by Aria Ford
“I was asleep,” I smiled.
“Well, I was thinking,” he said. “How about we have something special?”
“Okay,” I said.
“We can eat in, though?” he asked. “I’m tired.”
“Okay.”
I couldn’t help assuming that he wanted to eat in because he was embarrassed about my status. I had gathered that he didn’t want me to know that, but I couldn’t imagine another reason for Alexander to be so secretive.
“I’ll go and call. You like sushi?”
“My best.”
He grinned. “Your wish is my command.”
I felt a tingle in my tummy, butterflies shimmering in there. I giggled.
“And your wish is mine too.”
He kissed me. “Now don’t go giving me ideas,” he whispered. “I want you so much already. Feel?”
My hand gripped his cock and I smiled. “Yes. You are.”
He laughed.
We got dressed and had dinner. I hadn’t asked how much it cost, because I didn’t want to know. It was incredible. The kids ate it too, with the same incredible politeness I had come to expect from them.
I was feeling sleepy, probably because of our afternoon excess, and so I excused myself for a walk in the garden. It was still dusky-darkness out there, and the lawn smelled of dew. I enjoyed my walk, and resolved to head up to the back of the stand of trees and then head back again.
The night was quiet, so quiet. Suddenly, something rustled in the bushes. An arm shot out and grabbed me. I screamed.
A hand came down on my mouth and something hit me on the back of the head and everything went dark.
Chapter 12
Alex
“Where are you?” I called. I wasn’t really worried. It was my garden, and I knew every inch of it. I knew that it was not dangerous. Somewhere a night bird shrieked once but otherwise was silent. The crickets sang. The grass was soaked with dew and I breathed deeply and walked along the path. When I reached the end of it I stopped.
“Emma?”
Something felt wrong. I couldn’t have said what it was exactly. It was just that the place at the end of the path where it touched the edge of the copse of trees felt wrong. I looked at the grass, and while I did I started noticing what it was. The grass was flattened.
I could see footprints on the surface of the dew. They glinted there. They led toward the wall.
“Emma!”
I shouted it, running to the wall. I felt a sudden madness enter me. I reached up to the top of the wall, being careful not to zap myself on the electric wiring around the top part of it. Hoisting myself up, I found a surprising thing. It wasn’t on…not anymore, anyway.
“Oh, my…” I dropped off the wall. I felt dazed. This was terrifying. This was…this was exactly what happened the last time. Exactly what happened to Ada.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to run. I had absolutely no idea what to do, other than hate myself for doing this again. For loving someone and killing them because of it.
I heard a car in the road beyond. That broke the stunned state that I currently was. Cars hardly ever came down our road. Especially at this time. Or that fast. I knew what to do.
Reaching into my pocket to call the private security firm I employ now to look after my private security needs, I found my hand was shaking as I tried to dial. I called, and spoke to Klaas, the head of the unit, as I ran to the garage.
“Klaas? Yeah. There’s been a breach in the wall and…” and I could barely say this, but I had to say it anyway, “and my girlfriend’s gone.”
I paused while Klaas said all the things one might expect—most of them beginning with the letter F—and then took a shaky breath.
“Quite,” I said. “Well, calling them fuckers isn’t going to help us. Please send two cars round here now. We need to trace these people. I heard a vehicle in the road behind and we can identify the tracks and follow them from there.”
Klaas apologized, and said he’d sort it out. I was already inside the garage. I was about to jump into the fastest car I owned and streak off to find her myself, when I realized how very stupid that actually was. I had no idea at all where she might be.
I ran back to the house.
“Kids,” I said, when I met them standing in the dining-room, looking scared. “There’s a problem. Um…Emma’s gone. We don’t know where. Daddy has to go find her. Okay?”
“Emma ran away from here?”
“No, sweetie,” I explained. “We just need to find out where she’s gone.” I didn’t want to say she’d been taken. Jack was old enough to remember what happened the first time. And I didn’t want him to think it would happen again. I didn’t want to think that either.
I heard the front doorbell. Happy for the fast response of the team, I ran to answer it. I found myself confronted with Klaas himself, the thickest South African with a blunt, open face.
“Hell,” he said. “What the fuck happened, man?” He ran a hand over his shaved head, face a picture of concern.
“No idea, Klaas. I appreciate you coming here.”
“Not at all,” he nodded. “Take us to the tracks.”
I nodded, leading him out to the place beside the hole in the fence. Sure enough, there were tracks there in the road. It must have accelerated at a hell of a rate because there was dark rubber left on the tarred surface.
“Yeah, that’s it,” Klaas agreed, studying them for a moment. “SUV. Smallish one. Colt treads. We’ll look up possibilities. In the meantime, I’m sending one of the cars that way.”
“Thanks,” I said, feeling suddenly weak with relief. Klaas looked at me astutely.
“No worries, man.”
I swallowed hard. It was probably sound advice, but impossible to follow. I had to get Emma back. I had to.
