“Dad.”
He looked over her shoulder. A tall, blond man stood holding Daphne by the arm.
“He just appeared.”
Daphne visibly shook. “Daddy.”
Ben held out his hands. He wanted to rush the man, to pound him into the ground, but he didn’t dare risk Daphne in the hands of a Conditioned man whose powers Ben didn’t know.
“Let her go. We can work something out.” He had to. This wasn’t an option.
His daughters were his whole life. He’d kill, maim and slaughter for Daphne.
“Roman.” Shiri scooted in behind him. “It’s okay, Ben. He’s a friend.”
“Then why does he have his hand on my little girl?”
“I’m saving her life.” Roman stared at Ella. “Coming? Or am I taking your sister without you?”
“No one is taking anyone anywhere.”
Roman narrowed his eyes. “Listen, I appreciate that you’re a good dad even if you’re a total imbecile when it comes to Shiri. But you have two seconds before Madame and her crew bust in here. They’re not here now only because I put up a force field around the room that stops them from being able to enter. But it won’t hold, and I’m not going down for you.”
“You can trust him, Ben.”
Shiri’s words implored him to believe. It had been so long since he’d let anyone do anything for him, since he’d actually felt that someone else could take care of his girls’ needs.
“I guess I don’t have any choice.” He spoke through gritted teeth. “When will I see them again?”
“Ella.” Roman ignored his question. “You don’t have to come. You can stay here and someone will come and take you. That’s just the truth. But you can do as you please.”
Ella wore a guarded expression. He could see himself in her so clearly. Ella was capable and strong. “Wherever Daphne goes, I go.”
“Okay.”
Ella rushed to his side as Roman spoke. “Shiri, I’m taking them to the spot. I’m going to have Addison transport them.” Roman visibly swallowed. “I’m not strong enough to take you too.”
“I know.” Shiri nodded. “This is the way I want it.”
“This isn’t the way any of us wants it, kid.”
Just that fast, his girls vanished, taking his heart with them. He tried to speak but couldn’t. Instead he whirled around to regard Shiri. “He’s safe?”
“He is.” She nodded and stepped forward, touching his arm. The sounds of chaos in the hall downstairs increased. “But you’re not if you stay here. They’re coming for me now.”
“We can still—”
“No,” she interrupted. “We can’t.”
Three men rushed into the room. “How were you keeping us out?”
One of the Fury grabbed Shiri and pulled her up against him. Ben watched her wince, and he tried to lunge for her. Three other Fury restrained him.
Ben fought with every ounce of energy he had, and still he felt powerless against them. They were holding him back not just with their bodies but with something that felt like a brick wall that formed around him. He roared with anger.
“Let her go.”
She didn’t turn to look at him. Instead, she answered the Fury who held her so tightly Ben could see fingerprints on her arms.
“I have all kinds of talents.” Shiri’s voice had gone blank. “Erecting shields to keep you out is just one of them.”
“That was never one of your talents before.” The man said as he tugged on her hair. She gasped and closed her eyes.
Still, when she responded, her voice sounded strong and alert. Ben was overcome with pride for Shiri. How did she stay so brave in the face of so much danger?
“I guess you boys don’t know everything you think you know.”
That earned her a slap across the cheek. Ben reared back as he tried to drive himself forward to get to her. His movements didn’t do him any good. He couldn’t budge, but damn it, he wanted to kill someone. No one touched what was his.
Ben’s eyes widened at the thought. His. Yes, she was, but why? Was he finally starting to remember what she insisted was the truth? Had they been together?
Madame walked into the room. She took a quick glance around as if she didn’t care one way or another what she found. He knew that wasn’t true. The woman was all smoke and mirrors. It was all about the show with her.
“I’ve been trying to decide what punishment to lavish on you, Mr. Lavelle.” Her eyes gleamed with satisfaction. If he got free, after he rescued Shiri, he was going to whack Madame over the head again—this time making sure she died. “But before we get to all that…” She turned to regard the Fury who held Shiri. “What happened to the other Conditioned person? Did you lose them?”
