by Shandi Boyes
The full extent of her mental illness is showcased in the worst light when she coos to her ‘baby’ how she will see her daddy soon. She doesn’t just have a brief conversation and move on.
She’s so far down the rabbit hole, she doesn’t blink when my ‘imaginary friend’ jumps into our conversation. “I told you.” Smith’s voice is a mix of remorseful and fretful. “Certifiably fucking insane.”
I nod, agreeing with him. “But she could be onto something. Roxanne said the women at Rimi’s ranch shared the same room. What if the woman Megan mentioned had her own room because she was a part of Rimi’s team? She could be the woman we’re seeking.”
Although every member of Castro’s team was taken down in the massive blood bath last week, over four dozen ‘survivors’ were registered in the CIA’s recovery file. The women were an integral part of the baby-farming operation, but both Henry and I agreed they played no part in Fien’s captivity nor his brother’s family’s downfall, so they shouldn’t be held accountable.
“There’s one person who can give you answers to the questions you’re seeking, Dimitri. She’s sitting right in front of you.” Smith’s tone is neither malice nor mocking. It is straight-up honest.
With my deadly insides hidden by a smile, I return my focus back to Megan. She’s watching me, not the least bit confronted by the viciousness of my returned stare. “Did you have your own room at Rimi’s farm, too, Megan? Or did you share a room with Rimi?” I scoff like I’m disappointed her innocent act is for show. “I wonder what Nick will think about you shacking up with another man.”
“I didn’t share a room with Rimi.” She looks genuinely unwell. “My daddy told me what would happen if I shared a bed with a man who wasn’t my husband. He’d sew my eyes shut like he did my mother when she let him sleep in their bed.”
My eyes rocket in the direction she nudged her head, gasping like a man without a cock when I realize who she’s referencing. The focus is no longer on Rimi’s debunked crew. It has shifted to my father.
“Smi—”
“Cross-referencing any connection between Megan’s mother and your father now.” He sounds as shocked as me. I’m stunned, truly and wholly scandalized. My father fucked around long before my mother died, but that doesn’t mean what I think it does, does it? Megan can’t be my sister—surely.
“Furthermore…” Megan waits for my eyes to return to her flaming-with-anger face before she continues, “Rimi doesn’t live on a farm.” She talks about him as if he isn’t dead. “He has a big house my mother would have loved. It has hundreds of rooms, a picture theater, and a special hospital in the basement. That’s where the ladies have their babies. Rimi said I could have my baby there if I want.” My thudding heart almost drowns out her next lot of words. “I can prove I had my own room. His house is close to here.” She peers around like she’s gathering her bearings. “Well, it was closer to the airport than here. Can we go back there?”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Smith murmurs out loud, matching my sentiments to a T. “Show her the photos I sent to your phone.”
With my mind shut down, autopilot mode kicks in. I dig my phone out of my pocket, then fire it up. My thumb hovers over the message app when Megan grunts, “That’s her, the woman who lives with Rimi. How did you get her photograph?” The absolute disdain hardening her features softens when she spots Fien on my screensaver. “Aww, now it makes sense. I told you her daughter is cute. I’d put her photo on my phone too… if I had one.”
My itch to kill turns catastrophic when the final piece of the puzzle slots into place. My screensaver is an image of Fien I snapped the first time I saw her in the flesh. Because Audrey clutched my hand most of the drive from Rimi’s compound to India’s house, Fien isn’t cradled in Roxanne’s arms. She’s being held by India.
It doesn’t take me even a second to do the math. India is in every scene even more than Roxanne. She has been in every single frame—even the ones before Fien was conceived. That fucking bitch orchestrated my daughter’s captivity because I chose her roommate over her, and I’m going to kill her for it.
36
Roxanne
I request the driver of my cab to pull over two houses back from India’s country estate. Even with my gut warning me that this is a bad idea, I can’t help but test the strength of the boundaries Dimitri lodged between us.
