Chapter One

 

Six months earlier…

Joshua

The throbbing of my foot and nose wrenches me awake, and I lie silent for a moment until I get my bearings.

My thoughts are fractured, floating, confused…until they fly back together and collide with a bang that sends a wave of dizziness sweeping through me.

I remember my Jaguar gliding to a stop as I pumped my foot uselessly on the gas pedal. Charlemagne had sabotaged it. He was controlling it remotely from somewhere nearby. A bitter smell burned my nostrils, and I heard a hissing of gas from the car’s air conditioning vents. I tried to open the door, but the locks wouldn’t function.

I sucked in my breath and scrabbled for my gun, which lay on the seat next to me. I was going to shoot out the window, but whatever gas he’d pumped into the car worked too quickly.

And that was the last thing I remember before I woke up here.

Where is here?

I open my eyes and struggle into a sitting position, bracing my hand on the frost-rimed carpet of leaves. It’s late afternoon. The sun is melting into a bloody lake of fire on the horizon, and my breath makes puffs of vapor in the chill air. October in upstate Maine is bracingly cold.

I can’t breathe through my nose. My hand flies to my face, and I feel crusted blood. The clouds are drifting from my mind, and I remember that Tamara broke my nose.

I’m wrapped in a blanket and I’m nude. And I’m alone. No Charlemagne.

No Tamara.

My heart thuds painfully against my ribcage.

What is he doing to her right now? Must find her. Must save her.

My hand bumps against something hard and plastic. I look down and I see a cell phone lying in the leaves right next to me. It’s not my cell phone; my brother must have left it for me.

My throbbing foot is neatly bandaged. That wasn’t mercy. Neither is the blanket. My brother wouldn’t let me bleed out or freeze to death out here when he’s got such fun things planned for me…and Tamara.

I know how he thinks, because it’s how I think. A quick kill is never enough. If someone deserves killing, then they deserve killing the right way. Slowly, with heaping helpings of pain and terror rammed down their throats until they vomit.

Charlemagne wants me alive but panicked. It’s why he’s left me in the middle of the woods, naked. It’ll take me a long time to make my way back to civilization, and he knows I will be torturing myself every step of the way, imagining what he’s doing to her.

I swallow a rush of nausea and grab the cell phone. It’s fully charged, but there are no bars. There wouldn’t be any cell phone reception out here, and even if there were, I wouldn’t use the phone to call for help. My brother will be monitoring every call made from this phone. He’ll also be tracking its location anytime I get a signal.

I see there’s one message. I press the button, and my blood freezes in my veins. The message is a picture of an unconscious Tamara, just her face, with a ball gag in her mouth. Her face is slack and her mouth is stretched obscenely around the bright red rubber ball. A message plays across the screen:

If you tell the police, I will find out immediately, and I will start mailing you body parts.

My Tamara.

What is he doing to her right now?

As I stumble to my feet, I picture the things he did to the social workers; those women who visited our cabin in the woods and did nothing to save us.

Our oldest brother even slipped one of them a note, but they were intimidated by my father, and they didn’t do a fucking thing to save us. They didn’t even interview us separately. Instead, they spoke to the whole family with my father sitting right there in the room. Then they went back to town and reported that we were just one big wholesome, happy, pioneer family living out in the woods.

And years went by, and my father killed my brothers off one by one, and brought girls back to our cabin and raped them in front of us, and then killed them too.

Charlemagne remembered those women who failed us. He nursed a grudge. When he was in his twenties, he tracked down the social workers who had left us in that hell, and he put their eyes out with hot pokers and broke most of the bones in their bodies before he killed them.

Is he doing that to Tamara?

Screams of agony echo through my mind. I hear the crunch of bones as if it’s happening right in front of me. I smell burning flesh.

Panic and insane rage explode inside me, and I run, with the blanket wrapped around my shoulders and the phone clenched in my hands.

Tripping over a branch, I fall to the ground and smash my face. White-hot pain flares from my shattered nose and knocks clarity back into my head. I welcome the pain. I’ve never been afraid of it. It’s my friend and my protector.

Calmly, I climb to my feet.

There’s a shift in my brain, something ancient and icy taking over. All those feelings of fear and fury are still inside me. I can’t make them go away. But I can store them somewhere else until they’re useful.

I stand perfectly still and slow my breathing. Then I look around to get my bearings.

I’m surrounded by a dense stand of spruce trees. The sun has almost vanished. A fat black column of smoke rises into the sky, melting into the blue-black of encroaching night. It has to be the smoking ruins of my former house. With my remote control in my car, I set the code to detonate as I drove away. All evidence of my past misdeeds is now reduced to cinders and ash, floating on the cold October breeze.

