by G. D. Madsen
Silvio reaches for my face, and only the thought of my brave doctor hinders me from turning away. His fingers thrust into my locks, and even at this length, he manages to fist them, yanking my head to the left. Silvio runs his tongue up my neck, leaving a wet trail of poison that ices my body. "If I hadn't made arrangements to have us accidentally spotted dining together, I would give you an example of what games your doctor and I played while you were absent."
"I want to see her," I whisper.
"Of course," he sneers. "You know the way."
Silvio moves aside, but when I walk past him, he grabs my arm. "One last thing, if you as much as think about cutting your hair again, I will lock you up in that very basement, and forget you there indefinitely."
I don't respond; I only wait for his hold to loosen, and when it does, I walk down the stairs, my heart pounding in terror of what I will find there.
Silvio unlocks the door and swings it open.
"Lea," I cry out and rush to her. She's curled up into a ball on the floor, naked and chained. Seeing another woman in my spot is something that never happened. I recognize her, but I also see myself there – cold, hurt, and hopeless. The image is compelling enough to expel any remnants of hesitation if the decision I made was right.
I run my hands through her tangled hair, trying not to focus on the bruises Silvio's fingers and teeth left.
She stares at me, her eyes wide, despite the puffiness from crying. "What have you done? Why?"
"I could not allow you to go through hell," I say, tears rolling down my face. "I am so sorry I did not come sooner. I am so bloody sorry he hurt you because of me, but I swear I'll get you out of here. He will not lay his hands on you again."
"In exchange for what?" She shakes her head, eyes burning just like the day she helped me escape the hospital. "In exchange for your life?"
Lea is stronger than I imagined. Good. She can still heal, unlike me.
"I never had a life," I speak louder for Silvio to hear. "This is the life I know. This is the only world I understand. You have a life outside these walls, and I could never live, knowing you lost that life because of me." I hug her tight and whisper into her ear, "They'll come for you soon."
"Enough girl talk!" Silvio grabs my curls and jerks me upright. "The dinner is getting cold!"
He drags me out by my hair again, but I tame my urge to fight him. Now that he is willing to leave the house, I cannot risk infuriating him further.
"Silvio, please," I beg again when we are back in the hallway, only this time it is not a desperate plea. He stops. "Could I change and clean my face, at least? I can't show up looking like this, not if you want to sell a happy family picture."
Silvio looks at me, but I keep his piercing gaze. "Five minutes. You know where to find your clothes."
I hurry up the stairs and into his dark bedroom, heading straight for the bathroom. I don't need to turn any lights on. It takes eleven steps from the door to his bed, eighteen – from the bed to the bathroom threshold. Counting steps helped me preserve some dignity while walking the green mile.
I let the water run in the sink and fish out Lucas’s phone from my pocket. It asks for a PIN I don't know, so I stash the phone under the stack of towels, praying this would be enough. Once I rinse my face and add some blush from the container still sitting on the vanity table beside the jewelry Silvio chose for me, I return to the room and finally switch the lights on.
I need a dress with sleeves long and wide enough to hide my forearms. Luckily, my body hasn't changed much since I was a sixteen-year-old expected to seduce a judge who never missed a single Woodstock festival. A purple thigh-high dress, hugging my upper body and widening from my hips down, its long sleeves nearly reaching my knuckles, was my way of getting his attention in the mass of other festivalgoers.
When I put the dress on and look at myself in the mirror, I have to close my eyes to stop seeing that teenager, trembling like a leaf and constantly twirling her long hair in between her fingers.
I touch my short curls to assure myself I am not that girl anymore, grab a pair of white high-heeled sandals, and tiptoe out of the room.
Silvio is standing outside, discussing something with the two men who always give me the creeps. Tall, broad and dark – part of the five-man Romanian bodyguard crew Silvio brags about.
It is now or never.
I rush down the stairs, my entire body glued to the wall, and sneak into the living room.
When Silvio steps inside, I am already sitting on the bottom stair, putting my sandals on.
