by Kaye Blue
He’d probably figured, correctly, that if tape was the worst thing that happened to him, it would be very good day indeed.
“Aras…”
“Roman…”
“It looks bad, but I can make it up to you,” he said.
“How?” I asked.
“I can tell you where I took her.”
“Yes, you should do that.”
“Regency Hotel. Fourteenth floor.”
“And?”
I was aware of Ezekiel in the background, no doubt sending a team to check out the address.
“And what?” Roman said, his eyes wide, panic setting in.
“You gave me an address. You think that makes us square?” I said.
“I…”
“It doesn’t.”
I reached into my pocket and took out my X-Acto knife.
Such a simple tool, but so effective.
There was an audible pop when I pulled off the lid, and I thought I heard Roman whimper.
I stared at the sharp blade, then looked at Roman, his eyes even wider now, the panic in them acute.
But probably nothing like the panic she had felt when he had delivered her to Vlad.
“The address is helpful, but not enough I’m afraid.”
Moving quickly, but with precision, I jammed the X-Acto knife in the corner of his eye, twisted, then popped the orb out of its socket.
“But this is a start,” I said.
Fifteen
Aras
“You feel better?” Ezekiel asked, a little under an hour later.
I was at the sink, washing my hands, after Roman and the various bits I had extracted from him had been wrapped in a tarp.
“Not really,” I responded.
“Give it time,” Ezekiel said.
Time wasn’t my concern, and Ezekiel knew that.
“We got everybody on this. We’ll find her,” he said.
That Ezekiel was being encouraging was only proof of how bad the situation was.
I had done this, had gotten her involved, then, worst of all, taken my eye off the ball, trusted someone when I knew trust was not an option.
And now she was paying the price.
“Look, Aras, all this blame and feeling sorry bullshit is not going to help right now. So get your fucking head in the game if you want to get her back.”
“Yeah,” I said.
Ezekiel was right, not that I would tell him.
There would be time for reckoning later, but for now I needed to focus on Lake and getting her back.
“I have a crew coming to handle the scene here,” Ezekiel said.
“Thank you,” I responded. “We have people on Vlad’s favorite spots.”
“Yeah. Yuri is going to find out,” Ezekiel said.
“I’ll handle him,” I responded.
I had come up with a cover story, and besides, I knew that as long as the money still flowed, Yuri would tolerate a certain amount of freelancing.
“So when—”
Ezekiel froze then looked at the door.
Not a second later, there was a knock.
“Delivery.”
I wrapped my hand around the base of my gun then gestured toward the door.
Ezekiel was approaching, but by the time he opened the door, the delivery person was gone, but there was a package on the step.
He looked at it warily, then finally picked it up.
“Delivery guy was legit,” he said.
“I’m sure he was,” I responded.
Vlad wouldn’t risk sending one of his people, and somehow, I was certain that this package was from him.
“Let’s see what’s inside,” Ezekiel said.
I didn’t want to, felt a deep sense of dread when I looked at the box.
But I ignored it, and instead quickly and carefully sliced the tape and pulled the box open.
“What the fuck?” Ezekiel said.
I heard him, but didn’t pay him any attention.
Instead my gaze was riveted on the package.
At first glance it was tissue paper, but I looked closely and saw that no, it was gauze, what had to be rolls and rolls of medical gauze stuffed in the box.
Then there was a DVD, and attached to it was a note.
In case you doubt the authenticity.
The note had been scribbled in bold scroll, Vlad’s, no doubt.
But the note, the DVD, the gauze, were all secondary.
I stared at the other objects in the box, blinking, willing my eyes to be wrong, knowing that they weren’t.
They were two of them.
A middle finger and a forefinger. Long, slender fingers, with short, buffed nails.
Fingers I recognized.
Fingers I had last seen when they had been attached to Lake’s hand.
Sixteen
Aras
I thought I would go crazy.
I knew I was going crazy.
What I didn’t know was how much longer I could hold up.
“As long as it takes,” I whispered to myself.
I would hold it together as long as it took to find her.
And I would find her.
I kept telling myself that, knew it. I would not rest, not until I knew where she was, knew that she was okay.
I stared at the cooler, my stomach turning at what was inside.
I told myself not to think about it, but how could I stop?
I couldn’t, couldn’t not imagine the pain she had endured, the fear.
She was strong.
I had seen that myself, had tested it myself, but she wasn’t cut out for this world.
I couldn’t imagine how she had felt as Vlad had approached her with the knife, imagine how scared, how worried…
And I hadn’t been there to protect her.
The failure of that was a weight, a burden that I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to shake off.
But I knew one thing for certain.
He would pay for it.
I’d known that before, had even more reason now.
