Knaves

by Lawless, M. J.

  She was too weak now to resist as the Marquis moved behind her quickly, strapping her legs against the instrument of torture so that she could no longer move other than to lift her head. “It might surprise you to know that usually I abhor this kind of violence,” he said. “It’s too crude for my tastes, though I must admit in your case I am willing to make an exception.”

  She couldn’t see him as he spoke, but he then slowly walked around in front of her before bending forward. Speckles of blood ran across his cheek.

  “I’ll try again,” he said quietly, in a voice that was even more terrifying because of its forced calmness. “Tell me who you are.”

  Arching her neck upwards, she spat at him and had the pleasure of seeing him recoil slightly. Then he laughed, rubbing at his eye.

  “Oh, Karla—that’s what he called you, wasn’t it? Karla. I am going to take such pleasure in breaking you tonight. I don’t think I’ve ever looked forward to something so much for a very long time. I should thank you really.”

  Turning his back towards her, he walked over to the table and began to lift various implements. Karla saw whips, chains and objects she could only guess the use of, and he let them all fall back on the table as though dissatisfied with them. He didn’t look at her as he continued to talk.

  “One thing I do know, and I knew it before tonight: you’re not Jeanne Duval. Of course, there was a Jeanne Duval, who did indeed live in Switzerland, in Jura. But she died in the nineties, when she was a poor, sweet teenager. I think I would have liked to have met that innocent girl, but then she’s dead, and I’ve never been especially fond of necrophilia.” He paused, as though thoughtful. “Though to tell the truth,” he continued, as though speaking to himself, “I’ve never tried.” The evil smile returned and he stared straight at Karla. “When I fuck you, I suppose in one very real sense I’ll be fucking a corpse.”

  “Are you going to kill me?” she hissed. “Like you killed Eloise? Like you killed Safiyah?”

  Valmont shook his head at this. “Such melodrama,” he sighed. Taking off his jacket, he placed it on the back of a chair and then fished around in one of the pockets before retrieving a small, silver cigarette case. Lifting one of these out, he concentrated on lighting it and leaned back against the table.

  “I didn’t kill Safiyah. Oh, I did some interesting things with her—no doubt you would consider them terrible things. I’ve always enjoyed girls of a certain type, a certain age, but I’ve never needed to kill them. By now she’s probably already on her way to a brothel in Belgrade or Moscow. Perhaps she is dead, though not by my hands. I doubt it though. There’s always a market for damaged goods. As for Eloise, I simply ensured that she got what she wanted. After so much time being clean—and she was clean; I’m capable of being benevolent, of being generous, when I choose… After so much time off heroin, there was no chance she could take such a pure quantity.”

  “You bastard!” Karla snarled, struggling against her bonds.

  Drawing on the cigarette so that it glowed fierce and red, Valmont walked slowly towards her before dragging her head up by the scalp. His eyes were vicious.

  “I’ve never murdered anyone,” he said, coldly. “I’ve always paid others to do that for me, the few times I needed it. I realise now that I’ve denied myself the ultimate pleasure.” Without warning he dropped his head to a level with Karla’s and hissed: “What have you done with my money? Tell me! Who are you?”

  Karla was stubborn, staring at him silently. He glared back at her and then nodded, taking another long, deep drag on the cigarette before releasing her and stepping backwards. She didn’t look at him as her head fell forward, but she did groan as she felt Latour’s hands on her back, tearing at her dress. The fabric resisted for a second but then gave way and she shuddered as she lay exposed, her limbs bound to the horse.

  There was a faint shout somewhere in the distance and the sound of something being broken. Karla was vaguely aware of Valmont saying something and thought she heard Latour move away, then Valmont’s hand was on her head again, dragging up her face to look at him though her despair was such that she was barely aware of him.

  “Stay with me, Karla,” he said quietly. His eyes were dead and black, watching her coolly. “You and I have a lot to do this evening, and I want you to experience every moment of it.” He sucked on his cigarette again, the ashen tip once more blazing into life. “Do you smoke?” he asked.

