by Shandi Boyes
“What’s your plan?” Smith asks, knowing me well enough to read the expression on my face as plotting.
After a few seconds of deliberation, I reply, “Brandon’s father owes me a favor. Cash it in.” After standing to my feet, I gather my suit jacket from the hanger in the corner of my office. “Her chariot won’t be a pumpkin, and her footmen won’t be knights, but we’ll get Cinderella to the ball, even if I have to drag her there myself.”
11
Roxanne
A grunt involuntarily leaves my parched throat when my wrist is snagged in a firm clutch, and I’m yanked off the floor I’ve been cowering on the past several hours. I’m sore, on the verge of weeping, but still willing to fight. Even though he knocked me down, until my legs are broken, I will get back up, bigger, stronger, and meaner than ever.
My grunt this time around is well-timed. It adds to the fury of the fist I ram into the unnamed man’s face and propels me so far out of his arms, I’m halfway out the door before he knows I’m running.
I don’t race for the entrance he forced me through last night, I charge for the whispered voices that encouraged me to wake up when the blackness overwhelmed me. They want me to win as much as I want them to be free. We are in this together. I’ve just got to find where they’re hiding to ensure them I am on their side.
I make it up four stairs before my ankle is gripped and pulled out from beneath me. While breathing through the windedness my collision with the wooden stairwell caused my lungs, I kick out like a madwoman. I smash my heel into the man’s face that’s already dribbling blood on repeat, determined to show him I’m not as weak and pathetic as he thinks.
It takes three solid stomps on his nose for him to release my ankle from his hold, and even longer than that for me to reach the peak of the stairwell. As I gasp in much-needed air, I take a moment to gather my bearings. The pain distorting my mind has me confused as to whether I took a left or right when I exited the room that had me gleaming with happiness and sobbing with sadness in under a minute. I think it was left, but I’m truly unsure.
When the heavy stomps of the man’s boots boom into my ears, I dart to the left, praying I’m heading in the right direction. If the number of voices I heard overnight are anything to go by, just the volume of women in one space should conceal me until I work out my next plan of attack. I don’t stand out in a crowd. I never have.
I send a quick thanks to my Nanna when she answers my silent prayer. The room I just barged into is brimming with women. There are ethnicities from across the globe—Americans, Asians, Europeans—they have every nationality covered.
There are children too.
Many of them.
Although I’m dying to seek a toddler with chubby cheeks, elf ears, and a dimple in the top of her lip, the furious breaths of the man hot on my tail stops me. I will find Fien, I’ve just got to survive this madman’s wrath first.
“Thank you,” I mutter in shock when several women switch out my sweat-drenched sweater with the Mormon-like clothes they’re wearing.
Their nighties are white, cotton, and very bland considering how attractive their faces are. I thought they’d be glammed up to the hilt, ensuring they got top dollar from interested buyers. Instead, they’re dressed as if they are in a convent.
“Sit, sit,” says a blonde with a heavy accent as she tugs on my arm.
Once I’m on the floor, I am surrounded by over three dozen women. The fact they want to protect me springs tears to my eyes. They’re living in horrible circumstances, and I don’t want to think about how they’ve been treated, yet here they are, still willing to help someone in need.
Despite the circumstances, it is truly a beautiful thing to witness.
I tuck my chin in close to my chest when the man enters the door I left hanging open. The reason for his delay is unearthed when I spot the cleaver in his hand. He had to get reinforcements. The thought makes me smile.
“Where is she?” he asks a group of women on my right.
They don’t answer him. They keep their heads bowed and their lips shut.
It angers him further. “I won’t ask again! You know what happens when you don’t listen to my first order.”
My heart launches into my throat when he fists the nightgown of the smallest woman in the group. He’s so much taller than her, her feet dangle inches from the grubby floor when he brings her close enough to him, the brutal crunch of his hand colliding with her cheek will ring in my ears for days.
“Where. Is. She?”
