“You saw Rimi last week?” I rush out before I can stop myself. I’m supposed to be portraying a cool and collected cartel leader, not a dweeb who comes after only two pumps.
Megan smiles, loving the shock in my tone. Since it places her on my team, I let the mocking gleam that arrived with her grin slide. “Yes. His home isn’t too far from here.” Just like earlier when she spoke about Nick, her expression perks up as she asks, “Do you think he’d like to see me again?” As quickly as her excitement bristled, it slips off her face with a groan. “Shewon’t be there again, will she? I don’t like her. She’s mean.”
“A woman was with Rimi when you visited him?”
She mistakes the shock in my tone as devious. “They’re not like that. They don’t do the things Nick does withher.” She looks like she vomited a little in her mouth. “Rimi’sfriendsleeps in her own room.” I feel as if our conversation is about to veer off course when she curls her hand over her basically flat stomach, but am proven wrong when she mutters, “Her baby is really cute. My baby will be cute, too. When she’s born.”
The full extent of her mental illness is showcased in the worst light when she coos to her ‘baby’ how she will see her daddy soon. She doesn’t just have a brief conversation and move on.
She’s so far down the rabbit hole, she doesn’t blink when my ‘imaginary friend’ jumps into our conversation. “I told you.” Smith’s voice is a mix of remorseful and fretful. “Certifiably fucking insane.”
I nod, agreeing with him. “But she could be onto something. Roxanne said the women at Rimi’s ranch shared the same room. What if the woman Megan mentioned had her own room because she was a part of Rimi’s team? She could be the woman we’re seeking.”
Although every member of Castro’s team was taken down in the massive blood bath last week, over four dozen ‘survivors’ were registered in the CIA’s recovery file. The women were an integral part of the baby-farming operation, but both Henry and I agreed they played no part in Fien’s captivity nor his brother’s family’s downfall, so they shouldn’t be held accountable.
“There’s one person who can give you answers to the questions you’re seeking, Dimitri. She’s sitting right in front of you.” Smith’s tone is neither malice nor mocking. It is straight-up honest.
With my deadly insides hidden by a smile, I return my focus back to Megan. She’s watching me, not the least bit confronted by the viciousness of my returned stare. “Did you have your own room at Rimi’s farm, too, Megan? Or did you share a room with Rimi?” I scoff like I’m disappointed her innocent act is for show. “I wonder what Nick will think about you shacking up with another man.”
“I didn’t share a room with Rimi.” She looks genuinely unwell. “My daddy told me what would happen if I shared a bed with a man who wasn’t my husband. He’d sew my eyes shut like he did my mother when she lethimsleep in their bed.”
My eyes rocket in the direction she nudged her head, gasping like a man without a cock when I realize who she’s referencing. The focus is no longer on Rimi’s debunked crew. It has shifted to my father.
“Smi—”
“Cross-referencing any connection between Megan’s mother and your father now.” He sounds as shocked as me. I’m stunned, truly and wholly scandalized. My father fucked around long before my mother died, but that doesn’t mean what I think it does, does it? Megan can’t be my sister—surely.
“Furthermore…” Megan waits for my eyes to return to her flaming-with-anger face before she continues, “Rimi doesn’t live on a farm.” She talks about him as if he isn’t dead. “He has a big house my mother would have loved. It has hundreds of rooms, a picture theater, and a special hospital in the basement. That’s where the ladies have their babies. Rimi said I could have my baby there if I want.” My thudding heart almost drowns out her next lot of words. “I can prove I had my own room. His house is close to here.” She peers around like she’s gathering her bearings. “Well, it was closer to the airport than here. Can we go back there?”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Smith murmurs out loud, matching my sentiments to a T. “Show her the photos I sent to your phone.”
With my mind shut down, autopilot mode kicks in. I dig my phone out of my pocket, then fire it up. My thumb hovers over the message app when Megan grunts, “That’s her, the woman who lives with Rimi. How did you get her photograph?” The absolute disdain hardening her features softens when she spots Fien on my screensaver. “Aww, now it makes sense. I told you her daughter is cute. I’d put her photo on my phone too…if I had one.”
My itch to kill turns catastrophic when the final piece of the puzzle slots into place. My screensaver is an image of Fien I snapped the first time I saw her in the flesh. Because Audrey clutched my hand most of the drive from Rimi’s compound to India’s house, Fien isn’t cradled in Roxanne’s arms. She’s being held by India.
It doesn’t take me even a second to do the math. India is in every scene even more than Roxanne. She has been in every single frame—even the ones before Fien was conceived. That fucking bitch orchestrated my daughter’s captivity because I chose her roommate over her, and I’m going to kill her for it.
36
Roxanne
Irequest the driver of my cab to pull over two houses back from India’s country estate. Even with my gut warning me that this is a bad idea, I can’t help but test the strength of the boundaries Dimitri lodged between us.
He could have let me leave thinking he didn’t care about me. He could have walked away without telling me our baby meant something to him. He didn’t.
That deserves recognition.
That deserves acknowledgment.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” asks the driver when my hunt for bills in the bottom of my clutch has me grunting in pain. “You don’t look real good.”
Up until twenty minutes ago, I didn’t know a broken heart could cause physical pain. I’m in as much pain now as I was when Maestro punched me in the stomach. It has me sweating up a storm and has my cab driver convinced I’m up to no good.
He was already suspicious when I said I would have to direct him to my location by taking a detour past a club that looks as shady as hell when it’s minus its ritzy guests.
“Perhaps I could take you to the hospital?”
I lock my eyes with the kind pair glancing at me in the rearview mirror. “I’m fine. I think I ate something bad. It will pass soon.”I hope.
