23. Sienna
23
SIENNA
Nick drags me away from the window by my hair. I try to free myself, but his grip is too tight. I can feel my scalp stinging and the tears streaming from my eyes.
I lose my balance on the staircase, my foot sliding out from under me. Pain shoots through my ankle and travels the length of my leg as it twists awkwardly, the bone colliding with the back of one of the stone steps. I fall the rest of the way, the ground hurtling towards my face, but Nick yanks on my hair to keep me upright.
I’m obviously more useful to him without a mashed-up face.
I can smell the rotten air as we approach the basement, and my stomach instantly revolts.
“Nick, please,” I plead with him. “Don’t lock me in the basement. You know I can’t escape.”
“Shut up, Sienna. Begging doesn’t suit you.”
He grabs my arm with his free hand and shoves me through the open doorway. My ankle is throbbing. I stumble across the slimy stone floor and land heavily on my knees by the end of the cot. More pain. I roll into a sitting position, dragging my knees to my chest, and rub them to ease the pain shooting up my thigh to the base of my spine. My right knee is wet, and blood seeps through the leg of my pants.
The floor is icy, so I drag myself upright, tentatively putting my weight onto my ankle to test its strength. It buckles, and I have to bite my lip to stop myself from crying out.
“You really should be more careful.” Nick watches me from the doorway. “In your condition.”
My gaze snaps towards him. “M-my condition?”
The twisted smile is back. “You’re pregnant, Sienna.” Lines appear between his lowered brows. “Don’t tell me you didn’t know. You’re having his baby, so you see, I couldn’t have married you even if I’d wanted to.”
He’s lying. He’s worried that I’ll still try to escape. Despite the risk of falling over the edge of a cliff and either dying on the treacherous rocks below or drowning in the Irish Sea.
“Why would I believe you?”
My right knee is starting to swell; I can feel the skin stretching over the knobby bone, the flesh growing spongy to protect the kneecap from further damage.
He shrugs. “Believe me or not, it’s irrelevant.”
“Why are you doing this, Nick? What did I ever do to you?”
“You got lucky, Sienna. Caleb Murray came along and handed your dream to you on a plate. Although things are not going your way right now, are they?”
“I-I’m going to pay him back.”
I’m stalling. My thoughts are still unpacking the comment about me being pregnant, and I’m stuck on it, trying to figure out why he said it. What was he trying to achieve?
“How?” His eyebrows arch upwards. “You no longer have any artwork to sell.”
I freeze. My thoughts screech to a halt as his words sink in.
“It was you?” I whisper. “You destroyed all my work?”
“Well, not me personally. Why would I get my hands dirty when someone else will do it for me?”
His frame fills the doorway. I have the overwhelming urge to lunge at him, to headbutt his diaphragm and send him hurtling backwards into the wall on the opposite side of the corridor. With the demonic red-hot rage I’m feeling inside, I could beat him to death with my bare hands or strangle him with the neat leather belt holding up his pants.
But that would make me as bad as him, and I’m better than that.
My mom once said that the sweetest revenge is success.
I didn’t understand it at the time, but I do now. I need Nick Morris to stick around long enough for me to get my gallery up and running again and fulfill my dream of becoming a successful artist.
“Oh, and in case you still don’t believe me—” he takes his phone out again and slides it around to show me the picture on the screen “—the blood on your face is yours. I performed a portable i-STAT pregnancy blood test on you while you were sleeping. I tested it out of curiosity, not because I was trying to save you. It’s simply more leverage for us.”
“You did a blood test without my consent?”
I’m still numb. I’m cold. I’m in pain from my ankle and my knee, and now this…
“Seriously, that’s what you took from this conversation?” He chuckles, the sound setting my back teeth on edge. “You’re pregnant, Sienna. And your lover has until midnight GMT to save you by handing over the Titan.”
With that, he slams the door shut and locks it behind him.
I lose track of time in the dingy windowless room.
My knee has swollen to twice its size, but the dull throbbing ache is nothing compared to the thoughts swirling around inside my head.
I’m pregnant.
I’m having Kyle’s baby, and he doesn’t even know.
I lay on my side on the cot, shivering beneath the blanket, my arms cradling my belly. I try counting back the days to my last period before the gallery opening and realize that I’m overdue. With all that has happened, it was the last thing on my mind, but I’m never late.
