33
I climb the narrow stairwell in a state of numbness, with a mantra in my head: I feel no guilt or shame for choosing Charlie. No guilt or shame. Why should I? I’ve suffered a brutal life for just as long as James has, so why can’t I have a happily ever after?
He would have one, too, if he would just allow himself to move on from wanting me. He needs to accept that I want to stay with Charlie. I feel liberated to admit that I love Charlie, and once he tells me he didn’t plan on killing James—because I am convinced he will profess what I know deep in my heart—I will tell him how I feel, and everything will be perfect. Now that James is safe, and now that Robert is probably dead, Charlie and I can leave for Mexico.
I can’t deny I feel...somewhat selfish for abandoning James, but what else could I do? I can’t stick around and support him. All the time I’m in his life, he will lust after what he shouldn’t—I know how that feels and how tangible the pull can be. I’d be giving him false hope.
Reaching the top of the stairwell, I attempt to whack open the hatch, but a sharp twinge rips through my lower stomach. It cripples me to squatting, making me hiss in pain, but I thrust upward a second time, knocking the hatch open. It lands on the wet grass with a soppy thud, and a downpour soaks through, spitting across my face. I manage to climb out, ignoring the dead Los Zetas sprawled out on the grass, and immediately jog for the guardhouse cabin. James will be hot on my heels if I don’t hurry and get out of sight, and I have no time to argue with him. I just want to watch him leave—so I know he’s gotten away safely—then I’m going home to get warm and dry and wait for Charlie.
At the guardhouse, I tuck myself under a roof overhang, crouched on an upturned crate with my eyes cast out over the field. It’s nearly too difficult to see James in the dark torrent when he crawls out of the hatch, but his beige sweater stands out like a ghost in the pitch black. He scurries about in a fluster of mud, patting down the dead bodies like a scavenger for weapons. His eyes flicker about—I assume searching for me—so I duck out of sight, hiding behind a stack of chopped wood. That’s when he disappears into the clustering trees, fast on his feet.
I let my head rest back, sighing in relief that he’s free, that my job here is done. Whatever happens now, I don’t regret setting him free. When all is said and done, he’s my family.
“You ready to answer my fucking questions yet?!” Charlie’s yelling pounds through the cabin walls, and I flinch in reaction, skidding forward on all fours. The sharp movement pulls at my cramping stomach, and I wince, squeezing to blink back the pain.
Lethargic moans follow Charlie’s yelling, with spluttering and coughing. I crawl back under the roof overhang and press my ear to the damp, exterior wall. I can hear murmurs, though nothing is clear. My eyes thin. Something topples over and crashes on the floor, but no one speaks.
My curiosity piquing, I slip around the cabin, getting closer and closer to the moaning. There’s a window half opened. Nearing it, I can hear the moaning a little clearer. It’s a man, wheezing for breath. It’s Robert. I can’t explain how, but I know it’s him.
I kick up a log to gain a few inches in height, grip the ledge with my fingernails, and peer in through the window.
The cabin is lit up with down lighters covering the pitched ceiling, and there’s a dank, woody scent in the air. It’s kind of rustic with scuffed timber floors covered in worn rugs, a bench in the heart of the space decorated in beer bottles and a smoking ashtray, and the rolled-log walls are wreathed in hunting objects, from knives to huge guns. There’s blood splattered everywhere, drying on nearly all the wooden surfaces in dark patches.
I cower an inch when I spot Robert, knowing I should go home right now, but I can’t seem to tear myself away.
His eyes are clamped shut, and he’s trembling from head to toe in obvious agony, moaning and puffing through closed lips. He’s naked, strapped to a chair with his legs spread open, feet tied down on wooden stools that clatter with his trembling. His bulging, hairy stomach is covered in bloody, animal-like scratches, angry red cigarette burns, and between his legs...blood pumps from his crotch, dripping down the chair onto the floor, soaking through the rug under him.
My cheeks bloat to heave.
There’s a metal bucket next to him on the floor, drenched in fresh blood—so much fucking blood I swear I’m on the verge of vomiting.
“I was in a meeting with Tatiana...” he grumbles in clatters of breath, wincing on every word, and I realize he’s confessing what happened to me. “James texted her to ask for help...with locations and a whole plan to get Blaire out of England... I spilled my drink over her cell phone, so she didn’t see the text...then I contacted the Arabs to hijack James’ plan...to go fetch Blaire... I would have done it myself...but I knew the Arabs were in England...and I knew they’d get to Blaire quickly...” He pauses between words, panting for his life. “I knew there was a chance they would screw me over on our deal...I was aware they’d likely auction her off...as she was worth a fortune...but I didn’t care...I just wanted to make you suffer for taking Arjana...”
