Chapter 37 #2
She’d heard about his brother Borya, too.
He was a Russian businessman who owned multiple brothels and strip clubs in New York City and Philly.
A few of the women working at Femme Fatale were former employees of his establishments.
And the stories they’d told of the way those places were run—stories of girls being beaten and gang raped by the patrons—had made her sick to her stomach.
Apparently, he produced porn too, the kind you could only find on the filthiest corners of the dark web.
The kind that involved animals and knives and hooks and chains and other things she didn’t even want to think about.
And she still remembered the story Special Agent Weck had told her about poor Svetlana, who’d been about to testify against him, but had been murdered before marshals could get her into protective custody.
Terry smiled when he saw Jessica had recognized the name.
“Yeah, he hasn’t forgotten you either. See, you and your boyfriend pissed off a lot of people when you went blabbing to the feds.
Sokolov had to go underground for years until they stopped sniffing around him.
So, when I called him up just now and told him I’d found you, he offered me fifty grand not to kill you. ”
He sat back in the chair, the gun still in his lap. “But I’ve seen the place you’re going. The girls don’t last very long in those rooms. And he told me I could watch, so I guess everybody wins.”
He laughed again, like he’d made a great joke. But she knew he wasn’t joking.
And she knew she’d rather take a bullet from that sniper rifle than to go to Sokolov. Or, if it came down to it, a bullet from her own gun.
If it came down to it, she’d do it. But it hadn’t, yet.
So, she stayed silent. Stayed in the back of her cage. And waited.
* * *
If anything, daylight only made the room drearier. It seemed to ooze through the dirty window and illuminate just how filthy and dilapidated the place was.
It illuminated other things, too.
The dried blood that was smeared on the concrete and floor. On the table, too. And on the power tools. The blades of the circular saw. And the angle grinder. She realized they hadn’t been using them for kitchen renovations.
Terry had left, thank God, but he’d ordered the dog to stay. It sat in the middle of the floor, a yard away from the bars, and stared at her. Like it was trying to work out why she was in the cage, and he was out of it.
He looked like he was quite enjoying the switch in the dynamic.
She finally mustered the courage to face the dead woman again. It seemed necessary. Facing her felt like facing her future. She had to not be frightened. She had to at least try to be as brave as that woman must have been, right until the end.
Crawling on her knees, she crossed the cage until she was staring right at her. And the woman stared right back.
She looked to be a few years older than Jessica.
Very pretty, although it appeared she’d had a hard life even before her terrible death.
Her red hair was frizzy and dry, and her face, now ashen and waxy, was lined prematurely around her mouth and eyes.
Jessica couldn’t help but notice the purple needle marks on the inside of her forearm.
She noticed another mark, this one collaring her neck. It was almost black against the woman’s white skin and had the unmistakable imprint of thick fingers.
There was no way to tell in this dim light if that had been her cause of death. But she kind of hoped it was. There were no good ways of dying at the hands of these men, but when she thought of the power tools on the table, she knew that there were worse ones.
They had stripped her down to her underwear, which made Jessica want to find something to cover her. But there was nothing nearby, and no way she could reach far enough through the bars of the cages, anyway.
One of the woman’s legs was pressed against the railings, as if she too had tried a futile escape from the inescapable.
Jessica noticed she had a small tattoo on her upper thigh, right below her hip joint.
It was a love heart with a name in the middle.
The kind of tattoo you got when you were young. And dumb. And in love.
It read Ryan.
Jessica exhaled, resting her forehead against the metal.
So this was Kylie. Ryan’s Kylie.
Suddenly, it all made sense to her. Why he’d done what he’d had. Why he’d betrayed his oath and risked everything. Why he’d betrayed her.
It wasn’t for money.
It was for love.
She wrapped her fingers around the bars and squeezed, feeling hot liquid burn the backs of her eyes. He didn’t know she was dead. He couldn’t have known. He probably still didn’t know.
She rested her head right next to the woman’s stiff one. She couldn’t cover her with anything. All she could do was reach through the bars with shaking hands and close Kylie’s eyes for her one last time.
* * *
Jessica kneeled on the concrete floor and rasped, “I need water.”
