Chapter Seventeen
Kenzie shivered in the cold stone cell she found herself in. She was finally in a castle. A princess in need of rescue.
Yeah. Her fairy tale kind of sucked.
Bulgaria. She was pretty sure that was where she was given the distance and the language she’d heard being spoken at the private airfield.
Not that the pilot would tell her, and there hadn’t been a nice flight attendant who gave her champagne.
Nope. She’d had three guards and was lucky they hadn’t tried anything.
This was where her trail would end since she’d been forced to change into a hospital gown when they’d arrived at this cold, stony, seemingly rundown castle.
She’d been careful about it, treating the jumpsuit made from some of the most technologically advanced material in the world like it was nothing more than polyester and Lycra.
If they looked closely they would likely figure it out, but she had to take the chance.
She was taking a lot of chances today. Including the one where her fucker of a kidnapper had other things to do with his time.
She was being held in the part of the structure that looked like a rundown castle.
She’d had a glimpse of the lower floors and realized they resembled the compound in Nepal.
A door had come open, and she’d caught sight of stark white walls with strong lab vibes.
The man was into white and seemed to want a world that looked sanitized.
Which was odd for a man who also loved chaos.
She’d been here for hours. Which when one was facing torment and torture was a plus, but she hadn’t seen Lou. She needed to put eyes on her. She needed to know that this hadn’t been for nothing.
Her heart felt twisted at the thought of Lou fighting so hard he killed her. Please let her be fine. Let her be alive. Lou was smart. She would know how to slow down the process. She would play things right and wait to be rescued. Lou would know they would never leave her behind.
She took a deep breath and prayed.
Let Tristan have found her trail. He would give it some time before announcing what they’d done. They’d agreed they wanted to be sure she was at the final destination before racing to a spot where she might only be held for a brief time.
But it was over. She didn’t have access to her breadcrumbs anymore. She was on her own if they moved her again.
Where was Ben now? She knew he’d been taken to France. Had her team gotten him out yet? They should have reached the chateau and extracted him…maybe yesterday. Had Ben figured out Kala was playing a role? Or did he hate her for tricking him again?
She felt heavy. Weighed down. She wondered if she always would now that it was over between them. A door had closed, and it wouldn’t open again.
Would he miss her if she died? It was a pitiful thing to think, but she was here, waiting, and her brain was going to a hundred different places, none of them good.
She thought about dying and how it would be okay because she didn’t have much of a future.
Would he love her if she died and it was suddenly simple?
A martyr was always easier to love than a living, breathing, fallible person.
The camera placed in the corner of the room reminded her to keep her expression as closed and cold as possible. Kenzie Taggart might long to weep and mourn her lost love, but Kala was just pissed.
The waiting was probably part of the torture.
The one thing she was trying not to think about was pain.
If Huisman wanted to continue his experiments on her sister, she would know what made her twin—her tough-as-nails twin—scream and cry and wish for death. What had damaged her heart.
It felt oddly right to potentially go out this way, taking pain that was meant for her twin sister. They’d shared everything else. Clothes and secrets. A face and a life. For so long they’d shared their scars.
Kenzie’s breath caught as the cell door opened and that fucker strode in like this was an ordinary meeting.
He actually smiled at her.
Asshole.
“I want to see Lou.” She didn’t move from her seat. She kept up the casual anger that often seemed to be her sister’s trademark.
“Such a rude girl. Well, I couldn’t hope that you would come for me.” Huisman was dressed in a suit and flanked by two burly guards loaded with weapons.
Weapons she could get off them if she had a chance.
She saw the scene play out in her head. Attack the first guard, take the semiautomatic off his right hip while she kicked out and caught the second guard in the solar plexus, pushing back against the wall.
She would shoot Huisman first and then take the guards out if she had to.
The door was on a key card system with no biometrics, but that didn’t mean the rest of the building didn’t have them.
She would have to keep his body close in case she needed a fingerprint or retinal scan.
