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He left notes for Nicholas because he wanted to kill him. For some reason he thought that Nicholas was the enemy. He had put in so much time and energy trying to get with me, that apparently, I owed him pleasure. I didn't believe it at all, obviously, but he certainly did. He really felt like I had screwed him over by making the decision that I had to leave. I didn't know what to say to it all. It was just kind of crazy when I knew that it wasn't that way at all. I was allowed to not love someone, and I was allowed to leave. The way that he was acting now, surely made me believe that. How could it not?
Since I didn't want my crazy ex to do something horrendous to Nicholas, I gave him the wrong information, knowing that it was probably going to piss him off, but what else could I do? I couldn't let something happen to Nicholas because of Jean Luc. It might be a sacrifice, but a sacrifice for Nicholas seemed worth it. He convinced me that things could be different, and life could be as sweet as it was promised.
When Nicholas hadn't showed up, I got accused of giving him the wrong information, but I just insisted that he was wrong and Nicholas didn't give a crap about me. I didn't want him to get hurt and I could finally breathe. I was relieved when he turned that into something that he could be mean to me about and that seemed to satisfy him just as much. Jean Luc was feeling betrayed and naturally I didn't feel that way at all. I just wanted to get rid of him now that I knew who he truly was. When he suggested that we were going to get on a boat and make our way back to Paris, I thought he was joking. I didn't know why I did, he had already gone so far, but it was hard for me to even imagine it, so I really truly thought he was joking. It didn't take long for me to realize that he wasn't. And then I was downright terrified.
It was like a nightmare. The words that I thought were meant to freak me out and scare me, were the truth. Not only did Jean Luc find me quite quickly and take me away, but he also had it all set up. I really thought that it was just a threat, I couldn't imagine it being true. The idea that he could take me away so far without me being able to do anything, just didn't seem real. I should have known better.
Instead, when we got to a smallish marina out of the way, I was terrified at what that meant. When he talked to the captain, the captain never looked at me, but money was exchanged, and I knew then that this was really going to happen. My insides were shaking, but that didn't seem to matter. I promised myself that I wasn't going to show weakness. I just had to come up with a plan. I was put into a dark room and left to my own devices. Whatever plan I was going to come up with had to be a good one.
Since I was probably still in shock when it first happened, my next course of action was to simply talk to Jean Luc. We had known each other for quite some time and even though things had gotten weird toward the end, was probably why I had left the way I did to begin with. He had never been so out of touch with reality. I had to believe that if we just talked and I told him that he was freaking me out, he would stop. I really thought that. I didn't know why; it was already becoming quite clear that he was far less worried about me being upset. I just didn't know what to do.
So I talked to him, or at least I tried to when he gave me something to eat, but being ignored gave me the worst feeling, so I asked him if there was any way he could get me something for my stomach. For a moment I thought that he would and that he would have some compassion for me, but instead he just made a face. “After everything you've done do you really expect me to help you?”
“What have I done? I failed at my career in Paris, and I came home because I didn't know what else to do. I lost my job, and I had nothing else there. Why wouldn’t I come home? That’s what made sense.”
That got me a dirty look and, of course, I could have worded it better, but it was hard to hear that. It was exactly how I felt.
“We had a relationship. How can you say that you had nothing left there?” Jean Luc wanted to know.
I thought he must be joking, honestly. I mean, considering the situation we were in, but he wasn't. I think that I was supposed to forget the fact that he had completely lost his mind and was holding me on some boat that was going to take me to Europe with other illegal passengers, or he was just that evil. I didn't think either reason was going to make me feel any better. Both made me sick to my stomach.
I asked him what he was going to do with me and he kind of shrugged, saying that he wasn't sure but that he would get back to me about it. He had this stupid grin on his face. Instead of making me feel better, the smile just made me feel worse. Why did he take such pleasure in freaking me out and making this worse than it had to be?
He didn't stay very long, and I was grateful for that. As soon as he left, I could finally get a full breath into my lungs. Whatever I thought was going to happen next, the truth was very clear. I had to get away from Jean Luc. If not, by the time I got to Europe, I was never going to come back. It wasn't like Jean Luc was in love with me, so that’s why he came to get me. This was something else, revenge or I didn't really know, I just knew that I wanted to stay as far away from him as possible.
This small room that I was in didn't even seem to be part of the actual boat, but probably more the inventory. It felt like a container, even if it had been spruced up a little bit on the inside to look like something else. It made me wonder how many more people that were here didn't want to be or that weren't supposed to be here. Was the person that took in the money a captain or was he someone else? Was there somebody that I could talk to, convince them to help me? My mind was just going through the motions, trying to figure out the solution to my problem. I couldn't stay here, I had to get out, but I feared that I didn't know the best way to go about it. If I made the wrong move, it would ruin everything.
