Suddenly our road trip to our next destination seems a little pointless. We’re heading to Mark’s headquarters, to the second-to-last place I saw Morgan. The last place where we kissed.
“We have to try,” Robert says, and I’m grateful for his interruption of my thoughts.
“I know.”
I try not to let the hopelessness I feel inside take over me, but it’s hard not to see the reality of it. I have all this information about the people and locations and day-to-day workings of Mark’s business, and none of it may be useful to finding Morgan. Mark wouldn’t be so stupid as to take her somewhere I know of. He wouldn’t disclose that location to someone on his crew who might talk.
“We may only have one option,” I realize. Robert looks at me expectantly. “We can destroy Mark’s operation from the bottom up. We can disrupt it and stop his money flow. If we put his crew and his business into enough chaos, he might show himself.”
“Or he might retaliate.”
Robert makes a good point. Regardless of what we do, Mark has a huge amount of leverage over us. The thought of him hurting Morgan any more than he already has because of something we’ve done makes my stomach churn.
It’s frustrating to know that she’s out there somewhere with him, at his mercy, and I’m free in the world with the knowledge and resources to look for her, but I have nothing. She could be anywhere, and Mark has all eternity to keep her there.
My anger boils over. I let out a frustrated groan as I hit the steering wheel hard over and over again with my palm. My fingers curl into a death grip around it until I feel Robert’s hand on my shoulder.
“You can’t do this. It won’t help find her. I learned that months ago.”
I take my eyes off the road to look at him and open my mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. He’s right. He’s been there. He’s experienced this pain and anger for much longer than I have, and he’s actually controlling it. I need to calm the fuck down.
“Sorry,” I say quietly, returning my attention to driving. My grip on the steering wheel loosens. I take some deep breaths to bring me back down to normal.
I can’t bring myself to talk for the rest of the drive. In a way, I’m dreading walking back into that building that holds so many memories from the last three months. Morgan and I somehow found happiness there. Amidst the madness of being part of a thriving criminal organization, we had a life together. We created life together.
“We’re here,” I announce, pulling the car off the road into the large enclosed parking garage. It’s no surprise to find it completely empty with no guard at the door.
Once we’re parked and I cut the engine, heavy silence fills the vehicle. Neither of us moves for a long moment. I won’t say it to Robert’s face, but I’m absolutely terrified to get out of this car.
“Is this the back door?” Robert asks.
“It’s the only door. The rest of the doors into the building are welded shut.”
Robert nods slowly. “Not so easy for escape, then.”
He’s starting to understand why I couldn’t get Morgan out on my own during the last three months. “We could have tried, but if we were caught, the things Mark would have done to her…” The things he’s probably doing to her now. “I couldn’t risk him separating us.”
I wince, acknowledging to myself yet again that he found a way to take her from me anyway. I run my hands up and down the steering wheel, wishing I was anywhere but here.
“It may be difficult for you to believe,” I continue, “but we actually had a life here. We made the best of our situations and cared for each other and helped each other get through it all. We really were in love.”
“Are in love,” Robert corrects me, cracking a smile. “This isn’t over. Don’t give up on her just yet.”
It takes a moment, but when Robert’s words finally seep into my brain, I nod. “You’re right,” I say confidently, taking a deep breath and hardening my resolve to find her. “Let’s go inside.”
With weapons in hand, we approach the door cautiously only to find that it’s locked. I step back and try multiple times to kick it in, but it’s too thick and secure. It barely budges.
“Let me try,” Robert says from behind me.
For a moment I think he’s crazy, then I see the narrow metal instruments in his hands. “You can pick locks? What kind of cop picks locks?”
Robert grins at me. “The best kind.”
I step back and watch in awe as Robert fiddles with the picks in the lock and has the door open in less than a minute.
“You’ll have to teach me that one sometime,” I say as Robert pockets the tools in his wallet for future use and returns the firearm to his hand.
I lead the way in, gun forward and flashlight out as we make our way down the dark hallway. Once we’re far enough in that I’m convinced the building is completely empty, I put away the flashlight and start turning on lights as we move along. “We would have seen someone by now. No one’s here.”
Robert stands down behind me, though he keeps his gun ready at his side.
We finally arrive at the one place that has any potential for useful information within this hellhole: Mark’s office.
The door is locked, but I know it’s made of cheap composite wood that will easily break. Robert looks ready to fish in his wallet again for the lock picks, but I wave him off. “I got this one.”
With one heavy kick, the door flies open. I turn on the light and move immediately to Mark’s large mahogany desk, opening and closing drawers and pulling out some papers I find onto its surface. They don’t look like anything more than useless scraps and notes, but I’ll take anything I can get at this point.
I glance at Robert taking in the office around him. He probably didn’t expect such a roomy and lived-in space. The bookshelves, TV, and maroon leather furniture around the room with subdued lighting and artwork on the walls make it look like any normal man’s office, hiding the fact that this space belonged to a deranged, psychotic criminal.