My hands trembled as I thought of how good it would feel to choke the life from his body.
There was no way I could ever inflict the amount of pain on him that he had inflicted on Lake, no way I could make him scream enough to pay the price of taking my mother’s life.
But he would suffer, suffer to the greatest degree I could make him.
And then he would die.
It was that knowledge that kept me going.
It was the only thing I could think about, because I couldn’t think about Lake out there, bleeding, in pain.
Or worse.
No, I wouldn’t allow myself to go there.
She was a fighter, and she would keep fighting.
I clung to that, prayed for it as fervently as I had prayed for anything in my life.
“Aras!” one of the men called.
“What?” I said.
“You’ll want to check this out,” he said.
I quickly went to where he stood.
He was monitoring the police channels, and I listened as the call came in.
“Report of a female black wandering through the streets. Appears disoriented, injured in some way, though the caller didn’t say how, over,” the dispatcher said.
“Take me there,” I said.
We were on the move in an instant, and I fought to keep my cool, maintain my control.
It was her.
It had to be.
She was alive. She would be fine.
I wasn’t a person of faith, had never been in a position where I could be, but in that moment I reached for all the faith I could muster.
Nothing else could happen, because there was no way I could survive losing her.
I heard sirens, so I urged the man to drive faster.
We reach the address first, the sirens growing closer.
I looked up and down the block, and my gaze landed on her almost instantly.
“There!”
I instantly recognized the way she held her shoulders, the tilt of her head.
It was her.
I jumped out of the SUV and ran to her.
“Lake!”
I reached out to touch her. She whirled around, swinging wildly with one hand, while holding the other close to her body as if to protect it.
“It’s me, baby,” I said, reaching for her again, sure to keep my movements slow, not wanting to scare her.
Her eyes were wide, had this almost feral, desperate look in them, and seeing it wounded me.
“It’s me,” I said again, this time my voice quiet.
She blinked once, twice, and I saw the instant recognition set in.
“Aras,” she said.
She reached for me, still keeping her arm close to her body.
I touched her, and she locked eyes with mine, then collapsed against me.
I practically carried her to the SUV and pushed her into the back, getting in after her.
“Take me to General Memorial,” I said.
“Emergency?” the driver asked as he pulled off.
“Loading dock,” I responded.
Lake lay against my side, her body cold, probably from the blood loss.
“Lake, you need to stay awake.”
She didn’t respond, seemed to be coming in and out of consciousness, so I gently reached for her wrist and looked at her hand.
Saw the two fingers were missing, around the blood noticed that they looked to have been cut cleanly.
I’d seen things in my life that were the stuff of nightmares, but nothing had ever affected me as much as this, and I knew that as long as I lived, I would never forget the horrible sight.
“Go faster,” I growled.
He sped up without protest, and soon I could see the hospital in the distance.
I had been operating under the belief and certainty that she would come back to me, and I’d known she would need medical attention.
I was glad I’d had the foresight to set something up.
The driver pulled into the loading dock, and I saw the figures, old scrubs, one in a white coat.
“Down here,” I said, helping Lake out of the car.
The two men sprang into action, lifted her onto a gurney, and began pushing her through an open door.
I followed, watching as they covered her with blankets, then began to examine her hand, all while running down the hall.
“She needs to go to surgery if there’s any hope of reattaching the fingers,” the doctor said.
“Do what it takes, and make sure she comes out alive,” I said.
Seventeen
Aras
I hadn’t left Lake’s bedside since she had come out of surgery.
The entire process had been involved.
Payoffs to the doctor, head nurse, and custodial staff, all to ensure that they would handle any questions that might get asked. Plus, payment to have her registered under a false name and me escorted into the hospital without having to pass through public doors.
It had been expensive.
I couldn’t have cared less about the cost.
Instead, as I sat there now, watching her, I was gripped by two completely warring emotions.
Relief.
Knowing that she was alive, that she was safe, made it possible for me to breathe, which was something I hadn’t done while she was gone.
Failure.
I had failed her. There was no way around it, no way to explain it away, sugarcoat it. She was here, in this situation, because I had let her down.
I swore then, in that moment, it wouldn’t happen again.
Though I hadn’t left her side, it was difficult for me to look at her.
She was too still, the anesthesia rendering her unconscious. It was a strange thing to see, something I didn’t like.
I had noticed it before, or at least hadn’t paid it very much attention, but Lake was always so alive, not necessarily in constant motion, but a presence.
To see her lying there now, still, eerily so, was difficult to take.
As was seeing the bandage on her hand.
Her arm had been wrapped from fingers to elbow and taped in place so she couldn’t move.
The doctor had done his best but told me that it was wait-and-see as to whether the reattachment would take, and what, if any, mobility she might retain.
