Chapter 13
Chapter thirteen
Dylan
Dante’s lair is different when I’m alone in it.
Bigger somehow. Emptier. The silence has a weight to it that presses against my skin and makes me hyperaware of every small sound. The hum of something mechanical. The tick of a clock I can’t see. The soft whisper of my own breathing.
Dante left three hours ago. Maybe four. I’ve lost track of time, which seems to be a recurring theme in my captivity.
He showed me how to use the remote before he went, demonstrating the buttons with careful patience, like he was teaching a child.
Then he checked that I had water on the nightstand, that my medication was within reach, that the lamp was positioned where I could turn it on and off easily.
He fussed. That’s the only word for it. A torturer fussed over me like a worried mother before leaving for the evening.
And now I’m lying in his bed, watching a rerun of The Great British Bake Off, trying very hard not to think about what he’s doing right now.
It’s not working.
Every few minutes my mind drifts. I wonder if the person in his chair is screaming yet. I wonder if Dante is using the pliers, the ones he raised toward me that first night before I fainted like a pathetic fool.
I turn up the volume on the television. Paul Hollywood is saying something cutting about an underbaked bottom, and Mary Berry is trying to soften the blow with her gentle grandmother energy. It should be comforting. This used to be my favorite way to unwind after a long day at the bakery.
Now the familiar voices just make me homesick.
I think about Sean and Teagan. They must be frantic by now. I’ve been gone for so long. Have they called the police? Have they told Aunt Moira? The thought of her worrying about me, not knowing if I’m alive or dead, makes my chest ache so badly I have to press my hand against it.
She’s probably not sleeping. She’s probably pacing the floors of her little house in Peckham, clutching her rosary beads and praying for my safe return. She’s probably called everyone she knows, begged them for information, cried herself hoarse.
And I’m lying here watching baking shows in a murderer’s bed.
The absurdity of it hits me like a slap. What am I doing? Why am I just lying here, passive and compliant, waiting for Dante to come home like some sort of kept pet?
I should be trying to escape.
The thought crystallizes in my mind with sudden clarity. I’ve been so ill, so weak, so focused on simply surviving from one moment to the next that I haven’t even considered it. But Dante is gone. He’ll be gone for hours, he said so himself. This might be my only chance.
My heart starts to pound. Can I even walk? The last time I tried to move any significant distance was the bath, and Dante had to carry me. But that was… however long ago. At least a day, maybe more, I’m sure. The point is, I’m stronger now. I must be stronger now.
There’s only one way to find out.
I push myself upright, and the room tilts alarmingly for a moment before settling. Okay. Sitting up is fine. Sitting up, I can manage.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed, and the cool air hits my bare feet. The sweatpants I’m wearing are still far too big, pooling around my ankles. I’ll have to be careful not to trip on them.
Standing is harder. My legs shake beneath me, muscles that haven’t been properly used in days protesting the sudden demand. I grip the nightstand for support, knocking the remote to the floor with a clatter that makes me flinch.
For a long moment I just stand there, breathing hard, waiting for the dizziness to pass. On the television, someone’s showstopper has collapsed and they’re trying not to cry. I know the feeling.
One step. Then another. My hand trails along the wall for balance, but I’m moving. Actually moving under my own power for the first time since this nightmare began.
The bedroom curtains catch my attention. Heavy velvet things in a dark burgundy color. I realize I’ve never seen them open. Not once in all the time I’ve been here. Dante always keeps them closed, keeps the room dim and cocoonlike.
I should check. I should see what’s on the other side.
It takes me longer than it should to cross the room. By the time I reach the window, I’m breathing like I’ve run a marathon. Pathetic. But I grab the edge of the curtain anyway and pull it back.
The window behind it is small. Smaller than I expected. And on the other side of the glass is a metal shutter, the kind you see on industrial buildings and storage units.
My heart sinks.
I press my face closer, peering through the gaps in the shutter. Beyond it, I can see concrete. Gray, featureless concrete, and the edge of what looks like a car park. Empty and barely lit.
There is a long strip of single-story buildings, clad in some kind of corrugated metal. The neat row interspersed with large doors of loading bays.
