I glance at Jameson questioningly as I ask, “Are you sure you’ve entered in the right address?”
He gives a curt nod just as I approach the turn-off and find that we’ve entered a township, not unlike Central Valley in size. I’m infused by the concoction of two different feelings at one time. The first is longing. The desire to return home hits at an all-time high since this adventure began. The second is a peaceful calm. A laid-back, small-town atmosphere is much more my speed than the pedal-to-the-metal mentality of city life.
“So, where we headed? What’s this place have to offer that the city doesn’t?” My curiosity gets the better of me.
He snorts in response before answering. “Not much. We’re going a few miles past the town limits. Training grounds.”
It’s the only brief explanation he offers until I pull up outside a huge concrete building of mystery. Bearing no markings or logos on the outside, it’s impossible to know what the purpose of the structure is. If it weren’t for Jameson hinting about training grounds, I’d think it was just another abandoned building. Perhaps anonymity is the appeal.
“C’mon,” Jameson rushes to order as he hops out of the ride, “pop the trunk.”
I follow his request, watching as he yanks a black leather duffel from within before walking to the front door. It’s not until we reach the entrance that I notice the place is locked down like a government fortress. There are multiple security cameras pointed in every direction, leaving no blind spots. Strong metal bars cover the glass doors and windows from the inside.
“Why are the bars on the inside?” I ask, coming to an abrupt stop as he punches a passcode into a small keypad. Whirring and clicking commence in response, and Jameson pulls the heavy doors, holding them open long enough for me to squeeze through.
“Bars are on the inside so that someone outside can’t pry or unbolt the metal from the frame. People put those metal bars outside their homes not realizing how easy it would be to just unscrew and remove them,” he explains.
Makes sense.
Only one light is on inside, and it illuminates the hallway but leaves a thin veil of darkness to coat everything else. Stepping inside the first room on our right—labeled Control Room with big bold letters stenciled onto the door—Jameson powers on every light in the building according to a power grid mapping out the complex. Also according to the grid, there is a slew of different rooms here. There are eight large monitors, split in half on the screen to showcase two different camera views each. Every few seconds the images flicker to two other views. For a training facility, and I’ll admit I’m not entirely sure what type of training he means, the place is way more high-tech than I’d have imagined from the run-down appearance outside.
“What is this place?” I wonder aloud, straining to take in the flickering camera images. Faintly, I can make out what appears to be a gun-range, another room that looks like a military or police training room that’s huge and has the skeleton of something like a house with different rooms, a physical fitness room with everything from weight-lifting machines to a speed course, and a room full of mats. And that’s just the rooms I can actually make out. It’s all a little overwhelming.
“It’s the place we bring employees for training. We own the building, and it’s easier to keep curious people passing by at bay if it’s not in a big city. Plus, the sheriff and mayor here are both in Dom’s pocket so we’re left alone,” he clarifies before growing more stern, switching over from friend to mentor. “Gray, we’re going to be coming here four or five days a week for the next month. At the end of that month, I’ll re-evaluate if we need to change up the schedule and maybe even stay here for an additional month.”
“Stay here? You mean like live here for a month?” I narrow my eyes, both bristling and intrigued at the idea.
“Yes. When I say train, I’m not just talking the gun range or working out. You’ll learn how to handle yourself in all aspects of the trade. You’ll be able to breach houses. You’ll have practice in real-life worst-case scenarios. I will teach you both to torture until you break someone enough to get an answer from them, and I’ll teach you to withstand if it should happen to you. All that, and more. We’ll go over fighting and defense techniques…”
He pauses to side-eye me for a moment, a hint of amusement playing at his lips. “I know you already know a bit about fighting, but there’s always room to learn more. Improvement and growth. I’ll ensure you’re able to thrive in this world and because you weren’t born into it, it’ll have to be a crash course. Don’t worry, I was born into this world but didn’t know it, so I was once standing in your shoes. Had to give myself a crash course for survival.” He squeezes my shoulder in reassurance, not unlike a father would do to his son. “All the while you’ll still be running errands and implementing yourself into the business with Dom so that he comes to trust you, or at least grows more easy about you being around since he doesn’t really trust anyone.”
