Reviving Heaven

by D H Sidebottom

  I wanted to hurt him some more. I had relished in his screams. Basked in his tears. Every slice of my blade over his flesh and each hit I hurt him with had come with a vision of the bruising he had marked Lily with.

  Throwing down the scalpel onto the small table, I made my way over to the tap that stuck out of the wall and started to wash the blood away.

  “You want me to stay and see if I can break him some more?” Andy asked as he peeled off his latex gloves and threw them into the large bin liner that would later be incinerated – along with the half-dead body of Carl Brixsom. It would be good to hear his screams as the fire melted his heart and blistered his brain.

  “Nah. He’s not gonna crack, Andy. If he was he’d have done it by now. Ain’t much left of him to torture, to be honest.” I gritted my teeth at the fury of defeat that raced over me. “I’ll get my tech guys to see what they can find out about him. Maybe he was sloppy with some transactions or emails.”

  He nodded, agreeing with me. “Might be worth a shot.” Slipping on a clean pair of gloves, he started with the clean-up regime. Weirdly, this was always his favourite part. Each to their own, I supposed. “You want him cremated alive or dead?” he asked as he injected Carl with a paralysing serum, just enough to disable him so he wouldn’t give us grief on the final journey he would take.

  When I merely quirked an eyebrow at him, he smirked. “Alive it is. I’ll hang back until the serum dilutes. Just to give him a more epic goodbye.”

  Handing him an envelope containing his fee, I snatched up my coat and bid him goodbye.

  Unable to resist again, I opened the tracking app and checked Lily’s location. The red dot moved through the backstreets of Amsterdam. I wasn’t sure I liked her in that sketchy part of town, but I knew Liam would have her back. From the fast pace the icon twisted around the map, I presumed she was in a cab. Frowning when something didn’t feel right, I enlarged the location. She was travelling away from the hotel. Checking the time and finding it was as late as 3am, I brought up Liam’s number.

  It rang for a while before he answered. “Hmm?” he mumbled. Evidently, I had just woken him.

  “Where are you?”

  “At the hotel. Why?”

  The blood in my veins curdled and I sucked in a long breath. “Where’s Lily?”

  “Hotel. Came back around half one this morning. Why?” He was more alert now. As was my heartbeat.

  “Any chance she has lost the bangle?”

  “No, it was with her earlier. Harry?”

  Ignoring him for a moment, I checked the map. Her dot had stopped moving. As had my heartbeat.

  “Why the fuck is she in the dodgy area of the city centre then?” There was an edge to my voice that shifted Liam from his bed, the sound of sheets rustling and the whisper of a woman’s voice asking him what was going on, alerting me to the fact he’d been cosying up. And not detailing Lily!

  “Fuck!” I hissed, running to my car. I just prayed there was an outgoing flight to Amsterdam within the hour.

  ***

  “Hotel security guy said Lily went out for a smoke around quarter past two this morning. CCTV confirms that as…” Liam stated before I cut him off.

  “And he didn’t think it funny she didn’t come back in?” Jesus, they were all morons!

  We’d gone to the location the bangle indicated and found it tossed on the side of the road. The twinkle of the diamonds was subdued by the smear of blood.

  I couldn’t think, fear making my brain mush. My hands shook from the surge of adrenaline rushing through my bloodstream.

  My phone rang, and I quickly answered. “Harry. Quick update. I’ve managed to liaise with Daan, a mate of mine in the National Police Corps over there,” Jimmy stated. Luckily, from the CCTV situated at the front of the hotel, we’d managed to get a faint image of a guy walking up to Lily as she stood to one edge of the hotel smoking a cigarette, and I’d sent the footage over to Jim. The trouble was, that because they were just to the side of the angle of the camera, we’d only managed to obtain a rear view of him and half the registration plate of the car he stuffed her into. I had watched over on a loop as he’d slapped a rag over Lily’s face and pinned her down until she stopped writhing.

  “Go on,” I urged him.