The position of the setting sun alongside the smoke column gives me a rough idea of where I am. I imagine that the smoking crater that used to be my house will be crawling with police and fire trucks. I remember hearing sirens before I got in my car and fled with Tamara, so I know Charlemagne called the police. I have no idea what he told them. Did he reveal enough to make me a wanted fugitive?

Until I know, I can’t go anywhere near the police. I am easily an hour away from the nearest major road. I picked this remote location for a reason. However, I do have emergency supplies and ATVs stashed in various spots on the property. I head for what I hope is the closest one, crunching over bare leaves, the gunshot wound in my foot sending a jolt of pain through me with every step I take.

Hold on, Tamara. I’m coming for you.

She has to know I’ll save her, right? She can’t give up hope.

I swiftly make my way through the thick underbrush. Deep in the recesses of my brain, guilt and terror hammer at the thorny barrier I’ve built around them.

It’s my fault she’s been taken. I will scour the Earth to find her, and when I do, I will build a fortress for her and keep her safe for the rest of her life.

I’m haunted by memories of her inner fire and her magnificent strength, all wrapped in velvety kindness. How bravely she battled for people she barely even knew: that homeless drunk who slept in doorways, the families at the battered women’s shelter. With the childhood she had, it’s an absolute miracle she has a decent bone left in her body, and yet she’s the kindest, most generous person I’ve ever known. I’ve never met anyone like her. I’ll never meet anyone like her again.

I imagine Charlemagne snuffing out that fire; her spark lost forever...

Before I realize it, I’m running blindly again, and I almost trip over a spruce tree’s long, low-hanging branch.

I pull back my calm.

I can do this. This is easy for me, I remind myself. I’ve slept outside, naked in the woods, in every kind of weather, for many nights, since my very first memories. My father’s training, while brutal, prepared me for emergencies just like this one. And since the day I escaped him, I’ve never let myself get soft.

The whole time I held Tamara captive, I spent at least a couple of hours a day running through the woods barefoot. Not only to keep my stamina up but to toughen the soles of my feet. I’m comfortable outdoors in any weather and am intimately acquainted with the woods around this property.

I push aside all thoughts and memory of Tamara. I make her very small and hide her inside my heart, where she’s safe. What I need to do is concentrate on getting clothing and a vehicle and making my way to the road.

We psychopaths are born with a special affinity for extreme danger. Our focus becomes blade-sharp under stress. Tests on psychopaths show their heart rates remain steady, slow down, even, as they balance on skis at the top of cliff-high ski runs, or disarm bombs. I remember that now. How could I have forgotten?

As soon as I force myself to think clearly, it’s as if a map superimposes itself over the woods and I know exactly where I am. Landmarks spring up in front of me, and I use them to make my way to a small camouflaged hut in the woods, where I keep an emergency getaway stash.

Unfortunately, Charlemagne’s already been here. I know he’s somehow disabled my perimeter alarms and he’s been prowling through these woods for months. I swing open the door, but there’s nothing but an empty room. He beat me to it. At some point, he broke in and stole my ATV, modified dirt bike, clothing, and the stash of fake ID and cash I had hidden here.

A volcanic eruption of fury escapes from somewhere deep inside me, and I let out a single bellow of rage.

Tamara. He has Tamara. He’s hurting her. I will fucking cut him up into little pieces when I catch him. I will make his death last for weeks.

Then I regain control again. With clinical detachment, I note that I have never experienced such repeated loss of control under duress, and that when I have time, I will need to thoroughly investigate this new phenomenon. But right now, I need every single cell in my brain dedicated to finding my brother.

I pause in the doorway of the hut, surveying the darkening woods. I need to decide if I should head straight for the rural road near my property or look for another stash. If I make the wrong decision, it’s going to take me at least half an hour out of my way.

I will take a chance. There’s another stash that’s better hidden, in a hideout carved into the hillside. I’m a long distance from the street. If I go straight to the road, wrapped in a blanket with no clothing on, who knows how long it will take me to flag down a car.

I hurry through the woods, the blanket wrapped tight to protect me from the plunging temperature. The sky is velvety black and the air smells smoky. I start to jog, but with purpose and control this time. The gunshot wound on my foot tears open and bleeds, and branches slash at my face, but I get to the hideout in ten minutes, and I am rewarded for the beating I’ve taken. Charlemagne didn’t find this one.

I’ve hidden a modified dirt bike that can run in the woods and on the highway, clothes, ten thousand dollars in cash, fake ID, a gun, clips full of ammo, and food and water.