“Whoever it was had left by the time I got up here.” The man paled.
“Unacceptable, Fury. You know your job.” The woman enunciated every word as though everything she said was somehow akin to gospel and wasn’t possibly to be misheard by whoever listened.
“Yes, Madame.”
She walked a step closer. “You wouldn’t want to have to go live in an Institution, would you? Because that is what happens to Fury who fail. Your nice, cushy life outside the walls disappears.”
He nodded, and the telltale tremor of a man on the edge started in his hands. Maybe Shiri could maneuver an escape while he was distracted.
“You have my deepest apologies, Madame.”
“Isn’t this sweet?” Shiri’s voice dripped with sarcasm. Ben felt torn between laughing and telling her to shut the hell up so she didn’t end up in more trouble.
“He’s very, very sorry.”
Madame rolled her eyes. “Take her to the holding cells. You see, little girl, it doesn’t matter that you blew up the Institution. We’ve just relocated, and we’re rounding up all the escapees now. They can’t survive without our help. They can’t even feed or clothe themselves.”
“Liar.” Shiri spat out the word.
Ben couldn’t take it anymore. “Shiri…”
She didn’t listen. “They can be taught, as anyone can be. And you don’t have them back. You’re lying.”
“Get her out of here, Fury.”
“No! Damn it.” Ben tried to throw himself forward, this time earning an elbow to his nose for his efforts. It didn’t matter. He’d take a thousand hits to the face if it meant he could stop what he knew was about to happen.
He refused to close his eyes from the pain. As if keeping his gaze fully focused on Shiri could somehow keep her in the room with him, as if it could prevent them from taking her, he steadily held her gaze.
“Shiri…”
She shook her head, and he watched her blink away tears. “It’s okay, Ben. I had five extra years to live a life I could never have imagined for myself. It was such a gift. Remember that when you think of me.”
She sucked in a breath, and he realized that tears were streaming down his cheeks. When was the last time he’d cried? How could he feel this acutely for a woman he couldn’t remember?
“Ben, I love you.”
Just like that, she was gone. Ripped from his life. It felt as though they’d opened a wound inside him that he couldn’t close. Anger poured out of him, and he raged against his invisible restraints. This couldn’t be happening.
Madame grinned. “I don’t think I need to punish you. I think the fact that you can live a long, miserable life without her, knowing that I killed her, will be enough torture for you.” She sighed, elongating the sound as if even breathing was an important event. “Or maybe I’ll come back to kill you. You’ll never know.”
Just as the Fury had vanished with Shiri, the room cleared out immediately. Ben fell to the floor, his body slamming into the ground as though he had no muscles to hold him up. He didn’t mind the pain; in fact, he relished it. His daughters were gone, taken by a man he didn’t know, though Shiri said he was trustworthy. Madame had Shiri. He would never see her again.
No.
&
nbsp; Everything inside him railed against that thought. It was unacceptable.
Somehow, he would have to find a way to get her back. Gene rushed into the room, followed by his men.
“Ben.” Gene kneeled next to him. “Are you okay?”
His brother’s frantic tone was what made him look up. “No, I’m not fucking okay.”
Two guys grabbed him by the arms and pulled him into a sitting position. They should have left him on the ground.
“I’m so sorry, Ben. The guys beat her so easily last time. I thought it would be the same deal. They’d come in, we’d overwhelm them, and we’d get some answers.”
Ben could see the genuine remorse radiating from his older brother’s eyes. He wanted to forgive him even as he wasn’t sure he could. “It was a stupid fucking plan. They had time to prepare for us. This isn’t like one of your operations. We can’t just smash things until we get what we want.”
“I know that.” Gene visibly swallowed. “Now.”