Ever.
I’m still in the fetal position, bloody knees pulled up to my chest to conserve as much body heat as possible when I hear the key in the lock.
I sit upright, clutching the blanket to my chin as the slice of meager light enters the basement.
It isn’t Nick.
I don’t recognize this man. He’s shorter than Nick, his muscles are so pumped that his arms don’t touch his sides, and his legs are bowed. His hair is thick, jet-black. His dark eyes are deep-set beneath protruding eyebrows. He’s wearing a black sweater and black pants. It’s hard to imagine him in any other color.
I start shivering again, although it’s hard to tell if it’s from the rush of icy air on my back when I sat up or this man’s appearance.
He kicks the door closed behind him, shutting him in with me.
“Food.” He comes closer and sets a plastic tray down on the floor next to the cot.
I don’t move. I feel his eyes on me, raking my body through the thin blanket.
“Eat.” He slides the tray closer with the toe of his boot.
“I’m not hungry.” I’m ravenous, but I won’t be able to swallow food in his presence.
“You want me to feed you?”
Something cold and slimy slithers down my spine and makes my heart race. I shuffle backwards along the cot until my spine hits the wall.
“I can feed myself.”
“I’ll wait.” He has a heavy accent. Russian? He seems totally unfazed by the chill in the air.
“Why? What do you think I’m going to do with it?”
He grins. “Why don’t you show me?”
“I told you I’m not hungry. I’ll eat later.” My voice trembles, and I can tell when his mouth lifts in one corner that he heard it too.
“And I told you to eat now.” He crouches beside the bed, picks up a triangular sandwich, curling at the edges, and offers it to me.
“No.” I hold his gaze.
I could make a dash for the door, but my ankle is probably sprained, and my knee is going to hold me back. He’ll reach the door before me, and then he’ll know that I’m afraid.
Without missing a beat, he grabs my hair, tilts my head backwards, and shoves the sandwich into my mouth.
I can’t breathe. I try spitting the food out, but my tongue is sticking to the roof of my mouth, and my neck is burning. I can’t swallow. I try pulling the food from my mouth, but he slaps my hand away and pushes the food down my throat with his index finger.
I start choking. Food splutters from between my lips. Tears well in my eyes.
But he clamps a hand over my mouth and peers into my eyes. He is so close that I can smell his garlicky breath, and it makes me retch. My lips stick to the palm of his hand and are dragged away from my gums. I can taste him, and my mouth fills with bile.
“Show me how you swallow.” The innuendo isn’t lost on me.
The rage ignited by Nick is back. It sparks somewhere deep inside me, fanned by this man’s foul breath and clammy hand.
I bare my teeth behind his palm, snarling like a vicious dog. I ignore the stale bread clogging up my mouth, clamp my teeth around the soft pad of flesh between his thumb and forefinger, and bite down as hard as I can.
My mouth is too full to do much damage, but I have the element of surprise on my side. His hand jerks away. But in one fluid movement, he slaps my face with the back of his hand. My skull would’ve bounced off the wall had he not been gripping my hair; instead, his knuckles take the brunt of the force, holding me still as his face lowers towards me.
I start hammering his chest with my fists as his intentions become clear, but it’s like pounding a brick wall. He’s solid. His lips brush mine, and in blind panic, I throw my weight backwards, my knees coming with me, and lash out with both feet aimed directly at his groin.
The pain from my ankle shoots the length of my spine and jars inside my skull.
He lets out an oof , but he’s still gripping my hair tightly. He drags me off the bed and crushes me against his chest. I can’t free my arms to push him off me, and his other hand is sliding over my buttocks, grinding our groins together.
I try to scream, but all I manage is a dry choking sound.
Then he’s being dragged away from me, and I shriek as a handful of my hair comes away in his hand. Someone—another man— throws him across the room, but he lunges back again, fists raised.
Until the new arrival produces a gun.
I shrink back against the wall. They can kill each other for all I care, but if Nick is telling the truth, and I’m pregnant with Kyle’s baby, I’m not getting caught in the crossfire.
“No harm done.” The first man, the Russian, raises both hands in a gesture of surrender.
The other guy has his back to me. “Only because I stopped you. Get the fuck out of here, and don’t fucking come back.”
I must be delirious. Perhaps I imagined the whole thing, and will wake up any moment now, because this new guy, the man holding the pistol, sounds exactly like my father.