“What about Tatiana?” Charlie’s rough voice comes over us. My eyes dart from left to right, but I can’t see him.
“Tatiana had nothing to do with Blaire’s disappearance...” Robert wheezes. “I swear it, Charlie. Now please, please...spare...my...daughters...” He breaks into anxious puffs and coughs, head flopping about in a state of weakness.
I stare out, shocked and enlightened to finally know how those dirty Arabs got their hands on me. It would make sense that James contacted Tatiana for help to kidnap me as even I turned to her in my hour of need. Over Maksim, she’s the only adviser we know. It would make sense that Robert oversaw a text on her phone, too, otherwise, how else could he have known James’ plan to kidnap me?
James doesn’t even realize what he did. I’m still so angry at him.
A broad-shouldered man comes into view, heavy footsteps thudding in his wake. I duck a little under the window, only my eyes visible at the ledge. He’s carrying a long, brown tube in large, veiny hands, juggling it in an act of play. It’s Charlie, and his presence in there sends icy tendrils down my fucking spine. He’s dressed in a thick, black sweater with the notorious red Zs printed on the chest, black combat trousers, and hulking boots, his sleek, inky hair tied away from his face. The arms of his sweater are doused in blood, thick drops trickling off his fingers.
“So, if I have my hacker check Tatiana’s cell phone,” he rasps, “he’ll confirm that James texted her? And if I call her now, she will confirm that you ruined her cell phone?”
“Yes...” Robert struggles to say.
“Hmmm.” My wicked lover muses, wandering about the cabin with affluent confidence. “I will spare one of your youngest for your honesty—if it is honesty—but you still have more questions to answer.”
“Ohhhh...ohhh! Please, Charlie! Don’t...don’t do this...!”
“Screw your begging, hijo de puta.” Charlie spits Spanish curses while twisting the cap off the tube. “Blaire begged, and you didn’t hear her, so let’s see how you like being played with while you’re powerless, yeah?” He shoves Robert’s head to the side and empties the contents of the tube into one of Robert’s ears.
“Aargh!” Robert shrieks, cheeks scorching and flapping with panicked breaths. I cringe into myself, feeling his agony emitting into the atmosphere. His legs bat against the stools while his big hands yank at the straps on his wrists, desperate to get free.
That must be some kind of acidic paste. I’ve seen others use it before, and it’s supposed to burn like a bitch.
“Don’t struggle,” Charlie says in an oddly calm voice, slapping our enemies face hard enough to knock his head back. “You know it only makes it worse.”
Nic appears, stalking across the cabin like an untamed animal hunched at the neck. He’s also clad in black combat attire with the sleeves of his sweater rolled up tattooed forearms. He leans over to playfully smack Robert’s cheek, teasing, “It’s a shame my hermano took your balls”—I feel pale when I hear why blood is pumping from Robert’s crotch—“we could have given them the same attention we’re giving your ears.”
“Ahhh, it teaches him a lesson for not hearing Blaire, no?” Andres’ gruff, Latino voice appears. My eyes whip from left to right searching for him, but he’s well out of sight.
Nic laughs, nudging Charlie in a playful manner, and Charlie nudges him back, nodding at Robert. “Pathetic motherfucker, isn’t he?”
“El fruto no cae lejos del árbol.” The fruit does not fall far from the tree. “Perhaps his parents were tontos, too?”
Charlie bursts out chuckling at his brother’s mockery, and I immediately notice a strange, boyish vibe about him. He seems to be in his element in there, torturing someone.
“Just...kill...me...” Robert barely manages to say, his head dropping back. “Just...do...me...the...mercy. Kill my daughters, too, quickly...please...”
“Did you show Blaire mercy?!” Charlie yells suddenly, and I squeal to duck another inch. “Did you look after her when she was dosed up to the eyeballs on heroin, hmm? Or did you toy with her and scare her?” While he talks, he squeezes the tube in both hands, trailing it across Robert’s fat, battered stomach.
Robert goes crazy screaming and shaking, so loud it pierces through my ears. I recoil, cupping them in both hands.
“My girl has lived a dark life. I promised her light, and you, you maricón motherfucker”—he points a steady finger—“you thought you could steal my promise? I’ll take your fucking hands and then your feet, more and more until you’re nothing but pieces of flesh. You deserve every fucking inch of the pain—tape open his eyes,” he says to either Nic or Andres, reaching for a washcloth on the bench. He wipes his hands before dropping it on the floor, then inclines over our mutual enemy. “You’ll watch something unbelievably disgusting and violating, Robert, as a punishment for what you did to my girl.” His lips curl against gleaming white teeth as he hisses, “By the end of today, everyone will know that if they dare to harm a hair on her head, I will torture them with no compassion.”