  “I’ve been trying to give up,” she responded weakly. “It’s a bad habit, like falling for sick bastards.”

  He laughed at this. “Bravo, bravo. This must be an example of your Irish humour. Well, I doubt you’ll find much to enjoy this evening.” He gazed at the cigarette in his fingers. “It is a filthy habit, and one of the few I rarely indulge, but there are other uses for it.” Waving his hands, he glared at Karla. “Perhaps I should burn off one of your nipples.” His hand came close to her face, causing her to flinch. “Or perhaps I’ll start with one of those pretty green eyes of yours.” She tried to bury her head in the horse. “Or maybe I should just—Agh!”

  She felt his hand wrenched away from her head and instinctively looked up, just in time to see something throwing Valmont away from her. Hayden had crashed into the Marquis who fell so hard against the table that it collapsed beneath them. Taken entirely by surprise, Valmont was unable to do anything at first as Hayden pulled back an arm and then launched a fist into his antagonist, punching him with all his strength before he stumbled, tangling himself in a whip that caused him to fall. As he went down, his face white with fury, he caught hold of the Marquis and dragged him to the floor, determined to hit him again.

  While the two men struggled, Valmont’s punches and kicks full of vicious anger but no match for the sheer will of Hayden’s blows, Karla felt something move past her. Yanking her hands against her bonds, she looked up at Latour whose face was fixed grimly on the fighting men. There was a cut above his left eye.

  “Hayden!” she screamed.

  Pausing only to hit Valmont once again with such force that he stunned the Marquis, Hayden dragged himself to his feet. Against any other man he would have been powerful and intimidating, but compared to the silent, terrible Goliath he was a fierce but outmatched David. That didn’t stop him, however. With a roar he launched himself forward and, more by luck than skill, caught Latour in his midriff so that both of them fell backwards.

  They were behind her now, and Karla could only hear the sound of violent scuffles and punches mixed with Hayden’s grunts and a weird, moaning noise that she assumed came from Latour. Her wrists and ankles were burning as they chafed against the leather straps, but she ignored the pain and tried to pull herself free, becoming even more frantic as Valmont lifted himself from the floor. His one eye was already beginning to swell, bruises turning his once handsome face into a mockery of its former self, and he swayed slightly on his feet.

  After regarding the two men fighting for a moment, he paused only to bend down and lift something up. When he walked towards Karla, his hand briefly hidden behind his back, she resumed her desperate struggle but was unable to resist him when he grabbed hold of her hair and yanked back her head. She felt something cold against her throat.

  “Monsieur Rider,” she heard him say, his breath coming in short bursts. “I should congratulate you. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone handle themselves so well against Latour. However, I should warn you that if you don’t stop this minute, I shall not hesitate to slit her throat.”

  At this, she heard the fighting stop behind her.

  “No!” she yelled. “Hayden, don’t do it! He’s bluffing!” At this, Valmont’s grip tightened in her hair and he laughed.

  “Let her go,” she heard Hayden snarl. “You bastard! I’ll kill you!”

  “You’re in no position to threaten me, not now. Latour, use that rope—over there.”

  Valmont released her and Karla strained her head around to see Hayden on the other side of the room, sullenly w
atching the pair of them as Latour bound his hands behind his back. His eyes were suffused with pain and suffering when he saw Karla’s face, and with a roar he suddenly launched forward, as though he were going to ram into the Marquis. Without a moment’s hesitation Latour punched him solidly in the side of his head, causing him to stagger to his knees. A sob escaped Karla’s lips.

  “Very good, very good, Monsieur Rider,” Valmont purred. “Actually, this works very well. In some ways you have interrupted my prospects of breaking this bitch, but you’ll be my insurance. When you see the pretty ways I hurt her, how I use her again and again until she can’t stand it anymore, you’ll be ready to tell me everything I want to know.”

  Karla saw Hayden shake away his dizziness and slowly lift his face. He spat blood from his mouth and stared past her. “I’ll tell you anything you want,” he said quietly. “Just let her go.”

