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 thedoinkof 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 America 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.
