Thousands

by Pepper Winters

  “Bullshit, I am!” Harold fought harder against the cuffs. “Don’t you know who I am? Who my father is? You’ve just lost your jobs, you cunt.”

  “No need for profanity, sir,” the younger cop muttered. He stepped back a little, eyeing his trussed-up prisoner. “You’re the one who committed the crime of assaulting this young woman, not us.”

  “Why you fucking—” Harold’s face twisted with such fury, I blanched. His mask of acrimony granted a flashback to the white mansion and Alrik slicing my tongue.

  I closed my eyes, doing my best to dispel such terrible memories. When I opened them again, I noticed Callie—the blonde girl who’d run off—lurking behind the cops. She waved at Simone for her to join her.

  Simone obeyed, moving toward her and smiling in thanks. However, her eyes never left mine as she said to the cops, “We need to help this poor girl. She said she was sold. That she was tormented. My family will pay if she needs to see a doctor or anything like that.”

  Once again, my chest swelled with gratitude.

  I flinched as a cop came toward me, ducking down on his haunches. “That true, miss?”

  I didn’t answer.

  After a few seconds of frowning at my silence, he looked back at Simone. “Don’t worry. We’ll take it from here and provide excellent care for her.”

  Ice cubes settled in my belly.

  What does that mean?

  “What do you mean?” Simone asked on my behalf. “I want to help.”

  Ignoring Simone, the younger cop with kind hazel eyes and a mop of brown hair stood from his crouch and captured my elbow.

  My skin crawled beneath his touch, but I forced myself to focus on his uniform and the goodness on his face and find some element of trust to help him brace my bruised weight to stand.

  “Come along, miss. We’ll have someone look at you and listen to what you have to say.”

  I grimaced as my muscles pounded from Harold’s kicks and my kneecaps seized. My ribs hurt, my eye had swollen, and my cheek still burned from Miranda’s slap. Even though the cop said the right things, it was the things he didn’t say that churned my blood into rancid butter.

  There was something else. Something he hadn’t said yet.

  “What the fuck?” Miranda planted her hands on her hips, reminding me that her conquest to make me suffer hadn’t been fulfilled. “She robbed us. She deserves to go to jail, not treated like some fragile flower.” Stomping her foot, she demanded, “Let my boyfriend go. He was only teaching this stupid thief a lesson. This is all her fault.”

  The older cop narrowed his eyes, using the words of his colleague but in an entirely different tone. “Is that true? Did you steal from these girls?”

  I waited for Miranda to condemn me, but strangely, it was the blonde this time. Now that there was no threat of bloodshed, she returned to her prissy ways. “We caught her red-handed stealing purses from our bags.”

  The young cop’s hold on my elbow tightened, becoming more shackle than support. “Time to speak, miss. Tell us the truth.”

  I bowed my head. My voice became a frightened passenger, slipping down my throat to hide.

  Simone answered for me. “Can’t you see she has issues? What if she was stealing ‘cause she has nothing? Maybe she just escaped from the men who bought her and needs our help instead of our judgment?”

  “Ugh, what a crock of shit!” Miranda threw her hands up. “She’s lying to you, Simone. There is no way anything she said is true.”

  I didn’t open my mouth to defend myself. There was no point.

  Harold stood taller, seeing yet another opportunity to make me pay, even if it wasn’t by his fists. He became a chameleon—shedding his fierce brutality, replacing it with concerned chivalry. “I was just protecting my woman, officer. That girl is a thief and a liar. She put my girlfriend in danger. She robbed them. If anyone deserves to be arrested, it’s her.”

  The young cop pulled me away from the wall, disgust replacing his compassion. “Speak now if you want to deny those accusations, miss. Otherwise, you’re coming with us.”

  I shrivelled.

  Rusty blood tainted my tongue.

  My mind swam from being struck in the head.

  I wanted to deny it so much. I wanted to lie, but I’d already committed one crime. I wouldn’t add another to that tally.

  Simone darted forward, taking my other elbow. I didn’t owe this girl a thing, yet she continued to fight for me. Under normal circumstances, I would thank her profusely and beg to be her friend. I’d never met a girl like her—not in my past and not since Elder found me.

  It would be so nice to have a female friend. Someone who would listen and sympathise what I’d lived through. I could talk to her about Elder and ask her opinion. She could tell me if I did the right thing by leaving, or if I’d been ridiculously stupid to walk away from the man who’d not only rescued me but given me back the will to live.

  You did it for him.

  I kept forgetting that part. I kept forgetting the agony I nursed was to protect him not me.

  My silence irritated the officers.

  Their patience ran out.

  “Right, seeing as one of you is sprouting nonsense and another refuses to say a word, I guess we’ll have to bring both of you in.” The older policeman yanked Harold toward the busy road where rubberneckers tried to ease their rampant curiosity. “Let’s go.”

  The young cop dragged me forward. “You, too.”

  I went willingly, offering no refusal. A few stumbles and limps but I didn’t fight. Not that I could with the new aches and pains Harold had granted me.

  Simone cried, “Wait, where are you taking her?”