“Hindsight is twenty-twenty, is that what you’re saying?” Ben tried really hard not to hit his brother. His whole life was a giant shit-hole, and he had no idea what to do about it.
“I screwed up.”
“Ya think? The girls are gone. One of Shiri’s friends got them out, but I have no idea where they are or if I’ll ever see them again.” He closed his eyes. “Shiri has been taken by the devil herself, and she’s going to be killed. I can’t even be mad at you, because you were just doing what you always do in the way that you do it.”
His brother fell silent for a moment. “What are you going to do, Ben?”
“I have no clue.” He pounded on the ground, not caring if he broke every bone in his hand.
Gene grabbed him. “Ben!”
“Well, isn’t this touching?”
Ben almost didn’t hear the person speaking over the roaring in his head. He panted as he looked up to see the man who had taken his daughters, leaning casually against Ella’s dresser.
Ben shot to his feet. “Where are the girls? Are they fine?”
“They’re with friends. They’re worried about you and Shiri, but they’re fine. In a few hours, they’ll be taken to a safe place where no one will hurt them or find them.”
“I can’t let you do that. They’re my daughters. You can’t just take them away permanently without me knowing where they are.”
Roman nodded. “I agree.”
He did? Ben hadn’t expected that response. “You do?”
“Yes. You’re a very good dad, you’re just a piece-of-shit man.”
Gene shouted from behind him. “Hey.”
Roman took two steps closer to Ben. “I love her, you asshole. I’ve loved her most of her life. I saved her life. I brought her to safety, and she doesn’t even look at me. She never even thinks of me that way. No, for five years all she could do was dream about getting back to you. And what happens when she does? She gets taken while saving your worthless ass.”
Ben wanted to punch Roman in the face. He loved Shiri. Ben had no right to be jealous—the woman had just told him she loved him—but he was. This was all so fucked up. Still, he tried to find a reasonable argument even as his gut burned with the truth of Roman’s words.
“I can’t remember her. Someone took my memories. I’m operating with no information here. I don’t know who to trust.”
Roman raised his eyebrows. “I thought you were braver than that.” He shrugged. “Guess I was wrong.”
“What does that mean?”
“Want your memories back?” Roman snapped his fingers.
“Here, take them back.”
Flashes of light passed before his eyes. He heard someone screaming and realized it was his own voice. He fell to the floor, feeling as if his head might explode.
Eighteen
Shiri awoke to consciousness slowly. Awareness came to her in stages. First, she realized she was lying on a cold, hard floor. That eliminated the possibility that she was at home in her beach cabin, safe and secure with only the absence of Ben and the girls to plague her. Then the pounding at the base of her skull, where the Fury bastard had struck her, stole all her attention.
It really, really hurt. She groaned, wishing she were back at home, where Laurel could heal her. But that wasn’t going to happen, and where she currently resided—wherever it might be—wasn’t a place where wishes came true. In fact, the absence of hope helped to define the Institutions. Those facilities were where dreams went to die.
And now she resided in one again. She supposed she’d had a good run on the other side and, hell, she’d aged five years since she’d vanished, which meant she was that much closer to forty, the age when she should have been marked for death. At least Madame would get her closer to the legal date.
Shiri made herself concentrate on other noises besides her pounding head. Somewhere not too far away, water dripped. A slow, steady but constant sound was the only thing she could make out.
Tentatively, she attempted opening her eyes, first the left one and then the right. The room swayed for a moment before it righted itself. There were no dark circles or streaming colors blurring her vision. She’d learned basic first aid from Laurel, enough to know she was probably not concussed, even though her head hurt like hell.
She pushed up until she was sitting with her legs crossed in a pretzel position. What had happened to Ben when she’d left? Her demands to know about him had been what had gotten her whomped on the head. Apparently, he was a sore subject for Madame and her men. Good. Shiri exhaled.
Ben.
Nothing had gone with him the way she’d wanted it to. If only there had been time to get him his memories back before Roman had escaped with the girls. She would have loved to have seen him look at her with recognition one more time before her life ended.