I waited cautiously for someone to come to me in the night, but no one did. Instead, I was left alone and to my own devices. Since there was nothing to do really, that meant that all I could do was think about the situation I was in and realize that there was no way to get free of it. I tried so many scenarios mentally, each one bringing me further into the problem that I found myself in.
The one idea that seemed to be worthwhile to actually get me out of this mess was dangerous. I needed to enlist the help of one of the people on this boat. It was not a safe idea that I wanted to try. If I failed or I picked the wrong person to get me help, I would likely get us both killed.
I thought that Jean Luc would come to me for what he wanted. He said that he was waiting for me to give in, and I thought that he had taken me for that reason. Why not get what he wanted out of me then? It made no sense to wait, but maybe his thoughts for me were even more sinister. I remembered him saying something about how much a man was willing to pay for the pleasure. He wouldn’t, right?
Closing my eyes, I tried to settle my brain. It was clear that I was losing my mind. That’s what it was. Jean Luc was bad, but he wasn’t that bad, right? I shivered to think that I was wrong. What else could he think to accomplish from dragging me back to Europe? I didn’t think he was worried about our relationship anymore. I thought he now looked at me like a commodity that he had worked for, and he had the right to get some compensation out of me.
13
Nicholas
The day that Lara came up missing was hands down the worst day of my life. I always thought that it would be the day that the doctor told me that I could no longer be in the military. That was a horrible day for me, but little did I know that it could get so much worse.
The worst part about it was the not knowing. The more I learned about Lara's life in Paris, the more suspect it was. I had some military buddies in the area, and they were doing a good job of trying to find her. They were also trying to figure out what happened to her and where she went. I was curious as well. If I would have known that Paris was where she was, I would have gone directly there. Nothing would have kept me away, but I learned very quickly that it wasn't going to be that easy. It never seemed to be.
Lara was in the fashion industry, but half of the fashion industry seemed to be into some darker sort of work. It wasn't just that she had been in that role for ten years, but she had also dated someone from it, and from what I was finding out, Jean Luc was one of the worst. I didn't know how she could be with somebody like that and still be the way that she was. I started to realize that if a guy like that couldn't have her, he would likely get upset and do whatever he could to make sure that in the end she was his. Everything I learned about Lara kept tying it back to that man. I didn't want that to be the result, but that was how it kept popping up.
Dennis, an old comrade of mine, told me that she was in bed with a lot of bad people. I wanted to tell him that she wasn't in bed with anyone, but it wouldn't look good. I was listening to myself, and the fact was I didn't think Lara would ever do any wrong in my eyes. Even if this was all her idea, I still would not believe it. I would think that something had happened, and someone had put her up to it. It was just easier to think that way than to think that she could betray me.
So, I kept looking and when it became clear that not only had Jean Luc been in Bogalusa and the surrounding area, but he was on his way back to Europe on a cargo ship. Likely, Lara was on the same cargo ship, since there was more than a couple of people there that weren’t supposed to be there. The ship was going to be impossible to find out in the ocean. It wasn't checking in like it was supposed to do. Instead, I just knew where it was probably going to be and the approximate day that it was going to be there. Sadly, I was not given much time to get where I needed to be. By the time I raced to a little spot in Italy where I thought it was going to land, the ship had already arrived and departed again. I didn't know if she was still on it, I knew nothing. All I knew for certain was that she could be there, or she could be somewhere else. I was left with so many questions it unnerved me what I didn't know.
I found myself in Italy, trying to track down Jean Luc. He wasn't trying to be found out and it showed. I kept thinking that as I was upset with the whole situation, I felt like at least I was leaning in the right direction. The big problem was when I found out about Jean Luc’s past. Not only was he quite horrible in many senses, but he was also tied to human trafficking too.
Naturally, my first worry was that he was trying to do something like that with Lara. She was perfection, and it wasn't hard to see that as a possibility at all. Unfortunately, once I started thinking that way, I couldn't take it back, and I started to go down a very dark road. What would happen to her, the very thought of it hurt my brain.
The fact that she could be sold into that sort of life had me moving a little bit faster toward finding her. Stakes were high because if I didn't find her, there was no telling what was going to happen.
The thoughts of what was happening to Lara didn't help my sanity at all. In fact, I thought I was going crazy a little bit because not everybody was jumping to the same conclusion that I was. I was convinced that I knew what this was all about. Other people thought that maybe I was too close to it, and I wasn't thinking clearly.
That, of course, made me lose my shit. I wasn't going to be pushed out of the way and ignored because they couldn't see how this was supposed to end. I seemed to be the only one that could read between the lines. I wished it was that clear for everyone else. I was still being told that I needed to wait and hold on because everything was going to be okay. That wasn't true though, was it? It certainly didn't feel true.