  “Possible four vehicles from the partial plate you got.” He reeled off the registration details, including addresses for each one, and I signalled to Kit to write them down, repeating them out loud to her. “Daan has traffic over there searching their CCTV for sightings of each one. All ports have been alerted, and Lily hasn’t come up on their system since she landed at Schiphol airport on Saturday. So, at least we know she’s still there. Somewhere. If anyone tries using her passport, it will flash up on their system, and they’ll notify him straightaway.”

  “You had a sniff from anyone over there?” I asked, referring to the bullshit we were receiving from all the hierarchy in the MET.

  “Not yet. But doubt it’ll be long before it flashes up that I’ve logged in from an alternative location than The Yard. Amsterdam are on it, anyway, Harry, and I have no worries concerning Daan. He’s solid. He has your number to contact you, just in case I go off the radar.”

  Thanking him, I ended the call.

  “You wanna try the addresses?” Liam asked, but I shook my head and grabbed my laptop.

  “He won’t be stupid enough to keep her at his home address.”

  Logging into the SIS database, I proceeded to input the details of the only leads we had. Something had to flash up about one of these guys. Surely.

  Lily Cooper was close. I was sure of it. I just prayed that I found her in time.

  Twenty-six

  Lily

  My head thumped, making me wince at the pain. Nausea lay heavy in my belly, and my eyes felt blistered and sore. Groaning, I opened them and squinted in the dimness.

  It took me a while to realise where I was. And then it hit me.

  The scream that left me should have woken the dead, and the Gods for that matter. But even they didn’t come to save me.

  I was chained to a hefty iron ring which was embedded into the concrete floor. My terrified eyes looked at my surroundings. I wasn’t sure if I was in a garage or not, but it was something similar. I’d have guessed at it being roughly twenty square meters, and the chill from the concrete floor seeped into my bones. High metal walls were windowless and various shelves littered with a variety of tools hung precariously on one of the walls. Countless boxes of assorted sizes were stacked in one corner. I screamed again when something small and furry scuttled from behind a larger one and disappeared through a rusty hole at the side of the door.

  The chains secured to my ankles rattled when I yanked at them as I tried in vain to break them.

  As if my screaming summoned him, the metal door slowly pushed open. I scampered back into the corner, beseeching the shadows to hide me from him.

  I didn’t know who he was at that time.

  But I did when he stepped into the light.

  The scream that was trapped in my throat was freed when I spewed violently over the cold concrete beside me.

  My head shook, and my terrified body trembled in fear as I stared wide-eyed at him. Tears blurred my vision, distorting his features.

  But it wasn’t a face I would ever forget.

  “Hello again, Lily.”

  Twenty-seven

  Harrison

  The sound of my fingers hitting the keyboard was the only sound in the room. My eyes swiftly scanned every piece of information that scrolled across the screen.

  Growing angry, I slammed my fist on the desk.

  Liam placed a takeaway coffee beside my laptop without saying a word and turned back to his own.

  “She can’t just disappear into thin air!” Bec exclaimed with worry etched into her features.

  Lily’s friends had all been pacing the entirety of the hotel room floor for the last few hours. Jax and Eve Cooper, along with Boss, had arrived within
the last half an hour. Eve was beside herself with dread, and the hotel had sent their on-duty doctor up to the room to give her a sedative. Jax had burst into the room and had subsequently floored me with one punch. He blamed me. Fuck, I blamed me. Needless to say, I hadn’t hit him back. I owed him a bit of pain, that was for sure. I should never have left her! Carl Brixsom could have waited, but I was eager for a lead and he had been my only hope at the time.

  I didn’t blame Liam. Lily had been tucked up in bed, and he had made sure of that. Yet, if I’d been here, I would most likely have spent the night with her. Sexual chemistry had been growing between us for some time, and we both knew we wouldn’t be able to hold back for much longer. I ached for her. The feeling was strange to me. I’d never hankered for a woman before, and I was like a dog with a bone. But, for the first time, the desire in me wanted to study every piece of her pleasure and not merely explore my own. I wanted to see the look in her eyes when I sank deep inside her. I needed to hear how she would sound as I fucked her hard. I wondered how her skin would feel against my own. It was an alien feeling, and I wasn’t sure how to cope with it.

