desire for Bliss: a novel of Sex, Mystery and Romance (RiverHart Book 2)

by Adira August

  He looked surprised. "Confidentiality doesn't survive death?"

  "Somebody has my sister. Confidentiality is unrelated bullshit."

  Ben's phone vibrated. "Helicopter's taken off. The house is locked down. The inside staff and the workman vacated yesterday afternoon." He put the phone away.

  "Let's go home, Eustace," Ben said. He just wanted to get Avia safely into the Keep and then he could focus on finding her sister.

  They left the lot and got back on the road. The two heads in front of him were equally still.

  He suddenly realized something had changed between Eustace and Avia. Something connected them. Something he wasn't privy to. What?

  She'd taken off her collar. Repudiated her agreements. Agreements to not lie, to not see anyone else - no. Of all the possibilities, sexual involvement with Henry Eustace wasn't one of them.

  Her agreement to not put herself at risk … fuck …

  "Avia -"

  "Don't."

  The quiet came in ton lots.

  Eustace made the last turn to the road leading to the Castle.

  "Jane Doe's surveillance was about you," Eustace said to Avia. "Madigan's legal team screwed you over. You think this is connected to Madigan?"

  She shook her head. "His organized crime connections were all remote, second party. Third, sometimes." She looked at Ben. "If you put the Hart name on a bunch of porn movies, videos, what would that be worth?"

  "Initially, a few million, maybe. But it wouldn't last when consumers find out the quality is the same. The Hart name means premium. People pay more and they don't mind. They'd just go back to cheaper products."

  He sat forward and brushed her hair back behind one ear. She smiled a little, but didn't encourage him. "What do you think this is about, Avia?" Ben asked her quietly.

  "Money. Control," she said. "Business. I think you call this a 'hostile takeover.' Only in this case, it's absolutely virulent. But it's not really about me. I'm just ... the horse whose head they wanted to cut off. They thought Talli was me. They thought they took me. They'll contact you. Soon."

  She looked out the windshield. "Or you'll find her soon."

  She'd just voiced everything he'd been thinking. With luck, Talia St. Clair would be alive and returned to them. But what Avia didn't know, was that Cleotilde Delia had been found dead in a field near Cherry Creek Dam. One .22 shot through the temple.

  He'd had Ione go to Avia's condo with security. On Dane's orders, she'd been allowed to look around. Nothing seemed disturbed in the slightest.

  They'd have to have taken Talia right off the street, maybe stopped at a light on the way to police headquarters.

  It was why he'd used such an elaborate charade to leave the Coloradan and work his way home. Someone had waited with great patience outside the underground parking for Avia to leave. They'd been ready coordinated. Completely defeated their security. What was really terrifying was, she'd been gone for twenty-four hours before anyone knew it.

  They would not get Avia. Regardless of what she said or did, if he had to commit a felony, he would keep her inside against her will, safe, until something was resolved. And if she hated him for it, at least she would be alive.

  Eustace turned up the drive to the Castle. Avia found her jacket in the gym bag and put it on.

  He had thought that mastering her would be enough with all the danger around them, even then. He'd pushed the timing of that, in case he had to control her by cell phone. He was immensely relieved when he saw her at the press conference wearing his collar.

  But - these women were conceived as a single person, one ovum, one sperm. They had each other's brain cells. They shared each other's souls, he supposed. And that superseded everything else. So he understood when she'd asked for the key. It was her right, in any case.

  But in some dark part of himself he didn't admit existed, even to himself, he was relieved Talia was taken. Even if she was dead. Because it meant Avia was not. Avienne, who owned his soul, was not missing.

  "… I have the absolute right to love you …"

  And I, you.

  "Eustace, pull over. Now."

  They were one switchback from the Barbican when Ben had the car stopped. Eustace watched him in the rearview for his next order. Avia, who'd already taken off her seat belt to put on her jacket, turned sideways to look inquiringly at him.

  "Wait," he ordered, and got out of the car. He walked around to the back and Avia realized he still had the call sheet Dane had given her. He also had his cell phone in his hand.