“I...did...nothing...to...her...” Robert says, spluttering and coughing up clotted blood.
“You can’t lie to me.” Charlie grabs Robert’s jaw to put them eye to eye. “My men found the footage on the laptop in your daughter’s dorm in France; the recordings of you sexually toying with Blaire... Passive on the heroin was she, hmm?”
I go cold on the spot, wondering what the hell he’s talking about.
I duck completely under the ledge when Nic walks past the window, trying to listen over the sudden monsoon.
“Your daughter will be passive with a dick in her ass, pussy, and mouth,” Charlie rasps, his deeper notes darker and utterly chilling. “Yeah, that’s it. Open his eyes wide, so he doesn’t miss a thing—you’ll be alive long enough to watch this, Robert.”
A female voice screams the place down, and things tumble about hitting the floor like she’s kicking out for freedom.
“Papa! Me ndihmo!”
“No! Charlie! Please!” Robert implores, finding inner strength to argue for his child.
“Not her,” Charlie snaps. “She’s too young, idiota. Bring me the eldest.”
The girl’s screams fade into the distance, drowning the cabin in threatening silence. Blood booms in my ears while Robert is wheezing and gargling for breath. “Please...” he cries. “Please...”
“Ahhh, that’s it,” Charlie rasps. “The pretty, Drita. Well, she won’t be so pretty when I’m done.”
“You asshole!” a young woman screeches in accented-English, spitting curses in her own language. “You’re going to fucking die for coming at us! I’ll kill you myself for hurting my papa!”
Charlie chuckles. “You’re a feisty one, girl. My men will like that.”
“Shkoni...qij...nëna...juaj,” Robert stammers, barely coherent.
Charlie asks in amusement what Robert just said, and the young woman tells him that it means, go fuck your mom. She then hocks up a ball of phlegm and spits it at something.
“Well, my mamá is dead,” Charlie says, laughing with his brothers. “But I could fuck your daughter—what do you reckon, Drita, hmm? You’d like that, wouldn’t you, you perverted pequeña puta.” She squeals in resistance like Charlie is doing something to her, and Charlie laughs harder and deeper, seeming to take pleasure in her fear. “You are lucky I’ve got a nice girl at home, otherwise, I would fuck you black and blue, you bitch.”
I can’t help myself—I need to see what’s going on! I grip the window ledge, gaining height inch by inch to look inside. Andres is in sight now, arm to arm standing with Nic. Charlie’s half facing away from me. His bloody fingers are wrapped around a tan, slender arm, holding a young woman prisoner at his side. He’s brushing her dark hair down her spine, saying stuff in her ear that’s making her recoil. She’s not wearing any clothes, cringing in her shoulders trying to hide herself. Her ass globes wobble as she trembles, covered in big purple bruises. Ow, those are some heavy thwacks she’s taken.
“Why did you have the footage?” Charlie questions softly, and she flinches, insisting she doesn’t know what he’s talking about. “Don’t lie, la zorra.” He calls her a bitch in his own language. “I know you had the footage of your father making my girl suck his cock when she was all fucked up on heroin. My men found it in your dorm. I collected it myself.”
My eyes shoot away from the cabin, realization hitting me, hard. When I woke in Robert’s company, it was to a choking sensation, and I had that horrible, salty taste in my mouth.
I cup my mouth, feeling green and mortified with shame. Robert fucked about with me while I was asleep, and Charlie has seen it.
“Is that what gets you off?” Charlie asks. “Watching your father sexually abuse young girls? My girl?”
I glance back in to see the young woman shake her head, but she doesn’t utter a word. She cringes again when Charlie kisses the side of her face, as he says, “S’all right. You don’t have to answer. But, you can’t escape punishment. Let’s see how you like being taken against your will.”
“No!” She grips his arm in a panicked appeal. “Please!”
“You...stole...Arjana...” Robert slurs, head knocking from left to right with fatigue.
Charlie clicks his fingers, and Nic walks up behind the chair to grip Robert’s chubby head, to hold him still. I figure he’s forcing Robert’s line of vision, so he has no other choice but to watch what cruelty is unfolding.
“Yeah, I did take Arjana,” Charlie admits, yanking the girl back and forth against her struggling.