When he moves the cleaver toward her left breast, I almost vault out of my spot. The only reason I don’t is because the blonde next to me curls her hand over my balled one before whispering in broken English, “He won’t hurt. Not allowed. Slap okay. Further…” She makes a throat-cutting gesture. “Watch.”
As promised, within seconds, the brute releases the brunette from his grip before he swings his eyes across the room. I’m confident he won’t spot me in a crowd, so you can imagine my surprise when he mutters out a few moments later, “There you are.”
The women rally around me when he grips my hair like he did before my ultrasound to drag me out of the room. They claw him, bite him, and whack into him as if their biggest fear is losing me. They give it their all, but it still isn’t enough.
Before my head can register I’m the only one left fighting, I am tossed on a bed in a sterile, uninviting room, and the man tugs at his belt as unforgivingly as he did my hair. “If you don’t want to get hurt more than you already are, I suggest you remain still.”
I kick out with a scream when he suddenly dives for me. It does me no good. He pins me to the mattress in an instant, my small frame no match for his height and weight. My vision blurs with unshed tears when he uses his recently removed belt to bind my hands above my head. He isn’t restraining me until I calm down, nor is he planning to mark me with his scent. He wants to take something from me I’m not willing to give. He wants the very thing I will fight to the death for.
“Get off.” I fight him with everything I have, hating the disgusting slither of his hand when he slips it underneath the nightgown the women dressed me in. “He will kill you just for looking at me before setting his men onto your family. You’ll die a death more painful than a thousand. He won’t stop until your eyes cry blood and your entire lineage is extinct.”
His voice is almost too composed for a maniac. “Not if we kill him first.”
I don’t get time to absorb the actuality in his tone. I’m too busy recoiling about the growl he releases when he notches a finger inside of me.
“Tight,” he purrs on a moan before he swivels his finger around like he’s testing the durability of my vaginal walls. I’m clenched so tight, I almost dismember him when he suddenly yanks his finger back out.
He stares down at his dry index finger like he’s disappointed there isn’t any residue for him to inspect. I realize that is the case when he swivels his torso to a mirrored door at the side of the room. He holds the finger he had inside of me in the air before briskly shaking his head.
Even with the spectator’s sigh occurring after the doink of a microphone being switched on, I still heard it. It was as depressing as the dread that sludges through me when she says, “Do whatever is necessary to get rid of it.” She spits out ‘it’ as if it scorched her throat.
Confident he will do as asked, the shadow under the door clears away a mere second before the goon yanks off a sheet from a silver tray next to the bed I’m tied to. It houses an assortment of instruments that are every woman’s nightmare—a hospital-grade kidney dish, long skinny clamp-type instruments, a needle filled with a murky substance, and the most concerning, a rusty coat hanger that’s been flattened so only the hook at the end remains.
“W-w-what do you need that for?” I hate the stutter of my first word, but it can’t be helped. The coat hanger should be the least worrying of the instruments on his tray of horror. However, it isn’t. I grew up in a region of Ame
rica that didn’t have the funds to handle unwanted pregnancies with dignity. I heard many horror stories during my two years at college. This isn’t as brutal as the backyard cesarean Audrey was forced to endure, but the result will be so much worse.
Fien survived Audrey’s ordeal. My baby doesn’t stand a chance, even more so when the man uses my distraction to his advantage. He jabs the needle from the medical tray into my leg, paralyzing me from the waist down. Then, shortly after that, my vision blurs as blackness strives to overwhelm me for the second time in less than twenty-four hours.
12
Dimitri
As I tap my tattooed-covered finger on my knee, Smith’s voice comes down the earpiece in my ear. “The call has been made. Agent James should be out any minute.”
I’m parked in front of Ravenshoe PD, awaiting Brandon’s break for freedom. If the gleaming glare Detective Ryan Carter hit me with when he noticed Rocco’s illegal park is anything to go by, he knows who we’re here for. He was outside the restaurant when the Russians came to town for a visit, so he’d be aware of my impromptu meeting with a Federal Agent.
