Chapter 48
48
Tovah
I saac stood by the kitchen counter, keys in hand.
“You’ll be at the game?” he asked. “I know it’s a few hours away, but I need you there.”
There was worry in his eyes. I’d never thought it was possible that Isaac Silver could be insecure, but right now he seemed more like a boy than a man.
“I’ll be at the game,” I assured him. “I can’t promise not to chirp though.”
“As long as you wear my jersey.”
I smiled. “I’ll wear your jersey.”
He grabbed my hand. “And you’ll?—”
“I’ll be at the game, Isaac. I mean it. I’m in this with you. You don’t have to throw me in your trunk again, promise.” I scratched my head. “Although now that I think about it, I’ve spent more time in the trunk than in the cab.”
“I should apologize for that, but if I hadn’t kidnapped you that day, you wouldn’t be here.” He glanced at his phone. “Fuck, I’m already late. Call me if you have any issues, okay?”
I nodded.
That must not have been enough for him, because he said, “promise me.”
“I promise.”
With one last kiss, and one last look, he left me in the kitchen.
I grabbed my phone to text Aviva to ask if she could pick me up on her way to the game.
My phone rang. I glanced at it.
LOML.
I swiped it open and lifted it to my ear.
“Mom? Why?—”
But it wasn’t my mom who answered. Instead, a man’s deep, scratchy voice, one I sometimes heard in my nightmares, responded.
“Oh, Tovah. Just the person I was hoping to speak to,” said Abe Silver.
For a moment, I forgot how to breathe.
“Don’t hang up,” he said. “Your mother wants to talk to you.”
At least that meant she was alive.
“Tovah,” she said, sounding desperate. “Don’t listen to him. Get out, get somewhere safe. Don’t come—” her words cut off on a scream.
A scream that continued. And continued.
“There you go. She’s alive and…well, maybe not well. But alive. For now,” Abe said when he got back on the phone. I could still hear her screaming. Every part of my body rejected this reality, what was happening. Her screams shattered my heart, which raced as I tried to figure out what to do.
“Don’t you dare hurt her. Stop it,” I seethed into the phone.
“That’s really up to you, Ms. Lewis. See, I once had a second in command who mattered a great deal to me. I found him dead the same night my wife was killed. And his wife and stepdaughter? Nowhere in sight. I’ve been searching for both of you for some time now. It was quite fortunate that my son was the one to find you. When he had my daughter look into you, she called a PI, who then reported it to me.”
“Get to the point,” I growled. I could still hear my mother screaming, the sound so high-pitched and desperate.
He sighed. “Always in such a hurry, your generation. I’ll tell you what—come to the compound and I’ll stop hurting your mother.”
“And you’ll let her go?” I asked. I was already throwing clothes on and grabbing my bag.
“Maybe. Maybe not. But it’s your best option, isn’t it? It should take four hours to get from Gehenom to our part of Brooklyn, four and a half if there’s bad traffic. Five hours, and she’ll be dead.”
Oh god, that was barely enough time. I wanted to hurl.
“Oh, and Tovah?” he added, as if it was an afterthought. “Don’t tell my son, or I will kill her now. After all, it’ll spoil the surprise.” His voice going hard, he said. “You have five hours. Don’t be late.”
He hung up. I fought not to hurl at the thought of my mother’s suffering. I didn’t have goddamned time to puke. I needed to get the hell out of here and find a car and?—
I immediately called Sebastian. “I need your car,” I told him the second he picked up.
“Why?” he asked, alert and concerned.
“Because Abe Silver has my mom.”
“Fuck.”
I didn’t bother to agree. “I need your car.”
“It’s yours,” he said immediately. “Where are you?”
I gave him Isaac’s address.
“I’ll be there in five minutes. But Tovah, I’m coming with you.”
“No, you aren’t,” I told him firmly. “I don’t know what he’ll do if I show up with backup. It’s better if I go alone.”
“Absolutely not,” he began, but I cut him off.
“Sebastian, she was screaming in pain. He was hurting her. The man is a sociopath, and I’m not taking that risk.”
“And what’s to say either of you get out of there alive?”
I exhaled. “Nothing. But she won’t survive if I don’t go.”
“Got it. On my way,” he said, and hung up.
Rushing downstairs, I grabbed my shoes, lacing them up, and ran outside, just as Sebastian pulled to a stop in his Maserati. Running down the steps to the driveway, I opened the driver’s side door.
“I still don’t like letting you go alone,” he said.
“No time.”
He nodded, climbing out of the car and handing me the key fob.
“Thank you, Sebastian.” On impulse, I hugged him.
“Stay as safe as you can,” he said, when he released me, his eyes troubled, and I knew in his mind, this was goodbye.
And it very well might be.