“Why...?” Robert slurs again, hardly awake now.
“Why, is none of your fucking business. But, I will tell you something that certainly won’t bring you solace. After my medical team cleaned up Arjana, she was so bonita I gave her to my brother—the man who’s holding your head still, Robert.”
Gave her? He told me she was living happily in Mexico.
Robert tries to spit in disgust but doesn’t have the strength. “Does Blaire know that you...” he breaks between words, breathing heavily, “that you don’t have...his...body? Does she know that you...lied?”
I lean a little closer to the window with my ear, frowning.
“What do you...think...Blaire will say when she knows...you’ve been lying...?”
“There’s no need to upset Blaire,” Charlie says, with his mood tangibly softening at the mention of me. “Wherever Maksim’s body is, it’s a million miles away from her, rotting in hell. That satisfies me.”
Charlie hasn’t got Maksim’s body?
My eyes bulge in disbelief, head swimming in the unknown. I can’t keep up with tonight. He told me himself that he had Maksim’s body in Mexico. Or, he said to tell Robert it’s in Mexico.
I recall the shifty glances Charlie and Nic were tossing each other on my first day back, when we were forming a plan to buy time to save James.
This is so confusing. Why would he lie and say that he had Maksim’s body when he didn’t? I don’t understand.
I fleetingly wonder if Luna and James were telling the truth about Charlie wanting my brother dead, and I hate myself for it.
“Papa, please,” the young woman cries, and I glance back in to see she’s wiggling about, trying to get free of Charlie’s grasp.
“Now, now,” he says, and his voice alone subdues her. “It’ll be over soon, chica, I promise.” Before anyone can react, he swipes one arm across the bench in the center of the room, sending bottles and ashtrays flying across the wooden floors. He slams her face down on the bench, crushing her cheek against the wooden surface.
I flinch and squeak in shock, ducking under the window.
“Men!” he shouts, and I hear them piling in from another room in the cabin. “Fuck her properly. All of you—but not you, hermano,” he adds, and I assume he’s referring to Andres.
“No! No, please!” the young woman cries. “Don’t do this!”
“You think begging will save you?” Charlie asks, slowly simmering with rage, every word he spouts coming out colder, deeper. “Blaire begged for your father to stop the agony when she spent two fucking weeks withdrawing from the heroin...she begged for me to come, but I couldn’t because I didn’t know where she was!” he shouts over meager gargles and gasps, the young woman trying to breathe. “While I was busy searching through my enemies trying to find her, a friend had her all along!”
“Mátalo, Charlie!” Andres shouts, and the rest of the men follow suit, chanting for their Señor to kill Robert.
“I’m sorry,” the young woman shatters into pathetic sobs. “If I had known who she was, I would have—”
“You’re not sorry!” Charlie screams back at her. “You watched that perverted footage over twenty times! My hacker was able to do a replay count, you fucking bitch!”
Wa-tch!
A delicate tumble hits the floor, and then she’s screaming at the top of her lungs. It’s sharp. Cringing. I recognize the sound of her being slammed on the bench again, and then I hear the soft hiss of a blade being pulled from its case. My ears narrow. I peer up, seeing flecks of silver glimmering on the cabin’s wooden walls. I gain another inch in height, until I see Charlie holding a huge machete.
“While they fuck your daughter,” he says, speaking to the blade in his hand, eyeing it with odd lust, “I will dismantle you, Robert. When you’re dead, she will die too.”
“Please...” Robert weeps like a baby, begging for his daughter’s life. “Kill her quickly...”
“No,” Charlie says. “Once she’s suffered enough, just like Blaire did, only then will she die—go on, Antonio, fuck her. I know you want to.”
Heavy rustling, struggling, and then one long, howling wince tears through the air.
I turn around to sit on the log because I can’t even chance to look anymore. I hug myself. I hug my head in my arms when her squawks fill the cabin, mixed with deep male moans and the table banging and creaking against the floors.
“Another!” Charlie yells.
“If you bite me,” someone says in gruff English, “I will pull out your teeth.”
The young woman’s squawks become muffled, and the bench bangs harder on the floor.
“Are you gonna admit that you were watching your father fuck around with my girl, hmm? Are you gonna admit that you enjoyed watching my girl suffer with heroin withdrawals?”
“Okay!” the young woman heaves, and I pull my arms from my head. “Okay! I watched it!” The entire cabin drowns in silence, as she shakily confesses that it was the Spanish Mafia leader who ordered her to get the laptop containing the violating footage of me.