“Where will you go?” I asked, indicating the other team and Klaas himself.
Klaas started giving instructions. “You,” he said to the first man. “Go and question the security guard. You can do the house staff. You, look at the security camera data for…when, Mr. Carring?”
“Around six thirty,” I said, thinking quickly.
“Okay. Any time between six and seven,” Klaas nodded to his man, who disappeared. That left him with one other, and himself.
“Okay, Juan,” he said to the last man. “You keep in radio contact with the guys. Let me know if they find anything. And I,” he said to me, “will go and find what we’re looking for.”
“Thanks,” I said again.
“No worries, man.”
I followed Klaas inside and showed him to my office. He could use whatever he needed to in there to try and find whoever these would-be killers were. Because I have not one doubt in my mind that they were.
My mind went back to that time I had tried so hard, so fruitlessly, to forget. Then the call came through that they had Ada. Unless I closed my company, they would kill her.
I had hesitated maybe a moment too long. Not because I valued the company more than Ada, but because I had no idea how to start dismantling it. And perhaps, at least a little, because the company was our livelihood. What would Ada say if we suddenly lost everything?
It was a ridiculous thought, but it was a thought I had. And those two things had cost Ada her life.
They shot her. I was grateful at least for that. Cleanly through the head. It was shocking that I was grateful for that. It should never have happened at all. Images of her—of what she had suffered—played out through my mind for months, robbing me of sleep so that I thought I might lose my mind.
And now it was happening again, this time with Emma.
“I hate these people,” I hissed. The hate was a living thing, like an animal inside me. I clenched my fists, wanting to hold it in. I glanced at my desk, where Klaas calmly sat at the Mac, looking for things about cars. Seeing him was reassuring and I saw that much of my hate was to cover up my fear.
“Well, the fuckers are driving a Colt Ralliart.”
I had no idea. But I knew that the need to get to where they were as quickly as possible. I would not let them take Emma. I had failed Ada and I lived haunted by her spirit all my life. I would not fail Emma. She was my light.
A sound made Klaas look up in surprise.
“Radio,” he said quickly. “Team two. They have something for me.”
“Answer,” I snapped, before I had thought about the fact that Klaas didn’t appreciate that. He raised a brow at me but did it immediately.
“Ace. What you found?” A pause. “Yes.”
I looked at him.
“They found the car.”
That was all I needed.
“I’m coming with you.”
Chapter 13
Emma
The room had a funny smell. That was the first thing I noticed. A sort of dusty scent, like sweeping was a thing it had recently forgotten. I breathed in. Then I noticed I was stiff.
Ropes. On wrists and ankles. I was tied up. Why?
I tried to scream. My throat was very dry and my chest was sore. I managed to wheeze. Instantly, I heard voices.
“She’s awake.”
“Do something.”
“Wait. We don’t know what he’s going to do yet.”
A short sound. It was someone laughing. “Doesn’t matter, does it?”
The other three voices were silent. So was I. I had to know what was meant by that. He was, I guessed, Alexander. What he would or would not do was of personal interest to me and I was terrified. Too frightened to move or think or really do anything except to wait there, still and silent, for whatever they would do.
I wasn’t there very long. Someone pulled me to my feet.
“What we going to do with her?” a rough voice asked.
A laugh that was distinctly horrid. “Plenty o’things we could do,” the voice said. I swallowed hard. I knew exactly what he was talking about and so did everyone else. I wanted to disappear. I felt horrible. Threatened and shamed at once.
“Boss…”
“Phone him.”
“But…”
“Do it.”
Someone must have been phoning, because I heard the fourth man saying: “Tell him we’ll kill her.”
Reality withdrew a step. I was asleep. I had to be. This was a horrid dream and I would wake up. I had to.
“We’re gonna kill her.”
I don’t know what Alex said, or if it even was him, but the person hung up in frustration.
“What did he say?”
“Nothing.”
Nothing. I felt my eyes cloud over. I was crying. Alexander said nothing? Was it even Alexander?
“How do we know this is the right girl?”
“Dunno, boss. Right place, right?”
“So?” he chuckled. “Lots of people could be there. You checked carefully?”
“Careful as I could be. You think she looks like the shot?”
I lay very still, pretending not to breathe, while someone came close to me and held a flashlight close by. I closed my eyes tight to avoid the brightness and so I had no idea what the person looked like. All I knew was that someone was holding my hair off my face with a rough hand. I wanted to move away, to wrest my hair from their fingers, but I knew that any attempt to fight would make things harder for me. Not for them. I lay still and pretended to be sleeping.
“Yes, boss,” the other man, one of the first who had spoken, replied.
“Okay,” he sighed. “So now things get fun.”
“Boss…” the man sounded miserable.
“What?”
“I don’t think we should. I mean, last time…”
The first man sounded sad. The boss sounded furious when he answered.
“Last time?”
“Boss, none of us like killing.”
He laughed. “I don’t like being boss. Not for you lot. But I do it. So do it.”