"Time's up!"
Once we get inside the limo, my fingers slide along the piece of carved metal hidden under my sleeve. The scabbard, in the shape of an antique bracelet, fits my arm perfectly as it was made for a boy and not a grown male. Only the tip of the cross on top of the dagger handle is sticking out a little, but Silvio has been too busy celebrating his victory to pay attention.
Just like Holofernes.
Chapter 25
David
I am not sure what I was expecting to find as I returned to my apartment with Greg and Bryan, but it was not the sight of the woman we came to confront, lying on my couch in her black lace underwear.
If the situation were any different, I would laugh while I watch her pretentious seduction fade, but now I only want to rip her throat.
"David!" Her face turns crimson. Evelyn jumps off the couch and into the dress she left on the floor. "I thought you promised to give me time till tomorrow to prepare myself."
"Just as you once promised to love him forever?" Greg smirks. "Oh, wait, I'm such an idiot. Your feelings manifested again, and you were planning to express those tonight, right?"
"Gregory, why are you talking to me like this?" Evelyn plays offended. "So what if I feel something? This is between David and me."
"Too late. The guy is taken by someone far more worthy." Brian cocks his head to the side, and her face loses every shade of pink.
"What is going on? Is everything alright?" she asks, backing away toward the bedroom. Before she can bolt inside and barricade herself, I leap over the couch catching her wrists and pulling her closer.
"Why would it not be, dear?" I raise my eyebrows. "Unless you are hiding something."
"What are you talking about?" she whimpers. "Oh, God! That woman poisoned your mind. David, you cannot trust her; she wanted to kill me; she wanted to kill us both!"
"Shut up!" My voice could break glass. "You are the only one I cannot trust! You lied to me from the very beginning. Tell me, how much did you enjoy watching another woman being raped and tortured, you sick bitch?!"
"What are you talking about? Please, David, you know me, you need to believe me!"
I push her back against the wall. "I don't need to do anything. I might have given you the benefit of the doubt after the girl you accused of treachery recognized you in the photo, I honestly wanted to, but you are the only one I told about the doctor's involvement, and excuse me if I don't believe her sudden disappearance is a coincidence."
"What? No!"
"Do I look like a total fool? Honey, I am far from that sucker ready to give you the moon and overlook every insult and every smirk. If anybody taught me not to trust a word leaving this mouth," I clench her jaw with my fingers, "it was you, love. Now, if we were to check your phone, would we not find that you called somebody as soon as I left?"
"You have no right to touch my stuff!"
"No? And who is going to stop me? You? Or your sugar daddy?" I release her.
Evelyn glares at me, and then at Greg as he picks up her purse and digs through. She appears way too calm.
"What the...?" Greg curses, smashing Evelyn's cell against the wall. "There is no SIM!"
Evelyn smiles – the smile that taunted me for months after she dumped me. The same one she plastered on her face when she called me a loser without ambitions.
"Where. Is. The. Doctor?" I ask through gritted teeth, fighting the urge to slam her agai
nst the wall. "The address! I need that fucker's address!"
"It's down the "go screw yourself lane," where you all can head right now!"
"Allow me five minutes alone with her," Bryan groans, cracking each knuckle as he steps closer.
The grin evaporates from her face, and Evelyn backs herself against the wall now. "No, I'm sorry... I didn't mean that; You don't understand... This man is ruthless. If he found out I betrayed him, he would kill me. God, he forced me to watch his daughter's execution so I would know what happens to traitors..." She falls to her knees, her face in her hands.
Could Evelyn be telling the truth at last?
No. She was not petrified; she reveled in Kahina's screams...
Time to end this spectacle of crocodile tears.
"What now?" I fail to hide my annoyance when my phone buzzes. I am about to reject the call, but Aurelia's name on the screen suspends my finger midway. Why would she call me? Did anything happen to Lucas? "Aurelia, what's wrong?"
"Hey man," Lucas replies instead. "Judy ran away."