The Russian glares at me one last time like it’s my fault that he got caught attacking me and leaves the room. He doesn’t close the door behind him.
My chest is heaving. I’m still clutching the blanket to my chest.
The man with the gun turns around, and I know even before his face comes into view that I’m not imagining it.
“Are you alright, sweetheart?” he asks. “Did he hurt you?”
My gaze flickers back and forth between him and the door. I’m half-expecting Nick to jump out and yell, “ Surprise! Had you fooled, huh? ” but no one else is coming.
“Wh-what are you doing here?”
“What, no ‘thanks for saving me, Dad,’ or ‘I’m glad you’re here’?” He rolls his bottom lip like he’s seriously disappointed in me.
I can’t help staring at the weapon in his hand and shrinking even further against the wall. My knee and ankle are screaming at me to sit down, but nothing about this situation is encouraging me to get comfortable.
His eyes follow mine to the gun. “Yeah, sorry you had to see this. Lucky I was packing though, huh? Lucky for you, I mean.”
He still hasn’t explained his presence in a cliff-top property in Ireland, when the last time I saw him, he was trying to wriggle his way out of a cheating accusation in the Wraith’s casino.
“How did you get here?” The image of him speaking to Nick on the sidewalk outside the gallery pops into my head. “Did Nick bring you here?” My voice is finally trying to cut and run while it still can.
“I don’t work for Nick. If he had his way, I’d be long gone, and he’d be rubbing his hands together over my share of the rewards.”
“Who do you work for?” I already know the answer, but I need to hear him say the words out loud.
“The Russians. I ran up a little gambling debt, and they offered to help me clear it if I found them a way in with the Irish lot.”
I watch the puzzle slotting together before my eyes. All the pieces were there, I just didn’t look hard enough for them, because I was afraid of what I might find. I knew what he did to my mom, but I still gave him the benefit of the doubt, I still believed that people are not born with evil in their hearts.
I was wrong.
It’s this realization that causes me to sit back down.
“You were never interested in putting things right,” I say dully.
“Don’t sound so disappointed, sweetheart. You never reached out to me. It works both ways, you know.”
Something snaps inside me. “I wasn’t the one who tried to kill Mom.”
“I never tried to kill her, sweetheart. If that’s what she told you, then she was lying.”
“I saw you!” I stand up again. I need to be level with him; I refuse to be intimidated by this man ever again. “I fucking saw you strangling her. Me! I was there. Or have you blanked that bit out of your warped version of events?”
“I remember.” He wrinkles his nose as if the memory is distasteful to him. “But you have to put things into context. She?—”
“Oh no!” I’m shrieking now. “Don’t you fucking dare blame her for what you did.”
“Keep your voice down, sweetheart. If they hear you, it won’t be pleasant.”
“Ha!” I scoff. “You call this pleasant? You fucking sold me out to clear some gambling debts. After everything you’ve ever done, you still can’t accept responsibility for your own actions, can you?”
“Sweetheart…” He motions with the gun for me to lower my voice. “This is for your own good.”
“No, Dad, this is for your own good, because that’s all that matters to you, isn’t it?”
I no longer feel the bite of the cold air in the basement. His patronizing tone is filling my head with excuses and lies.
“Help!” I yell as loud as I can, projecting my voice towards the open doorway. “Nick! Someone? I need help!”
My father raises his fist and pulls it back over his shoulder ready to let it go. My heart is hammering. Then, with one final sidelong glance, he says, “Have it your way,” and walks out of the room.
I wait for the key to turn in the lock before I collapse onto the cot and start sobbing.
I need to get out of here.
Kyle won’t let them get away with this, but if my father is armed, then the others must be armed too, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned from the Murrays, it’s that the mafia always honor their word. Nick said Kyle has until midnight to hand over the Titan.
He won’t.
The Titan belongs to the Murray family.
So, then what?
I’m not sticking around to find out.
This building, whatever it is, is built on the edge of a cliff. But what about the other three sides? It stands to reason that the entrance will face inland; all I need to do is get out of the basement, make my way upstairs without getting caught, and let myself out.
Easy.
I practice walking around the basement—I refuse to acknowledge that it’s a cell—putting my weight on my ankle and ignoring the throbbing ache in my knee. If my life depends on it, I’ll run a marathon, even with a sprained ankle.