  "What do you think he's doing?" Eustace asked.

  "Opening negotiations," she said.

  The call was answered on the first ring by a woman. "Two-two-oh-five," she said. He seated his earphone more firmly.

  "This is Ben Hart. Put me through," he said, sure they were waiting for his call.

  "Mr. Hart!" The cheerful, voice with the grating Bronx accent came back. "Hey! You decide to go with my idea?"

  "I have four billion dollars. Most of it is not liquid. But a considerable sum, is. Prove to me Talia St. Clair is alive and tell me what you want."

  "Who?"

  "C'mon, they must have told you by now they have the wrong sister."

  A booming laugh battered his eardrum. "I gotta tell ya, Ben, I can't tell one twin from another. I make movies and it doesn't matter to me which girl I have ... on set. That's where she is, my little star. Camera can't tell the difference, see?" He paused as if Ben might respond.

  "You know - " He was enjoying himself. "You inspired me, you and your website. We're filming this gal, whichever one, doing things we never filmed before. Whoo, there's nothing like virgin asshole, you know? The boys are lined up to see how many of your doodads they can fit in there. Offered to work for free. Buuut - then we got union troubles, ya know? Hey - you'll wanna watch the shoot, Mr. Executive Producer? I got a live stream goin' here - send ya the link! I bet we go viral when we upload it to YouTube."

  The voice suddenly dropped, becoming eerily hollow, empty. "Nice place you got there, Hart. I'll give you a call back and see how you liked the video, since you're takin' my calls now."

  The cell went dead.

  Ben got back in the car. "Underground, now!"

  "Seat belt," Eustace told Avia, tromping the accelerator as soon as Ben was inside.

  Avia managed to get the seatbelt clicked in just before Eustace got to the switchback he ignored, going off-road around the side of the hill to the southwest. He gunned the Volvo over a rise toward an access road. The big wagon went airborne for a few feet before it hit, bounced and grabbed the pavement.

  He flipped the visor down and pushed the button a on a standard issue, old-fashioned garage door opener.

  Avia saw the hole in the hill coming toward her and all she could think of was a Batman movie she'd once seen. She wondered if there'd be bats. But it wasn't a cave, it was man-made tunnel into the hill, with tile sides. At the end was an open double door, that started to descend as they were driving through it.

  Eustace cranked the wheel before they hit the end of what was really just a very large garage, the tail of the car came loose and slid around about sixty degrees before coming to a halt near some trash barrels and a concrete stairway that led to a gray metal door.

  The automatic door was already closing. Ben motioned to Eustace to follow him out, leaving her behind.

  Avia got out of the belt and jumped out of the car, trotting over to where Ben was explaining something to Eustace.

  "No way!" She said to Ben. "No more secrets, did you not get the memo?"

  Eustace looked down and away and back to Ben with a she's right look.

  "You're wasting time. If she'd dead, tell me. If they're torturing her, tell me," she said, her face set and hard.

  There was terrible pain, again, in his face. "I don't know if he was just pissed and trying to scare me or what."

  "Go on," she said.

  So he told them both. He left out the graphic refere
nce to toys, but they got the picture.

  She stepped back and away from them. Don't stop thinking. She was no use to Talli if she surrendered to fear or panic or impotent rage. She cleared her mind and went back to the car for her cell. As she pulled out the power cord, she said a swift prayer. It was all she had time for.

  When she shut the driver's door and turned around, everything around her disappeared.

  A table, or, an examination table? Why was it so short? Men dragged her to it, forced her between the end and something behind her legs. Bent her over. There was a scar on her calf. She was Talli. It was Talli, stretched out arms, a padded face support like a massage table … afternoon sun through the geminate windows of the terrace doors …

  It was gone. Avia was next to Ben with her cell in her hand.

  "Eustace, use the house phone and talk to Devers and Hugo. Get the cops on this."

  Eustace walking over to a bench near the stairs and punched a code into a wall phone.

