Chapter 17 #2
I pressed my face against his shoulder and nodded. As badly as I wanted to let go of my emotions, I knew I couldn’t. I forced myself to straighten and wiped at my face. I settled my eyes on my sister’s child.
Her daughter.
I knew Silver could be lying about the baby, but I couldn’t even come up with one reason why he would. And to have known my grandmother’s name? Maggie would have had to have told him that.
“What happened to Maggie?” I asked as I tried to process that the little bundle in Silver’s arms was my last link to my sister.
I had a niece.
I was an uncle.
“I met Maggie about a year ago. She was brought to the house I was living at. ”
“Living at?” I asked. “Were you like her? Were you taken?”
“Not exactly,” Silver hedged. “I was sold… by my parents.”
“Sold to who?” I asked.
“His name is Ivan Petrov. He’s a well-known businessman over here. Has ties to the Kremlin. But his business is just a front.”
“For human trafficking?” Caleb asked.
Silver nodded. “He has an estate in Brandenburg. It’s near a lake called Trebelsee. He keeps some girls there… for private parties.”
I felt bile rise into the back of my throat.
“How did you and Maggie meet?”
“I had more free rein than most,” Silver murmured. “It meant I could move around the house more freely than the others. Ivan trusted me with the girls and would have me take care of them when one of the customers got too rough with them.”
I was grateful when Silver didn’t bring up details about whatever circumstances had led to him meeting Maggie.
“After a couple of months, Maggie confided in me that she was pregnant. She knew what happened to the girls who ended up in that condition.” Silver dropped his eyes and said, “Most of the girls welcomed the forced abortions, but Maggie was different. She wanted the baby. But she knew it was impossible.”
“What happened?” Caleb asked.
“She hid the pregnancy as long as she could. When it was finally discovered, she was almost five months along. Ivan told his men to get rid of it, but the guy who was in charge of the day-to-day stuff told Ivan that a white newborn of American descent would fetch a hefty price tag. He agreed to let Maggie carry it to term.”
Caleb’s fingers dug into my hand, but I welcomed the distraction. It kept me from collapsing into a ball on the floor.
“They let Maggie keep the baby with her while they found a buyer. Maggie begged me to help her escape. I knew it was impossible, but she pleaded with me to help her. She didn’t want her baby to end up with people that could do to it what was done to her… to me.”
Silver bounced Willa in his arms as she began to fuss a bit.
“It ended up taking almost six weeks for Ivan to find a buyer and make the arrangements. When I found out he’d located someone, I managed to steal the key for the fence surrounding the estate from the guard assigned to watch me.
I was able to knock him out, and Maggie and I made a run for it that night.
But when we were climbing out the window from the second-floor room she was in, she hurt her ankle.
I tried to help her, but she couldn’t run.
The alarm was sounded when she was discovered missing.
We were nowhere near the fence and Maggie knew she’d never make it. She told me to take Willa and run.”
Silver’s eyes met mine. “She told me to get the baby to you, no matter what. She made me memorize your number. I didn’t want to leave her, but I knew there was no way I could get her and Willa out of there. I’m so sorry,” he whispered. Tears coasted down his face and he quickly wiped them away.
“How do you know she’s dead?” Caleb asked.
“I saw them kill her,” Silver murmured. “I managed to reach the woods beyond the fence. None of the guards had seen me make a run for it, so they didn’t chase me.
I hid in the woods. She was surrounded by guards on the patio and then Ivan came outside and demanded to know who’d helped her and where the baby was.
She wouldn’t tell him. I… I saw him shoot her. ”
The baby seemed to sense Silver’s distress because her little face scrunched up and she started to cry. The young man immediately set out to soothe the baby by rocking her back and forth in his arms.
“How long ago was all this?” I asked. I felt numb inside.
Maggie really is dead .
“Six days ago,” Silver said.
The baby was still fussing, so he looked at me and said, “Can you hold her a second while I get her bottle ready?”
I was frozen in place and couldn’t force myself to reach for her.
Thankfully, Caleb stepped in and took her from Silver.
I couldn’t even bear to look at the baby, so I began moving around the small apartment.
Caleb followed Silver to the kitchen and spoke softly to the baby as Silver got the bottle ready.