Milo leaned back in his chair, clamping the tourniquet between his teeth and pulling his head back. The rubber bit into the skin of his upper arm. He spat out the tourniquet and said, “Bitch, you got water.”
She looked at the dirty dog bowl they’d provided for her. It sat two feet outside of the cage. Wedging both her hands through a gap in the bars, she could just about reach it at full stretch.
But the dog sat another foot away, watching her intently. And every time she so much as placed her fingers through the gap, it lunged for them.
She didn’t know if Terry had trained it to do that, or if it was just a sadist like everyone else in this place. And she realized now that some of the blemishes she’d seen on Kylie’s wrists were bite marks.
So, the thing had a taste for humans. She kept her hands inside the cage and went thirsty.
Milo and Ponytail were sitting around the table, shooting up from a dose they’d cooked up on a metal spoon and drawn into a syringe that they then shared. Terry had disappeared. Which was a good thing. Of the three of them, these two were the weaker links, especially if they were high as fuck.
Which they were right now.
Milo dropped the syringe, his head lolling back against his shoulders. She had a brief flare of hope that maybe he’d ODed and that would be one down. But no, he was still breathing, just in la la land.
That only left Ponytail.
For a second, she thought about yanking the gun out of her skirt and shooting them both while they were out of it. It was as good a time as any.
But Ponytail was still lucid. His eyes were a little glazed, but he was watching her. And right beside him on the table were multiple weapons.
And even if she was successful in killing them, she’d remain stuck in this cage. With no water. And a psychopathic German Shepard continuing to observe her every move.
So, she scratched that plan. And quickly came up with a new one.
Crawling forward on her knees, she gripped the bars with her fingers. “I need to go to the bathroom.”
Ponytail smirked. “So go.”
She shook her head. “I can’t.”
“Sure you can.”
She gave the cage a little shake, aware that the dog’s focus on her increased. “Just let me use the bathroom. Please.”
Ponytail sat and stared and smirked.
She swallowed hard. The back of her throat felt like sandpaper. “You can watch.”
His smile grew wider. “I can watch now.”
“But then you’ll have to clean it up. They’ll make you.”
She watched his reaction, hoping she’d got the dynamic right between the three of them. She’d gaged that Ponytail was the lackey, the guy that the others would indeed make clean up any messes. Not that she saw much evidence of cleaning going on around here.
She must have been right, though, because he scraped his chair back across the torn-up linoleum and got to his feet.
Muttering curses, he went to the opening in the cage’s side and twisted the lock.
She didn’t bother trying to see what the combination was.
She had no intention of going back into that crate.
The lock sprung open, and he pulled open the door.
She squeezed herself out before he could change his mind. But as soon as she was on her feet, he took a firm grip of her upper arm and yanked her toward the doorway.
He led her down a dark hallway, stopping in front of a small toilet cubicle. Something brown and foul-smelling stained the rim and pedestal. But she was less concerned with the state of hygiene in there and more interested in the small window above the tank.
The small open window.
Ponytail shoved her shoulder, forcing her into the stinking room.
She turned back to him. “Can you untie my hands?”
He shook his head and pushed her again. “Hurry it up. I don’t got all day.”
She held out her bound wrists to him in supplication. “Please. I’d be so grateful. And if I had my hands free, there’re all kinds of ways I could show you how grateful.”
He paused, and she could see his mind working. She knew he was having doubts. But she also knew that he wasn’t the brightest crayon in the box. And that he had very poor self-control.
He rummaged around in the pocket of his cargo pants until he came up with a small folding knife. Flipping it open, he sawed through the plastic zip tie on her wrist. Then he returned the knife to his pants and immediately began unbuttoning them.
Before she could even let her disgust register, she reacted.
She jammed her elbow into his gut, then got her foot around the door and shoved it shut on him.
She pressed all her weight against it, then fumbled for the lock under the handle.
By the time she had twisted it into place, he had recovered from the gut punch and was now thudding his fists against the door.
She thought for a second about trying to shoot him through the wood. But then she considered the dangers of firing a weapon in such a confined space.
Then all those thoughts were eclipsed by one: run.