  Avie hurriedly fumbled her notebook from her pocket and began sketching furiously. Ben reached out to touch her arm," Avia? Are you-"

  She jerked her arm away, drawing a few more strokes. Finished. She handed him the notebook.

  "What is that? Do you have any idea what that is?"

  He looked at the pad and then at her, "When did you see this?"

  "What is it?" She demanded, grabbing his arm.

  "I - one of the prototypes. But I never showed it to you - "

  "Hank!" She shouted. He dropped the phone and came to her.

  "She's in the Companion's room with some men. They're - they're going to hurt her."

  The men looked at each other. "How do you know?"

  "I saw it. Just now," she said. "Goddammit don't look at me like I'm crazy, it happens sometimes with us. Just - Jesus Christ, Ben, you never showed me that thing. The cover was locked on!"

  They still hesitated. Fuck 'em. "Have it your way. The house is on lockdown and she's not up there. So I'll be perfectly safe to go, myself."

  She ran to the stairs and bounded up to the metal door. There was a keypad. 7-8-7-4-7-8. The door clicked open.

  Before she could push through, Eustace was beside her.

  "They had to get in from the terrace. They had to scale the curtain wall, there must be a ladder somewhere. Let Hart and I check it out, you wait in the foyer. Hugo's on his way up here to meet with us. Wait for him, he'll bring you up."

  She looked back at Ben. "He's not even armed."

  "He is. Avia, you need to trust me. He and I have been here before." He waited for her to decide.

  Wasting time. "Okay," she said and pushed through the door, the men right behind her.

  The moat was dry. There were clumps a plants lying along the floor, roots clutching their dirt casts. Avia waited by the front door, watching Ben and Eustace recede from her, down the long hall and turn right at the elevator alcove. As soon as they were out of sight, she set off at a run.

  There were three dumbwaiters in the house that served the Keep. One in the kitchen, one in the hallway near the bedrooms and one, at the far end of the apartment in a utility room, she'd never actually been in. What she did know, is that it connected to the one outside the dressing rooms on the second floor near the pool. Ben had told her, when he suggested she could swim. He said that's where the shelves of towels were.

  She took the stairs to the second floor three at a time, and found the pool. It only took her a minute to find the dumbwaiter. It took her longer to figure out how it worked.

  The cart was parked on the first floor due to the lockdown. She got the hatch open, and used a pool cleaning pole to prop it. She peered inside, with only the very dim ambient light to see by, and by feeling up the sides, she could tell the metal frame the cart rode up and down on was exposed. After all, the inside of a dumbwaiter shaft didn't need to be pretty.

  She stripped off her jacket and suit coat. She just had to be careful she didn't dislodge the Smith from her waistband. She climbed up on the edge of the opening and stood, reaching up to find a crossbar. They were close together on the interior wall side, and climbing was easier than many non-technical rock scrambles she'd done in the mountains.

  She thanked God for giving her the drive to exercise and determined if she ever got out of this intact, she was going to ask Eustace to train her.

  It wasn't much of a distance climb, but she was moving slowly, in almost complete darkness, once she got away from the open hatch. She couldn't afford to fall. It would make noise. She'd be a stationary, trapped target for anyone with a gun looking down the shaft.

  It would keep her from Talli.

  Her hand touched the third floor hatch and she managed to get a couple fingers under it and push it up an inch. A horizontal stripe of light appeared, brightening the shaft. She peeked through. A hallway. A couple of doors. One looked like closet or bathroom door.

  She listened and heard nothing.

  Avia raised the hatch and slipped silently into the hallway. She closed the hatch behind her and crept down the hall listening at doors. She had thought the dumbwaiter had to be somewhere near the Companion's Room, someplace near the door Ben went through the first time she met him. The door he went through to masturbate after the Datamine.

  So. A bathroom.

  She tried the knob of the narrower door. Unlocked. She stood to the side and pushed it open quietly with her left hand. The Smith was in her right, pointed up near her shoulder, ready to fire.