He could have let me leave thinking he didn’t care about me. He could have walked away without telling me our baby meant something to him. He didn’t.
That deserves recognition.
That deserves acknowledgment.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” asks the driver when my hunt for bills in the bottom of my clutch has me grunting in pain. “You don’t look real good.”
Up until twenty minutes ago, I didn’t know a broken heart could cause physical pain. I’m in as much pain now as I was when Maestro punched me in the stomach. It has me sweating up a storm and has my cab driver convinced I’m up to no good.
He was already suspicious when I said I would have to direct him to my location by taking a detour past a club that looks as shady as hell when it’s minus its ritzy guests.
“Perhaps I could take you to the hospital?”
I lock my eyes with the kind pair glancing at me in the rearview mirror. “I’m fine. I think I ate something bad. It will pass soon.” I hope.
He doesn’t believe me, but I’m beyond caring.
After tossing a bundle of bills over the seat, I crank open my door and peel out of the cab. It’s almost winter, so the chills racking my body should be from the cold. Regretfully, they aren’t. I’m both burning up and shuddering like I am in an ice bath.
The unusual duo hitting me doesn’t slow me down, though. Once I’ve ensured the cab driver has left, I cross the road, then head toward the back entrance I spotted Rocco sneaking out of many times the past week.
The secret passage could be lit up with surveillance, but I’m okay with that if it’s being viewed by the man I’m endeavoring to spark a reaction out of. I still don’t know Dimitri’s cell phone number, and Smith is being as ignorant as my body begs for me to slow down.
Once the sweat beading my top lip has been wiped away, I push open the heavily weighted door in the far righthand corner of India’s home. It takes everything I have to get the rusty hinges to budge, and even then, I have to squeeze through the gap since it barely opened a few inches.
“Smith…” I keep my voice low, hopeful my unexpected return doesn’t startle the lady of the house. India isn’t a fan of mine. I can’t say I blame her. Audrey is more approving of my ‘relationship’ with her husband than her best friend. I can’t help but wonder if that’s because she’s scarred from her ordeal. There’s a pain in her eyes when she peers at Dimitri. It just seems more regretful than sad. “Smith…”
I get an answer this time around.
It isn’t who I’m hoping, but mercifully, it also isn’t India.
“Audrey, are you okay?” My last three words come out in a hurry when she stumbles forward at a rate too fast for me to catch her. She lands on her knees with a thump, her skidder exposing the cause of her fumbling state. Her wrists have been slashed. “Oh God, what did you do?”
I drag her into the open, positive if my screams don’t reach Smith’s ears, he will spot me on one of the many cameras Rocco pointed out late last night. “Help! Somebody, please help!” As I rip my shirt to make bandages for Audrey’s gushing wounds, I choke out, “It’s okay. You’ll be okay. I promise.”
My pledge should slacken the worry in her eyes not double it. The color drains from her face as quickly as it oozes out of her wounds. She looks truly panicked she’s about to die, which is odd considering she attempted suicide.
“Finally,” I push out with a relieved breath when the patter of footsteps racing my way sounds through my ears. “Call an ambulance while I lay her flat. If I raise her arms above her head, it should lower her blood loss.” I’ve just got to pray s
he hasn’t sliced an artery. If she has, help may not get here in time.
After removing my jacket, I place it under Audrey’s head, then raise her arms as high as I can. It helps to lower the amount of blood gushing from her wounds, but she is still on death’s door.
“Help me compress her wounds.” When nothing but silence is heard for the next several seconds, my mood gets snappy. “Quick!” The shortness of my demand doesn’t weaken the intensity of it. I’m beyond annoyed the person I hear creeping up on me isn’t assisting me in making Audrey stable. “I get it’s scary and that there’s a lot of blood, but Audrey will die if you don’t help me.”
When a snicker overtakes the thud of the pulse in my ears, I crank my neck in the direction it came from. India is standing at the bottom of the stairwell that leads to the main part of her residence. Her hand is clamped over her mouth, and her eyes are fixed on the fading pulse in Audrey’s neck.
