Beyond The Lies

by Abbi Cook

  Pushing my arm away, he grabs my left one and begins carving into my flesh. I cry out, but I feel myself fading away. As my eyes close, I feel nothing.

  Chapter Seventeen

  King

  Kroger groans in his sleep while I sail into the parking space and slam my foot onto the brakes, sending him flying forward into the dashboard. I’m fucking on edge this afternoon knowing what I have to do, and it’s become impossible to hide it.

  “What the fuck, man?” he snaps as he sits back in the seat and looks around. “Where the hell are we?”

  I open the car door and mumble, “I have to get a few things. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  Right before the door slams shut, he yells, “A grocery store? What are you getting in there? Get me an orange juice!”

  As I head toward the front doors of the store, I mumble to myself that he should get his own goddamned orange juice and stuff my hand into my front pocket to feel the note for Sophie’s parents. My stomach twists into a tight knot with each step across the parking lot. She said her mother would be here helping elderly people get their groceries between four and six.

  Sophie described her as nearly her twin, just older with hair that’s a few inches shorter, so as I march through the store, I look for her mother’s version of the face that’s become something I look forward to each morning when I wake up and each night when I come home.

  My palms grow sweatier with each aisle I search. Dozens of women around the age I guess Sophie’s mother would be seem to be shopping today, but one after another they aren’t her.

  I head down the cereal aisle and let my gaze pass over the colorful boxes filled with breakfast for children. Somehow I doubt she’s here, but then I see a woman standing in front of the oatmeal boxes with a hunched over elderly woman leaning on a cane. I stop dead, stunned at how much Sophie’s mother looks like her daughter. Same color hair, same body type, same gentle smile.

  “You love apples and cinnamon, so let’s get a box of that, Carol. It’s easy to make, too, so you can even microwave it in the morning,” she says as she places the oatmeal in the cart next to them.

  The elderly woman nods her grey head and grabs a second box. “Better get two then. I like having enough in the house, just in case,” she says in a wispy, grandmotherly voice.

  “Mrs. Varens?” I say quietly.

  Sophie’s mother looks over at me and smiles just like her daughter. A strange man walks up to her in a store, and she’s more than willing to just talk to him. Like mother, like daughter.

  “Yes?” she asks, her gaze searching my face for some clue to who I am and how I know her name.

  I pull the note out of my pocket and hand it to her without saying another word. I don’t know what I’d say even if I could. I’m the man who’s keeping her daughter hostage.

  She’s confused, but I don’t stay around to answer any questions. I hear her let out a sob as I leave the cereal aisle and hurry toward the front door. By the time she realizes what she knows about her daughter, I’m in the parking lot.

  Kroger’s still sitting in the passenger seat, and I slide in behind the wheel and drop the car into drive to get the hell out of there. As I put my foot to the floor, he says, “Where the hell is my orange juice?”

  “They were out.”

  He starts complaining about never getting what he wants anymore, but I’m not listening. I try to focus on where I’m driving, but all I can think of is the look on Sophie’s mother’s face when I handed her that piece of paper and the sound of her cry as she read the words on it.

  Until that moment, keeping Sophie didn’t feel wrong. I was doing the right thing when I took her away from Tap. I was treating her well when I fed her and let her sleep in the bed.

  But the second I saw her mother’s face and heard her sadness, all of that vanished. Now, it’s impossible to avoid the truth.

  Although I’m not a monster like Tap, I’m no hero.

  “Can we at least stop at a store on the way back to the estate? I’m fucking parched over here,” Kroger says, still complaining.

  It tears me out of my thoughts, and I throw him a look of disgust at the whining sound of his voice. “Whatever. Yeah. If you see one, just let me know.”

  We ride along in silence back to the estate, my mind filled with the truth about Sophie I don’t want to admit but can’t avoid. The expression on her mother’s face won’t let me. When I park the car in front of the garage where we all keep our cars, Kroger jumps out and slams the door behind him.

  “What’s wrong with you, King? It’s like your head is stuck up your ass or something. I told you two times about stores on our way here, but you kept going. What the fuck, man?” he says when I catch up with him right before we go through the back door of the house.

  Christ, he’s irritating me today!

  “Still with the goddamned orange juice thing?” I snap as I walk into Duke’s office.

  “I’m fucking thirsty. Since when is that a fucking crime?” he barks back before sitting down in one of the chairs in front of the boss’s desk.

  Duke stares at the two of us, clearly confused why we’ve brought our bullshit argument to him. Sitting back in his leather chair, he folds his arms across his chest and shakes his head.

  “Why are we talking about a crime involving orange juice? I would have thought you two would be better than knocking over a fruit stand,” he says with a chuckle.

  Kroger turns around and throws me a look of disgust. Scowling, he explains, “We didn’t do a fruit stand. I just told King to stop at a store because I wanted a fucking orange juice and he drove by every one of them. Every damn one!”

  Done with bitching me out for the second time about the juice, he turns back to face Duke and adds, “It’s like he’s been out of it all day.”

  Looking past him, Duke focuses his attention on me now. “Is something wrong, King? It’s not like you to not be on your game out there. That kind of thing gets people hurt.”