  “To be processed and questioned.” The young cop dragged me forward. At some point in my beating, I’d lost a shoe, and I winced as pebbles bruised my sole.

  The older cop placed a pair of aviator sunglasses on as he left the alley and entered the sunny street. Pedestrians changed their direction and speed as we disrupted foot traffic, cutting in front of nosy tourists all eyeing me and Harold in the grip of law enforcers.

  A small sedan with the police logo sat skewed on the curb as if Simone’s friend had hailed them down as they were driving down the road.

  The blonde had done me a favour and stopped the beating, but now she’d taken away the chance of possibly being loaned some money and being free to find my way home.

  I looked over my shoulder at Simone who stood with her arms crossed and worry on her innocent face. She waved hesitantly as I was marched away.

  Would she come see me in jail? Would her father let her? Or would she forget about the poor little prisoner who tried to rob her the moment I climbed into that squad car?

  Either way, it didn’t matter as my head turned and my eyes kissed the beautiful ocean no longer hidden behind buildings.

  The horizon glittered with sunshine glory, but I wasn’t interested in the prettiness of this place. I didn’t care about the schooners and spinnakers and sunbakers.

  I cared about one thing.

  One thing that I searched frantically for even as I tried to look away.

  I shouldn’t look.

  I should forget—

  Too late.

  I couldn’t stop my tattered moan as I found the spot where the Phantom had moored, floating just out of harbour congestion, a beacon for home.

  Only, there was no yacht.

  There was no home.

  Only an empty turquoise spot like a lost tooth in a jaw of bejewelled vessels.

  Elder had read my letter and agreed with me.

  He’d boarded the Phantom, taken one last look at Monaco, and left.

  Something fissured inside me.

  Something akin to a blade filleting my heart from my ribcage. Short, intense, blistering in its viciousness.

  I keeled over as the young cop stuffed me into the back of their vehicle.

  I fought my tears, straining to keep my eyes on the horizon, begging for it to be a
mistake. That I’d been looking in the wrong spot. That the Phantom was still there, and by some miracle, Elder had ignored my need to leave and was this very moment searching for me.

  Please...

  But as the door slammed shut and the sounds of city life and traffic were muted, I couldn’t hold back the tears anymore.

  This hurt more than any fist.

  Worse than any kick.

  This was the worst agony I’d ever endured.

  The agony of a broken heart.

  The pain of a sailed away lover.

  Chapter Five

  ______________________________

  Elder

  TWO OF THE worst fucking days I’d ever had.

  Instead of my heart pain fading, it only grew worse.

  Hour by hour, missing Pim tightened like a garrotte around my chest, just waiting for that perfect pressure to slice me clean through.

  It took everything inside to stay the course and not turn around. To stop myself from wrenching the controls from Jolfer and reversing the moment Monaco vanished in our wake.

  I gave up hoping for any resemblance of relief. If anything, this time sailing from society filled me with nausea at the thought of Pim out there...alone—surrounded by strangers and doing who knew what to survive.

  What the fuck was I thinking leaving her?

  I couldn’t sleep.

  I could barely eat.

  I rarely left my position on deck—staring at the horizon, desperate to find something to heal the parts of me that Pimlico had broken.

  But nothing could stop the jangling discord in my brain. The unfathomable knowledge that I’d left something priceless behind. The awful swelling in my heart that I’d done something un-fucking-forgivable.

  I hated myself.

  And her.

  I despised both of us for letting emotions ruin a perfectly acceptable arrangement.

  She should be here with me instead of by herself where I couldn’t touch, talk, or guard.

  Needing to keep myself focused on why she’d left and why I’d sailed away, I spent most of my time on the phone with the leader of the mercenaries who stood guard, unwanted by my family.

  He gave me hourly reports and increased his team’s size to spread out and protect even the furthest blood relatives. People I’d never even heard about, let alone owed any kind of allegiance to.

  I knew that, once again, my addiction had taken something pure and sullied it.

  My duty was to my mother, uncles, and aunties and approximately six to seven cousins.

  That was all.

  In reality, the Chinmoku probably didn’t even care about the third cousins and in-laws who’d become one of us over the years.

  But I did.

  Not because I had a sudden craving to keep strangers alive but because of the goddamn obsession in my head.

  They were mine—regardless if we had anything in common or a connection. They were linked to the web of my kin, and my brain switched from protection into something bordering old-world possession over tribe and pedigree.

  I tried to stop it.

  I did my best to order the leader to pull back from scouting outside homes of people who didn’t even know my name.

  But I couldn’t.

  If I wasn’t allowed Pimlico, then I would do whatever was in my power to watch over everyone—regardless if it was an addiction, obligation, or appropriate.

  I stood on the deck staring at the pink horizon and rubbed at the spot where my heart used to be. No seagull squawk or midnight swim could fix what I feared would forever be broken.

  I should be sick with worry at the thought of my mother in danger and riddled with nerves at the impending family reunion where no one wanted me.

  But all I could think about was Pim.

  Pim.

  Pim.

  I clutched the phone, willing it to ring, so I had a distraction from the way my heart thumped lifeless and accusing, hanging itself on a gristly rib.

