Chapter 16 #2
Birds. Fresh air. The smell of pine. The whisper of leaves in the breeze.
"Walk," a voice commands, shoving me forward.
I comply, counting my steps. Gravel under my feet and maybe leaves too. Fifteen paces, then we're inside a building. The air feels cooler, stale. A basement, maybe?
I’m pushed into a chair and bound to it. Then things go quiet as footsteps walk away, leaving me in silence, and alone.
Or so I think.
"Lyah Radaeva," someone says, his accent thick. "Wife of Nikolai Radaeva. You're worth quite a lot to us."
I force myself to act confused. "I... I think you have the wrong person," I stammer. "My name is Emylyah Bascov, and I'm not married to anyone named Nikolai."
The man’s voice becomes angry. "Don't lie to me. I know who you are.”
I shake my head, hating the rough feel of the burlap against my face. “M-My husband’s name is Zack,” I tell him, thinking fast.
"Zack?" The man's voice drips with skepticism. He sounds like he’s trying to catch me out. "And where is this Zack now?"
I swallow hard, trying to keep my voice steady. I don’t need to pretend the fear, it’s all too real.
"We’re... we just got divorced. F-finalized only recently."
There's a long pause, and I can almost feel the tension in the air. Then I hear the rustle of fabric, footsteps moving away. Hushed voices confer in the background, too low for me to make out the words.
My heart pounds in my chest as I strain to hear anything that might give me a clue about my situation. The silence stretches on, broken only by the occasional creak of floorboards or a muffled word.
Finally, the footsteps return. "If what you say is true, you should have proof. A divorce decree, perhaps?"
Shit!
“Um, I…”
Harsh hands grab at my hair through the sack and wrench my head back, and I scream in both fear and pain. “I thought not. Don’t try to fool me, bitch. It won’t work out well for you.”
“It’s too soon!” I screech. “We only signed yesterday. The paperwork hasn’t been filed yet.”
“How convenient.” There’s cruel laughter before my ears ring and my head thunders from a blow from his fist. The chair flies backward, and I yelp as I land on the floor, my arm throbbing where it takes the brunt of the fall.
Then I’m being dragged up again before someone shakes me hard enough to rattle my teeth.
“Now tell me the truth.”
“It is the truth,” I sob out. The sobs are only partially faked, because I really am terrified. But I exaggerate them some. “My m-marriage c-certificate. It-it’s in my bag.”
More rustling, the sound of a zipper being opened. Papers shuffling. Then a sharp intake of breath.
"Boss," a new voice says, sounding uncertain.
I play on the advantage I have, never so relieved I decided to delete Niko’s contact details. “You-you can check my phone, too. One of them took it. You’ll see there’s no Nikolai… whatever his name was. No Nikolai at all.”
The silence that follows is deafening. I can almost hear the gears turning in their heads as they process this new information. My heart races, and I hold my breath, hoping against hope that my hastily concocted story holds up under scrutiny.
"Where’s her phone? Check it!" the boss barks.
"It's locked," someone says.
"The passcode," the boss demands, his voice dangerously low and close to my ear. "Now."
This is my chance. If I can just…
“I-it’s fingerprint ID,” I tell him, my voice barely above a whisper, hoping against hope he’ll cut my tightly bound hands.
More silence, then the feeling of cold steel against my flesh. I yelp as the blade nicks my wrist and feel a dribble of blood warm against the cold clamminess of my skin.
My hand is violently wrenched and my index finger forced against the ID button. Then the quiet is punctuated by muttering and the soft taps of fingers on the screen. I hold my breath, praying my earlier actions were thorough enough.
"Boss," the man with the phone says, sounding suitably perplexed. "She’s telling the truth. There's... nothing here. No contacts named Nikolai, no recent calls or messages to anyone suspicious. Just... normal stuff."
The tension in the room is palpable. I can feel the boss's eyes boring into me through the rough fabric of the hood. My heart pounds so loudly I'm sure they can hear it, but I play my part and sob inconsolably while they talk among themselves.
“Fuck! You idiots. How did you mess this up? I should have known the tip off from that kuchka was all bullshit. No way Radaeva’s wife would just be wandering around so far from home without security. Not if he cared at all.”
“So what the hell do we do now?”
“I can think of some fun things to do with her.”
I make out a slap and a curse. That one gets a whack around the ear on the regular, by the sound of it.
“We don’t do anything with her,” says the steely voice of the boss. “And I mean nothing. You do not touch her.”
Pretty sure that’s directed at the guy with the wandering hands.
“Aww boss,” he whines in response.
“No.” The word is short and sharp. “We leave her here. Dump her phone. She dies of natural causes. We’ll come back in a month's time and dump her in the woods. When her body’s found, it’ll look like she lost her phone and couldn’t find her way back to civilization…
if the gators don’t get her first.” There’s a chorus of cruel laughter.
“Either way, there’ll be nothing at all to tie her to us, and nothing that screams foul play. ”
I sob harder, giving them the illusion of a pathetic, helpless woman terrified for her life. “No please, don’t leave me here. You can’t do this!”
I pile on the hysterics, determined they don’t see me as any kind of threat. Because I’m no dumb blonde, though the stereotype is always the same. But the moment they leave me here, I have absolutely no doubt I can save myself.