The door to her cell swung open, and Madame entered. She crossed her arms over her chest and stared down at Shiri with disdain evident in her gaze.
“Seven-Two-Four, are you done causing trouble, or should I have the Fury here hit you again?”
Shiri stared up at Madame Joan. The five years she’d been gone had not been kind to the other woman. Her once platinum blonde hair had faded until it looked like a shell of its former glory. Lines that had not been on her face darted out from the sides of her eyes and her mouth. Laugh lines, people called them. Shiri knew Madame never engaged in such a frivolous activity as humor, so they’d appeared on her for other reasons. She didn’t want to imagine what those activities had entailed.
“Answer me, Seven-Two-Four.”
All at once, Shiri understood why Guy had insisted that they all take names upon arriving on his Island. Seven-Two-Four. She was someone different than Shiri. Even when she’d lived in Crescent, she’d been called Seven, not Seven-Two-Four. Madame could shriek all she wanted about Seven-Two-Four, she could threaten her, she could even kill her if she wanted to. But her actions would never really touch Shiri’s soul. That wasn’t who she was, or even who she had ever been.
Shiri smiled, and Madame took a step back as if she’d been struck.
“You look deranged.”
She did? Well, that was fine. It was better than appearing pathetic. Maybe she was a little bit nuts.
“Answer my question, you ungrateful heathen. Are you prepared to be cooperative now?”
“The real question is why do you need my cooperation?” Shiri tapped her hand on the floor of her cell.
“That is none of your business. Your only role is to obey me and hope that I don’t kill you immediately for your disobedience.”
“Then I guess you’re out of luck, because my days of listening to you have long passed. Feel free to kill me if that’s a problem.”
Shiri wasn’t going to play games with this woman. No way, no how. Madame had brought her here to end her life. She wasn’t going to make it any easier on the woman or delude herself into thinking that if she helped her, she might somehow survive.
It was all bullshit.<
br />
Too many people had lived and died trying to give the Conditioned freedom to live their lives. Shiri wouldn’t be doing anything to damage that effort, ever.
“I could take the information from your head without your permission.”
Shiri laughed, a cold, hard sound that she couldn’t believe she’d made herself. “If you could do that, you would have already. What is it about me that has you so worked up? You went to a tremendous amount of effort to try to retrieve me five years ago when I would have disembarked the boat an hour later, and you’re very upset by my presence now. What is it, Joan? What’s put a bug up your ass?”
Shiri deliberately used one of Guy’s most coarse expressions on Madame Joan. She’d dropped the Madame on purpose, too. She was tired of kowtowing to the people who abused her. She’d had five years to discover her worth, and she wasn’t going to lose her gumption in just five minutes with these sick people.
“How dare you.”
Despite her throbbing head, Shiri stood up on wobbly legs. It had to have been apparent to Madame Joan that she was unsteady, but Shiri didn’t care. For her, it would be considered a personal triumph.
“How dare I? Well, I guess I’m suddenly starting to realize that for some reason you find me threatening. Why is that, Joan? Why do I scare you so badly?”
“You?” Madame advanced two steps, but Shiri didn’t budge from where she stood. She’d hold her ground until the end. “You’re nothing. You’re a Conditioned maggot whom I’ve had the misfortune to have to feed and clothe since the time you were two. For twenty-five years.”
Shiri swallowed. “I thought no one knew how old I was.” Silence filled the room. “I’m assuming it was twenty-five years. Who cares to keep track of how old any of you are?”
“I care. Lots of people care. More and more, you’re going to see things change because we will force them to.” Now she was completely spitting out Guy’s rhetoric but that was fine. If it worked, she’d take it.
“You’re talking about your petty revolution? It’s already being squashed. The leaders have all been captured. We are the Institutions. Even the government doesn’t control us.”
Illicit Connections (Illicit Minds Book 2) Page 18