  Every beat made me growl with guilt. Every palpitation a reminder of no more dinners or pickpocketing lessons. No more falling in love.

  Where was she now?

  Had she found someone to help?

  Was she on her way to England?

  Was she already there?

  I liked that most of me hoped she’d already found her way home and was back where she belonged. However, I hated myself because another part of me—a dark, disturbed jealous part—hoped she hadn’t.

  That she needed me even after walking away.

  That she hurt just as much because we were apart with no way of contact. No cell phone. No email. No physical way of tracking the other down.

  You sailed away.

  You chose blood over heart.

  And for what?

  To be cursed all over again and ordered to leave? To be kicked out and called No One? To remain lonely for the rest of my days?

  Shit!

  My free hand curled around the banister, wanting to wring the wood and brass for its hypocrisy. For my hypocrisy. The awful conclusion that I’d sailed away under the guise of doing the right thing...when really, I’d done the fucking opposite.

  She. Left. Me.

  She’d decided that in order for us both to survive, we had to end whatever was building between us. She was the courageous warrior in this scenario, and I was the spineless wretch who would never forgive himself for taking the easy way out just because he was scared fucking shitless of hurting her.

  Goddammit, what have I done?

  The phone rang in my hand as the emotional landslide slammed into me.

  I owed Pim just as much as my family.

  If not more.

  She’d given me love when all the others had taken it away.

  And what had I done? I’d allowed her to take that love away under pretence of saving me from myself.

  Fuck that.

  And fuck her.

  I shook with rage as my heart finally started doing its job and woke me up after three and a half days of grief-stricken listlessness.

  Selix’s voice ripped into my thoughts, echoing through the phone. “Ready for our sparring session?”

  I blinked, slamming back into my body. Seeing the waves and clouds and glinting yacht around me. We’d arranged to fight until we either passed out or someone was seriously injured.

  Last night, when we’d made the appointment, nothing had sounded better because even my cello couldn’t stop my thoughts from returning to Pim.

  I’d hoped pain would do the trick.

  But now, I knew better.

  There was only one way that pain would go away, and it wasn’t through fighting or killing or being the perfect son to a mother who’d cursed me.

  It was by being the perfect man to a woman who loved me regardless of who I was. A woman who said yes when everyone else had said no—including myself.

  I was done feeling guilty for everything that I was.

  I was through giving myself excuses.

  I couldn’t pretend anymore.

  I couldn’t do it.

  Any of it.

  Unless I have her.

  Squeezing the phone, I marched into my room. “Our fight has been postponed.”

  “Oh?” Selix grumbled. “Why exactly?”

  Shrugging out of the clothing I hadn’t changed since leaving Monaco, I grabbed a handful of fresh items and stormed to the bathroom. “Because I said so.”

  “That’s some reason, Prest. Never took you for a cryptic son of a bitch.”

  Wrenching on the shower, I ignored him and said the words I’d been desperate to say ever since I made the worst mistake of my life. “Ready the helicopter. I’m going back to Monaco. Immediately.”

  Chapter Six

  ______________________________

  Pimlico

  I’D NEVER BEEN so nervous in my life.

  Sure, I’d been in situations that made me scared, petrified, and wishing for death. But I’d never been in one where I jit
tered with nerves rather than outright terror.

  I knew the police wouldn’t physically abuse me—or at least, I hope. They weren’t criminals—or at least, not all of them. I would be safe here as long as I cooperated—or at least, until I’m sentenced.

  Fear came on the back of that thought, becoming equal hitchhikers on my spine.

  Get it together. Stop thinking. Just stay quiet and get through this.

  Taking my own advice, I kept my chin high as the police car pulled to a stop and I was helped from the vehicle. I didn’t look at Harold who cursed and kept commanding them to release him. I remained docile as they escorted us into a large building full of bustling officers, the sounds of printers and phones, and the rich scent of metal handcuffs and pungent coffee.

  The policemen who’d arrested us waved over two fellow crime fighters from their current tasks. They nodded and came to collect us.

  The rapid-fire questions and answers were delivered in French. I’d become used to the sounds of French accents while exploring Monaco with Elder, but this was the first time I wished I spoke the language so I knew what I was about to face.

  I stood silently as Harold entered into his own tirade, forcing another officer to come over and try to keep the peace.

  As quickly as the conversation began, it was over.

  Hands from a new male officer took my elbow and nodded at his colleague while another took Harold.

  With a livid expression at me, Harold growled. “This isn’t over, cow. When my father hears about this—”

  The officer holding him jerked him into silence. He was carted off while I did my best to ignore his threat and was guided to a different area of the station to be processed.

  No one spoke to me as I was shuffled through a barricade only opened by a swipe of my escort’s badge and keypad press. I tripped as my one sandal stuck to the scuffed linoleum, and the officer’s grip tightened to help me balance, activating a new bruise I’d forgotten about.

  My vision only half worked—thanks to Harold giving me a black eye, and in some morbid way, I was glad I’d endured pain worse than this because it allowed me to forget about the hot swelling in my joints and thundering discomfort in my muscles.