"Fuck!" Everybody in the room stares at me. "She, I mean Judy, is gone."
I put Lucas on speaker. "What happened?"
"She learned about the doctor and went to paint in your office to calm down. Aurelia went to check up on her half an hour later, but the office was empty, and so was her room. We searched the beach first, but when we returned, I discovered my car was gone. I rushed to call you, but she also took my phone..."
"Did you track it down?"
"Do you think I am an idiot? Of course I did. I located the signal in the loft district downtown when it went dead."
"What?"
"That's why I am calling you. Judy is back in Chicago, and she turned the phone off about five minutes ago."
"Why would she do that only now?"
"No idea, but she did. The battery was fully loaded. She waited to turn it off."
Bloody hell, what is she up to? Why do I even bother asking? She is going to sacrifice herself for Lea. That much is clear.
Now two women are missing. If we are lucky, we might find them together. I just pray we find them soon. I cannot imagine what the fucker will do to my Kahina once...
No, I refuse to think about this now. We need to move!
"Time is our enemy now." I glance at my friends. "Bryan, stay with her." I point toward Evelyn. "Don't let the bitch out of your sight. If she as much as moves her finger in a way you find suspicious, feel free to snap her neck."
Evelyn winces, looking at the wide grin on Bryan's face. Somehow, I wonder if he is hoping my treacherous ex would indeed try something.
∞∞∞
Riding a snail downtown on Thursday night might have been faster than taking a car.
Later than sooner, we reach the location where Lucas's phone went dead. Just as I suspected, his empty car stands parked in front of Kahina's apartment. I bolt up the stairs, but after the eternity it took to get here, I'd be a fool to expect to find her inside the apartment.
This feeble beacon of hope goes dark after I scout the last room. Her studio, like the rest of the place, is drowning in the overpowering stench of cleaning chemicals. Beltrani is wiping every trail leading to him, and Judith Orlova was the last loose end he could not get his hands on.
Until she offered herself.
Now the only way to find her is to understand why she would come here in the first place, and why the hell did she wait to switch Lucas's phone off.
Only then it hits me. Kahina could not tell us the exact location because she didn't know herself. She had to call Beltrani to pick her up, and she was not going to expose the location of my house to him.
I call Aurelia again. "Lucas, can you check if she called anyone from your phone? No, wait..."
I need to think.
She would not storm out like this if she didn't know where she was going. "Forget it; check the phone I gave her instead."
I can hear him rush into the office and search through the papers. He becomes silent for a moment before the whole tirade of curses molests my ear.
"Judy dialed a number just before leaving. Damn it; I should have checked sooner. I'll try to track..." He gets silent again. "Oooh, fuck..."
"What's wrong now?" I am losing my patience.
"I better show you."
The picture Lucas sends me is like a punch to my chest. The screen turns blurry, and I lean against my friend's abandoned car, trying to push away the worst-case scenarios rolling like a film reel on the loop in my head.
"Hey man, What's wrong?" Greg snatches the phone out of my hands without waiting for me to respond. "What's up with the painting? Do you think she—"
"I don't think," I say retrieving my phone, my unsteady fingers pressing the redial button. "I am damn certain. Lucas, is my grandfather's dagger still on the wall?"
Although I already suspect the answer, and Lucas only confirms my worst fears.
I sigh, looking at the blade in the picture, strapped tight behind the woman's forearm. "She is going after Silvio."
Sixty-something long-drawn seconds later, Lucas texts me the address of the phone's owner.
Gregory insists on driving, and considering my body feels like recovering from the near-poisonous hangover, I agree.
The GPS leads us someplace across the city, and while it may not be the direction Kahina suspected the mansion was, we have no luxury to ignore any leads.
As we cross the suburban streets ready to compete with the one from that TV show about housewives, I cannot shake off the suspicion that we are going to end up in another bogus location. But when an elderly man in his striped pajamas opens the door, rubbing his grey eyes, I am certain.
