see where his buddy was before sauntering over to me.
"You're actually the lucky one," he said, his voice low and throaty.
"I am?"
"We were under orders not to hurt you," he explained. "Unlike that rich prick boyfriend of yours."
"Lincoln! You know where he is?"
He smiled and placed down his gun.
"I wouldn't tell you if I did."
"Bastard! You can't do this. Are you arresting us or not? You can't just hold us hostage like this! It doesn't matter that you're in a uniform or not. You can't do this!"
He licked his lips and placed a hand on my shoulder. It was heavy and hot and pulsing with strength.
"I think you'll find we can do whatever we want."
"But hurt me," I reminded him.
"Not unless you want me to."
What did that mean?
He took a step forward until his crotch was in my face. He was hard, his length visible as it pressed against the inside of his thigh.
I recoiled back and scrambled up toward the top of the bed. He laughed as he gripped my ankle and yanked me back down.
"You can't get away so easily."
"You can't do this!"
It was something I'd been screaming since we'd been captured. I'd yelled it until it felt like my throat was bleeding. Repeated it a hundred times. Now, it just felt like hollow words. Just like he said, they could do whatever they wanted. He was proving that right now.
"You can't get away with this," I said. "Once I'm outta here. Once Lincoln finds me there'll be hell to pay. You don't know who he is. What he's capable of!"
"Honey, I'm the one with the w
eapon. I'm the one you should you should be worried about."
He grabbed his dick and thrust it at me.
"Come on. I know what you rich girls like. You all wanna fuck a cop. Play it rough and dirty when you can."
"Get away from me!"
He was climbing up the bed toward me. Coming closer and closer until my back was pressed up against the wall. There was nowhere else I could go. When I thought my heart couldn't beat any faster, he took my wrists between his strong fingers and pushed me down into the bed.
"Please," I begged with tears rolling down the sides of my face. "Don't."
He licked his lips again and pushed me deeper down into the mattress.
"Please! Don't do it. Why wear a badge if you're not gonna believe in it."
He froze. His grip on me tightened. I'd hit his weak spot. He eased off a little but still kept a grip of my arms as his erection pressed into me.
"You like playing games?" he asked. "You like fucking up people's heads?Because it's not working. You can't play me."
"I just want you to let me go."
He lifted a hand to my face and traced a finger down the side of my cheek.
"I could have you right now if I wanted and there's nothing you could do about it."
I clenched my eyes shut and thought of Lincoln.
"Do you know the things that will happen to you if you do this?" I said.
He pressed himself into me harder.
"Stop talking, bitch!"
He slapped one hand over my mouth and unzipped his pants with the other.
I screamed against his palm, tasting the saltiness of his sweat. I kicked beneath him and struggled against his monstrous body but there was nothing I could do to stop him. There was no way I could move. Nowhere to go. It was going to happen whether I wanted it to or not.
The tears came fast and thick, making his hands slippery as it slid across my mouth.
"No!" I tried to scream but it came out muffled. "Please, no!"
He stared into my eyes as he ripped my jeans down over my hips and I braced myself for the rush of pain.
Then the door clicked open.
"Fuck! Gary what are you doing!"
His friend in blue was standing dumbstruck in the doorway with two cans of soda in his hands. He dropped them and rushed over.
"Get the hell off her!"
Gary zipped himself up and laughed.
"Woah, calm down buddy. I was just fooling around."
His friend glared at him in disbelief.
"We don't hurt her. Okay? Jesus fucking Christ!"
He clapped his hands to his head in despair.
"You can't just... You can't just... You're supposed to uphold the law. Not violate it!"
"Chill the fuck out," said Gary and rolled his eyes.
Taking a seat back in the wicker chair, he placed his gun back on his lap and lit a cigarette.
"Bored as fuck in here," he said and blew smoke up to the ceiling.
His friend ignored him and sat beside me.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
His eyes were soft and his face round and kind. He looked just as upset I was.
"No," I said. "I'm really not okay."
Tears fell onto the bed between us creating dark patches on the bed linen.
There must have been something that struck a chord with him, something that pulled at a human part of him because he rubbed my back like a father trying to cheer up a child.
"You wanna go for a walk?" he asked.
I nodded and dabbed at my eyes.
"That would be great," I said. "Please get me outta here."
Chapter Three
PHAEDRA
The floorboards smelled like rot and mold and mouse droppings. No amount of scrubbing or bleach could take the smell away. Somehow it only made it worse.
I dropped the cloth to the ground and wiped at my stinging eyes with the back of my hand.
My parents’ house.The family home. It was the only place we could hide. The only place where the children wouldn't be found.Rumors were beginning to run rampant around Broadwood. People weren’t holding back anymore. It was only a matter of time until they took the law into their own hands and arrived at my door with blazing torches and pitchforks.