  “There’ll be no need to say another word,” another voice interrupted them. “You know what they say—loose talk cost lives.” Karla’s heart leaped up inside her as she recognised it.

  “Who the hell are you?” she heard Valmont yell.

  “That’s none of your fecking business,” Coilin replied. “But I’ll tell you this, as a lifelong republican I don’t take kindly to some shite-nosed aristocrat abusing my niece.”

  Chapter Seventeen: Hayden

  Hayden’s head was a terrible Technicolor cinema as he slowly revived consciousness, an oversaturated vision of the world around him accompanied by some dreadful, pulsing soundtrack that roared in his ears and throbbed throughout his skull.

  It took him several minutes to realise that he was being dragged by his arms, a security guard on either side, and he fought his own impulse to struggle against them. In this position it would be far too difficult to succeed and they’d be just as likely to club him unconscious again.

  That was one of the hardest things he’d ever done: inside him, a terrible rage was flooding through him as he remembered what that bastard had done. Karla! he yelled silently, grinding his jaws together, his thoughts murderous and vicious. Nonetheless, he maintained an iron grip over his self-control. All that fury would do him no good, not yet.

  Instead he forced his mind to become cool and focussed. Valmont had knocked Karla unconscious—a glimmer of hatred forced itself through the icy rationalisation but Hayden pushed it away. That could find satisfaction later: for now he had to think. It was unlikely that the Marquis would remain in Monaco. If he’d ever intended to, that would all change once he realised what had happened to his wealth. Their task had been to keep Valmont busy while Toby got to work in London, setting in motion a run on certain very risky but very high value assets and futures: in the great scheme of things, a tiny drop in the vast ocean of money had disappeared and a few fund managers would fail to get their bonuses that year. If all had gone according to plan, however, Valmont was due to become a much poorer man.

  If. Hayden fought down a sense of sickness. Everything was too risky, and Karla should never have been the bait. She, however, had insisted: if anything, her determination to get the Marquis, to ruin Valmont, had pushed out every other consideration. While they had both known that Valmont was capable of terrible things, however, Hayden had never expected such quick and brutal violence against her.

  His anger was starting to cloud his thinking and he forcibly repressed the terrible image of Karla falling to the floor even as his heart lurched in his chest. He had to think. Valmont would no longer be in Monaco but would have taken Karla somewhere else. The properties belonging to the Marquis that they knew of were too far away, which meant that it had to be de Tour. Hayden ignored the despair that threatened to overwhelm him, that they could be on their way to some secret hideout that he knew nothing about. It had to be de Tour.

  He could still feel the weight of his keys and mobile in his pocket. The guards hadn’t searched him yet, simply dragging him away to some holding room. They still thought he was unconscious and, as they dropped him to the floor he realised this was the time to act.

  His eyes narrowed, he could just make out a figure standing over him, talking to the other guard in French. There was a clink of keys and Hayden took the chance that the second guard would be concentrating on the door. It was now or never.

  Without warning, he lifted one foot rapidly and kicked with all his force into the chest of the man standing over him. Opening his eyes, he saw the guard’s face register a sudden panic but before he could cry out Hayden’s kick caused him to deflate, all the air forced from his lungs in a sigh as he collapsed.

  The other guard turned in astonishment, his keys dropping to the floor as he fumbled for the holster at his side. Hayden was in a precarious position down on the ground, but he still had the advantage of surprise. Flinging his body sideways, his foot swept the guard’s legs from beneath him and, as the man fell to the floor, Hayden rolled forwards and grabbed him punching him once, twice to the side of the head. The guard barely made a sound as he slumped unconscious.

  The other one was struggling to push himself up now and Hayden turned his attention to him. If he’d used his fists, he might have stood a chance, but again he was trying to release the flap on his holster when Hayden grabbed his head and banged it hard against the wall. The whole event had probably taken less than thirty seconds and Hayden was now up and running away as fast as he could.