  One of the registered keepers on the list of vehicles Jim had sent over had been a rental company. Daan, Jim’s mate, had woken the manager, and I was waiting for a name. I didn’t hold out much hope, it would turn out to be a fake anyway.

  An email from Daan flashed up on my screen. A copy of the license the man had provided to the lease company was attached, and I entered his name into the database. Frederick Malloy. Apparently, Frederick lived in an apartment in Dam Square. I seriously doubted that. However, something niggled in the back of my mind when I scrutinised the image of him from the license. My brain tried to make a link, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what troubled me about his face. Entering his image into the agency’s face recognition program, I sat and waited for verification.

  It took seconds for it to find a match.

  “Fuck!”

  I sat up straighter and Liam hurriedly wheeled his chair across the room to peer over my shoulder.

  Padraic Fedorov.

  My heart beat faster, sending my brain into chaos.

  A Russian motherfucker!

  Instantly clicking on his file, I suddenly realised who the hell he was.

  Padraic had connections with the Bratva, the Russian mafia, and had been one of the SIS’ more problematic fucks to pin down. His sister, Odiana Yeltsin, also had a file as long as my arm.

  My mind reeled over the conversation Lily and I had had about her kidnapping.

  “So, there were three of them in total?”

  She nodded and hiccupped. “Yes. Another man and a woman. The man was in his late twenties,” she whispered.

  “What did he look like?” I asked.

  “Blonde hair. I remember his nose; it was quite big and crooked. He had a scar underneath his right eye.”

  My eyes zeroed in on Padraic Fedorov’s photograph. The long scar that ran down the right side of his big, crooked nose caused the blood in my veins to freeze.

  Quickly imputing Odiana’s details into the system, I sucked in a breath and dared to hope. “One of the names associated with his sister has a lock-up behind Vondelpark!” I exclaimed, making Liam jump.

  We were up and out of there in a matter of seconds.

  Twenty-eight

  Lily

  Frozen with fear, I couldn’t move when he gripped my face with his large hand. His fingers dug into my cheeks painfully, and I started to choke on the terror caught in my throat.

  Reality clashed with memories, and my brain struggled to distinguish between the now and the past.

  I couldn’t move my petrified stare from the scar on his face. The image had never left my nightmares and seeing it for real once again calcified every muscle in my body.

  “How you’ve grown, little girl.” His accent bruised my mind. I never thought I would ever hear his voice again.

  Once again fate mocked me.

  A whimper was the only response I could give when he ran the flat of his tongue up my cheek. He buried his nose in the hair behind my ear and inhaled deeply.

  “You smell good.”

  Fright made my breath catch, and when he heard me gasp, he chuckled darkly. “I’m so pleased that you remember me, Lily.”

  Remember him? I’d never fucking forget him! His image was carved into the caverns of my mind, cursing me every time I closed my eyes. Over and over again. Its refusal to leave me not only haunted my dreams but every waking hour.

  “Did you miss me?”

  The hand he held over the expanse of my throat slowly ventured down. Down my chest and then over my breastbone. Coming to rest upon my breast.

  “Please.” It was the only word that I managed to choke out. It was so quiet I wasn’t even sure if he heard it. Nevertheless, he laughed once more.

  “What exactly are you begging me for, little girl. Huh?” He reared back to look at me. The leer on his face made my blood run cold. “You want my cock inside you again? Huh? Is that what you want?”

  I whimpered, shuffling backwards. The metal wall at my back prohibited my attempts to put distance between us and I pushed against it, praying for it to disintegrate behind me. His breath was rank, as putrid as I remembered, and my stomach revolted at the stench.