Strapped to the back of the dirt bike is a travel bag with several neatly packed changes of clothes, toiletries, and other items I might need if I have to go on the run. I pull on wool slacks, a turtleneck, a chunky cable-knit sweater and a fisherman’s cap, then a thick leather jacket. I peel open a package of QuikClot from my first-aid kit and dump it into my bleeding gunshot wound, then wrap a fresh bandage around it before I pull on socks and boots.

After I gulp down the water, I stuff an energy bar into my mouth. I chew it as I fire up the bike and tear through the woods.

Tamara. Tamara. Tamara. Her name pounds through my body in tune with the beat of my heart.

I drive parallel to the rural road, using it as my guide until I make it to one of the main, paved roads.

Tamara’s crawled back out of my subconscious again, and she’s screaming. Her voice cries out in my head. Her beautiful face swims in front of me, crystalline tears running down her cheeks.

Save me. Where are you? Why have you abandoned me? He’s hurting me!

Once again, I viciously shove all thoughts of her deep down into the darkness that fills me, and I pour ice-cold calm into my core, slowing my heartbeat and steadying my breathing. I feel as if something inside me is tearing and bleeding from the strain of it, but I do what has to be done. I always do what has to be done.

I drive as fast as I dare, which is only a few miles over the speed limit. I can’t risk being pulled over, still not knowing what Charlemagne has told the police. They might have an APB out for me with pictures of my face.

It feels as if eons pass before I get into an area with cell phone service. I pull into a parking lot and use a burner phone that I had stashed in my bag, and risk making a call to my attorney, Algernon Brooks, a man who’d slit his sainted mother’s throat for the right price. That’s exactly what I look for in a lawyer.

He knows a lot about me, including the fact that I have a twin brother who’s been locked in an asylum for years, and the fact that Joshua Smith isn’t my real name. He also gets paid seven figures a year to make sure that, in the eyes of the law, I’m as pure as the driven snow. He and my head of security, a former CIA black ops assassin named Garrett Jones, are my go-to cleanup crew.

“It’s me. How’s the weather down there?” My code phrase to let him know it’s really me calling. The code phrase changes weekly.

“Colder than a witch’s twat. Hell, I thought you were dead,” Algernon says. “I’ve been trying to call you all day.”

“I’m hard to kill. Talk to me.”

“You sound different.” I can hear the suspicion in his voice.

“My nose is broken. But I appreciate the paranoia. The first day I met you, we went out to lunch at Tempus Fugit on 34th Street, and you had Hennessy on the rocks. Despite the fact that you were drinking overpriced French girly shit for pussies in a failed effort to impress me with your worldliness, I still hired you. Now fucking talk to me before I find you and carve out your voice box with a butter knife.”

That must have been convincing enough, because he talks fast. Earlier today, the local police received a tip telling them that I owned the house in Maine, and that I was holding Tamara Bennett there. I was already on law enforcement’s radar because of Tamara, and because someoneprobably my brother—had told them that I was responsible for the disappearance of Baxter Warburton.

Of course, when the police arrived, my house had been blown to toothpick-sized splinters. They haven’t been able to pin the ownership of the house on me. Given how carefully I covered my tracks when I bought it, using a string of shell companies, I’m confident they never will. Algernon defended me indignantly to the police, pointing out that due to my years as a corporate raider, I’m a man with a lot of enemies—the kind who’d be happy to mess with me by making false claims.

When he’s done talking, I get him up to speed, giving him as much information as I think is necessary.

I tell him about my twin brother’s escape from a mental institution in California sometime this year, and that he’s the person who embezzled the money from my company and sabotaged my recent business deals. He was also behind the mysterious phone calls to the NYPD, the ones accusing me of taking Tamara. I tell him that Tamara Bennet was, in fact, staying with me all along, but Charlemagne kidnapped her this morning. I don’t offer any explanation for why she was with me and why I kept that information from the police, and he doesn’t ask. I pay him not to ask questions that can’t be answered.

“You’ll have to be on the lookout for him trying to impersonate me,” I tell him. “My nose is broken, so that will be one way to tell, but given what a psycho fuck he is, he might break his own nose if he thinks it will help him fool people.” I tell him I’ll get back to him and hang up.

Next I call my security chief Garrett, on his encrypted line. After I give him the passcode, I give him my location so he can send my helicopter to pick me up. I go through the rigmarole again, filling him in on exactly what happened, with some editing and obfuscations that gloss over the worst of the felonies I’ve committed.

Then I settle back down to wait for the helicopter. Every passing minute chews into my sanity, and Tamara starts screaming in my ears again, begging and pleading, and I think the frozen moisture on my cheeks might be tears.