  He felt sick as he ran. He hated violence and during his long career of scams and crimes had avoided it as much as possible. Yet he also felt a terrible adrenaline rushing through his veins, partly caused by fear but also by excitement. It was all too easy, he realised, to get your kicks from hurting other people. No doubt that was why Valmont enjoyed it so much.

  But he had no time for such considerations. All that mattered now was getting to Karla as quickly as possible before that bastard could hurt her.

  He’d committed as much of the plans of the casino as he could to memory. At the Chateau de Tour he’d been out of his element, too easily confused and overwhelmed by the place, and he was determined not to let that happen again. Although he couldn’t be entirely sure of his position now, he also knew that a number of service entrances and corridors ran throughout the building. All he had to do was find one and make his way to the underground car park before the police thought to search them.

  Pushing through a door, he was relieved to see that the stairwell was deserted. With his back pressed to the door, he fished out his phone and hastily called up Karla’s number. It went to voice mail which didn’t surprise him and instead he opened a map, waiting for GPS to find his location. At least the signal was blocked in only part of the building, and within seconds he knew where to go.

  He tried to keep a steady pace as he ran down stairs and along corridors, ducking back whenever he heard someone coming towards him, resisting the urge to rush headlong into them. The most important thing was to get out of the building as quickly as possible. At last he opened a door that led into the cool, dimly lit space of the parking lot and, as he loped along, he reached into his pocket and retrieved his key.

  Their car was a Jaguar F-Type S, a silvery blue two-seater that Karla had insisted they hire as part of the playboy image of Sebastian Rider. That made Hayden scowl. Sebastian no longer existed: he’d been erased the moment he saw Valmont hit Karla. Hayden had no doubts at all as to who he was and what he wanted more than anything else in the world.

  Jumping into the seat, he didn’t even bother with his seat belt as he started the engine and gunned the vehicle into reverse. The wheels screeched beneath him and he swerved the car around, slamming his foot down on the accelerator and making the V6 engine throb as it shot forward.

  He had just enough sense to push the car fast enough to get out of Monte Carlo without attracting too much attention: the last thing he needed now was a high speed car chase through the city, but once he was on the road that led north he floored the accelerator and raced along as fast as the Jaguar would go, dark shadows whip
ping along beside him as he swerved easily past the few vehicles heading into the Provençal countryside.

  That journey to Chateau de Tour was one of the longest that Hayden had ever experienced. As he sped along the roads winding through the mountains, rarely dropping below a hundred miles an hour and often pushing the car much faster, he had to ignore the despair and guilt that threatened him constantly and instead concentrate on mastering the Jag as it roared through the night. All this was his fault, he knew it: it was his fault that Karla had been introduced to Valmont, his fault that they had entered the diseased and decadent world of de Tour, his fault that now she had let herself be used to try and ruin the Marquis and been taken from him. He almost sobbed at that. Taken from him! There was nothing he wouldn’t do to get her back, and if that sick bastard had harmed a single hair on her head Hayden knew that he would do his utmost to kill the Marquis.

  At last he came to the chateau, flinging the car along the long drive that led to the house and barely waiting for it to screech to a halt before he leaped out of the vehicle. As he ran towards the entrance one of Valmont’s servants gaped at him in surprise and began shouting in French, but Hayden shoved him to one side and ran at full speed through the rooms. If Karla was here he knew exactly where the Marquis would have taken her.

  Some of the servants scattered out of his way as he pelted along at full speed, but when he entered the room where poor Eloise had unwillingly shown him the door to the old tower, one man grabbed hold of Hayden, yelling loudly as he gripped onto the intruder’s arm. Hayden lifted his fist but, as he looked down at his opponent, a slightly frail man in his fifties at least, he felt sickened at himself. With a curse he simply pushed with his hand brusquely, causing the other man to fall backwards onto the soft furnishings that littered the room.

  Before he could consider how he was going to break through the heavily carved door, he had the satisfaction of seeing it begin to open. Well, that was one problem solved at least. Then his heart sank.