  I know full well what being distracted can do to someone in our business. I don’t need him or Kroger giving me chapter and verse on how to do my damn job.

  But I also don’t need to get on the boss’s bad side either, so I swallow my aggravation and paste a smile on my face. “No need to worry. I’m all over the game here and there and everywhere. Sorry, dude. I guess I just didn’t hear you because I was focused on all the traffic. My bad, man.”

  For a few seconds, neither man says anything, but then in his usual, decent way, Kroger waves it all away and laughs. “It’s no big deal. I was just thirsty.”

  Duke cocks an eyebrow at both of us, shaking his head. “You two sound like an old married couple. Maybe I should pair you with new guys so you don’t have to spend so much time around one another.”

  I don’t say anything, but all I can think is the last thing I need is someone new, or worse, someone else like Tap. Kroger complains sometimes and he’s a little too passive for me most of the time, but I’d take working with him over that asshole any day.

  While I keep my thoughts to myself, Kroger lets his opinion out loud and clear, surprising me. “Duke, we work well together. The whole orange juice bullshit was just that. Bullshit. All of us have a good thing going, except for Tap. Put him into the mix and it all goes to hell.”

  “Another one with a problem with Tap? Is this your doing, King?” Duke asks, clearly angry.

  “Not a word from me,” I quickly say, wanting nothing to do with anything about Tap.

  “No, boss. King’s got nothing to do with this. This is all me, Duke. He’s unpredictable. That’s even worse than being distracted, if you ask me. Like grabbing that girl last week. You know that’s going to be nothing but trouble for you when her uncle retaliates, and then we’ll all be in it.”

  As Kroger talks, Duke’s expression grows darker and darker until he puts his hand up to stop him. “You must be reading my mind today, son.” Looking over Kroger’s head, he says directly to me, “I fina
lly heard from her uncle this afternoon. Seems he just found out about his niece being taken. He’s not happy, and I don’t blame him, but I don’t need this blowing up into some drawn out thing. Victor Varens and I have had our problems, for sure. We’ve kept on our own sides of this business by respecting one another, for the most part, and this little issue endangers that arrangement.”

  “She’s been taken care of, boss. I promise you that. You can send her back today, and she’ll have nothing but nice things to say about her time with me,” I say with a smile.

  “Then let’s get this done. I’ll let her uncle know she’s safe and sound and she can come home tonight. I’ll tell him it was all a mistake on Tap’s part. Better to smooth this situation over than create a problem that we don’t need.”

  “I agree. I’ll get her ready now, and text me where you want me to take her,” I say as I move to leave as soon as I can.

  “Thanks, King. I knew I could rely on you to handle this.”

  I practically run across the grass to reach the apartment and give Sophie the news I know will thrill her. I imagine her face when she hears she’s going home. Those big brown eyes of hers will be as wide as saucers, and she’ll give me one of those beautiful smiles that light up her whole face.

  Taking the stairs two at a time, I don’t even care about the pain in my ribs now. I throw the front door open and rush in expecting to see her sitting on the couch.

  But she’s not there.

  Maybe she’s in the bedroom. Hurrying through the apartment, I fling the bedroom door open, but she’s not there either.

  “Sophie! Where are you?” I yell as I spin around to walk toward the kitchen.

  I check there and don’t find her. Something’s wrong. I race to the bathroom and find it empty. Is it possible she risked everything and climbed out the window? It’s two stories up. She would have had to find a way to shimmy down the side of the building.

  She promised she wouldn’t do anything stupid. I was sure she understood it was only a matter of time before I figured out a way to get her back home. She knew she had to be patient.

  But a quick check of the window shows it’s still locked from the inside. She didn’t leave that way.

  Confused, I look around the bathroom and see a towel on the floor. I didn’t leave one there, and Sophie’s never done that before. Lifting it up, I feel it’s still damp.

  Maybe she brought her clothes in when she took a shower.

  Still unsure about all of this, I walk out to the living room and see her shoes next to the couch where she’s left them since she came here. Something is very wrong. Even if she brought clothes into the bathroom and left the towel on the floor, she wouldn’t leave without her shoes.

  But how the hell did she get out? The door locks from the outside. Someone had to come in to let her out.

  Or to take her.

  Tap. That motherfucker! How did he get in? The only two people who have a key to my apartment are me and Duke.

  My mind races at the thought that my boss just spent the last ten minutes talking about Sophie and how she needs to go back home while the whole time he knew Tap had her. I can’t believe that. It makes no sense.

  The problem is Tap couldn’t get into my place without Duke’s key.

  Maybe he picked the lock. I don’t know. None of this makes any fucking sense. I don’t care how it happened. I need to find Sophie right now.

  I break into a full sprint and run across the estate to the building where Tap lives. His apartment is on the bottom floor, and I bang on the door until my fists ache. No answer. I look in through his front window, but I see no evidence she’s in there.

  Where the fuck would he have taken her?

  My legs feel like the muscles might explode out through the skin as I run full speed to Duke’s office. Every second she’s gone she’s in danger. I just need to make him see that without letting him know the true reason why I’m worried.