That’s how I imagined them. Like vigilantes from a bygone era. The truth was that they probably wouldn’t give me such a warm introduction. In this modern world they’d take me out with their cars, ransack the house and film all its depravity with their brand new phones and broadcast it to the world.
At the back of the building, I heard a creaking floorboard. Just like when I was younger and I'd hear my mother step out from thekitchen to make her way down into the pantry in the cellar. Except my mother died years ago.Decades ago. And it is now only her ghost that creaks along the floors. Or maybe it is just my memory tricking me.
The house had been abandoned since long before I entered the Waters House but like a cat who can sniff its way home and return to mock its owner, I returned to the house as a sort of pilgrimage.
With no other children, my parents left the house to me in their will but I never wanted it. Couldn't bear the thought of living in it with all its sadness and gloom.
Now, as I tried to clean it, the walls were streaming with condensation. The floors sunk into themselves as they rotted upon the blackened foundations, ancient and crumbling. I leaned a hand out to the wall and fell how wet it was. The house was crying.
Or was it the children?
Getting them out of the Waters House so they wouldn't be discovered by Detective Berger and his team was a feat in itself. Keeping them captive here was something else. It churned my gut to know they were down there but there was nowhere else they could go.
Kennedy, the bastard. He was no help at all. The order of keeping the children hidden was all I was given. Bringing them to the house under the veil of night time was all I could do.
Now, far out in the country with the house shrouded by cornfields with nothing but the occasional sound of a screeching owl, there was nothing to do but clean and listen to them howl for their parents.
Their voices drifted up from the basement. Their sobs echoed up through the floors. I so badly wanted to rush down and hold all of them in my arms and kiss them until they stopped crying. But I would never do that.
It was always my policy to not get too close to them. They disappeared, got rehomed, went away with Kennedy and often didn't come back. I couldn't bear the thought of loving them. Not if it meant I would have to say goodbye.
Out on the porch, Kirsty was sweeping the leaves out into the mud. An intense look of concentration was burrowed into her forehead. Her lips were pulled tight into a straight line. I knew she wasn't concentrating on cleaning. Instead, she was trying to block out the sounds of the children below.
The numbers in the house were dwindling. When it was time to leave there were only a few girls left and only one who was part of the original team.If you could call it that. The word team gave off vibes of camaraderie and friendship, of fun and high spirits. There was none of that between us. Just a shared unmentionable secret we were condemned to keep against our will. Kirsty was the only girl I could trust. The only one who hadn’t succumbed to Bosworth’s desire to kill.
"I can hear them too," I said as I walked outside.
At last the rain had stopped but the wind was still running rampant through the corn. Whispering secrets into the leaves as it rose and fell across the field.
"How can you stand it?" she asked, her bottom lip quivering as she spoke. "I don't think I can do it anymore."
"Of course you can."
I touched her back and she began to sob, still sweeping the same patch of floor despite the leaves being long gone.
"Can I ask you something, ma'am?"
"Please, call me Fay."
She sniffed and propped the broom up against the wall. Since we'd left the house and moved out to the middle of nowhere, her usual peroxide blonde hair had be
come jet black along the roots and the color had faded to a brassy copper.
Her usually manicured nails were now broken and her favorite sweatshirt had obtained a hole in the sleeve where she poked her thumb through.
Her face was clean and free of makeup. I thought she looked beautiful despite the horrors in her bloodshot eyes that showed themselves like a map of her terror filled life.
All the girls looked beautiful without makeup, without their slutty clothes and cheap perfume. Jet especially. She was an angel when you saw her first thing in the morning when she was yet to apply the thick layer of raccoon like eyeliner around her crystalline blue eyes.
I thought about her now and felt a lump in my throat. Remorse was more than a feeling. It was an all-encompassing identity. Once you become a killer you can't go back. You're forever relegated to the underworld. If only she wasn’t the only one…
"Fay... How can you do it?"
I knew what she meant but I stared off into the distance and waited for her to pinpoint her line of questioning.
"How can you?" she asked.
"Do what?"
She picked up the broom again and began winding her hands around it. We both stood still for a moment, the tension between us building until we could almost taste it on the wind.
"You'll get a splinter if you do that," I eventually said and marched indoors.
She was quick on my heel and caught up with me in the kitchen.
"I need to know how you do it!" she pressed. "Because I feel like I'm falling apart."
Beneath our feet, the sobbing continued. It wasn't long since I'd fed them but it was cold down there and dark. No place for a child. Not unless they were expected to be hidden. At least the noise they made wouldn't attract suspicion. The nearest house was half a mile away and you could see the old farmer coming in his red tractor, waving and smiling his toothless grin as he approached.
"We're all falling apart," I said. "Every single one of us."
That wasn't the answer she was looking for. She cornered me beside the refrigerator and grabbed my shoulders. Beside her, I was just the frail old woman I tried to forget I was. Her youthful hands dug into my skin as I looked up into her fiery eyes.
Jewels And Panties: (Book 1-15) Billionaire Romance Series Page 26
