I follow, taking in her slight frame under the coat and how she still walks like a queen, like someone who isn’t even a little scared. So brave.
“Here.” She stops behind the altar and kicks away the once plush but now worn rug that covers the raw concrete floor. “Help me.”
I stop her with my fingers around her arm when she makes to kneel.
My tone leaves no room for argument. “I want to know first.”
She purses her lips. In the milky moonlight, her eyes shine brighter than I’ve ever seen. They almost seem translucent, like the clear water of a green river. The haunted look reflected in their stunning depths makes her appear like a ghost—a beautiful, untouchable apparition that can evaporate before I get a secure hold on it, something that can slip through my fingers and drift away with the thin mist.
“I want to know, Tatiana. Who took you?”
She relents with an exhale that bends the ribbon of smoke from the incense. “I don’t know their names, but they had a Russian accent.”
The smoke disperses, becoming a loose, fluffy cloud that escapes to the ceiling where it dissolves into nothingness.
Suppressed violence taints my voice with anger. “The men who died in the explosion?”
“There was a woman too. They called her Oxo. She only came in at the end to feed me. She helped me get cleaned up and dressed.”
My fury rises like a demon from hell. “At the end? Are you saying they starved you?”
“I suppose withholding food and water was a form of torture better suited to their needs. Cutting or bleeding me would’ve been too risky. I may have died before telling them where the necklace was hidden.”
“So that was indeed what those motherfuckers were after.” I grind my teeth so hard the crunch echoes in my skull. “When did they take you?”
“They pulled me from your car.”
Son of a bitch. The attack was staged. The real target was Tatiana.
I curl my fingers into fists until my knuckles crack. “Kent?”
“He stood by while they dragged me away.” She’s quiet for a moment, seeming to reflect on that. “I knew there was something about him, something I didn’t trust or like.”
I want to fucking kill him all over. “Where did they keep you?”
“I don’t know. They tied me up and pulled a bag over my head, so it was difficult to tell where they took me. It was a warehouse of sorts with a bathroom at the back. The place was deserted. There was an empty parking lot behind the building.”
I go closer, fury and a brutal need for vengeance warring with regret in my chest. “Did they hurt you? Did they lay their filthy hands on you?”
“Not like that.” She looks away. “They left me alone for hours or days. Time became a blur. It got confusing. I think that’s when I started losing it, when my mind?—”
She bites off the rest.
Gripping her chin between a thumb and forefinger, I turn her face back to me. “When what happened?”
She shrugs a shoulder as if the statement carries no significance or weight. “They locked me in a trunk that was barely big enough to hold a body curled into a ball.” Almost ashamedly, she adds, “For days at a time.”
My entire body shuts down—my mind, my pulse, my breathing. Killing rage takes over, twisting me into something that shouldn’t be let loose on the streets.
She continues in a soft voice. “That’s when I started forgetting my own name, when I broke. It was the panic, being confined in that box?—”
I put a finger over her lips, unable to listen to more. I fear if I do, I may walk out of this church and knife down every mercenary in the city. I won’t stop until the streets have become rivers of blood.
She pushes my hand away. “You wanted to know. I’m not the one who wants to eliminate any rivals of your necklace.”
“Your mother hid it here.”
Seeing that Milena had the key, it’s a logical conclusion. Of course, Tatiana could’ve moved the necklace here after her mother had given it to her, but she doesn’t deny the statement.