He only scratches his bald head and shrugs his shoulders once we ask about anybody called Beltrani.
His wife joins us, and we have to employ every skill of hostage negotiation to escape this delicate white-haired woman in a fluffy pink robe and matching slippers, insisting ‘brave officers like yourselves’ deserve tea and biscuits for working this late hour.
The phone call from Lucas saves us just when we are about to lose the negotiations. Assuring the lady these are matters of national security and they cannot wait, we apologize once more for disturbing their sleep and promise to return for those cookies soon.
"What took you so long?" I reproach Lucas as we walk toward my car.
"No need to bite my head off. I had to request Bryan's expertise. Beltrani or whoever made it happen is that good..."
He must be, if Lucas needed Bryan's help. The guy never speaks about what exactly he did in the military, but one thing is certain – the colossal, tattooed muscle mountain can track and hack almost anything.
"Okay, tell me," I add in a more friendly way, putting him on speaker.
"You might want to destroy your laptop, as Bryan stated, but after doing whatever he always does, he managed to pin the phone to its actual location. Beltrani is on the move, heading south, downtown direction."
Greg is already in the driver's seat. "I'm on it."
∞∞∞
"Unless Bryan fucked up, which would be a first, Beltrani appears to be visiting the top-notch restaurant in the Loop as we speak," Lucas informs us as we pass Navy Pier.
Unless this is another wild goose chase, pretty soon we will find out what Beltrani is up to.
We park in front of the very restaurant that evokes happy childhood memories of me cooking for my parents under the supervision of my father's best friend.
Greg insists on flashing his badge, but it gets us nowhere. Time to use the secret card I never have, nor wanted to pull out, except for when I intended to surprise Evelyn – inviting her for romantic dinner the night before our wedding. Now I am grateful she canceled the ceremony, or I might have ended up marrying a psycho.
"If you'd be so kind as to check your VIP guest list for the name Franquetot, miss, I believe you will find there is a table ready for me or any of my family members at any time." I take out my driver
's license to prove my identity, and a slender young woman grudgingly eyes it before pulling out a different journal.
Her eyes, partially concealed by her raven-black fringe, expand, and her lips twist into an "oh", the perfect Burlesque style make-up powerless to hide the blushing. She points for us to pass, the smirk on my lips causing the pink color to expand from her cheeks to her neckline.
"Please, give my best regards to Uncle Claude," I add with a slight bow and walk into the dining hall with huge windows overlooking the city. The view of the lake alone is worth the visit, but my uncle's master chef skills turn this place irresistible.
But who cares about the skyline when the most astonishing sight is in this very room – a goddess in a purple dress from a different decade with her short curly hair and large earrings. Thank God, she's alive!
So many emotions replace one another inside her beautiful eyes when she notices me – some of them I recognize, others I have yet to learn, but the ultimate one is the one I want to erase forever – fear.
Obviously, the bastard she is with knows the expression too well. Beltrani turns around, his eyes ready to shatter concrete when he recognizes me.
"David Aghilas," he hisses my name like a snake when I approach the table. "I wish I could say I am surprised to see you here, but it seems you cannot stop harassing my daughter. However, what surprises me is the lack of privacy one could expect in this place!" Beltrani glares past me, probably at the poor flushing manager.
"What amazes me is that they allow pigs inside." Greg is ready to bounce at Silvio, but I grab his arm.
"My friend, you should not insult intelligent animals by comparing them to this scum." I smirk, hoping Beltrani would initiate the fight. My knuckles itch to color his ugly face.
Instead, the bastard only folds his arms over his chest, reclining in his chair. "Do the words restraining order mean nothing to you, Aghilas?"
"The name is Franquetot to you."
Something flashes through Beltrani's mind, his dark eyes turning even darker. A recognition, maybe?
"As much as I love using my mother's maiden name to avoid ties to the French nobility, the one in my birth certificate and passport remains Franquetot. In other words, the restraining order she never signed," I point to my queen, "is worthless."