“Where the fuck have you been!” Morgan screams. “She’s gone! They took Scarlett!”
The text messages beginpopping up, one after another.
My hand’s shaking. “She’s not an asset, she’s my fecking wife!”
“We are leavingnow.Come on, cousin, pull it together.” Michael grabs my arm and I mindlessly rip it away, my hand raised in a fist. Coming to my senses, I drop my hand, moving past him through the door.
“Everyone’s on alert,” Michael calls as we thunder down the staircase. “We’ll get her back.”
“You better not hang up on me!” I realize Morgan’s still on the phone.
“Do not leave that house. We’ll be there in ten minutes.”
Bawbag - Scottish slang for a complete asshole, alluding to them being a scrotum.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
In which Scarlett finds herself in an all-white prison.
Scarlett…
A man who may or may not have been a medical professional was let into the room and looked me over, asking a couple of questions about headaches and blurred vision, put some butterfly strips on the cut on my temple and left again.
Walking around the room, I checked everywhere for cameras, including the bathroom. Some freaks get off on watching people on the toilet, or enjoying the sight of their victim stripping down. Oddly, there aren’t any. Kholodov seems like the type who’d love a home video or two.
“You know the funny part?” Murder Mittens is sitting on my backpack, watching me intently. “The funny part is that I learned about checking for cameras because of that true crime documentary about Airbnb’s. Being a mafia princess only taught me how to shoot a gun andevade a kidnapping, though that last one didn’t pan out for me.”
Chuckling bitterly, I crawl under the bed, checking for anything that could be used as a weapon. There’s nothing there but a little ball of dust in the corner.
The room is beautiful, high ceilings with elaborate molding, with a stately four poster bed. There's a big antique armoire on the wall facing the bed, and a gracious little grouping of a table and chairs by the windows looking out onto a dead garden.
Just like my mother’s garden on Beacon Hill.
The longer I search, the more unsettling everything around me becomes. The beautiful oriental rug covering much of the floor is white and pale gray. The oak floor has been bleached white. The pillows and bedding are white and cream colors.
Curtains. White.
Upholstered furniture, white.
Same for the towels, the tiling in the bathroom, all the walls.
It’s horrifyingly clinical in the most elegant old English mansion way. And worse, I can’t find anything I can use as a weapon. The mirror in the bathroom is some kind of unbreakable plastic and there’s a big clawfoot tub but no shower, sono glass to break there. Even the toilet lid is glued to the tank so I can’t crack off a piece of the porcelain and use that.
The only potential weapon is the window glass, but they’ll know immediately if I break it.
That’s my last resort, then.
“No lamps to hit them over the head…” I’m circling the room restlessly, searching. “The furniture is too heavy to break off a piece…” My keys and phone are missing from the front pocket of my backpack.
Based on what I’d seen as I was dragged up the stairs and the surroundings outside my window, they’re holding me in one of those gigantic country estates that the ultra-wealthy love to buy to pretend they’re reconnecting with nature by carpeting it with money. There’s a tall iron fence surrounding the estate, at least, from what I can see of it. Guards patrol in twos, not bothering to hide the rifles strapped on their backs.
Sitting down on the floor, I hold out my arms for Murder Mittens. “I’m sorry, baby. I should have never asked for the backpack. You would be safe and Wallace would have found you. And poor Gio…” I bury my face in her soft fur. He was already shot. He staggered out of that smashed hunk of metal, still trying to draw his gun and protect me. “I’m so sorry, Gio.”
I realize Murder Mittens left a little trail of black fur behind her on the gleaming white floor and my heart skips a beat. In a room this…white,it would be hard not to notice.
“MM, if you’re not on my lap, you have to sit on my jacket, okay?” I spread my dark green coat on the floor on the other side of the bed. “If anyone comes in, you go under the bed.” I stroke her back, kiss her little furry face.
She showed up on my bedroom windowsill one night, right after I came home from the hospital, staring at me with her big gold-green eyes and refusing to leave. We’ve spent nearly every moment together since. She puts a paw on my chest, looking up at me seriously. “You can’t make any noise. No matter what happens.”