“If you don’t want your best friend to die, you need to help me… now!”
Unease melds through my veins when she remains standing at the foot of the stairs. She took charge last week when Audrey’s injuries were much worse than this, so why is she acting like she’s terrified of a little bit of blood?
When Audrey gargles out my name, my eyes jackknife back to her so quickly, my head gets a rush of dizziness. Her lips feebly move as she fights to warn me about the imminent danger I’m in, but not a sound seeps from her lips. She isn’t just sinking into the blackness calling her name, someone hacked up her tongue as poorly as they did her wrists.
“Who did this to you, Audrey? Who hurt you?”
While searching her pockets for her phone, hopeful as fuck she has Dimitri’s new number stored in her contacts, the shadow above my head doubles in size.
I duck with barely a second to spare, sending the vase India was attempting to knock me out with into the brick wall Audrey’s forehead collided with when she stumbled to her knees.
As my sluggish head struggles to click on to what is happening, Audrey finally voices the name she was trying to get out earlier. “Fien.”
Fien is not my child, but I love her father enough to wish she was, so I’ll do everything in my power to protect her from the deranged woman attempting to kill her mother.
With a roar, I charge for India like Dimitri did Officer Daniel almost two weeks ago. My shove juts her so fiercely, a butcher’s knife stained with blood falls from her back pocket. I snatch it up before racing up the stairwell as if my stomach isn’t screaming with every pump of my legs. My plan could be a woeful waste of time, India could finish what she started with Audrey since I’m no longer in the room, but my intuition is telling me this is the right thing to do. India wants Audrey’s death to look like a suicide. She can’t do that without the weapon I’m clutching.
When I reach the top of the stairs on the third floor, I scan my eyes over the dozens of doors branching off the corridor. They’re all identical, and there are far too many to search every one of them.
“Fien?” I call her name on repeat, unsure which room is hers. I only got to watch her connection with her father from afar. I was never invited into her inner circle. It wasn’t just Dimitri shunting me from the festivities, it was India as well.
Now I understand why.
“Fien, honey, where are you?”
My heart races a million miles an hour when Fien sheepishly peers at me from behind a carved wooden door partway down the corridor. Her eyes are sleepy, and her beloved teddy is closer to the floor than her chest.
“Hey, baby,” I say, optimistic she won’t just recall how I ripped her out of Maestro’s arms when he succumbed to a bullet. I helped her meet her father for the first time. Fingers crossed that gives me some additional brownie points. “Do you want to go see Dada? I’m sure he’s dying to see you. I can take you to him.”
The closer I pad to Fien, the more wetness fills her eyes. Even being raised in hell wouldn’t see her eager to run into my arms. I have a bloody knife in my hand, and I’m sweating profusely. I very much look like an ax murderer.
After tossing the knife to the floor, I scrub a hand across my face, then hold out my arms. “That’s it, Fien,” I say on a sob when she moves out from behind her door enough I can see all of her adorable face. “I won’t hurt you. I swear. We’re just going to go see Dada.”
I think I have her convinced.
I think she’s on my side.
Then the mat is pulled out from beneath my feet.
While crying for her Mama, Fien sidesteps me with the agility of an up-and-coming state championship quarterback. She races to India at the other end of the corridor, smirking smugly about the devastation on my face.
How did she get past me? I haven’t spent a lot of time here, but since I was lonely, and I pace the halls when I’m feeling that way, I know her floorplan intimately. There’s no other entrance to the third floor except the stairwell I just climbed. Unless…
My mouth pops open when the truth smacks into me.
India’s home has a secret stairwell like the ranch Fien was held captive at.
“You… you…” Come on mouth, put this bitch in her place. “You killed my baby!”
I snatch up the knife I threw down before holding it out in front of myself. Fien will most likely never forgive the murderous look on my face, but I’ll do my best to erase it from her memories when I take down the conniving, two-faced bitch she has confused with her mother.