I check the door. It’s locked. I knew it would be, but I wanted to be sure.
There’s only one way I’m getting out of here: I wait for someone to unlock the door and distract them long enough for me to slip out unnoticed.
I stand in the middle of the room and replay various scenarios in my head, none of which lead to me overpowering an armed guard and escaping before they can stop me.
I won’t even attempt to get past the Russian.
Nick guards the doorway like he’s just waiting for me to bolt.
My best chance is to somehow trick my father into setting me free. The same father who tried to kill my mom and has handed me over to the bratva to avoid paying his gambling debts. The same father who’s now carrying a weapon around like it’s a cell phone.
He isn’t going to smile, stand aside, and wish me luck.
But what other options do I have?
I keep limping around the basement. If I sit down for too long, my ankle and knee will seize up, and I won’t be going anywhere.
I just need to find a chink in his armor. Sure, he’s a calculating narcissistic asshole, but everyone has a weakness.
I force myself to eat the remains of the sandwich and wash it down with the bottle of water the Russian brought in on the tray. It doesn’t seem to go down, lodging in my throat and making me feel queasy, but I focus instead on my father, dragging up memories from my childhood that I’ve suppressed until now.
In all of them, I’m aware of myself cowering in a corner of the room, or listening from the stairs, or hiding behind my mom. I have no memories of him, not even one , that fills me with any kind of warmth or affection. No memories that make me smile. What kind of person chooses to leave behind a legacy like this?
Focus.
I’m not wasting time figuring out what makes my father tick; he doesn’t deserve my energy and consideration. I just need to know how to beat him.
Beat him…
I’ve no idea where the memory comes from—I’ve never recalled it before—but it’s so vivid that it takes my breath away. I stop near the doorway on a circuit of the room, bent double, waiting for my breathing to regulate itself.
I must’ve been four years old, one of my earliest memories. My mom took me to the park. I was being careless, riding high on the buzz of the swings and my mom pushing me higher than I’d ever been. I went on the merry-go-round, my mom making it spin faster and faster until some other kids wanted to join in. Bigger kids. They ran around the outside of the merry-go-round, pushing it as they went.
I wanted to be like them.
So, I climbed off, held on tightly to the bar, and ran as fast as I could around the apparatus. Which, it turned out, wasn’t as fast as the other kids. My feet got tangled up with another kid’s legs, I stumbled, and then I was flung sideways, unable to stop myself from landing on my elbow. I scraped the skin off it. My mom carried me home sobbing, sat me on the kitchen counter and cleaned the wound with antiseptic wipes, telling me fairy tales to keep me distracted.
When my arm was clean and dry and covered with a large Band-aid, she said, “Lucky your father isn’t here. He can’t stand the sight of blood.” Then, thoughtful, “That would be one way to beat him, I guess.”
My father can’t stand the sight of blood.
It isn’t much, but right now, it’s all I’ve got to work with.
My knee has stopped bleeding beneath my pants; I can feel it crusting over, rubbing against the fabric as it continues to swell. Would it be enough of a distraction?
I doubt it.
It must be cringe-worthy. Something that’s going to turn his stomach on its head and make him want to vomit. I need him to be looking the other way when I run out of the door and lock him inside.
A wave of nausea crashes through me at the mental image of me making myself bleed in front of him. Am I strong enough to do it? How deep does it need to be to halt him in his tracks? What am I even going to use? What if I cut too deep and then I can’t stop it from bleeding?
Now I’ve set the questions in motion, my head is spinning. I’ve hardly eaten over the past few days, and whatever drugs Nick gave me on the plane are still wearing off.
A horrible thought slams into me, causing me to lean against the locked door for support.
If I’m pregnant, will the drugs affect the fetus? I didn’t plan on having a baby right now, but I can’t bear the thought of something bad happening to take it away from me.
If I should lose it…
I can’t believe where my thoughts are going. I once read in a book that your thoughts have to be controlled or else they tumble into a downward spiral, and mine seem to be sinking to an all-time low. Alice in Wonderland has nothing on me right now because my warped brain has figured out how to get past my father.
My entire plan depends on my father returning with more food later. If it’s Nick, or the Russian, I’ll have to wing it and pray that they’re either unarmed, or unwilling to kill me until Kyle has given them what they want.
