Chapter 44
Forty-Four
One Hour Earlier
Scanning my surroundings because I know I’m being watched, gravel crunches under the soles of my tennis shoes as I slowly walk across the empty lot.
Cold infuses the night air and condenses my breaths into wisps of vapor.
Even though the temperature is near freezing, sweat trickles down the dip of my spine under my winter coat.
Cautiously approaching the dilapidated warehouse, a lone pole light flickers and creates a strobing effect along the exterior corrugated sheet-metal facade.
This building is just one among several others left abandoned in an old industrial complex located ten miles outside of Darlington.
Quiet. Dark. Isolated. It’s a perfect place for an ambush… or to kill someone and hide the body.
Phantom shadows dance along the heavy fog hovering at ground level around my feet as I round the corner, searching for the entrance.
Just like in one of those jump-scare horror movies, a rat the size of a poodle scurries out from a downspout and dashes underneath a jagged gap in the siding.
We had a lot of barn rats on the farm. Nothing as big as what just popped out of the drain like a chestburster from Aliens.
Finally locating a service door, I have to tug a few times before it opens with a shrill creak. As soon as I step inside, the overpowering stench of mold and animal feces hits me.
“You can stop right there,” a masculine voice echoes.
It’s hard to make out details in the pitch black of the expansive building, but I count four outlines about three meters directly in front of me. None of them are Aleksander.
“I’m surprised you came alone.”
I’m a woman. To men like them, I’m of no consequence. Weak and unable to protect myself.
“I’m sure that the lookouts you have posted everywhere outside have already confirmed that. Where is Aleksander?”
“Bitch has a mouth on her,” the guy next to him says with a heavy Russian accent.
Aoife whispers seductive promises of blood and death. How easy it would be to kill them. But not yet.
“This bitch held up her end. Where is Aleksander?” I ask again when they don’t produce him.
I had held a sliver of hope, but it doesn’t surprise me that Viktor failed to keep his word.
I was actually counting on it, especially after I told him the men he sent were dead.
If he wanted me so badly, this was how he was going to get me.
Me in exchange for Aleksander. I knew it would be an offer he wouldn’t refuse, as well as one he would break the second I arrived.
The other guy comes forward, a spear of moonlight shining down through a hole in the roof glinting off the semiautomatic in his hand. Even carrying a weapon, he still keeps his distance. “Arms up and don’t fucking move.”
At his nod, another man appears. This one bigger than the other four.
He has a scar that slashes through one clouded eye and continues down his face to his top lip.
A hideous gap-toothed grin stretches his mouth as he takes his sweet-assed time feeling me up.
He’s obviously more interested in groping my boobs than looking for any weapon I may have hidden on me.
He roughly cups me between the legs through my wool leggings and squeezes. “She’s clean.”
“I hope you enjoyed yourself.”
He practically salivates at the mouth. “I did.”
Using a Nikyo wrist lock to dislodge his hand, I kick him in the crotch.
A camp of bats startles and takes flight when he screams in agony and drops to the ground.
Just for good measure because the bastard deserves it, I kick him a second time, ensuring his inability to ever procreate.
He chokes on a garbled wail, curls into a fetal position, and vomits all over himself.
Smiling sweetly, I reply, “I enjoyed that more.”
Chaos erupts around me, and I’m suddenly surrounded by guns on all sides.
“Get on your fucking knees!” the first man shouts as another man hauls big-and-ugly away.
Avoiding the large puddle of ick, I slowly lower to the floor. My wrists are immediately zip-tied together behind my back, and I’m crudely yanked to my feet.
I get a good look at the first man when he comes closer. Coils of barbed wire snake around his shaved scalp from ear to ear and frame a skull with red eyes that sits at the top of his head.
“Viktor said to bring you back alive. He never said anything about you being conscious when we did.”
Instead of using the hilt of his gun, he rears back his arm and punches me in the face. My legs buckle, and I slump forward, dangling listlessly between the two men who are holding me up on either side.
Keeping my eyes closed, I play possum when he fists my hair and lifts my head. “Stupid cunt. Toss her into the back of the van. And don’t fucking touch her unless you want Viktor to cut off your dick and feed it to you.”
His warning to the others gives me little reassurance. But Viktor won’t be the one turning them into eunuchs if they attempt anything in the van.
A burlap sack gets shoved over my head, and I’m dragged through the warehouse and outside.
They really should brush up on their Greek mythology because they just invited the Trojan horse into their kingdom.
And we all know how that story ends.