“Why did you do that to my baby? What harm could it have ever done to you? Dimitri was never yours. He didn’t even sleep with you, so why do you think you have a claim to any children he has?”
Like the heartless snake she is, India says matter-of-factly, “My family’s royal lineage hasn’t been tainted in centuries, and I refuse to let it start with me.”
“What?” Nothing she said makes any sense. Fien isn’t her child, so how could my child with Dimitri ‘taint’ her family’s legacy.
It takes a little longer for the truth to smack into me this time around. The delay is understandable. This is as unkosher as it gets.
“You’re Fien’s mother.” Since I’m not asking a question, it doesn’t sound like one. “How? Dimitri went to Audrey’s ultrasound. He watched Fien’s brutal birth… more than once.” The truth pummeling into me makes the pain in my stomach ten times worse. “You can’t have children. That’s how you knew about miscarriages and fibroids.” I can barely breathe through the madness swamping me when disturbing thought after disturbing thought enters my mind. “Audrey was your surrogate. That’s why Fien doesn’t respond to her like she does you because she knows Audrey isn’t her mother.” When she doesn’t attempt to deny my claims, my words get extra snappy. “You kept her from her father this entire time. Why would you do that, India? What did Dimitri ever do to you?”
Any chance of getting answers out of her is hit out of the park when the thud of someone climbing the stairwell two stairs at a time booms into my ears.
Dimitri races our way, his speed as brutal as the lies that fall from India’s mouth when he reaches the landing. “Thank God you’re here, Dimi. Roxanne killed Audrey before she turned the knife onto Fien.” She sucks in breaths like she’s on the verge of a panic attack before continuing with a sob, “I made it to Fien with barely a second to spare, but I’m scared, Dimi. She tried to kill your daughter. She tried to kill Fien.”
“No…” The pain shredding through me becomes too much to bear. It sees me dropping the knife so I can cradle my aching stomach that’s begging for me to bend in two. “I didn’t hurt Fien. I’d never hurt her. Argh…”
I’m unsure if my gargled scream is from the intense sharpness hitting my lower stomach or from India using Dimitri’s distraction to her advantage. She snatches up the knife wedged between us as quickly as Dimitri yanks his gun out of his trousers.
Instead of directing it at me, the supposed perpetrator, Dimitri aims his gun at the pleat between India’s blonde brows, unimpressed s
he has the sharp side of the knife pressed against Fien’s throat. “You will never make it out of here alive. I will gut you where you fucking stand if a droplet of blood beads on her neck!”
India is either an idiot, or she doesn’t fear death. “One nick of her artery will kill her.” Her voice is unlike anything I’ve ever heard. “You know this, Dimitri. We’re miles from the closest hospital. Help will never get here in time.”
When she pierces the blade in deep enough to make Fien sob for her daddy, I fall to my knees, both pained by the devastation on Fien’s little face and the pain buckling my legs out from beneath me.
“Do you want your daughter to die!” India screams when my topple diverts Dimitri’s eyes to me for the quickest second. “Is she more important than your flesh and blood?” Spit seethes from her mouth when she hisses out ‘she.’
I shake my head at the same time Dimitri mumbles, “No.”
I’m not only agreeing that I’ll never be more important than Fien, I’m trying to relay to Dimitri that India won’t do as she’s threatening. She might be a callous, cold-hearted bitch, but that doesn’t mean she will kill her daughter. I just can’t get my mouth to work. I’m in too much pain to speak. I’m barely conscious, so I can’t be expected to talk.
“Then, put down your gun, step away from the banister, and let me leave.” Dimitri firms his grip instead of weakening it. It frustrates India to no end. “Do it or I’ll kill your daughter like I did the bastard child you were going to have with her.”
When she jerks her head to me during the last part of her statement, something inside of me cracks. I’m on my knees, confident I’m on the verge of death, but I somehow manage to charge for India.