“Shut the fuck up,” is his response.
“Leee,” I try to speak through the gag because I am about to throw up. “Ayyeee.” I make a sound to try to express that I am about to be sick.
“Fuck,” he shouts, gets up off the mattress and kicks my foot. “Are you gonna puke?” I nod my head to his question. “Goddam it.”
If he doesn't hurry I am going to puke all over the mattress and myself. Luckily he comes back with a bucket that smells like paint. I must be in the basement of a house. He shoves it up under my face and yanks my head forward then unties my gag and rips it from myface just in time for me to throw up. And boy do I throw up. The stress of everything I’d endured accumulates in that bucket.
I am surprised he holds it for me as long as he does. But when I finally finish I start shaking all over. I don't feel well at all. Perhaps the drugs they'd used to knock me out are reacting with my pain medication. I must have been asleep for a very long time because crazy things are happening to my body.
“Just relax,” he says and gently places my head back against the wall.
I try to relax and breathe.
“Thank you,” I rasp quietly trying to wipe my face on my shoulder, but unable to reach it.
“Don’t,” the man barks at me and I stop and swallow, now really needing the water.
I lay my head back and don’t move with the remnants of whatever I just gacked up slicking my chin. I feel vulnerable and disgusting. Then a coarse rag that smells like gasoline roughs over my face. At least I don't have puke on me anymore, but now I smell like an auto mechanic.
I don't thank him again but the next thing to come to my face is a plastic glass with a rough edge that he places between my lips. The water smells like bleach and chemicals. I don't care of course; I’d drink piss at this point I am so thirsty.
“Drink slow or you’ll puke again and next time, I’ll let you fucking rot in it.” Though his words are harsh, his actions are a little kinder. He doesn't just pour the water down my face; he takes his time letting me have small sips and little breaks between drinks.
“Do you have kids?” I ask softly, suddenly realizing he must because of the way he waits between drinks. Either he has given water to plenty of captives, which is possible, or he has a young child who can't drink water on their own. With the tender way he offers the water, juxtaposed with the harshness of his words, I know he has children, a toddler at least.
“I told you not to fucking speak, bitch.” He pulls my ear.
“I hope they don’t have to live without their momma,” I say softly, feeling the tears again.
He doesn't say anything, just gives me one more sip and lifts himself up off the mattress. Within moments, he is gone. The fact that he didn’t say anything to my last comment means I got to him. One point for me, no points for the monster.
I sit for the rest of the day with my thoughts. It is hard not to let my mind spiral into dark and terrifying places. Instead of ruining my own mental health, I focus on Rayne’s little face and fingers, Mia's laughter, and well, embarrassing as it is to admit, Beckett's cock.
There is more to remember and miss about Beckett, but that is a complicated string of feelings. I am not sure if he hates me and likes my body, or likes me and my body but doesn't want to commit to the fake wife he married. Beckett is very hard to understand. The easiest way for me to feel safe and loved around him is to tease him and push him away. That is not the way adults have relationships, but I am confused when it comes to Beckett. He is mature and sexy, kind of like Zeus, Adonis, or an omnipotent lord. I really just want to fall at his feet and love him but that is just as much a fantasy as getting out of that basement alive.
Chapter Seventeen
Beckett
“Hurry.” The fucking car will not go fast enough.
I couldn't take one of my sports cars that would be too conspicuous, so we drove the Range Rover which is the fastest passenger car in my fleet.
The hackers found two possible addresses where Scarlett could have been taken. With a little deeper research I found that the first location, the one Griffin suspected she was being held captive in, had a basement. It was almost too perfect and that was a little terrifying because Carl knows what resources I have at my disposal. CSS isn't stingy with hackers and folks who know how to navigate the deep dark web, especially if you have standing in the society.
The second location the taxi drove to that morning did not have a basement however it was on a farm that had a fallout shelter from the 1950s. This was probably the better option because a person could have been kept in a fallout shelter without having to go through a home. If her captors were people trying to live an ordinary life, they could do so by keeping her in a fallout shelter.
The shelter did not show up on any modern plans for the main house on the property. It had been renovated once in 1975 and again in 2007 and neither of those plans showed it. I was able to find a microfiche of the neighborhood in an archive for physical documents. In one document, dated April 14, 1954, there was a map of a fallout shelter that had a main room and two auxiliary rooms as well as a septic tank and its own well. This is where they are keeping Scarlett.
What I realize while we are speeding through the streets of Manhattan on our way to Upstate New York, is that Carl and likely an entire host of military-trained gorillas will be waiting for me with machine guns at the first stop. But I have six of my own hired guns in the backseat and another carful behind us. We are armed to the teeth. I amnot going to play with these fuckers. I know their game because my father played it as ruthlessly as they do. I didn't participate, but I fucking watched.
“We have to go in through the backroad and we’ll cross the pasture on foot. If they see our car, this mission is fucked,” I say, being no tactical strategist.
Trevor Blaine is the former head of my father's security team. He supplied my security officers, however, this select crew was taken from a vigilante group that Marcel had connections to. ‘The ghosts’ are men without identities who are lethal weapons in their own right. No one who fights them survives. I’d asked Trevor to join the mission because, despite not trusting my father, I have a little more faith in him. What Trevor does that the vigilante gorillas behind me and in the car trailing us cannot do as well is strategize a surprise attack.
“Yes, you're right, the safest route is on foot through the pasture. We're going to lose some time, but she's got time. Carl just called you with the ultimatum so he's going to expect you to try to gather something together. He has no idea we're almost there. Now I'm sure he's got aerial surveillance and likely motion detection as well. Those are going to be mounted on anything high like tree branches and buildings so keeping to wide open spaces and laying low is the best way to avoid their detection.” I can tell that Trevor is getting off on this a little bit, he loves his military strategy.
During the last years of my father's life, all Trevor ended up doing was following the nurse around. It was probably pretty boring for a decorated colonel in the army. This is more his speed.