“Gina?” Andres questions, but I don’t hear a reply. I wonder if they’re talking about Charlie’s sister, Gina, but I’m confident they can’t be. He said she was dead—or, he certainly implied it.
“Yes, Gina Guzmán,” the young woman confirms, panting to get her words out, and I’m stunned on every account. “She was looking for the Russian girl...somehow found out my father had her—even provided photos of him loading her limp body into a blacked-out car.” She gulps, pausing for a breath. “I couldn’t deny the evidence...it was a clean, camera shot of the redhead’s face...and my father’s.”
“Why would Gina be looking for Blaire?” Nic asks, but Charlie hushes him, wanting to know more. I want to know more, too. Why the hell would Gina be looking for me?
“The Hispanic woman showed me old movies of what you do to traitors,” the young woman continues, struggling to speak to Charlie. “She-she said she’d already tipped you off that your girlfriend was sold at an auction... She warned if I didn’t get her what she wanted, she’d tell you who bought the Russian girl...”
“What did she want exactly?”
“Proof my father still had her,” she pants. “My word wasn’t enough...she wanted a precise location on the Russian girl...but my father doesn’t give me those details.” When she pauses again, I hear she’s wheezing for more breaths, waning from the abuse she’s suffered. “I had to steal his laptop,” she eventually puffs to say, “as I knew it’d have CCTV footage of his hideouts. I intended to hand it over to the Hispanic woman, but it was already too late...we were kidnapped by you.”
“Why did you watch the footage your father had?” Charlie asks, having already processed all she’s said while I’m still digesting it, baffled out of my mind as to why Gina was looking for me. “Don’t try to lie,” he warns one last time. “I know it was watched from your dorm location, replayed twenty times in one day.”
“I was fascinated!” The young woman’s voice completely breaks, and she can hardly get her confession out now. “I-I’d never see-seen someone suffer b-before...”
“Take his arm,” Charlie says.
“No! Please, I-I said I’m sorry!”
Regardless of her pleas, the blade comes down and chomps on a wooden surface. Robert hollers in agony, and I can’t fight the gory images in my head. A leg hitting the floor. A hand landing to roll across the rug.
“Another dick in her fucking ass!” Charlie yells, and then the knife whacks! the wooden surface again. “My girl has been through more than you could ever know, you fucking whore! You think fascination is a good enough fucking reason to sit back and watch her suffer?! How fucking dare you...?!” He really loses it, whacking and slapping and screaming at the top of his lungs that she’s gonna die a painful, slow death. “You motherfucking puta!”
Robert wails in agony and sympathy for his daughter, who’s groaning and sobbing, being fucked by God knows how many Los Zetas. “It’s my fault!” he insists. “I planted the seed of curiosity! It’s my lifestyle...the murder... Charlie...please!”
“No one dares to harm my family and lives,” Charlie growls, followed by a powerful chop, and the woman’s voice fades to black.
I feel it...her death. It’s cold and haunting, especially when a piece of her thuds on the floor. Robert explodes with tragic cries, while a strange feeling comes over me. I rock myself back and forth to keep warm, to let the alien feeling pass. That’s when a Los Zetas guard bolts across the field past me, coming from the cell’s hatch direction, and my head whips up.
“¡Sonar las alarmas!” he yells over the rainfall that we’ve been attacked, and I stand in defense. My eyes scatter around the field as a team of Los Zetas move in from the clustering trees, swarming the place aiming guns, searching for something.
Searching for someone.
James.
He disappeared into the trees, where they’re coming from.
Fuck.
A loud weeoo-weeoo! rings out, making me flinch in shock, and lights surrounding the field pop on, half blinding me.
I hear the cabin front door whack open, Charlie’s voice cutting over the blaring alarm, “Surround the perimeter! Get a team to the house for Blaire and Luna, now!”
The spitting sound of a radio connection kicks in, a rush of Spanish words I can’t make out due to the poor frequency. I hear James’ name several times and then mine, but I can’t understand what they’re saying in between.
“Blaire isn’t there,” someone says. I lean out to see what’s going on, but they are all around the front of the cabin.
“What the fuck do you mean, Blaire isn’t there?” Charlie snaps. “Where is she?!”
“I don’t know, Señor. The men who were on patrol guarding the house are dead—there’s been a shootout. The others who were on station at the gates are inside the house now, and they said Blaire isn’t there.”
Without a second to spare, Charlie orders everyone to spread out and find me. “Forget looking for James. Just find Blaire—Nic, pull up the internal and external CCTV, including the guardhouse perimeter and the cells.”
CCTV monitor’s the guardhouse cells?
Fuck.