I could hear his gang weren’t happy. Which made me feel a whole lot better. Not that I really thought they’d rebel and refuse to do it, but because they were not willing to kill me. That gave me faith in people. It didn’t stop me being absolutely terrified.
“What if he does what you told him to?”
“You think I really want that?” a laugh. “Yes, I want to take what he has. But I want to hurt him. And this will do that.”
I knew then that I was going to be killed. Whoever this was had hated Alexander with devotion for years.
The only thing that puzzled me was who was last time? Who was it these people had killed. Was it someone of Alexander’s, or some other case altogether.
“Alex…” I murmured. The moment I did it, I realized how that would not help anything. Now they knew who I was.
“See?” the first man said. “We have the right girl.”
I felt the atmosphere in the room change. It was as if the light dimmed. They all knew now that they would kill me. I felt a strange sense fill me. It was a sense of regret. Of goodbye. I was absolutely not ready to die. Not now. Now when my life was happy in a way it had never been before now. I thought of the kids, of little Cammi and Jack who had been so important to me. I saw their angelic faces and I wept. I would never see them again. I saw another face, severe with its hollow cheeks and perfect nose, its level brown eyes and its severe hair. I would never see him again. Never.
“Alex,” I said again. This time I was sobbing. I couldn’t help it. They were secondary to the drama that was mine, the trauma that was mine. I was going to stop living. To stop waking up to sunshine and going to bed with the stillness of night and the presence of my lover beside me. I would never see the kids grow up.
“Shut her up,” one of the men said, disgusted.
But I would not shut up. They could kill me, it was true. But they were going to do that anyway. This was my life. These were my last few glorious minutes, and they could not stop me. I sobbed. The more I remembered, the more I sobbed. His hands in my hair. His kisses.
“Alex…” I sobbed. I heard someone move in the room, felt a blow on the side of my head. It did not affect me. I convulsed, my tears running down my cheeks. “Alex,” I whispered. “Alex. Alex.”
I was hysterical and knew it. But it was the saddest I could remember being. I started screaming, his name on my lips every time I did.
“Shut her up! Hit her, put a gag on. Anything!”
The man was joined by another and they did both. The one hit me on the head and the other one lifted my head. They would not shut me up, not unless they shot me.
“Alex!” I screamed.
A sudden shot rang out.
At least, I thought it was a shot. A fine dust sprayed across me and the room filled with shouting and confusion. I coughed. There was dust filling the room. And sunlight.
The men were rushing about and shouting, and I had no idea what was going on. I felt some stones fall onto the skin of my face and I jerked back, wanting to shake them off: cement dust makes me itchy.
Cement. The wall.
I dimly saw that someone must have infiltrated. The running feet were probably my captors. I heard a shot, and then another. I stopped trying to slide toward the patch of sunlight and lay very still, praying no one would hit me.
I heard voices shouting, swearing. None of them were voices I knew, besides the voices I knew from my recent captors’ conversation. Then, the sounds became less frequent. I lay exactly where I was and listened as two more shots rang out and then there was silence except for a crunch where two men walked on stones near me.
“There!”
> I knew that voice.
“Alex!”
I was crying. A pair of feet ran across the crunching dust and stopped at my head. Someone bent down and a hand reached out. The touch I knew so well stroked my hair and someone was whispering my name, over and over.
“Emma. Emma?”
“Alex…” I was suddenly so tired. Everything seemed an effort, even opening my eyes. My head dropped forward and I heaved in a breath, and then lay still. At the moment, Everything hurt and everything was too hard. All I could do was sleep.
“Emma!” Alex shouted and then called out to someone. “Jan! Ric. For pity’s sake! Scissors. A knife?”
One of them must have had something, for I felt him stretch across me to where my hands were bound by my sides. I felt a sudden chill on my arm as a blade passed below string and then the sound of rope, fraying as he cut. The knife bumped me and I grunted in shock.
“Emma! Oh, no. Did I cut you?”
He sounded so concerned that the small part of my mind that remained conscious outside the haze of exhaustion that overran me wanted to laugh. I was going to be shot, I wanted to say. And you’re scared of getting me on the top layer of the skin with a bread knife?
Then my hands were unbound. I felt the sudden warmth of blood flowing to them and then the agony struck. I had no idea how long I had been like that, but my fingers sure did hurt. I knew it would be even more painful when he did my toes.
“Are you okay, eh?”
I gritted my teeth and nodded. “Think…so.”
“Good! Thank Heavens!”
I wanted to laugh again. He sounded so correct, so British, as she should be spoken, but my body was simply too exhausted. I made a sighing noise, then collapsed.
I woke up later. I was in the back of a car. The motion hurt my head, which was, now that I thought about it, in agony. I groaned.
“Emma!” I heard his voice. “You’re awake now!”
I blinked. Where was I? It was Alex in the front seat, but who was driving? And where had I just gone to?
Memory filtered into my agonizing head slowly. The room. The men. My rescue.
“Safe,” I murmured.