The inside of my thigh feels sticky and sore. I smashed the plastic tray against the wall and used the jagged edge to slice the tender flesh at the top of my leg. It’ll probably scar, but I’ve learned to live with worse.
I sit on the bed and wait. My ears strain for the sound of footsteps outside the room. When I finally hear the key clicking in the lock, my heartbeat grows so loud, it drowns out everything else.
Please let it be my father.
Please let it be…
I stop myself from crying out loud when he appears in the doorway carrying another tray of food..
This is it. I’m only going to get one shot at this, so I have to make it count. If I fail… I can’t even contemplate the alternative.
Hugging my knees to my chest, the blanket covering my legs, I start rocking back and forth. I cover my face and surreptitiously poke myself in the eye. It stings. But I barely register the pain.
“Sweetheart?”
The anger is gone. I question briefly whether he believed his own lies when he said that he wanted to get to know me but instantly shut it down.
Focus. Track his movements. Wait for the right moment.
“Are you sick?” He steps closer.
I should’ve checked if he was armed, but it’s too late now. No turning back.
“Sweetheart, what is it?”
His boots come into view near the bed.
One more step, that’s all I’m waiting for.
I keep rocking, and tense my shoulders, groaning as if I’m in pain.
I hear his footsteps. He’s approaching me cautiously, but I convince myself that it’s because he doesn’t want to have to deal with a sick prisoner rather than fear that I’m trying to trick him.
It’s now or never.
I shove the blanket off me and raise blurry eyes to him. “I-I think I’m having a miscarriage.”
He recoils.
I stand up and peer down at the blood staining my pants between my legs. More blood than I thought there would be, but there’s no time to worry about it now.
“Help me, Dad.” I touch between my legs. My fingers come away bloody, and I hold them up to show him.
He gags. Turning his face away, he retches, his entire body shuddering.
He’s making me gag too, but I fight it.
The instant he starts vomiting, I lunge at him, my hand reaching for the handle of the pistol tucked inside his waistband.
It’s heavier than I expected it to be. I drag it out and, holding it with both hands, I point it directly at him, and back away to the door, as he swipes his mouth with the back of his hand. He sniffs loudly, spit clinging to his bottom lip.
“Put the gun down, sweetheart.” The patronizing tone is back, like I’m a naughty child who ate cookies before dinner.
“Don’t come any closer.” My legs are trembling violently. I still need to reach the door, but I don’t want him to try following me.
“Have you ever used a gun, sweetheart?”
I don’t answer.
“It’s not as easy as it looks.” He moves towards me, and I back away.
“Stay where you are.”
“Or what? We both know that you won’t shoot me. You don’t have it in you. Little goody-two-shoes Sienna.”
My arms are shaking. I slide my finger onto the trigger. “Try me.”
He closes the distance between us with two strides. I don’t even see his fist arcing towards my face until pain shoots through my jaw and fills my skull.
It feels as if I’m flying away from him. My feet leave the ground, and my skull collides with the wall behind me. I feel something warm and wet trickling down the back of my head. But all I can hear is the gunshot that went off when he punched me.
The world is spinning. Tiny silver stars spiral behind my eyelids, and I can’t tell which way is up. I force myself to open my eyes. I need to get back on my feet before he hurts me again.
The gun falls from my hand, and I don’t try to stop it.
I can’t see clearly. Feeling my way across the floor with my hands, I use the wall to keep my balance and drag myself upright. My brain is pulsating inside my skull, my eyes are heavy, and I’m scared to move my bottom jaw.
I can see the doorway. The door is still open. He hasn’t closed it.
“Sweetheart…” His voice penetrates my foggy thoughts.
Dazed into moving in slow-motion, I turn around. My eyes find him sitting on the floor, propped up against the side of the bed. He’s sitting in a puddle of dark liquid. The scene gradually comes into focus, and I realize that his hands are clamped over a wound in his thigh, blood oozing between his fingers.
“Sweetheart…” His breathing is shallow. His skin is deathly pale. “Help …me.”
It takes several long, slow beats for me to understand that the bullet must’ve hit a major artery. He’s bleeding out. And he wants me to help him.
“Sienna…” He tilts his head back against the bed. “Get … help.”
I swallow. It looks bad, but he would kill me to save himself.
That’s what pulsates through my pounding head as I shuffle through the doorway and lock the door behind me.