This is an industrial estate. He lives in a building on an industrial trading estate.
His whole place is designed to look like just another small warehouse, storage facility or workshop from the outside.
No one would ever know there’s an apartment hidden inside.
No one would ever know there’s a torture chamber on the other side of these walls.
It’s clever. Horribly, terrifyingly clever.
I let the curtain fall back into place and lean against the wall, trying to catch my breath. The exits will be locked. I know they will. A man like Dante wouldn’t leave anything to chance. He wouldn’t leave me here alone if there was any possibility I could simply walk out.
But I have to check. I have to try. Because if I don’t, if I just lie in that bed and accept my fate without even attempting to fight, I’ll never forgive myself.
My eyes flick to one of the doors that lead out of this room. I’m pretty sure it’s the bathroom, but it’s the closest so I’ll check.
I slowly make my way over to it. Then I take a deep, rattly breath and open the door with an absurd amount of trepidation.
It is the bathroom. I recognize the white tiles, the deep tub where Dante bathed me with such unexpected gentleness. I keep moving.
I fling open the second door in an act of angry defiance.
The hallway stretches out before me, dim and unfamiliar. The walls are bare. No pictures, no decoration of any kind. Just plain white paint and closed doors leading to unknown rooms. It feels less like a home and more like a stage set. A facade of normality covering something dark underneath.
I keep one hand on the wall as I walk, shuffling forward in my too-big sweatpants. My legs are trembling with the effort, but I push through it. One foot in front of the other. That’s all I have to do.
The next door opens into what must be the living room.
I stop in the doorway and stare.
It’s small. Cramped, almost, with low ceilings and no windows that I can see.
The only furniture is a sofa that looks like it belongs in a museum exhibit about the 1970s.
Orange and brown floral print, worn and faded and deeply ugly.
There’s a coffee table in front of it with water rings stained into the wood.
A lamp in the corner that casts a dim, yellowish light.
That’s it. That’s the whole room.
No pictures on the wall. No bookshelves. No personal items of any kind. Just that ancient sofa, a dusty flatscreen TV, and the lingering sense that no one has spent any real time here in years.
This is where Dante lives. This sad, empty, soulless space. It’s almost more disturbing than the torture chamber I know is somewhere in this building.
I shake off the thought and keep moving. The hallway continues past the living room, leading to what I assume is the front door. Or maybe the kitchen. Or maybe...
I reach another door. This one is heavy, reinforced. Different from the others.
My hand hesitates on the handle. Something in my gut is screaming at me to turn back. To leave this door unopened and return to the relative safety of the bedroom.
But I’ve come this far. I have to know.
I push the door open.
The smell hits me first. Cold concrete and metal and something else. Something chemical underneath that I don’t want to identify.
Then my eyes adjust to the dim light, and I see it.
The chair. That horrible metal chair, back in place, bolted in the center of the room. The table along the wall with its neat rows of tools, each one gleaming under the faint emergency lighting. The concrete walls stained with things I refuse to look at too closely.
The room where Dante broke me.
The room where I watched a man die.
Memories slam into me with the force of a freight train. Vinnie’s screams. The wet sounds. The way he kept calling me Declan, kept begging me to save him, kept looking at me with desperate hope until the light finally left his eyes.
The cold. The darkness. The zip ties cutting into my wrists until they bled.
The pliers rising toward my face before everything went black.
The freezing, unending cold that made my muscles ache and even my bones hurt.
The sheer and utter helplessness.
I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe and I can’t move and the walls are closing in and Vinnie is screaming and screaming and I’m going to die here, I’m going to die in this room and no one will ever know what happened to me.
My legs give out. I hit the floor hard, knees cracking against concrete, but I barely feel it. All I can feel is the panic, the terror, the absolute certainty that I am not safe and I will never be safe again.
I crawl. On my hands and knees like an animal, I crawl back through the doorway and into the hall. I pull the door shut behind me, but it doesn’t help. I can still see it. I can still smell it. I can still hear Vinnie begging for his life.
I try not to wonder where his body is. I try not to be glad that it is gone and I didn’t have to see it.