She was absolutely certain this was when her twin would gleefully take the body parts she would need and leave the rest behind, but one thing she did not share with her sister was a love of blood.
Nope. She preferred cleanliness, thank you very much.
The problem was she hadn’t seen Lou yet. Kenzie wasn’t even sure she was here. If Lou wasn’t here… Well, if she wasn’t here, then it was all for nothing.
“I want to see Lou.”
Huisman’s eyes narrowed on her. “I’d like to talk first. Did your sister find Benjamin?”
“I don’t know. I don’t care.” She frowned. “And I suspect you already know. You’re a pervert who likes to watch.” She gestured to the camera. “I doubt you didn’t have them on your boyfriend.”
He chuckled, a low, oddly charming sound, but then the devil likely needed to be charming from time to time.
“Oh, I assure you there’s never been anything sexual between me and Benjamin.
I am far more evolved than that. I find sexual relations distasteful, though it is obviously necessary to continue my line.
A man’s name living on after his death is imperative. A fact I’ve been considering lately.”
She intended to end his cursed line. “Is that why you run a brothel? To continue your line? It’s pretty wild.”
“Ah, which one talked?” Huisman asked, though there was no shock in his tone. “Well, I knew one of them would. I suspect it’s Sosa. Troubled girl. Always causing problems, but she was a risk I was willing to take.”
“Why? Why not simply assassinate my father? Having thought about it, it’s obvious Sosa’s real job was to infiltrate my family. Were they strictly there to cause the problems you needed to kidnap Lou?”
He paced like a professor in front of a crowd of eager students. “That was the main plan. You see the key to life is knowing the weaknesses of the people around you. Your mother, like all women, has many weaknesses. Your father only has one, but it’s a large one.”
“My mother.”
“Proof that the great Ian Taggart is a pathetic male bowing to women’s weaknesses.
I knew your mother’s childhood would make her sympathetic to a young woman raised in similar circumstances,” Huisman continued.
“I offered my problem up to the board at the chateau and they suggested a psy-op on your family. We sent Sosa in first.”
Now she was catching on. “She was the most expendable. The one you trust the least. But she was also the one you thought my mother would connect with since she’s a Russian girl abused and forced into a life she didn’t want. Yes, my mother would risk a lot to help a girl like that.”
“It didn’t hurt that the girls would drop hints and get your parents curious.
They were willing to risk a lot for intel.
I’m sure your father thinks it’s smarter to keep your enemies close.
I knew Sosa would turn the first time she had the opportunity.
She was weak. So I ensured that Gabby and Claire—good soldiers who know their place—had everything they would need to take care of the situation when the time came.
Sosa was a problem child. Always asking questions and getting the rest of the girls riled up. We won’t miss her.”
She hadn’t expected empathy from him. She wondered if he thought Sosa was dead.
Tris had gone in and cleared all the hospital records for her and Tim.
She certainly wasn’t going to tell him, and Gabby and Claire believed they’d succeeded on all levels with the exception of getting away.
“Well, you did have her taken from her home and tortured so she would kill people for you.”
One slim shoulder shrugged. “Young girls make the best spies and thieves and assassins. It’s because the world rightly ignores them except for their obvious uses.”
“And when they’re no longer young women?”
“Then their usefulness is over and they are no longer needed at the chateau. Naturally there’s no way to leave the group once you’re in. It’s how they’ve stayed a secret for so many years.”
She was sure they didn’t get to retire to the country. The longer she kept him talking the more time Tris had to find her. And the longer she put off the eventual pain she would go through this evening. She was curious at how the group had adapted over the years. “Do you have any hackers?”
“Oh, of course. More than you would imagine. The world right now is nothing but technology, so yes, hackers are trained at the chateau as well. Their clients require money and information, and that is best acquired these days online. Personally, I think they should get out of the sex business, but they cling to their traditions. I’m told the threat of being moved to the other side keeps the girls in line. ”