I can’t look at the couch or the armchair and not imagine Morgan sitting there with her nose in a book, relaxing while Mark and I worked at his desk. Being in this place where Morgan and I spent so much time together on a daily basis brings all the memories of the last three months back to me. It’s like we never left even though Morgan isn’t here with me.
“She spent hours sitting there reading,” I say to Robert, nodding to the furniture. “I think she made it through half the books on these shelves by the time we left this place.”
A sad look crosses Robert’s face as he takes one last glance at the furniture before moving away from that part of the room. He’s suddenly very interested in the papers I’m pulling out of the desk.
“We should bring these with us,” he suggests. “There might be receipts or correspondence. I’ll need your help determining what’s normal and what’s not.”
I look around the room for something to put the papers in. The small makeshift bar that Mark set up in here catches my eye. In the cabinet underneath it, I find a box of trash bags and remove one of them.
We pile the limited amount of paperwork into the bag and do one last look through the room for anything else that could be useful.
“He was thorough. There’s nothing else here,” Robert comments.
I share Robert’s feeling of disappointment even though his observation doesn’t surprise me. “This is how he eluded capture for so many years. He wasn’t one to leave evidence behind.”
“I guess I was lucky, then,” Robert responds with a short laugh that shows little humor, “though if I had more concrete evidence of his other dealings, he would have been in jail so much longer, and this never would have happened.”
I don’t know what to say. We’ll both live with regrets about Mark and everything to do with him for the rest of our lives. Pondering what could have been does nothing to help our current situation.
I clear my throat and grab the bag of papers, throwing it ove
r my shoulder before moving to the door. “There’s one more place I want to check before we leave.”
We make our way up the staircases and down the hallway to the apartment I shared with Morgan during our time here, to the one place where we were truly separated from Mark and his business and the rest of the world.
The door is locked, but it’s so old and run-down I manage to break it open with a hard slam of my shoulder against it.
I turn on the light and am instantly overwhelmed by the feeling of Morgan that still exists in this small apartment. Her presence is felt all around me as I take in the plaid fabric couch where we held each other for hours, the tiny kitchen with ancient appliances where I’d sometimes make her breakfast with eggs that I stole from the mess hall, the unmade bed where our naked bodies last met to share in the ultimate connection between us, the pillows we cried into when we realized the full weight of what we had done after we tried to create life together.
She is everywhere in here, and yet she is nowhere. I have no idea where she is.
“This is where you both lived,” Robert says, almost in disbelief at his moment of realization.
I nod. I don’t know that I can properly speak right now.
Robert looks around the small room, picking at the peeling paint on the white wall as he ambles toward the couch. Morgan’s dresses are still there, resting neatly across the arm of the worn piece of furniture. They’re the outfits Mark bought for her after she proved that her presence and sex appeal were secret weapons that could be used in his business meetings.
Robert fingers through them, no doubt noticing just how revealing and sexy the dresses were meant to look on her. I don’t want him to think about his daughter like that.
“That wasn’t really her,” I assure him. “She wore those dresses and went to Mark’s business meetings because she felt she had to. She wanted to make herself useful to Mark to ensure her survival, but it was mostly an act. She enjoyed the rush she got from it, but she wasn’t really like that.” I remember what Robert said about not giving up on her, so I correct myself. “I mean, she isn’t really like that.”
Robert lets go of the dresses, looking up at me with a sad but knowing smile. “She had her reasons for choosing this life.”
What he’s really saying is she had me, and she sacrificed everything for me.
I look away from Robert, unable to meet his gaze again, and busy myself with filling the rest of the trash bag of papers with some of my clothes from the room. I ignore the small part of my brain that thinks if I look up I’ll see Morgan sleeping soundly on the bed. It takes every bit of willpower I have not to look for her there.
I move to the door, turning around to take one last look at the place where my love for Morgan grew stronger and blossomed into something beautiful. I’m ready to move on from here. I’m ready to get the hell out of this place and back out into the world to find her.
7
His Perseverance
∞
I’ve only seen pieces of him.
His past is unknown to me
held by him in darkness.
But I know of his will to live,
to move forward.
I hold that with me now,
tightly to my chest.
He lived a similar hell and survived.
He persevered.
As will I.
∞
Three weeks. It’s been three weeks since my skin last met with Leo’s. I don’t even need a method of marking the time. It’s all I think about. Every painstaking day I’ve been apart from him etches into my brain, forming a permanent, scarred record there.
I have something new think about as I sit alone on the bed in this suffocating basement, something that will force its way into my thoughts more and more as the weeks and months press on.
I’m late.
The process has begun.
Life has been created within me.
I hug my pillow to my chest, staring at the edge of the red and gold area rug that covers the cement floor beneath the bed I’m sitting on. It was no surprise to me when my period never came last week, but my mind is still having trouble processing the implications of it. I have no idea what to expect or how to react. I don’t know the first thing about pregnancy or giving birth or caring for a baby. I should be in college right now, going out into the world to find myself and learn and explore the next phase of my life.