I could tell him things aren’t as they seemed, but where’s the fun in that? Ryan isn’t my friend. He wasn’t when he snagged the most attractive girl in junior high and won’t be when he finally discovers where she’s been hiding these past few months.
The restlessness keeping my stomach empty the past fourteen years ramps up when my cell phone suddenly buzzes in my pocket. With Smith in my ear, Clover on high alert a couple of blocks over, and Rocco acting as my driver, there’s only one other person who has my private number—my father.
Since he’s the last person I want to speak to, I slide my phone out of my pocket and hit the ‘end call’ button without peering at the screen. “Have my father’s calls sent straight to my voicemail. I’ve got eyes on him. I don’t want him in my ear as well.”
Smith hums out a panicked murmur before he discloses he has footage of my father nowhere near a phone.
“Live feed?”
He gags. “From the pendant on the whore you sent over to keep him occupied this afternoon. Trust me, none of his fingers are able to dial right now.”
While fighting the urge not to slit Rocco’s throat over his chuckle about my disgruntled expression, I swipe my thumb across the screen of my phone and hit my phone app. The area code reveals my caller is in the New York region, but the number isn’t familiar.
I’m about to ask Smith to commence a trace when a text message pops up on my screen.
Unknown number: Please tell me she wasn’t found on the Shroud ranch. I can’t stand the thought of her being buried so close to home and not knowing. I thought I’d sense her presence. We were close like that.
Against Smith’s recommendation not to engage until he completes a trace, I type out a reply.
Dimitri: Who is this?
“Someone wanting to cover her tracks since she’s bouncing her signal off multiple towers,” Smith growls down my earpiece just as my caller’s text pops up.
Unknown Number: It’s India. I thought you had my number stored. Was she there, Dimi? Did you finally find her?
“What is she talking about?” I ask anyone listening, the twisting of my stomach too perverse to ignore.
Smith breathes out a curse word a mere second before Ellie’s voice comes down the line. “I’m sending you a link. It isn’t pretty.”
Mine and Rocco’s phone buzzes in sync. My eyes don’t know which section of the article to absorb first. The fact multiple bodies were found on a ranch only a hundred miles from Hopeton, that they were buried beside enough hospital supplies to fill an antenatal ward with or the headline that the body of a toddler was found in the wall of the residence.
“How old was she?”
When nothing but silence resonates out of my earpiece for the next several seconds, my panic shifts to fury. “How fucking old was she!” I scream like my lungs don’t need air to function. I thought the knot in my stomach centered around Roxanne. I had no fucking clue my focus should have been on Fien.
It should have always been on Fien.
If I had protected her mother as I’m endeavoring to protect Roxanne, I wouldn’t be here, fiddling my thumbs while maniacs run my town to the ground.
Perhaps I am as bad as my father.
Maybe this is my penance for the wrongs I’ve done.
My self-reflection is held back for another time when Smith discloses, “The corpse was mummified. She had been in the wall for a while.”
His tone is both sorrowed and angry, but it does little to ease my agitation. “That wasn’t what I asked. You know you can alter the age of a corpse. You’re aware you can manipulate it to fool forensic scientists. She could be Fien. She could be my daughter.”
The pain clawing my chest gets a moment of reprieve when Rocco says, “She isn’t Fien, Dimi.” He swivels in his seat to face me before handing me a printout of the report Ellie just forwarded. The Tank isn’t just a muscle car. She’s a command station on wheels. “Not only do the dates on the newspaper clippings surrounding the little girl’s corpse disclose this, so does your gut. You’d know if Fien was gone, D, because you live for her. You’ve not done a single thing the past two years that wouldn’t benefit her in some way.” His grin gets smug along with his comment. “Except Roxie, but she doesn’t count because she improved your chances of getting your daughter back instead of reducing it.”