I was dimly aware of the two young men talking, but I tuned them out. My limbs felt heavy and my head hurt. It felt like my body was shutting down.
Maggie’s dead .
I lost all sense of everything until Caleb asked, “Jace, do you want to hold her?” I hadn’t even noticed him appear at my side.
I shook my head, even as shame curled through me.
The last thing I wanted to do was hold her.
It was wrong, but I couldn’t stop thinking that maybe Maggie would have been alive if the baby had never existed.
“Here,” Silver said as he came out of the bedroom. There was a bag slung over his shoulder and he had a small stuffed panda in his hand. “This one’s her favorite.”
Understanding dawned.
We were taking the baby with us.
Because that was what Maggie had wanted.
Maggie is dead .
God, why the fuck couldn’t I think clearly?
Before I could say anything, there was the faint screech of tires outside.
Silver froze in place for a split second as his gaze swung to the window.
Then he was pushing past us. I followed him and saw several black SUVs sitting in the middle of the street.
I felt my gut clench as more than a half-dozen men got out of the vehicles.
They were dressed in dark clothes and immediately began looking around.
They weren’t holding weapons, but I saw the outline of more than one gun underneath their suit jackets.
“You have to go,” Silver said as he shoved the diaper bag and toy into my hands.
“Who are they?” I said, though I was pretty sure I already knew.
“Ivan’s men.”
I automatically reached for my gun at my back, but as soon as Silver saw it, he frantically shook his head. “No! You have to go! You have to get Willa out of here!”
I’d dropped the diaper bag, so Silver snatched it up and then handed it to Caleb. He kissed the now sleeping baby’s forehead and carefully tucked the toy into the folds of her blanket.
“Stay here until they’re gone,” Silver said .
My brain finally seemed to kick in and I caught up to him just as he reached the door. “Wait, no,” I said. “Stay here, I’ll go.”
“No!” I heard Caleb call, then he was at my side.
“No,” Silver said. “There’s too many of them. I don’t care how good you are with that thing” – he motioned to the gun – “you won’t be able to stop them. And if they find Willa, your sister will have died for nothing.”
“You can’t go out there!” I bit out. “They’ll kill you!”
“No, they won’t,” he declared. “Ivan will never let that happen.”
“Why not?” I asked, but Silver ignored me.
“Take care of her,” he said to Caleb. He grabbed the door handle, but I slammed my hand against it to stop him from opening it.
“I can’t let you go out there,” I ground out.
“I know you don’t feel it yet, Jace,” Silver said softly as he turned to face me.
“But you will.” His eyes shifted to Willa.
“You’ll love her because your sister loved her and she’s proof of how strong your sister was.
There will be a day you won’t see her as the reason your sister is dead and you’ll be glad you let this happen.
Take her home, Jace. Take Willa home where she belongs. ”
The fact that he’d known exactly what I was thinking had me stepping back.
“I’ll be okay,” Silver repeated. “Promise.”
I knew he was lying. I could see it in his pretty eyes.
But when I shifted my gaze to the baby in Caleb’s arms, I knew it wasn’t a choice.
I dropped my hand from the door and Silver took off out of it like a shot.
I hurried to the window, making sure to stay out of view.
I had no idea what the young man’s plan was, but my question was answered about a minute later when Silver rounded the corner from the alley.
His hands were in his pockets and he began casually walking along the sidewalk away from the men, like he hadn’t even noticed them.
I heard one of the men call out to him in German and Silver looked over his shoulder.
He pretended to be surprised, then he took off running.
I expected some of the men to stay behind and search the building, but to my surprise, they all jumped into their cars and took off after Silver.
I could only assume that by him using the alley to get to the street, instead of the front door, the men hadn’t realized he’d been in this particular building.
Either way, I didn’t care.
The coast was clear.
“Let’s go,” I said as I grabbed Caleb’s arm.
I took the diaper bag from him and led him from the building. I took us out the very door we’d used to enter the building, but led Caleb toward the opposite street. It took just minutes to find a taxi, but I didn’t breathe a sigh of relief until we were a good mile from the area.
I looked over at Caleb, who looked pale. His eyes met mine and I could see the same question in them that kept repeating on a loop in my head.
Now what?