Instead I’m stuck here, nurturing the life growing inside me, creating a child for a madman.
A child that may not even be his.
Mark was elated when I told him I was late. I was elated because it meant he stopped visiting me for his evil purpose. He has kept his hands off me since I told him of my development, and the majority of the few days since then I’ve spent crying into my pillow, expunging all my sadness but also coming to terms with my new reality. It gave me time to think about Leo, to remember that he is still out in the world somewhere.
He suffered at the hands of Mark’s mental and physical abuse for years, and he survived. The way he persevered has become an inspiration to me. I want to emerge from this like him, stronger and wiser and ready to take on the whole fucking world. I want to be the phoenix rising from the ashes just like the beautiful tattoo that covers Leo’s back.
I will survive, for him, and for this baby.
I almost cringe as the door handle turns but breathe a sigh of relief when Jack walks in. I haven’t seen him in over a week, since the last time Mark had him check on how well my wounds were healing.
Jack smiles briefly at me. “How are you, Morgan?”
He’s carrying keys and a small box with him. I know exactly what’s in that box.
“I’m okay,” I say quietly. There should be more excitement in me at seeing the only other man besides Leo who has shown kindness toward me since I was taken months ago, but I can’t manage more than a half-smile.
Jack sets the box on the floor before bending down beside me and working a key into the handcuff on my wrist, releasing it. “I have some good news, just in time for Christmas.”
I stare blankly at the man. My mindset has so fully changed in these last few horrifying weeks that something as simple and normal as celebrating a holiday seems completely foreign to me now.
Jack doesn’t seem to notice my vacant stupor and continues on with his news. “Mark’s going to let me spend more time with you.”
When Jack’s words pierce through my numb state and muddled brain, I immediately throw my freed arms around his neck. I hug him there, holding back the hot tears that are burning holes in the back of my eyes.
“Jack.” My voice trembles. My brain can’t seem to put words together into sentences.
He holds me, letting me cling to him like a child clinging to her grandfather. “You’re okay, sweetheart. I’m here. I’ll get to be here more.”
His words are comforting, and I should be happy to hear them, but I’m still on the verge of losing it. I turn to thoughts of Leo, remembering what he would tell me to do. Breathe. Just breathe, Morgan.
So I do. I take three deep breaths and calm the emotions overtaking my body. I regain control and pull back from Jack’s embrace. “How did you convince him? Why do you get to spend more time with me?”
“He wants you to be happy.”
I laugh bitterly. The irony in that sentence makes me sick. I know Jack’s just the messenger, but I can barely look at him.
He grasps my hands between us. “Morgan…” My stubbornness wins out for just a little longer, but I finally give in and look him in the eyes. “He’s not going to lay a finger on you now. You realize that, right? You’re carrying precious cargo. You’re the most important thing to him now, and he won’t risk that by beating you or forcing himself on you.”
I don’t know how to react, so I just nod. I’ve just been told that the seemingly endless nightmare that started the moment Russo and his men separated me from Leo is coming to a partial end, and all I can do is nod.<
br />
This is how numb I’ve become.
“Mark and I are on the same page about this,” Jack continues. “The less stress and strain on you, the better it will be for the baby. It’s in everyone’s best interests for you to be as happy as you can be in this situation, and that’s why I’m here.”
My lips curve upward just slightly. “It does make me happy to have you here.” I think about what this means for a moment and come to a sad realization. “He wants you to keep an eye on me though, doesn’t he? He’s afraid I’ll do something to myself or the baby.”
Jack’s face remains impassive, his voice silent. It’s all the confirmation I need.
“I’m not going to do anything,” I assure him. “I’m not like Mark. I don’t destroy the innocent for my own benefit.”
Jack gives me an understanding look mixed with something else. He looks like he feels sorry for me, but I don’t want his pity.
“He wants me to take the test, doesn’t he?” I ask, motioning to the box Jack left on the floor.
He nods with a sigh as he picks up the box. He opens it and hands the pregnancy test stick to me still in its wrapper. “Just to be sure.”
It seems a pointless venture, but I get up and take the test with me to the small bathroom that is connected to the basement room. I close the door behind me, taking a moment to breathe before I unwrap the test and remove the cap on the end of it.
By the time I’m done and emerge from the bathroom, I feel like a completely different person than the girl who was here just minutes before. My hand is shaking as I offer the test to Jack.
There are no lines or crosses. No code to be deciphered. It says it there in plain English, clear as day.
Pregnant.
Jack nods reluctantly and puts the test back in the box before taking me up in his arms. The tears I kept restrained before fall freely from me now. I deserve this cry, and I let myself give in to every single tear, letting it all out of me at once so I can focus on being stronger afterward.
Beyond Revenge (The Ransom Series) Page 5