His words are surprising, yet somehow expected. He stares at me like he anticipates me to argue, to say I can’t do it—that I refuse. But I won’t give him that. I made my decision that day he showed up on my doorstep and I’m not deviating from it. I’ll take this as far as I have to, walking through brimstone and Hell in the process, even if I don’t recognize myself once I reach the other side.
~XoXo~
“Gray,” Jameson calls, pulling me out of my own head. I walk over to the desk and lean down over his shoulder to peer at the laptop. The program we need is already up and running and a little blip appears in a map of the city. There are actually two little blips. A blue one marking our current location, and a slightly larger red one, the location of the watch. Or in this case, the location of my heart.
“They’re not that far away. If he takes that watch with him, it’s going to move. We’ll know where he is, but not where they are.” Throwing me a pen he orders, “Write down that address.”
I scribble it down on a nearby sticky-pad.
“We have one chance to grab them, but we can’t go in blind. I’m going to try and rally St. Pierre for help now. You stay at this screen until you can get the program downloaded to your phone. We’ll need the radar to be mobile; enter in this data to pull up the info. It’s kind of like an I.P. address that the chip in her watch emits. Sort of.” He throws me the letter containing the necessary contents to follow his orders.
I begin doing so automatically.
“When I have someone—hopefully a few of St. Pierre’s men—to go with us, I’ll call you. Let me know if the blip starts moving. It just means he’s leaving the building, but it could end up being informative all the same by knowing his movements,” Jameson requests, removing a holstered gun from his desk drawer and sliding it over his shoulders before covering it with the top half of his suit.
Reaching atop the nearby bookshelf, he grabs a smaller pistol, leaning down to slide it into his dress sock.
“I know you have some firepower in that car of yours, but feel free to help yourself to what’s in my bedroom closet. Code to the safe is ten-thirty-one.”
“Ten-thirty-one. Halloween. Valley’s birthday?”
I don’t know why I’m so astonished. It’s not even relevant. He just nods, eyeing me curiously like I might lose my shit in a few seconds.
“I’ll call you if anything changes,” I say.
Ten minutes later, I have everything downloaded and entered into my phone. My leg is jiggling erratically as I stare at the clock on the wall, watching as each second ticks by. Each tick of the clock is another exclamation point added to the length of time Valley has been in this state of suffering. My eyes flick back to the screen, and I stare at the address again. It seems vaguely familiar. Pulling up Google Maps, I type in the address and then zoom in on a picture of the building. Finally, it hits me. I’ve been there before—several times in fact—as I was running errands for Jameson, and once or twice when he requested I courier a package there for Dominic.
The amb
er colored liquid filling the glass in front of me sloshes from side to side and it takes a minute before I realize it’s due to my bouncing leg. Every second I sit here is a second longer that she’s suffering unnecessarily. It’s another moment on Dom’s side, another opportunity the universe has to take her away from me for good.
It’s not like I’m unfamiliar with the building. I know the general layout of the structure. I can lurk around in the shadows of the night and take them out one by one.
Unable to take it anymore, I react. Snatching up my keys, my phone, and making good on Jameson’s offer to help myself to his hardware, I hurry into my car.
“I’m coming for you, V. Don’t give up on me now,” I say aloud.
She might not be able to hear me, but Valley and I have always had a direct line to the same frequency. Our hearts ride the same wavelength. Or some shit like that. Maybe it’s all a crock of bull I’ve been telling myself to feel better, but she definitely has a direct line to my heart. If she can’t hear my plea, all I can hope is that she at least feels my plea in hers.
