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“Let’s hope she can help us,” Ben says, his voice full of resolve. “You were in there a long time, so maybe you did connect,” he offers. “And then we can help her by giving her back to her family. They must be going crazy with worry.”
I pull out the burner phone from the glove compartment and call the Dutch police, telling them there’s suspicious activity in a disused barn. After giving them the location, I shut my eyes and try and block everything out.
But all I can think of is the sale, of Ava, and what I want—or need—to do.
CHAPTERTWENTY-SIX
AVA
ExpectingMax to have an override button, or some way of opening the door, it’s a relief when all I hear is his voice. The baritone depth of it is not as smooth as usual.
“Ava, please come out, or let me in so we can talk. I can explain everything if you give me the chance.”
It must be a thick door because the distortion in his voice makes him sound like he’s far away.
“Not yet,” I tell him, wanting some time to collect my thoughts and memories. My head is hectic, like a hive of bees has exploded inside, distressed memories and images and conversations bumping into each other and bombarding my brain.
I need some time to sort out the real memories from the not real, if I can.
Via several internal cameras, a bank of TV screens on the wall shows me multiple views of the house. My eyes are drawn to the balcony of Max’s master suite, another focused on his studio and safe room. Thank God there are no cameras of his bed.
Shit. That’s where I left my phone.I check my back pockets anyway but they’re empty.
Searching for Max or Jeremy, my heart stalls when I see them move from a blind spot to just outside the panic room door. It has me glued to the screen. In high-definition quality, Max runs agitated hands through his hair. Jeremy is talking to him in a measured way, trying to placate him by the looks of things.
Wishing I could hear what they were saying, I scan the control panel looking at all the buttons and wondering what would happen if I started pressing things. Deciding not to risk anything, like unwittingly opening the door, I concentrate on the room I’m in. There are three doors, behind which I discover a shower, a separate WC, and a store room with bottles of water and food.
I grab a bottle of water and a protein bar before collapsing onto the sofa.
Holy hell.How am I going to unpick the mess in my head? It’s filled to the brim with returning memories, everything crystallising like hoar frost, ravenous and sharp.
Taking things chronologically, I start with Jonas outside the club, then the three men who appeared from nowhere and injected something into our necks. We were so engrossed in each other’s kiss, so tipsy, that we hadn’t noticed them approaching.
The next two days I amprocessed.I think that’s the only way to describe what happened: men with guns, women who strip us naked, waxing, the drugging, the number inked on our rumps, Luca taking his pick of five girls.
Luca trying us all out.
The memory of that first time has me howling: in rage, in distress, it doesn’t really matter. That memory shreds me to pieces, a wafer-thin fragment of me all that remains as I bawl and screech and bellow in pain.
“Ava,please. Don’t go through this alone. I should be with you!”
Max’s voice sounds tortured, but I can’t deal with him right now. I need to go through the ugly and the bad. I need to inspect every returning memory. “Not yet.”
Eventually, my crying turns to silent weeping as I skip over the next few hours which are dominated by violence and non-consensual acts. Of being tied up and hurt by multiple men until I resemble a husk, every scrap of life taken from me. Luca assaults me every day, other men too, when I was sold for an hour or two. Then there was Yves—Max, as I now know him—in a farm building, someone who offered me hope and comfort. He looked so out of place there, and I’ve misappropriated his words, calling him Lionheart when he was tellingmeto be strong and brave. To be fearless. And I tried to be. I did. But he was deserving of that moniker too as he trawled Europe for his sister. My God, he’s had to be brave and strong too.
I cry for his pain. For his search.His sister is still missing.And it’s only because I know what she’s suffering through, on what level of hell she exists on that I can place all of my mixed-up feelings for Max to one side and concentrate on the most important thing here.
Helping her. Helping him.
Only later, when I can think beyond Sabine’s misery will I tackle everything else.
Max’s face kept me company in the dark days that followed that barn, as I listened and learnt and cowered and survived. As Luca’s captive, I remembered every second of my time with the man who came to me and offered me another chance at life. The chance of escape. I lived and breathed him when he didn’t exist, when he was far away and I was all alone. I imagined him instead of the brutal faces that hovered above me, trying to get through another hour, another night, another day.
I clung to his promise for days.
I clung to the promise ofhim.
Then there’s the sale where my fears that Max wouldn’t be there manifested. But my terror dissolved when I saw him in the car until all I felt was the sweetest relief. My Lionheart, come to rescue me, to keep me safe just as he promised.