  In the time it took me to blink, his foul mouth crushed mine and he stabbed his tongue between my lips. Bile flooded my mouth, and I fought against him, beating him with my hands as I tried to get him off me. But he was too strong.

  His fist connected with my cheekbone and pain ruptured across my face when I sank my teeth into his tongue. The taste of copper exploded on my taste buds, and I gagged when I realised his blood contaminated my mouth.

  Yanking my head back when he grabbed a handful of my hair, he brought his face within an inch of my own. The viciousness in his snicker terrified me. “Like it rough, huh?”

  I kicked out at him, hitting my goal with one swift strike. He keeled over when my foot and the chains connected with his stomach.

  It was stupid, a foolish thing to do.

  I cried out when he punched me in the stomach. The force of his blow far outweighed the strength of mine, and my body doubled in on itself with agony. Stars exploded behind my eyes when he brought his foot down on the side of my head.

  “Play nice!” he spat, taking another section of my hair and dragging me out of the corner. “Otherwise this will start to become way more fun.” He laughed. “For me that is. Not you!”

  He ripped at my t-shirt, exposing my breasts. The cold air felt intrusive on my skin and goosebumps flourished with the freezing temperature.

  “I’ve watched you, you know,” he mumbled as he threw the material to one side and stared at my chest. He licked his lips and grinned. “Especially since your band hit the spotlight. That wasn’t a good idea. That bated the beast, Lily. He became incensed with rage at that move. Silly girl.”

  I shook my head at his mumbling. “I don’t… I don’t understand.”

  “I don’t expect you to, not really. That’s because ignorance warps the truth. You’ve always been lost in your own world, little girl. You can’t see what’s in front of you. The undiscovered pieces of your past that could become a revelation, if only you looked at it. Properly. It doesn’t matter now, anyway. Does it. It is over.”

  It is over.

  “Get off me!” I screamed and struggled when he took my ankle and dragged me towards him. He tore at the buttons of my jeans and yanked them down my thighs. I wanted to be strong, but he was too powerful. Too fearsome.

  He laughed as he flipped me over in one smooth move. My cheek slapped the harsh concrete and my forehead bounced down heavily. I nearly passed out. I wish I had.

  “No! Please. God, no!” I wouldn’t survive this again. My mind would fracture beneath his invasion. I had barely existed since the first time he had taken me. My heart had struggled to beat after he had snatched my innocence as a girl.

  N
ow, it wouldn’t ever beat again. And I prayed for that to be the truth.

  Heaving me up, so I was on all fours, he positioned himself behind me.

  I gave in. It’s all I could do. Choices left me, and I abandoned the fight.

  The sob that left me was faint and serene, a mere exhalation of a fragile breath. But it wasn’t weak. It was so compelling that I felt my soul slip from my body with it. I became a ghost within a living form. A void shrouded in a costume of flesh, bone, and blood.

  Closing my eyes, I willed my mind to collapse, begged it to shatter within my head and take me on a journey of insanity so I wouldn’t suffer this all over again.

  My body hit the floor in a split second, the cold concrete becoming a mattress for my squashed breasts and stomach. The weight of him on top of me confused my already obscured mind, and for a moment I didn’t understand.

  Blood pooled across the floor by my head and I stared at it until my mind started to split in two.

  “Lily!”

  Was it my blood? Was I dead?

  My lungs guzzled oxygen when the weight crushing me down lifted from me.

  I was moving, pulled into arms that felt too big around my frail body. His scent hit me when my face was pressed against a firm chest.

  “Lily!” Scarcely a whisper, but I heard it. “It’s okay. It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

  Did he? Did he have me?

  Hands held my face and slowly directed my head back.

  The stormy waters of Harrison’s eyes drowned under a river of my tears when belief secured my sanity.

  “Harrison?” It wasn’t my own voice, the sound that left me foreign to my own ears.

  He nodded briskly and bundled me up again, flattening me to his body as if he wanted to absorb me.

  “You’re okay,” he reiterated. “It’s over, Lily. It’s over.”