~XoXo~
Valley
Snot and dried tears cling to my face like a disgusting concoction of syrup and slimy water. I glance at Mom, terrified because for the first time ever, I don’t see beauty—not in the aesthetic type of way. As soon as the conversation with Jameson and Gray ended, so did Dominic’s false air of neutrality. His actions toward her upon first entering the room began with simple bullying tactics, which he continued for quite a while. I was stupid enough to think that was all he’d resort to, that maybe after all these years, he still held a soft spot for his wife. His heart is rotten to the core, and everyone knows rotten fruit turns to soft mush. So maybe, just maybe, she still owned a tiny particle of the soft spot in it. It was far too easy to convince myself it was a possibility. Maybe all he’d do was harass her but not harm her beautiful face, which he mentioned more than once. I thought him bringing it up was strange. Turns out, he was thinking about that one feature for a reason.
Mom has always prided herself on her beauty. She’s not narcissistic or snobby about it, but she knows she’s a special breed. Her beauty comes naturally and without effort, despite the fact she loves putting effort into her looks by dressing up and maintaining a strict regimen.
When that phone call ended, it was like a switch had been flipped. It was like The Jersey Dom became determined to showcase exactly how he got his name. He removed my mother’s restraints, moved her over to the chair in the center of the room, and he beat her.
He beat her—focusing solely on her face—until she passed out.
Then he moved her back onto the bed near me and retied her restraints. He didn’t bother to position her limp body in a normal way either. Her neck is flopped over to the side in a way that nearly looks broken. The position is going to cause a kink in it, but from the way her face is still swelling, still turning a deeper and deeper hue of purple, I doubt she’ll notice.
I stare at my mother unable to look away. So many colors are displayed. Pale blonde hair; lush, pale pink lips tinged with deep crimson seeping from the split in them; variances of pale purple to deep violet blending together across her face like a watercolor painting.
No, aesthetical vanity isn’t what I see, but the beauty of strength is so much stronger. She’s been through more than most people have in an entire lifetime, she’s fallen a thousand times but never failed to get back up with a smile on her face.
Life is a joke. Life isn’t fair.
Where’s her happily-ever-after?
If anyone deserves it, it’s her.
At some point my throat became sore from screaming for Dominic to stop and at some point after that, my voice completely vanished altogether. I’ve always thought my mother was the strongest woman I’d ever known, and no I haven’t actually known that many people, but it doesn’t matter. She’s like a modern day Joan of Arc. She sat there, never once averting her eyes from Dominic’s, never once backing down. She even said things to Dominic to goad him, but at that point, my mind had begun to shrink back into itself in helplessness—a tactical move of protection to save myself from a mental breakdown.
Blessings of the day:
I’m thankful I’m still alive.
I’m thankful I’ve at least been fed.
I’m thankful I was given a bed in lieu of only having an old wooden chair for my extended stay.
I’m thankful for Jerome providing me with vitamins, even if it’s probably just a waste.
And I’m thankful for each rise and fall of my mother’s chest as she lies in a crumpled unconscious mess beside me.
Finally, she stirs for a second, righting her neck’s position, but not actually waking. A hundred pounds of pressure lift off my shoulders just from witnessing it. I blow out a raw and painful sigh of relief.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
A BATTLE HAS ensued. My mind is warring between two possible decisions. I can either try to get some rest, which my body would be exceptionally grateful for right now. Or I can stay awake and live out my final hours in bittersweet lucidity. Although, I’ll probably just hype myself up and stress myself out as the seconds tick by like I’m sitting inside one of those rooms where the walls are closing in on you and there’s nothing you can do but wait to be pancaked.
One is the coward’s way; the other is the brave and dignified way, but it’s also painful. On the other hand, I can acknowledge the beauty of the fact this is one of the final decisions I’ll ever be making. In the morning, Dominic Malone, the man I grew up thinking was my father, is going to take away my right to make any more decisions.