  Immediately she heard men's voices, very muffled. She also heard her heart, hammering in her ears. She'd learned to conquer her nerves in competitions. But this was real fear. Fear of being suddenly and violently killed. Or tortured and raped.

  She slid down and peeked around the doorjamb.

  And empty bathroom. With another small door to the right. She slipped inside and listened. The male voices were louder, but she still thought they weren't coming from behind this door. Crouching next to the door, she turned the knob and pushed it open slightly.

  A dressing room with a couch. She looked around and found the last door. The voices much clearer, louder. They were coming from the other side of that door, and suddenly, Avia was completely oriented. She forgot her fear as the layout of the room materialized in her mind.

  The men's voices were raised, there was an argument. Not a violent one, more a disagreement. Like two men deciding the best way to lay tile.

  She moved close to the door and listened.

  "We need a damned sound test, I'm telling you, no way this works without sound." The man sounded nervous, young.

  "Scream," a low, gravelly voice said.

  "Eek," she heard Talli say sarcastically.

  Smack! Avia grimaced at what she imagined was someone backhanding her sister.

  "No! Don't hit her! Not, yet - we don't have make-up and shit, she's gotta look virginal." This from Nervous Guy.

  "She's got fucking stretchmarks, no way anybody's gonna think she's a virgin." A third voice. Sounded bored.

  Avia laid flat on the floor and tried to see under the door. Nothing. Rich man; thick carpets.

  She pulled out her cell and sent a text. Two recipients.

  In the open doorway to Hugo's office, Ben Hart kept watch on the heavy oak door facing him sixty feet away. He kept his beat-up SigSauer .45 held down by his side. He'd smuggled the gun back from Pakistan nine years ago. It'd saved his life there and he'd had it refurbished, the cracked grips replaced, new rear sights. It was the gun that felt good in his hand.

  At that moment he was far less pleased by the configuration of the Keep. It was a "shotgun" hallway. Anyone opening the door could see straight down to the elevator. There was nowhere to hide. He was waiting for Hugo to tell him he'd gotten Avia to the safety of the sub-basement.

  Eustace was making his way around the terrace so they could coordinate their entry. He hoped he'd have some kind of view through the glass doors.

  His cell vibrated. Shit. It was Avia.


  IN YR DRSNG RM OFF CMPN RM.

  3 ADLT MLS SO FAR.

  WHR U AND H?

  He thought his head would explode, but not before his heart, that was pounding out of his chest. A new text from Eustace.

  AT TRRC DOOR

  NO VIEW IN

  A ARMED. NEED DVRSN

  The boys were ready to rock, but Avia knew they needed better intelligence. If they all went to Facetime, she could stick her phone in her waistband in the front, with the camera peeking out. The phone was black and so were her clothes. They wouldn't notice, they'd be too busy looking at her breasts.

  She was sure Ben would never agree, but she didn't plan to give him a veto. She retreated through the bathroom to the hallway, closing the doors and called Eustace who connected Ben. Then she told them the plan.

  And then she told him to shut the hell up, he was wasting time.

  In the bathroom, her phone silenced, she positioned the cell in front of the mirror. She confirmed they had a view through her lens and made sure when she moved, the phone stayed in place.

  Then she opened her blouse all the way and left it hanging open a few inches. Thinking of Talli, she pushed aside her modesty and folded her bra cups under her breasts. Her blouse still covered most of them, but it was obvious she was exposed underneath. Fear and cold room air did the trick on her nipples.

  She made sure the Smith was ready to fire and put it back in the holster, hoping like hell she didn't shoot herself in the ass.

  Inside the dressing room, she put her hand on the knob of the door to the Companion's room.

  "I still need the damned sound check and we can start. Gordy, do something, wouldja?" She heard Nervous Guy say. She heard what sounded like a pig grunting.

  And then Talli screamed.

  Avia's blood froze at the terrible sound that went on and on. DO NOT go charging in there. People who scream are alive. It screaming stopped. Thank you God. She could hear Talli sobbing. Avia decided to kill the Pig.