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I send a text message off to Santos, letting him know there’s been a hit on Meryem’s whereabouts and that I’ll be back tomorrow. In the background, I can hear Goran securing the plane. He continues driving to the private airstrip, and we’re set to leave within the hour.
It’s been so long, and this poor girl is probably wondering where her father is. Fuck, I haven’t even thought about how I’m going to tell her that her father’s dead. I could tell her he passed away, but even I know he didn’t simply pass away. He betrayed my family, and thus his life was taken from him for doing it.
I’m sure I can come up with something by the time we get there. “Goran, we’re going to need a car rental when we land.”
“Don’t worry, Miss Eset, I have it covered,” Goran tells me, and I’m pleased. For the first time, he’s taking the initiative.
This is going to be a good day. We’re going to arrive in Prague, head wherever we need to go, and then we’re going to get Meryem out of the hell she’s been enduring for far too long.
***
We arrive in Prague within a few hours, and just as Goran promised, there’s already a car waiting for us. I guess he really did already handle it. We get into the car, and Goran begins driving. “Did your informant let you know where the location is?”
Goran looks back in the rearview mirror. “Yes, he gave me GPS coordinates. It’s outside of Prague, in a town called Tuklaty.”
“How long until we get there?” I ask, anxious that we arrive as soon as possible.
“Soon enough, Miss Eset. It’s not too far,” Goran explains, and he continues driving for another fifteen minutes outside the city. In no time, we’re traveling down an old road, and on either side of us is farmland. You can tell the crops have already been harvested, and they’re just waiting for the next season before they plant anything new.
Goran pulls onto the side of the road and puts his hazards on, then gets out, glancing at his phone and then looking around. I give him a moment out of the car by himself, and then I come to the realization something is wrong here. “Goran, what’s going on?” I question him as I get out, and he’s staring down at his phone.
“Miss Eset, we’re at the coordinates. She’s supposed to be here, but there’s nothing here, not a damn thing,” Goran goes on, and I walk in front of him. I put my hand flat over the top of my brow to try and get a better look at the horizon. While I’m looking out in front of me, a stinging sensation hits me in the neck, and I swat at my neck, thinking it is probably a bug… but as I swat, I hit something hard. I wrap my hand around it and pull it out. It’s not a fucking bug. It’s a syringe. I blink rapidly, and every single time I blink, darkness begins flooding my vision.
“Goran… what…” I ask, and he leans against the car, smiling.
“Don’t worry, Miss Eset. I’ll take care of you. I’ll take care of you the way I was always meant to.” Goran’s typically stoic expression shifts to a sinister one, and I begin to lose my balance. I hit the ground, blinking rapidly to try and stay awake, but the darkness consumes me.
***
A pounding headache is what I awake to. I blink my eyes over and over again, trying to clear my vision, and eventually, things aren’t so blurry anymore. I’m in a small room, or maybe it’s a closet. There’s a couple-inch thick pad on the ground, which must be a bed. An old pot sits in the corner, with a couple of bottles of water and some boxed crackers. “Where in the fuck am I?” I whisper to myself.
Small bits of light come in underneath what I imagine is a door, and there’s another sliver of light coming through a boarded-up window. This can’t be a closet if there’s a window in here. It just has to be some small room.
“Miss Eset, are you awake?” Goran’s voice echoes through the crack underneath the door.
My heart pounds intensely in my chest, and my throat threatens to close because I want to scream, but in what reality will screaming actually do any good? I’m sure he has me tucked away someplace where no one can hear me, and now I’m wondering if he tricked me under the premise we were finding Meryem. He must have, right? Or does he actually know where she is?
“Miss Eset!” Goran’s voice rings out again, and finally, I clear my throat. I lean on the floor and act like I’m out of it because I really don’t know what else to do in this situation. He took my purse, and that’s where my gun is, and I doubt he didn’t search me all over. I usually keep a knife strapped to my inner thigh when I go out some days, and while today I put it on after Santos and I had sex, I’m certain Goran would’ve used his training to ensure I didn’t have any surprises for him.
Then I realize. How long has it been? How much time has passed by? Is it the same day we left to go to the Czech Republic? It might be, or it could be a week later, for all I know.
Santos! Oh god, Santos. The last thing I got from him was a text message telling me to be careful, and now look at what sort of mess I’m in.
A shadow blinds part of the light coming in from underneath the door, and the clattering of keys on locks tells me Goran has me tucked away very nicely. After about two minutes, the door opens, and blinding light floods into the small room.
“Ah, you’re awake! Good! I was starting to get worried I overdosed you,” Goran comments with a chuckle. “I was hoping not. Then I can’t have fun with you for as long as I want. You see, I have watched you for a long time, Miss Eset, and when Santos came into the picture, it infuriated me. I had been there all along, and you chose to overlook me, while it only took days with him before you gave him anything.”
“It was an arranged marriage, Goran. What do you expect? I can’t marry someone on my fucking payroll. I’m a woman in a mafia family, so my marriage has to mean something. What, did you expect me to sacrifice my family’s safety to marry you?” I cackle at that, ensuring he knows what he’s suggesting is a fucking joke.
Goran takes a step into the room and then pauses for a moment. “No, I can’t get angry with you. Not yet. You’re only upset because I lied. You’re upset because I tricked you, and that’s why you’re speaking to me this way.”
Bullshit. “I speak to you in whatever way I want to, the same way I always have. In some aspect, you must like getting degraded by me time and time again because you always want to add some input in somewhere when it really isn’t necessary in the first place.”
Goran sucks in his lips for a second. “Miss Eset, I am trying not to hurt you, but you’re making me want to hurt you.”
“Don’t you realize you’ve already done that, Goran? You had me fly to a completely different country under the guise that Meryem was here, and all you did was lie.”
“Oh, no. I didn’t lie about that part, Miss Eset. Meryem was here, but I got rid of her. She was too much of a nuisance. I don’t know why they wanted to keep her alive. She was useless after Kirill died. Still, I was under instructions to have my men keep her alive until I was told otherwise… but with Artos and Anzor dead, it didn’t make sense to keep her here. You know what I mean?”