Instead of doing either thing, I end up combining the two choices into one. I’m completely keyed up, the gears of my mind are spinning, but I’m sitting here pretending to be asleep—mostly because I’ve discovered the two guards are more open with information being passed around when they think no one is listening. With my feet stretched across the bed as far as they’ll go, touching Mom’s in some sort of comforting footsie charade, I lay here listening.
“Fuck,” Jerome’s voice cuts through an extended period of silence. “I’m going to have to run home and check on my girl. She just messaged me and said there was some sort of attempted break-in at our place. Do you think you’ll be okay with watching those two by yourself if I head over there for a bit and come back? It’s only five minutes or so from here.”
I keep my head down but crack an eye open to check on Mom. Still out like a light, but also still breathing, thank heavens. My tear ducts burn just from looking at her face. I want to cry but everything inside me has dried up.
“Sure, but you better hurry. The boss is supposed to be back in two hours so I’d get a move on it. He’ll be pissed to learn there’s only one of us here.”
From Dimitri’s tone, I can just picture the look of warning he’s shooting Jerome. If anyone gets caught going against orders, they’re as good as dead.
“I won’t be long,” comes Jerome’s retreating response.
My stomach is suddenly flipping at the thought of being alone with Asshole number one. I don’t trust him, not that I trust Jerome either. There’s just something a little more sinister about Dimitri that I can’t quite put a finger on. He’s slimy and he has rape eyes; I’ve seen them roaming up and down mine and Mom’s bodies on more than one occasion.
The door clangs shut, vibrating through the room and feeling like a death sentence. I nearly laugh at the irony—I’ve already been handed one.
The echo hasn’t even stopped ringing when I feel Dimitri’s dark shadow fall over me. His presence is a looming promise of all the terrible things to come. His cold, clammy skin settles at my bound wrists and my eyes pop open of their own accord, no longer able to feign slumber. Retrieving a switchblade from his pocket, he pops it open. I can feel my eyes widening at the same time the hairs on my arms rise.
Making quick work of cutting through the thick plastic, he pulls my wobbly legs to standing.
/> “What are you doing?” My voice quivers.
“I’m doing you a favor.” His dark eyes bore into mine, and I don’t trust his words. He’s not the type of man who gives favors freely, not without expecting something in return. I swallow, my feet cemented in place even as he attempts to tug me along beside him.
He shoots me an irritated look. “I thought you might enjoy a quick shower since you’ve had to bathe in a sink for the last week.”
The feeling of dread doesn’t exactly lift from his suggestion, but I’m not opposed to washing the gunk and sweat off me. In a weird way, this is like some final death-row ritual demonstrating a show of humanity to the prisoner.
He leads me to a door on the other side of the room and unlocks it. I had just assumed it was some sort of closet but when he flicks on the lights, a large, open shower similar to one you’d find in a locker-room is illuminated. There’s been a shower close by all along, yet they made me wash-up with a damn rag. Like I had originally believed, this was definitely just another element of making a person’s mind crack.
“You have eight minutes,” he tells me, stepping back outside the door.
“Thank you,” I whisper just before he disappears.
Naturally, the first thing I do is check for windows or any avenue of escape. There are none, and I’m instantly reminded I’m underground. This is the basement. There wouldn’t be windows and there’s only one entrance to the room I’m in. I soon realize there aren’t any items that can be used as weapons either, unless you count an old single-blade razor, which I soon find is impossible to break loose from the metal handle.
“Fuck,” I mumble aloud as I quickly strip off my clothes, throwing them on an old shelf by the door then heading to the furthest showerhead. I set the water to a temperature far too hot for my skin and watch in fascination as it grows red. The white pastiness of me mixed with the red blotches reminds me of a candy cane. My theory is that if I set the temperature a little bit higher than I can stand, it’ll melt all the nastiness away just like scalding water dissolves most of the grease from dishes.
Love on the Rise: Book Two of The Against All Odds Series Page 27