  Kroger is still in his office talking with him when I burst in, slamming the door off the wall as I rush in. Shaking my head, I catch my breath and tell him what’s happened.

  “She’s gone. Tap fucking took her. I know it. And he’s going to rough her up, if he hasn’t done it already. That deal with her uncle is going to go up in flames if we don’t find her before he screws everything up.”

  Duke stands up and pushes his chair out behind him, sending it crashing into the wall. “What the fuck is it with this girl? Does she have some kind of pussy that shoots out fucking money like an ATM, for God’s sake? I told him he couldn’t have her last night. Have you all lost your damn minds? This is why women are nothing but fucking trouble!”

  My heart races, but I try to remain cool so Duke doesn’t know how terrified I am that Sophie at that very moment might be in real danger because of that asshole Tap. “We need to find her, and he’s not at his apartment. Anywhere else he’d be?”

  “I sent him out on his own today since no one else wants to be paired with him lately. Maybe you guys are right. We’ll go to his place and check it out on our own.”

  Kroger jumps up to join us, and we walk over to Tap’s building far too fucking slowly for my taste. I can’t let anyone see how worried I am, though, so even as I want to tear across the lawn and kick his fucking front door in myself, I play it cool.

  “You know, the only way he could get into my place is with your key since the two of us are the only ones who have one,” I mention as casually as possible when we stop at Tap’s front door.

  Duke narrows his eyes and look over at me. “I want to say he can pick the lock, but either choice isn’t good.”

  Once he opens the door, I march in and begin looking for any clue that she’s there. His place is set up like mine, so in seconds, I’ve checked every square inch of his home without finding her there.

  Duke and Kroger wait for me in the living room, and I return to see them standing there disgusted.

  “She’s not here.”

  Dirty glasses and empty beer bottles cover the coffee table, and the couch has dozens of take-out bags filled with garbage piled on it. Tap lives like a pig. Not surprising.

  Under his breath, Duke mumbles, “This place is a goddamned mess.”

  I have to shrug, like I’m as disgusted as they are by the way he lives, while all the while fear for what’s happened to Sophie fills me. I don’t give a fuck about what his living room looks like.

  “Where else would he have to take her to?” I ask, struggling to keep my voice calm.

  Duke shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

  The three of us silently stand in the middle of Tap’s filthy living room as my mind races with how I’m going to find Sophie before he does anything to her, and then I hear a tiny cry that sounds like it’s coming from the back of his apartment. I checked back there in his bedroom, though. She’s not there.

  “Did you hear that?” I ask, straining to hear that sound again.

  Kroger and Duke both shake their heads. But I know I heard something. Looking around, I search for a closet door but see none.

  “This is set up just like my place. Was your apartment set up like this, Kroger?”

  He nods and then says, “Except since I was on the ground floor, I had to walk down into the basement to do my laundry. You guys who live on the second floor get to have your washer and dryer in your apartment.”

  I hear the faint sound again and my heart slams into my chest. “Where was the door to the basement in your place?”

  Kroger points toward the kitchen a room away. “Right next to the refrigerator.”

  I hurry to the next room and see a door right where he said his was located. I nearly rip it off the hinges when I open it, and a second later, I hear that sound again, but this time it’s loud and clear and I know exactly who it is.

  Sophie.

  “I found her! She’s down in the basement.”

  By the time I get down the stairs, her sobs fill my ears. It’s pitch black, but I follow th
e sound and find her chained to the floor, curled up naked and terrified.

  Crouching down, I gently push her hair back off her face and try to see her, but it’s too dark. She shakes uncontrollably when I touch her, probably thinking I’m that asshole Tap.

  “It’s me, Sophie. I’m here. I’m going to get you out of here and take you home,” I whisper.

  “King? Is it really you?” she asks, her tone pleading for me to save her.

  A light hanging above our heads flickers on so I can see her, and I have to stop myself from cursing out that fucker Tap. Black and blue bruises dot her chest and legs, and there’s a cut on her cheek from where he punched her. Bloody cuts on her forearms show she’s been tortured too.

  Duke and Kroger begin to walk down the wood stairs to where we are, but I stop them. “I need a bolt cutter to get these chains off her. That son of a bitch has her chained to the goddamned floor!”

  “I’ll get one. Hang on!”

  Duke continues to come down the stairs, and when he gets to where I wait with Sophie, I hear him groan. “Jesus Christ. Is she okay?”

  I shake my head in utter disgust. “No. Look at her. She’s been here for hours sitting in her own piss, for fuck’s sake. She’s bruised up and down her arms and legs, and he hit her so hard he ripped open her face, and the fuck carved into her goddamned skin. How the hell are you supposed to send her back looking like this?”

  Even as I say that, I know I should temper myself so I don’t sound like a possessive boyfriend, but I don’t care. That asshole did this to her, and Duke should have known better than to let Tap go off on his own.

  Duke pats my shoulder, as if that’s going to help anything. “I’ll get Cam over here to fix her up. He’ll be at your place waiting for you.”

  Regret hangs off his every word, but it’s too little, too late. He quickly walks back upstairs, leaving me to take care of Sophie, but that’s just how it should be.