Before I have the chance to reply to any part of his statement, the back entrance of Ravenshoe PD pops open, and a showdown between Ravenshoe PD’s finest and the Bureau’s golden boy gets underway.
It’s clear Ryan and Brandon have had words before. The tension in the air is thick enough to cut with a knife, although it has nothing on the unease in the cabin of The Tank.
After slicing his hand across the front of his body, wordlessly sending Brandon off, Ryan locks his eyes with the back passenger window of The Tank. I store the report of the mass grave site at Shroud Family Ranch into the slot in my door before popping open the one opposite from me, more than happy for Ryan to know who I’m schmoozing. Perhaps if he knows my pull extends all the way to the Bureau, he might accept one of the many offers I’ve made him the past six years.
“Game face, Dimi,” Smith mutters in my ear when Brandon’s gawk at my open door sees him jogging down the stairs separating us. “He’s smarter than his baby face implies.”
I doubt Smith’s assumption when confusion congeals Brandon’s face a mere second after he slides into the back seat of The Tank. He walked into an ambush, smiling. A smart man doesn’t do that.
He also doesn’t test the durability of the locks the jaws of life couldn’t budge.
“You’d have a better chance of shooting out the bulletproof windows than getting its lock mechanisms to budge. I paid out the eye to make this thing a tank, but the quality of the product was worth its exorbitant price tag.”
I hear his jaw go through a stern workover before he shifts his eyes to me. “What do you want, Dimi—”
“Information,” I cut him off, eager to get things moving. My head is spinning. I don’t have time for idle chit-chat.
Like a fool unaware of what happens to men who waste my time, Brandon’s lips etch into a condescending smirk. “That isn’t how things work. We ask you for information. If we find it beneficial, we help you. That’s what being an informant entails.”
“Informant?” Ignoring Smith’s advice for me to take a chill pill, I spit out, “I’m not an informant for the FBI. They work for me, not the other way around.”
It takes everything I have not to reach for my gun when Brandon replies, “That may have been how things worked with you and Tobias, but that won’t fly with me.”
“Reveal your hand, Dimitri,” Ellie suggests, overtaking the reins from Smith. “I’ve never worked with Agent James, but if he’s anything like the rumors I’ve heard, outsmarting him will work better than threatening him. He’s all about
brains over brawn.”
After an inconspicuous nod, I shove the report Rocco gave to me into Brandon’s chest. “Is this report accurate?”
The brutal bob of his Adam’s apple reveals Ellie was on the money. He isn’t stunned by the information he’s reading on the reports, he is shocked I have them. I just wish suspicion wasn’t also on his face. He doesn’t realize I’m a victim of the trade he’s investigating. He thinks I’m a part of it. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. My family name has been embroiled in controversy for longer than I’ve been born.
“Where did you get this? This hasn’t even been logged with the Bureau yet.”
I lower the angst in my tone before replying, “Where I got this information isn’t important. I just need to know if it’s true?”
He peers at me as if I have a second head before he mutters, “Yes, it’s true.”
“Are all the victims female?” I ball my hands together so tightly, my nails dig into my palm when I ask, “What’s the average age of the women found?”
Brandon wets his dry lips before he sings like a canary. “Preliminary findings state the victims are between the ages of thirteen to late twenties.”
The fact he doesn’t mention the toddler found in the wall exposes he knows more than he’s letting on. The knowledge he’s holding back frustrates me to no end, but I do my best to maintain a rational head. “Had any of the victims recently given birth before their death?”
He shrugs. “We won’t know that until the autopsies are completed.”
“You would know.” My voice comes out louder than intended. It even makes Rocco jump. “You’d know because she’s eight months along…” I swallow the unease burning my throat before correcting, “She was eight months along.”
With my head cloudy from the debilitating images in the report, I honestly feel like I’ve stepped back twenty-two months. Rocco is right, I’d know if Fien was hurt, I’m just struggling to get my logical-thinking head with the program. It’s coded to see the worst in everything. Very rarely does it consider the silver lining.