So while looking at her face was nearly impossible, I forced myself to look at her hand, see the embodiment of my failure.
It was another image I would never forget, one I would not allow to go unanswered.
I heard someone at the door and turned to find Ezekiel.
I had been expecting him, and by silent agreement we left the hospital room.
I had security all over the hospital but still felt antsy about leaving Lake alone.
But there was no way to avoid it, and I knew Ezekiel wouldn’t have come if it wasn’t important.
We exited the hospital, moving through the service areas and into the waiting SUV.
“How is she?” Ezekiel asked.
“She came out of surgery fine. Don’t know what will happen with her…fingers.” I trailed off but then continued. “But she’ll live.”
My voice sounded mechanical, distant, but one look at Ezekiel, and I could see he knew I was anything but.
“She’s tough. She’ll be fine,” he said.
“She will,” I responded.
I appreciated the gesture, and even more, knew that Ezekiel would only say so because he believed it. It wasn’t in his makeup to try to make people feel better, so his words weren’t a condescending attempt to lift my spirits.
But while I appreciated them, they didn’t change the truth of the situation.
“You have information,” I said.
It was the only reason he would have taken me from her bedside, and he knew it was the only reason to leave.
“None good,” he said, his expression darkening.
“He’s gone?” I asked, knowing the answer before I even asked the question.
“I’ve hit all his favorite spots, and he’s nowhere to be found,” Ezekiel said.
“Is Yuri helping him?”
“If he is, he hasn’t told me,” he answered.
“Put someone on his townhouse,” I said.
“Already done. He’ll turn up eventually,” Ezekiel said.
“He will,” I responded.
“And when he does?” Ezekiel asked.
I turned my eyes to him, met his unwavering gaze. But I didn’t speak. I just gave him a grim smile.
Eighteen
Lake
Beep. Beep. Beep.
I tried to ignore the persistent noise and cling to sleep.
Doing so seemed important, but I wasn’t sure why. Lingering in bed wasn’t something I did often, but I wanted to do so now.
Felt deep in my bones that opening my eyes would be a very big mistake.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
“What the…?” I croaked, frustrated, then pained by the stinging rasp of my desert-dry throat.
“No. Don’t try to move yet.”
At the deep, soft voice, I pulled my eyes open, met his.
Relief, warmth, happiness were my first feelings.
Almost immediately after came the memories.
Vlad.
His knife…
“Where…?”
I trailed off but furrowed my brows as I looked at him, hoping he understood the rest of the question.
My throat was scratchy and dry, my head felt like it was filled with cotton balls, but those discomforts were nothing compared to where I’d been, what I had gone through.
“You’re at the hospital,” Aras said.
“Yeah,” I croaked out, now noticing the obvious.
I went quiet then, the burst of pain in my throat telling me that speaking wasn’t the best idea.
“Here. This mi
ght help,” Aras said.
He fished an ice cube out of the cup on the tray over the bed, and after my nod, he rubbed it against my lips.
The cool moisture was wonderful relief, relief that intensified when he pushed the ice into my mouth.
I let the ice melt on my tongue, swallowed, the cooling sip taking away some of the ache in my throat.
“You can’t have too many of those, but it should help the pain,” he said.
At the mention of pain, I realized how odd it was that I wasn’t in more.
I could see my arm in my periphery but refused to look at it more closely.
Still, the white gauze, the memories of those last moments with Vlad, left me no doubt what had happened, but I didn’t know what had come after.
Seeming to sense the direction of my thoughts, Aras started to speak.
“He sent them to me,” he said, his voice not breaking, but his expression cloudy, the pain in his face as acute as the pain I knew I would soon feel.
“But we got here in time. Surgery took several hours, but they were able to reattach them,” he said.
He went quiet then, clearly gauging my reaction.
I was gauging my reaction as well, trying to figure out what it could possibly be.
It was hard to fathom what Vlad had done, even harder to fathom that even half-crazed with pain, I’d managed to get away from him.
I froze, my gaze flying to Aras.
“Vlad?” I asked.
I didn’t say more, both because of the ache in my throat and because I didn’t have to.
“He’s in the wind. But not for long,” Aras said.
I frowned, wondering about this.
Vlad was on the loose, doing God only knew what to God only knew who, and Aras was here with me.
I wasn’t sure why, but I didn’t care. And it might have been weak, definitely was weak, but the thought of being here alone, without him, was one I couldn’t stand, one I didn’t even want to consider.
So I wouldn’t ask him why he was here, wouldn’t think about when he was leaving.
I would just hope that he stayed.
“I—”
Whatever Aras was going to say was lost to the knock on the door.
An instant later, and without waiting for response, a tall man in his midfifties walked into the room.